Book Clubs

Book Clubbers
Meets the first Thursday of each month.
Thursday, June 5th @ 7pm (Harnish)

When young Kimberly Chang emigrates from Hong Kong with her mother, she uses her “talent for school” to escape the confines of a freezing Brooklyn apartment and the harsh working conditions of a Chinatown sweatshop.

Spine-crackers
Meets the first Friday of each month.
Friday, June 6th @ 10am (Harnish)

Stones for Ibarra
Doerr, Harriet

When Richard and Sara Everton move to the small remote village Ibarra, Mexico to revive his grandfather’s abandoned copper mine, the discover the true meaning of community.

Bookalicious
For adults who enjoy reading YA Literature. Meets the second Monday of each month.
Monday, June 9th @ 7pm (Harnish)

Nation
Pratchett, Terry

After a devastating tsunami destroys all that they have ever known, Mau, an island boy, and Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, together with a small band of refugees, set about rebuilding their community and all the things that are important in their lives.

Nite Readers
Meets the third Thursday of each month.
Thursday, June 19th @ 7pm (Harnish)

Saturday
McEwan, Ian

On one fateful Saturday morning in February, a minor car accident brings surgeon Henry Perowne into contact with a dangerous young man who threatens his charmed life. A brillant page-tuning thriller.

Classics Book Club
Meets the third Wednesday of each month.
Wednesday, June 18th @ 7pm (Harnish)

The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway, Ernest

Americans and English travel from Paris to Paloma during the 1920’s. Conveys brutally realistic descriptions of bullfighting in Spain.

Book Clubbers Book Club
Meets the first Thursday of each month.
Thursday, May 1st @ 7pm (Harnish)

The Property
Modan, Rutu

The Book Clubbers are switching it up for their May discussion. If you’ve never read a graphic novel before, this is a great place to start. The Property is the story of Regina Segal, who returns to Warsaw with her granddaughter, Mica, in the hopes of reclaiming some family property that was lost in the aftermath of World War II. Mica soon begins to suspect, however, that her grandmother has an ulterior motive for returning to Warsaw.

Spine-crackers Book Club
Meets the first Friday of each month.
Friday, May 2nd @ 10am (Harnish)

Cat’s Eye
Atwood, Margaret

Elaine Risley, a controversial painter, returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Once there, she is engulfed by memories of her past.

Bookalicious Book Club
For adults who enjoy reading YA Literature. Meets the second Monday of each month.
Monday, May 12th @ 7pm (Harnish)

The Immortal Rules
Julie Kagawa

A catastrophic plague has decimated the planet leaving behind only a small remnant of humans. Those who survived are now living under the yoke of their vampire oppressors. When Allison Sekemoto is forced to become a vampire in order to save her own life, she is determined not to become like the rest of them. She joins up with a band of humans seeking Eden, a fabled island of refuge, which she hopes will hold the key to saving her own humanity.

Nite Readers Book Club
Note the special meeting time this month.
Thursday, May 8th @ 7pm (Harnish)

The Cat’s Table
Ondaatje, Michael

A boy, en route to England aboard a ship, shares in the stories of some eccentric travelers. From the author who brought us The English Patient comes an adventure story on the high seas.

Classics Book Club
Meets the third Wednesday of each month.
Wednesday, May 21st @ 7pm (Harnish)

One Hundred Years of Solitude
García Márquez, Gabriel

This Nobel Prize winning author just passed away this month. What better way to celebrate his life and work than to read one of his most widely acclaimed novels. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the tragicomedy of humankind is told through a family history in the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo.

Book clubs meet regularly each month and you don’t need to sign up ahead of time. Just stop by the Adult Services Desk at the Main Library to pick up copies of the books being discussed.

Night Readers Book Club:
Meets the third Thursday of each month.
Thursday, March 20th @ 7pm (Harnish)

Love, Water, Memory
by Jennifer Shortridge

After finding herself knee-deep in San Francisco Bay wondering who she is and how she got there, Lucie Walker embarks on a journey of self-discovery.

SpineCrackers Book Group:
Meets the first Friday of each month.
Friday, March 7th @ 10am (Harnish)

Turn Right at Machu Picchu:
Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time
by Mark Adams

Turn right at Machu Picchu is Adams’ fascinating and funny account of his journey through some of the most majestic, historic, and remote landscapes guided only by a hard-as-nails Australian survivalist.

Book Clubbers Book Club:
Meets the first Thursday of each month.
Thursday, March 6th @ 7pm (Harnish)

I’ll Be Seeing You
by Loretta Nyhan and Suzanne Hayes

During World War II, Gloria and Rita, two very different women, develop a magnificent friendship which sustains them throughout their lives.

Bookalicious Book Club:
For adults who enjoy reading YA Literature. Meets the second Monday of each month.
Monday, March 10th @ 7pm (Harnish)

Ship Breaker
by Paolo Bacigalupi

In a dystopian future, Nailer survives by scavenging copper wiring from shipwrecks. When he finds a girl trapped among the wreckage, he must choose between the girl and his livelihood.

Classics Book Club:
Meets the third Wednesday of each month.
Wednesday, March 19th @ 7pm (Harnish)

Handful of Dust
by Evelyn Waugh

Bored with her husband and life in the country, Lady Brenda amuses herself by having a fling with a shallow young social climber. Her thoughtless affair causes ripple effects with lasting consequences.

Our Book Clubbers group here at the Library just finished reading The Weird Sisters for our discussion this month, and it was a real crowd pleaser! It can be tricky picking a title for a group to read together. We all have different tastes, different life experiences, and different ideas about what makes a book “good.” This month, we all agree. This debut novel by Eleanor Brown was a winner!

Written in the unusual first person plural, The Weird Sisters is the story of Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia Andreas. Each named for a Shakespearean heroine by their professor father, the girls struggle to live up to their namesakes, as well as to escape the roles they are cast within the family.

Rose, the eldest, is the intelligent, responsible sister. She wants nothing more than to teach mathematics at her beloved Barnwell, where her father is a professor of literature. Bianca, a.k.a. Bean, is the beautiful and restless middle sister. She wants more than anything to be somebody, even if it means breaking a few rules along the way. And finally, Cordelia, is the fun-loving, laid back younger sister. She never takes anything or anyone too seriously. When their mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, the Andreas sisters find themselves once again living together under the same roof. Each sister is running away from something; using their mother’s diagnosis as an excuse to return home. The sisters will need to learn how to break out of these molds if they can ever hope to change their destinies.

Readers who recognize the Shakespearean reference in the title will be delighted with the many quotes from the Bard sprinkled throughout the novel. Shakespeare is the first language spoken in the Andreas home. It is the default means of communication used by their father, often to humorous effect:

“Marry, sir, ‘tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me,” he said finally.

“Um, what?” Bean asked.

“I think what your father means is that since breast cancer may be hereditary it’s important that you do self-exam, “ our mother said, patting his hand as he nodded uncomfortably.

Oh. Right. We’re sure that’s exactly what Shakespeare was trying to say.

Reading is the number one pastime of the Andreas family. “How can we explain what books and reading mean to our family, the gift of libraries, or pages?” Bean even breaks up with her boyfriend over reading. “Because despite his money and his looks and all the good-on-paper attributes he possessed, he was not a reader, and, well, let’s just say that is the sort of nonsense up with which we will not put.”

The Weird Sisters is a delight from beginning to end. Give it a try for your next book club meeting and you will not be disappointed. We have several copies available in our library’s book club collection. It’s also available on CD, or may be downloaded in audio or ebook format from Overdrive.

Next month, our group will be reading I’ll Be Seeing You by Suzanne Hayes. You’re welcome to join us! Books for this and other library sponsored book clubs are available at the Adult Services Desk at the Main Library. Hope to see you at one of them!

Algonquin Library Adult Services

June Book Discussions @ the Library

May Book Discussions @ the Library

March Book Discussions @ the Library

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown