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Book Discussions at Somerset County Libraries |
October is Reading Group Month!
Celebrate by attending a book discussion at any of our locations for a chance to win a gift card! |
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Popular Fiction Book Discussion
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Tuesday, October 17th at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room C The Marsh King's daughter by Karen DionneA woman whose birth occurred as a result of her teen mother's abduction and imprisonment in an isolated marshland cabin risks the adult family that does not know her past when she uses survival skills honed in childhood to track down her murderous father. |
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Tuesday, November 21st at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room C The gargoyle hunters by John Freeman GillRecruited into his estranged father's illicit architectural salvage business in 1974 Manhattan, young Griffin is assigned to steal 19th-century gargoyle sculptures while navigating the challenges of his father's increasing demands and his own changing views about his life. |
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Tuesday, December 19th at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room C If the creek don't rise : a novel by Leah WeissOne of innumerable women in a North Carolina mountain town facing a bleak future with a dangerous alcoholic husband, Sadie considers a different life when a stranger sweeps in and knocks the world off-kilter for the entire community. |
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Mysterious 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. September's Mystery Type: Mysteries Set in the Western United States Wednesday, September 13th 10am - 11:30am November's Mystery Type: Historical Mysteries Set in the 1800s Wednesday, November 8th 10am - 11:30am |
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Non-Fiction Book Discussions
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Tuesday, October 24th at 10:00am The Lost City of the Monkey God : a true story by Douglas J PrestonThe co-author of the FBI Agent Pendergast series presents a high-suspense account of the discovery of a lost civilization, contemporaries of the Mayans who lived deep in the Honduran jungle. 150,000 first printing. |
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"Suspense with Susie" Discussion Group
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Tuesday, September 26th at 7:00pm Every fifteen minutes by Lisa ScottolineA single father and head of a successful Philadelphia psychiatric care unit sees his life begin to crumble when a teen patient is implicated in a murder and the doctor himself is wrongly accused of sexual harassment |
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Tuesday, November 21st at 7:00pm The passenger : a novel by Lisa LutzChanging her name and appearance to flee town after leaving her husband dead, a fugitive woman forges an uneasy alliance off the grid at the side of a female bartender with whom she races from city to city to escape her past. By the best-selling author of the Spellman Files series. |
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Historical Fiction Book Discussion Group
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Wednesday, September 20th at 3:00pm Birdsong by Sebastian FaulksIn 1910, Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman, journeys to France and becomes embroiled in a series of traumatic events, including a clandestine love affair, and is later trapped amid the horrors of the First World War |
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Wednesday, November 15th at 3:00pm The distant hours : a novel by Kate MortonNearly 20 years after her family nurses a wounded enemy pilot back to health, London playwright Queenie attends the deathbed of her father and is haunted by memories of an unspeakable death and a heartbreaking disappearance. |
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Monday, September 11th at 6:00pm |
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Wednesday, September 20th at 12:00pm The goodbye quilt by Susan WiggsLinda Davis, the owner of a local fabric shop where women gather to share quilts commemorating important events of their lives, and her daughter Molly decide to share one last adventure together before Molly goes off to college, making special memories along the way. |
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Monday, October 9th at 6:00pm All the light we cannot see : a novel by Anthony DoerrA blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with their respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast. |
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Wednesday, October 18th at 12:00pm Orphan train by Christina Baker KlineClose to aging out of the foster care system, Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer takes a community service position helping an elderly woman named Vivian clean out her home and discovers that they are more alike than different as she helps Vivian solve a mystery from her past. |
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Monday, November 13th at 6:00pm Glory over everything : beyond the Kitchen house by Kathleen GrissomA rerelease of a grassroots best-seller by the author of The Kitchen House continues the experiences of Jamie, who in 1830 after escaping slavery passes himself off as a wealthy white silversmith, only to risk everything to save a beloved servant who has been captured and sold in the South. |
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Wednesday, November 15th at 12:00pm The peach keeper : a novel by Sarah Addison AllenReturning to the hometown of her youth after a failed marriage, Willa struggles to find her place in a community where she no longer feels like she belongs, uncovers a 60-year family feud and falls for a strangely secretive man. |
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Tuesday Morning Page Turners
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Tuesday, September 12th at 10:00am The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry : a novel by Rachel JoyceJolted out of emotional numbness by a letter from an old friend who wants to say goodbye before she dies, Harold Fry embarks on a 600-mile hiking journey to his friend's side without supplies, an endeavor that stirs up memories of his unhappy marital and parenting experiences. |
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Tuesday, October 10th at 10:00am Still life by Louise PennyChief Inspector Armand Gamache of Canada's Sûreté du Quebec is called to the tiny hamlet of Three Pines to investigate the suspicious hunting "accident" that claimed the life of Jane Neal, a local fixture in the village |
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Pathways Book Discussion Group
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Saturday, October 21st at 10:00am You can heal your life by Louise L. HayArgues that everyone is responsible for their own experiences, tells how to lead a more creative and fulfilling life, and discusses work, health, success, and personal relationships |
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Quarterly Non-Fiction Book Discussion Group
Join us for our quarterly non-fiction book discussion group where we will be focusing on biographies, memoirs, and other works of nonfiction that illuminate the human experience and explore our world and our history.
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Thursday, November 16th at 7:00pm 1491 : new revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles C. MannA groundbreaking analysis of America prior to the European arrival in 1492 describes how the latest research of archaeologists and anthropologists has transformed long-held myths about the Americas, revealing that not only was the population of the hemisphere greater than previously known but that the cultures were far older and more advanced. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 125,000 first printing. |
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A Good Yarn
Bring yarn and needles and join us to discuss a book while knitting!
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Tuesday, September 5th at 7:00pm The thirteenth tale : a novel by Diane SetterfieldHaving spent sixty years creating a series of alternate identities for herself, enigmatic Vida Winter pens a painful letter to young Margaret Lea when the latter begs her to disclose the truth about her secretive birth. |
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Tuesday, October 3rd at 7:00pm Death comes to Pemberley by P. D. JamesPemberley is thrown into chaos after Elizabeth Bennett's disgraced sister Lydia arrives and announces that her husband Wickham has been murdered. |
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Thursday, September 14th at 1:00pm Thursday, September 21st at 7:15pm This is how you lose her by Junot DíazThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents a lyrical collection of stories that explores the heartbreak and radiance of love as it is shaped by passion, betrayal and the echoes of intimacy. |
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Thursday, Ocotber 12th at 1:00pm Thursday, October 19th at 7:15pm The witches : suspicion, betrayal, and hyspteria in 1692 Salem by Stacy SchiffThe Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra analyzes the Salem Witch Trials to offer key insights into the role of women in its events while explaining how its tragedies became possible. |
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Thursday, November 9th at 1:00pm Thanksgiving by Janet EvanovichWhen Megan Murphy discovers a rabbit gnawing on the hem of her skirt, she is about to give its careless owner a piece of her mind, but Dr. Patrick Hunter turns out to be too attractive to be mad at. |
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Thursday, November 16th at 7:15pm Fates and furies by Lauren GroffMarrying in a whirlwind amid predictions of future greatness, Lotto and Mathilde are shaped throughout a subsequent shared decade by complications, secrets, and powerful creative drives |
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Peapack-Gladstone Library
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Wednesday, September 20th at 7:30pm Small great things : a novel by Jodi PicoultHesitating to treat the newborn of a white supremacist couple who has demanded that a white nurse assist them, a black nurse is placed on trial in the tragic aftermath and is aided by a white public defender with whom she begins questioning their beliefs as the case becomes more racially charged. |
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Wednesday, October 18th at 7:30pm I'll take you there : a novel by Wally LambFilm scholar Felix Funicello from Wishin' and Hopin' is confronted by the ghost of a Hollywood silent film director who invites him to revisit scenes from his past and gain insights into the lives of three women who indelibly shaped his life. |
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Wednesday, November 15th at 7:30pm Class : a novel by Lucinda RosenfeldWorking full-time for a non-profit organization and sending her daughter to an integrated school, Karen is forced to rethink her liberal ideals in the face of her do-gooder husband's questionable priorities and her daughter's struggles with bullying. |
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Thursday, September 7th at 1:30pm The kitchen house by Kathleen GrissomWorking as an indentured servant alongside slaves on a tobacco plantation, Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, finds her light skin and situation placing her between two very different worlds that test her loyalties |
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Wednesday, September 27th at 7:15pm One plus one by Jojo MoyesA single mom trying to raise a bullied stepson and a mathlete daughter finds an unexpected rescue in the form of an obnoxious tech millionaire named Geeky Ed in this new novel from the internationally best-selling author of Me Before You. |
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Thursday, October 12th at 3:30pm Lisa Tucker, Associate Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College, will join the group to speak about the novel. Dracula by Bram StokerThe classic horror tale of the powerful, centuries-old vampire follows his bloodthirsty trail from the mountains of Central Europe to England, until Dr. Van Helsing comes up with a way to end his reign of terror |
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Wednesday, October 25th at 7:15pm The night sister : a novel by Jennifer McMahonStruggling to forget a twisted discovery in the once-thriving hotel where they played as children, sisters Piper and Margot are forced to confront the past when their childhood friend, Amy, is accused of a horrific crime with ties to two other hotel residents. |
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Thursday, November 2nd at 1:30pm The stars are fire by Anita ShreveA novel based on the true story of the largest fire in Maine's history follows the experiences of a pregnant woman who struggles to protect her two young children and watches her home burn while her husband joins the volunteer firefighters. |
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Wednesday, November 29th at 7:15pm An evening discussion of the book The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy with special guest Professor Chloe Kitzinger, from Rutgers University. Death Of Ivan Ilych And Other Stories by Leo TolstoyTolstoy's most famous novella is an intense and moving examination of death and the possibilities of redemption, encapsulating Tolstoy's notion of a better way to live. Prof. Chloe Kitzinger is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Germanic, Russian, and East European Languages and Literatures at Rutgers University. |
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Monday, September 18th at 11:30am The marriage of opposites : a novel by Alice HoffmanDreaming of an exotic life in Paris while coming of age in a St. Thomas refugee community, young Rachel is forced to marry a widower before falling scandalously in love and becoming the mother of Impressionist master Camille Pissarro. |
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Monday, October 16th at 11:30am Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi CoatesTold through the author's own evolving understanding of the subject over the course of his life comes a bold and personal investigation into America's racial history and its contemporary echoes. |
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Thursday, September 14th at 7:30pm |
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Thursday, October 12th at 7:30pm The kill artist : a novel by Daniel SilvaA former Israeli intelligence operative, Gabriel Allon has devoted himself to art restoration since the murders of his wife and daughter, until Ari Shamron, the head of Israeli intelligence, calls on him to thwart a Palestinian plot to destroy the Middle East peace negotiations, a conspiracy linked to Tariq, a Palestinian zealot with lethal ties to Gabriel's own past. Reprint. |
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Thursday, November 9th at 7:30pm Presentation by the Author at 8pm following the short discussion Where the River Bends by Elissa MatthewsWhere the River Bends: The Story of a Tragedy tells of a mother and son fighting to save themselves -- and each other -- from the destruction that sex, power and racism can cause, set in a turbulent and decisive period of American history. |
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