Brown Bag Books
This Library book discussion group meets at noon on the fourth Wednesday of each month and is always open to new members. Books are available at the Reader’s Advisory desk during the month preceding the discussion. Volunteers from among the group lead the discussion, with background materials supplied by the librarian.
Upcoming Titles
The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong
June 24
The hardest thing in the world is to live only once…
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.
Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Ocean Vuong’s writing—formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness—are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.
The Cause
by Joseph J. Ellis
July 22
For Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Joseph J. Ellis, The Cause marks the culmination of a lifetime of engagement with the founding era, completing a trilogy of books that began with Founding Brothers. Here Ellis, countering popular histories that romanticize the “Spirit of ’76,” demonstrates through “evocative profiles of British loyalists, slaves, Native Americans and soldiers uncertain of what was being founded” (Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune) that the rebels fought not for a nation but under the mantle of “The Cause,” a mutable, conveniently ambiguous principle all but destined to give rise to the warring factions of later American history. Combining action-packed tales of North American military campaigns with characteristically trenchant insight, The Cause “deftly foreshadows all the issues that would complicate America’s trajectory” (Richard Stengel, New York Times Book Review), forcing us to finally reconsider the story we have long told ourselves about our origins―as a people, and as a nation.
“At the intersection of his expertise and our need for coherence about our national founding arrives historian Joseph J. Ellis. . . . Ellis is no apologist, but he is a chronicler of the entire revolution, its best aspirations, its worst contradictions, and its ongoing dilemmas.” ―Hugh Hewitt, Washington Post
The Briar Club
by Kate Quinn
August 26
The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful work of historical fiction, a story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
In this gripping women’s fiction novel, everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman’s daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.
Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?
Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling historical mystery of secrets and loyalty put to the test.
Previous Books Discussed
2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012
2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999
2026
The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker
James by Percival Everett
Hula by Jasmin Iolani Hakes
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant by Curtis Chin
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
2025
Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
The Promise by Damon Galgut
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Clover Girls by Viola Shipman
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
North Woods by Daniel Mason
The Morningside by Téa Obreht
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Probably Ruby by Lisa Bird-Wilson
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
2024
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Confidante by Christopher C. Gorham
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne
Honor by Thrity Umrigar
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
The Wager: a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann
Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
2023
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
Americanon: an unexpected U.S. history in thirteen bestselling books by Jess McHugh
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
2022
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
Black Bottom Saints by Alice Randall
Made in China by Amelia Pang
The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
Invisible Women: Bata Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Midnight at the Blackbird Café by Heather Webber
2021
Factfulness by Hans Rosling
The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Woman Who Smashed Codes by Jason Fagone
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A Good Neighborhood by Therese Anne Fowler
2020
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
What the Eyes Don’t See by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha
[no meeting]
The Sport of Kings by C. E. Morgan
The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Virgil Wander by Lief Enger
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick
Creatures by Crissy Van Meter
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
2019
Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani
Improvement by Joan Silber
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The Power by Naomi Alderman
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
Miller’s Valley by Anna Quindlen
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
2018
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
2017
Desert Queen by Janet Wallach
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure
One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Ngyuen
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2016
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Euphoria by Lily King
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
Dead Wake by Erik Larson
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
2015
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin
The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
I Shall Not Hate by Izzeldin Abuelaish
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
2014
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian
Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
2013
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2012
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Tinkers by Paul Harding
The Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
Please Look After Mom by Kyong-Sook Shin
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Submission by Amy Waldman
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
2011
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
Annie’s Ghosts by Steven Luxenberg
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Arc of Justice: a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
2010
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Berniers
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Kings of New York by Michael Weinreb
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
2009
Little Heathens by Mildred A. Kalish
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch & Jeffrye Zaslow
Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russel
Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Home by Marilyne Robinson
2008
His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaleid Hosseini
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Go and Come Back by Joan Abelove
2007
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Julie and Julia by Julia Powell
Digging to America by Anne Tyler
Arc of Justice: a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
March by Geraldine Brooks
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
2006
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
True North by Jim Harrison
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
2005
Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson
The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer
Niagara Falls All Over Again by Elizabeth McCraken
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Madam Secretary by Madeleine Albright
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004
April 1865: the month that saved America by Jay Winik
The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
Black Dahlia Avenger by Steve Hodel
Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The Giver, Gathering Blue, & The Messenger by Lois Lowry
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan
Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
True to Form by Elizabeth Berg
2003
John Adams by David McCullough
The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Angle of Repose by Wallace Earle Stegner
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Lucky Gourd Shop by Joanna Catherine Scott
A Year by the Sea by Joan Anderson
West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
2002
A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons
Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz
Seabiscuit: an American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
2001
The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve
The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Nine and Counting: The Women of the Senate by Barbara Mikulski, et al.
Samurai’s Garden by Gail Tsukiyama
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Beach Music by Pat Conroy
Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon
Personal History by Katharine Graham
Sometimes I Dream in Italian by Rita Ciresi
2000
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Follow the River by James Alexander Thom
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Evensong by Gail Godwin
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon
1999
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Father Melancholy’s Daughter by Gail Godwin
We Were the Mulhaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow
Patty Jane’s House of Curl by Lorna Landrik
The Testament by John Grisham
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy