Book Discussions at Somerset County Libraries
Bound Brook Branch
Rendezvous with a Romance Book Discussion Group
Wednesday, September 7 at Noon
Meeting Virtually
 
People we meet on vacation
by Emily Henry

Best friends Alex and Poppy try to repair their relationship two years after a disastrous vacation together by planning another vacation together in the new novel from the New York Times best-selling author of Beach Read. 
Bridgewater Branch
Popular Fiction Book Discussion 
Tuesday, July 19 at 7:00pm
Meeting in Greaney Garden, Room C in case of inclement weather
 
The memoirs of Stockholm Sven
by Nathaniel Ian Miller

In 1916, disfigured after a polar bear attack, Sven Ormson leads a solitary life, testing himself against the elements in Svalbard, until an unlikely visitor salves his loneliness, drawing him into a family of fellow castoffs that determines the rest of his life.
Tuesday, August 16 at 7:00pm
Meeting in Greaney Garden, Room C in case of inclement weather
 
The maid : a novel
by Nita Prose

When she discovers the dead body of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black in his suite, hotel maid Molly Gray finds her orderly life upended as she becomes the prime suspect in the case and is caught in a web of deception that she has no idea how to unravel.
Tuesday, September 20 at 7:00pm
Meeting in Greaney Garden, Room C in case of inclement weather
 
Black cake : a novel
by Charmaine Wilkerson

Two estranged siblings try to reclaim the closeness they once shared while trying to piece together their late mothers life story and fulfill her last request of sharing a traditional Caribbean black cake when the time is right.
Fantasy Discussion Group
Tuesday, July 12 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room A
 
Spinning silver
by Naomi Novik

Deciding to collect on the outstanding debts owed her family of moneylenders, a young woman is overheard boasting about being able to turn silver into gold by the creatures who haunt the wood, in a reimagining of the Rumpelstiltskin story
Tuesday, August 9 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room A
 
The birthday of the world and other stories : And Other Stories
by Ursula K. Le Guin

The Pulitzer Prize-nominated and American Book Award-winning writer presents an electrifying collection of stories that are filled with love, lust, sex, marriage, gender, and other annoying problems that people must deal with no matter where they reside in the universe. 
Tuesday, September 13 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room A
 
Every heart a doorway
by Seanan McGuire

Sent away to a home for children who have tumbled into fantastical other worlds and are looking for ways to return, Nancy triggers dark changes among her fellow schoolmates and resolves to expose the truth when a child dies under suspicious magical circumstances. By the best-selling author of the InCryptid series.
Mysteries in the Mornings
Love a good mystery?  Always looking for a new book because you've read EVERYTHING by your favorite author?  Or do you just really enjoy reading mysteries?  come and join our Mysterious Morning discussions!

Every other month we'll discuss a different sub-genre of mysteries.  Pick a book from an author you haven't read already and tell the group all about it.  There's only one big rule -- don't tell us how it ends!

A list of suggested authors and titles are available at the Bridgewater Library and books will be on display about a month prior to the discussion.  (If you're a voracious mystery reader you can read more than one.)
 
July's Mystery Type:
Perils of House Guests
Wednesday, July 13
Bridgewater Branch, Meeting Room A
10:15am - 11:30am
 
September's Mystery Type:
Poisoners
Wednesday, September 14
Bridgewater Branch, Meeting Room A
10:15am - 11:30am
Hillsborough Branch
"Suspense with Susie" Discussion Group
Tuesday, July 26 at 7:00pm
Conference Room, Hillsborough Library
 
Dream girl : a novel
by Laura Lippman

Bedridden after a freak accident, a novelist begins to question his own sanity as he moves through dreamlike memories of his own fictional characters in the follow-up to the New York Times best-selling Lady in the Lake. 
Tuesday, September 27 at 7:00pm
Conference Room, Hillsborough Library
 
Cul-de-sac
by Joy Fielding

Five families on a quiet, suburban cul-de-sac deal with the shooting of one of their own and the secrets they each harbor, including newlyweds whose marriage is already on the rocks and a family who fled to Florida from California.
Historical Fiction Fridays Discussion Group
Friday, July 15 at 10:30am
Conference Room, Hillsborough Library
 
West with giraffes : a novel
by Lynda Rutledge

Inspired by true events, this part adventure, part historical saga and part coming-of-age love story follows Woodrow Wilson Nickel as he recalls his journey in 1938 to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo.
Friday, August 19 at 10:30am
Conference Room, Hillsborough Library
 
Beheld : a novel
by TaraShea Nesbit

The best-selling author of The Wives of Los Alamos retraces the story of the Pilgrims from the perspectives of the rebel Billington family, whose disputes with Puritan neighbors under the influence of a newcomer escalate into Plymouth’s first murder.
Friday, September 16 at 10:30am
Conference Room, Hillsborough Library
 
The henna artist
by Alka Joshi

A talented henna artist for wealthy confidantes finds her efforts to control her own destiny in 1950s Jaipur threatened by the abusive husband she fled as a teenage girl. 
Manville Branch
Nighttime Book Discussion Group
Monday, September 12 at 6:00pm
Adult Media Area, Manville Branch
 
A farewell to arms
by Ernest Hemingway

A tragic wartime romance set against the brutal and chaotic backdrop of World War I is the classic story of a volunteer ambulance driver wounded on the Italian front and the English nurse he loves and leaves behind. Reprint.
Daytime Book Discussion Group
Wednesday, September 21 at Noon
Children's Area, Manville Branch
 
Last summer at the golden hotel
by Elyssa Friedland

Perfect for fans of Dirty Dancing and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, this funny, nostalgia-filled story follows the Goldman and Weingold families as they, amid drama and scandal, try to save the Golden Hotel – their beloved getaway in the Catskills.
Thursday Thrillers
Thursday, September 1 at 6:30pm
Quiet Room, Manville Branch
 
The guest list : a novel
by Lucy Foley

An expertly planned celebrity wedding between a rising television star and an ambitious magazine publisher is thrown into turmoil by petty jealousies, a college drinking game, the bride's ruined dress, and an untimely murder
Mary Jacobs Branch
Tuesday Morning Page Turners
Tuesday, July 12 at 10:00am
Montgomery branch
 
The vanishing half
by Brit Bennett

Separated by their embrace of different racial identities, two mixed-race identical twins reevaluate their choices as one raises a black daughter in their southern hometown while the other passes for white with a husband who is unaware of her heritage.
Tuesday, August 9 at 10:00am
Montgomery branch
 
The last train to Key West
by Chanel Cleeton

A Key West native, a bride fleeing the Cuban Revolution and a Wall Street crash victim meet at a Great War veteran camp before one of the most powerful hurricanes in history indelibly changes their lives. 
Tuesday, September 13 at 10:00am
Montgomery branch
 
The day the world came to town : 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland
by Jim DeFede

Shares the experiences of the citizens of Gander, Newfoundland, who were hosts to the more than six thousand passengers of thirty-eight U.S.-bound jetliners forced to land there in the wake of the September 11th attacks
North Plainfield Branch
Thursday, July 28 at 6:30pm
Woodland Room, North Plainfield Branch
 
All adults here
by Emma Straub

A matriarch confronts the legacy of her parenting mistakes while her adult children navigate respective challenges in high standards and immaturity, before a teen granddaughter makes a courageous decision to tell the truth. By the best-selling author of Modern Lovers.
Thursday, August 25 at 6:30pm
Woodland Room, North Plainfield Branch
 
The humans
by Matt Haig

Regarding humans unfavorably upon arriving on Earth, a reluctant extraterrestrial assumes the identity of a Cambridge mathematician before realizing that there's more to the human race than he suspected
Thursday, September 22 at 6:30pm
Woodland Room, North Plainfield Branch
 
A burning
by Megha Majumdar

An opportunistic gym teacher and a starry-eyed misfit find the realization of their ambitions tied to the downfall of an innocent Muslim girl who has been wrongly implicated in a terrorist attack. A first novel.
Somerville Branch
Not On the Same Page: Books and Board Games 
Read ANY book you want that was published within a certain decade and come ready to tell us a bit about it. Afterwards, we will play a variety of board games. Your book can be at any reading level and in any language, however, discussion and game playing will be in English.
 
September's Book:
Anything Published Between 1980 and 1989
Saturday, September 17
Meeting Room
3:00pm - 5:00pm
Warren Township Branch
Wednesday, June 29 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room
 
A burning
by Megha Majumdar

An opportunistic gym teacher and a starry-eyed misfit find the realization of their ambitions tied to the downfall of an innocent Muslim girl who has been wrongly implicated in a terrorist attack.
Wednesday, July 13 at 2:00pm
Meeting Virtually
 
The guest list : a novel
by Lucy Foley

An expertly planned celebrity wedding between a rising television star and an ambitious magazine publisher is thrown into turmoil by petty jealousies, a college drinking game, the bride's ruined dress, and an untimely murder
Wednesday, August 3 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room
 
Miss Benson's beetle : a novel
by Rachel Joyce

A teacher and her unlikely assistant leave post-World War II London to search for a rare insect that may not exist, discovering the transformative power of friendship along the way. 
Wednesday, August 24 at 2:00pm
Meeting Room
 
Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis
by J. D. Vance

Shares the poignant story of the author's family and upbringing, describing how they moved from poverty to an upwardly mobile clan that included the author, a Yale Law School graduate, while navigating the demands of middle-class life and the collective demons of the past. (social science).
Wednesday, September 14 at 6:30pm
Meeting Room
 
The splendid and the vile / : A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
by Erik Larson

The best-selling author of Dead Wake draws on personal diaries, archival documents and declassified intelligence in a portrait of Winston Churchill that explores his day-to-day experiences during the Blitz and his role in uniting England. 
Watchung Library
Thursday, July 14 at 6:30pm
Bicentennial Room, Watchung Branch
 
Caste : the origins of our discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Warmth of Other Suns identifies the qualifying characteristics of historical caste systems to reveal how a rigid hierarchy of human rankings, enforced by religious views, heritage and stigma, impact everyday American lives
Thursday, August 11 at 6:30pm
Bicentennial Room, Watchung Branch
 
Klara and the sun
by Kazuo Ishiguro

Waiting to be chosen by a customer, an Artificial Friend programmed with high perception observes the activities of shoppers while exploring fundamental questions about what it means to love
Thursday, September 8 at 6:30pm
Bicentennial Room, Watchung Branch
 
The huntress : a novel
by Kate Quinn

Stranded behind enemy lines, brave bomber pilot Nina Markova becomes the prey of a lethal Nazi murderess known as the Huntress and joins forces with a Nazi hunter and British war correspondent to find her before she finds them.
Somerset County Library System of New Jersey1 Vogt Drive
P.O. Box 6700
Bridgewater, New Jersey 08807
(908) 526-4016
www.sclsnj.org/