This book club meets the third Wednesday of each month to talk books, socialize, and kick back with a cold one.  Meetings take place at Arbor Brewing Plymouth Taproom. Books for the current month’s selection may be obtained from the Reader’s Advisory desk on the main level of the Library. Follow this group on Goodreads. New members are always welcome!

Currently Reading

We will meet to discuss The Heartbeat Library by Laura Imai Messina on Wednesday November 19 at 7pm.

The Heartbeat Library is a tender, contemplative, and uplifting novel about grief, friendship, and the many ways we heal, by the internationally bestselling author of The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World.

On the peaceful Japanese island of Teshima there is a library of heartbeats, a place where the heartbeats of visitors from all around the world are collected. In this small, isolated building, the heartbeats of people who are still alive or have already passed away continue to echo.

Several miles away, in the ancient city of Kamakura, two lonely souls meet: Shuichi, a 40-year-old illustrator, who returns to his hometown to fix up the house of his recently deceased mother, and eight-year-old Kenta, a child who wanders like a shadow around Shuichi’s house.

Day by day, the trust between Shuichi and Kenta grows, until they discover they share a bond that will tie them together for life. Their journey will lead them to Teshima and to the library of heartbeats . . .

Enchanting, touching, and emotionally riveting, The Heartbeat Library is a story about loss and hope, pain and joy, reality and imagination, and the promise of healing and overcoming the odds thanks to the relationships we build and rediscover. Inspired by Les Archives du Cœur, an art installation in Japan that permanently houses recordings of the heartbeats of people throughout the world, Laura Imai Messina returns in this novel to the themes and atmospheres of her internationally bestselling novel The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World, combining a real-life pilgrimage site of healing with an unforgettable and heartwarming story.

Upcoming ReaDS

December 2025 – No meeting this month. Next meeting will be January 2021, 2026.
January 21, 2026 – The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost.

February 18, 2026 – Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit.

Previous books discussed

2024| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011

2025
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton
The Hike by Drew Magary
The Sicilian Inheritance by Jo Piazza
The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven by Nathaniel Ian Miller
Drive your plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou
The Laughter by Sonora Jha
The Unseen World by Liz Moore

2024
The Immortal King Rao by Vara Vauhini
Fledgling by Octavia Butler
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
Tell Me How to Be by Neel Patel
The Monsters we Defy by Leslye Penelope
The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley
The Trees by Percival Everett
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster

2023
One, Two, Three by Laurie Frankel
Leech by Hiron Ennes
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
The Girls in the Stilt House by Kelly Mustian
The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
A Particular Kind of Black Man by Tope Folarin
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
My Soul to Keep (African Immortals #1) by Tananarive Due

2022
Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazney
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
Interior Chinatown by Charles Wu
Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schlitz
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty
Good Talk: A memoir in conversations by Mira Jacob

2021
Haymaker by Adam Schuitema
The Daughters of Ys by M. T. Anderson
We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
Alice isn’t Dead by Joseph Fink
Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Monsters We Make By Kali White
Horns by Joe Hill
The Dutch House by Ann Patchet
Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui

2020
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My Dear Hamilton by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
Night Theater by Vikram Paralkar
The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
The Good Neighbor by Maxwell King
The Leavers by Lisa Ko
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

2019
Elevation by Stephen King
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
World War Z by Max Brooks
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Little Fires Everywhere by Celest Ng
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

2018
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain – available via Interlibrary Loan
The Call of Cthulhu and other weird stories by H.P. Lovecraft
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Orfeo by Richard Powers
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

2017
If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Moo by Jane Smiley
Libra by Don Delillo
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish by David Rakoff
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
I Wear The Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman

2016
The Enchanted by Rene Denfeld
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin

2015
Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes
Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander
How To Be Both by Ali Smith
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Tenth of December by George Saunders

2014
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
City of Thieves by David Benioff
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A Good Man Is Hard to Find, and other stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Contortionist’s Handbook by Craig Clevenger
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

2013
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel by Haruki Murakami
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Perfume: The Story of a Murder by Patrick Suskind

2012
A Night of Serious Drinking by René Daumal
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
How Should A Person Be? by Sheila Heti
Goodbye Columbus and Five Short Stories by Philip Roth
What is the What by Dave Eggers
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Honored Guest: Stories by Joy Williams

2011
Just Kids by Patti Smith
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

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