This group meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm at the library. Volunteers from among the group lead the discussion, with background materials supplied by the librarian. Each month the current title is available at the Help desk on the main level. New members are always welcome!
*This program is currently a hybrid program, meeting in person AND online. If you are interested in attending via Zoom, please click on the registration links provided in the meeting description.
currently reading
All Adults Here
By Emma Straub
January 14th @ 7:30pm / Zoom Registration HERE
From the Author’s Website:
When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier. Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she’d been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?
Astrid’s youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares. But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count? It might be that only Astrid’s thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
In All Adults Here, Emma Straub’s unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not.
upcoming titles
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano – February 11, 2025
Previous titles
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 | 1998 | 1997 | 1996 | 1995 | 1994 | 1993 | 1992 | 1991 | 1990
2024
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
Lone Women by Victor LaValle
Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer
Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss by Margaret Renkl
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
The Maid by Nita Prose
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
In West Mills by De’Shawn Charles Winslow
2023
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik Backman
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Agatha of Little Neon by Claire Luchette
When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky by Margaret Verble
The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCraken
The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
The Children on the Hill by Jennifer McMahon
Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson
2022
The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Ground Breaking: An American City and Its Search For Justice by Scott Ellsworth
Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Deacon King Kong by James McBride
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
2021
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Mothers by Britt Bennett
Redhead by the Side of the Road by Ann Tyler
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
When All is Said by Anne Griffin
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
The Other Americans by Laila Lalami
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
2020
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
The Gown by Jennifer Robson
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Educated by Tara Westover
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
2019
Southernmost by Silas House
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Kiss Carlo by Adriana Trigiani
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
There There by Tommy Orange
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Clock Dance by Anne Tyler
What the Eyes Don’t See by Mona Hanna-Attisha
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀
2018
Rise: How a House Built a Family by Cara Brookins
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
2017
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Once in a Great City by David Maraniss
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
News of the World by Paulette JIles
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon
West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman
2016
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy
The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty
This is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison
2015
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Redeployment by Phil Klay
The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Unlikely Pilgrimmage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The Girls of Atomic City: the Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
2014
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Before You Know Kindness by Chris Bohjalian
Dear Life by Alice Munro
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Lauren Hillenbrand
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
2013
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
Defending Jacob by William Landy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Canada by Richard Ford
Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret by Steve Luxenberg
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
2012
March by Geraldine Brooks
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Waterland by Graham Swift
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor
2011
City of Thieves by David Benioff
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
Room by Emma Donoghue
True Grit by Charles Portis
Arc of Justice: a saga of race, civil rights, and murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
2010
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Barry
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Girls From Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
2009
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time by Greg Mortensen & David O. Relin
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
No, I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club by Virginia Ironside
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
The Last Night of the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir by Bich Minh Nguyen
Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris
2008
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway
When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
The Final Solution: A Story of Detection by Michael Chabon
2007
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The English Teacher by Lily King
2006
The Laments by George Hagen
The Birchbark House and The Game of Silence by Louise Erdrich
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Personal History by Katharine Graham
Three Junes by Julie Glass
The Tender Bar: A Memoir by J.R. Moehringer
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
2005
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
She is Me by Cathleen Schine
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Niagara Falls All Over Again by Elizabeth McCracken
Holy Fools by Joanne Harris
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
2004
The Fourth Hand by John Irving
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Saul and Patsy by Charles Baxter
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
The Buying of the President 2004 by Charles Lewis
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
2003
Lake Wobegon Summer 1956 by Garrison Keillor
A Year by the Sea by Joan Anderson
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
The Lovely Bones by Ann Sebold
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
2002
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
The Lucky Gourd Shop by Joanna C. Scott
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Fearless Jones by Walter Mosley
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
2001
Waiting by Ha Jin
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Snow in August by Pete Hamill
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Personal Injuries by Scott Turow
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
English Passengers by Matthew Kneale
A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti
2000
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Falling Slowly by Anita Brookner
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
Mother of Pearl by Melinda Haynes
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
East of the Mountains by David Guterson
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by Walter Mosley
The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Homestead by Rosina Lippi
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
1999
Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Out of America by Keith B. Richburg
Paradise of the Blind by Thu Huong Duong
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
The Short History of a Prince by Jane Hamilton
Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman
Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
1998
She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
Errands by Judith Guest
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Ruined by Reading by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
White Rabbit by Kate Phillips
1997
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven by Barbara Kingsolver
The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton
She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb
The Eight by Katherine Neville
St. Burl’s Obituary by Daniel Akst
Last Orders by Graham Swift
The Color of Water by James McBride
The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken
1996
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
The Lost Diaries of Frans Hals by Michael Kernan
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
Open Secrets by Alice Munro
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
White Jazz by James Ellroy
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Smilla’s Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Consider This, Senora by Harriet Doerr
1995
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
The Children of Men by P.D. James
THE LAST PANDA by George B. Schaller
Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
A Map of the World by Jane Hamilton
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
The Alienist by Caleb Carr
The Giver by Lois Lowry
1994
A Season in Purgatory by Dominick Dunne
Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan
Two Lives, One Russia by Nicholas Daniloff
At Weddings and Wakes by Alice McDermott
A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Black Cherry Blues by James Lee Burke
The Way Through the Woods by Colin Dexter
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Earle Stegner
Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
1993
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The Man in the Window by Jon Cohen
The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss
Before and After by Rosellen Brown
Mrs. Bridge, Mr. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Fatherland by Robert Harris
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Howards End by E.M. Forster
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
First Light by Charles Baxter
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
1992
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Two Girls, Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill
Whiskey River by Loren Estleman
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Passing On by Penelope Lively
The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa
Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Celia, a Slave by Melton A. McLaurin
There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz
Wise Children by Angela Carter
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1991
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Bad Desire by Gary Devon
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus
The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Angle of Repose by Wallace Earle Stegner
Possession by A.S. Byatt
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
From Here to Eternity by James Jones
The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham
1990
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving