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Book Discussions at Somerset County Libraries |
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Popular Fiction Book Discussion
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Tuesday, July 15th at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room CGoodnight June : a novelby Sarah JioThe best-selling author of Morning Glory imagines how the beloved children's classic, Goodnight Moon, came to be, resulting in a woman discovering letters between her great aunt and the author, Margaret Wise Brown.We’ll also be talking about books we really enjoyed as children and some of the “new” classics. And be prepared to share a title of two of summer reads you’re enjoying as well!
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Tuesday, August 19th at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room CThe invention of wingsby Sue Monk KiddTraces more than three decades in the lives of a wealthy Charleston debutante who longs to break free from the strictures of her household and pursue a meaningful life; and the urban slave, Handful, who is placed in her charge as a child before finding courage and a sense of self.
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Tuesday, September 23rd at 7:00pm
Location: Bridgewater Library, Room CThe Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Streetby Susan Jane GilmanRussian immigrant Malka arrives in 1913 Manhattan, where she struggles to survive and learns trade secrets from an Italian ices peddler before setting off across America in an ice cream truck with a handsome, illiterate radical to seek their fortunes.
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Pop Culture Book Discussion
Tuesdays with Murray! These discussions are led by Reference Librarian Chris Murray.
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Tuesday, August 5th at 7:00pm in the StorywellGrowing a feast : the chronicle of a farm-to-table mealby Kurt TimmermeisterA successful restaurateur details the hard work involved with purchasing land and starting a dairy farm and describes a feast that was two years in the making, using only vegetables he harvested and animals he raised to supply the meal.
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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:
Historical Mysteries Set in the 1800s
Tuesday, September 16th
9:30am - 11:30am
October's Mystery Type:
SPECIAL SESSION!
Solve the Crime: Who Killed JonBenet?
Wednesday, October 29th
10:30am - Noon
Mysteries in the Morning Book Club will investigate a true unsolved crime: the murder of JonBenet Ramsey in 1996. Read a book about the crime and we will all review the evidence, the known facts of the case and the list of possible suspects. Let's see if we can point the finger at the most likely criminal.
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Tuesday, August 12th at 7:00pmThe orphan master's son : a novelby Adam JohnsonThe son of a singer mother whose career forcibly separated her from her family and an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il.
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Tuesday, September 16th at 7:00pmMe before youby Jojo MoyesTaking a job as an assistant to extreme sports enthusiast Will, who is wheelchair bound after a motorcycle accident, Louisa struggles with her employer's acerbic moods and learns of his shocking plans before demonstrating to him that life is still worth living
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Thursday, November 20th at 3:30pmOutliers : the story of successby Malcolm GladwellThe best-selling author of Blink identifies the qualities of successful people, posing theories about the cultural, family, and idiosyncratic factors that shape high achievers, in a resource that covers such topics as the secrets of software billionaires, why certain cultures are associated with better academic performance, and why the Beatles earned their fame.
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Downton Abbey Book Discussion Group
This book discussion group was established in 2013, meets bi-monthly, and has become quite popular with readers and followers of Downton Abbey. We have explored the program's companion books and nonfiction about the Edwardian Age. Come join the fun to discuss the following books as well as the upcoming events in Season Four. Tea will be served!
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Tuesday, July 22nd at 3:00pmMr. Churchill's secretary : a novelby Susan Elia MacNealAfter German Luftwaffe bomb London, Maggie Hope--trained in math and code breaking, but only able to find a job as Winston Churchill's secretary--uses the unfettered access her position demands to try to unravel a plot to assassinate Churchill himself.
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Wednesday, September 24th at 3:00pmLongbournby Jo BakerA reimagining of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from the perspectives of its below-stairs servants captures the romance, intrigue and drama of the Bennet household from the sideline perspective of Sara, an orphaned housemaid who becomes subject to the arrival of the militia and the attentions of an ambitious former slave.
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Wednesday, November 5th at 3:00pmThe Cater Street hangman : a novelby Anne PerryCareless of both murder and manners, Charlotte Ellison and her sister, two determinedly unconventional young women, ignore Victorian mores and actively join the police investigation, led by young Inspector Thomas Pitt, into the murder of their servant girl. Reissue.
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Parenting Book Discussion Group
Join us for our newly formed Parenting Book Discussion Group to be held bi-monthly through 2014. If you are seeking new ideas on how to be the best parent you can be then this group is for you!
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Tuesday, September 9th at 10:00pmThe Museum of Extraordinary Things : a novelby Alice HoffmanThe daughter of a curiosities museum's front man pursues an impassioned love affair with a Russian immigrant photographer who after fleeing his Lower East Side Orthodox community has captured poignant images of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
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Tuesday, October 7th at 10:00amThe physick book of Deliverance Dane : a novelby Katherine HoweForced to set aside her Ph.D. research in order to help the settling of her late grandmother's abandoned home, Connie Goodwin discovers a hidden key among her grandmother's possessions that is linked to a darker chapter in Salem Witch Trial history.
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Perspectives Book Discussion Group
Join us for our new monthly book discussion group where we will be focusing on biographies, memoirs, and other works of nonfiction that illuminate the human experience.
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Thursday, September 25th at 7:00pmA house in the sky : a memoirby Amanda LindhoutDocuments the author's backpacking tours through some of the world's most dangerous and war-ridden regions, describing her work as a fledgling television reporter, her brutal 15-month incarceration in Somalia and her founding of a non-profit organization to promote aid, development and education.
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Thursday, October 23rd at 7:00pmPicking Cotton : our memoir of injustice and redemptionby Jennifer Thompson-CanninoAn account for which the authors received 2008's Soros Justice Media Fellowship traces the story of a rape survivor and the man she mistakenly identified as her attacker, describing the unlikely friendship they forged after DNA evidence proved his innocence and their shared subsequent advocacy for judicial reform.
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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, August 5th at 7:00pmSeating arrangementsby Maggie ShipsteadPossessing a Harvard education and all of the accoutrements of a privileged life, Winn Van Meter attends the wedding of his eldest daughter, which is scandalized by the bride's advancing pregnancy, her sister's broken heart and the seductive machinations of wedding party members.
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Tuesday, September 2nd at 7:00pmThe signature of all thingsby Elizabeth GilbertThe best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love traces the multi-generational saga of the Whittaker family, whose progenitor makes a fortune in the quinine trade before his daughter, a gifted botanist, researches the mysteries of evolution while falling in love with an utopian artist against a backdrop of the Age of Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.
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Tuesday, October 7th at 7:00pmThe history of loveby Nicole KraussSixty years after a book's publication, its author remembers his lost love and missing son, while a teenage girl, named for one of the book's characters, seeks her namesake, as well as a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.
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Thursday, July 10th at 1:00pmMy beloved worldby Sonia SotomayorThe first Hispanic-American on the U.S. Supreme Court shares the story of her life before becoming a judge, describing such experiences as her youth in a Bronx housing project, her relationship with a passionately spiritual grandparent, the ambition that fueled her ivy-league education and the individuals who helped shaped her career.
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Thursday, July 17th at 7:15pmPacking for Mars : the curious science of life in the voidby Mary RoachThe author of Stiff and Bonk describes the weirdness of space exploration and answers questions about the long-term effects of zero gravity on the human body and what happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk.
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Peapack-Gladstone Library
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Tuesday, July 22nd at 7:30pmWild : from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trailby Cheryl StrayedA personal account by the Pushcart Prize-winning author of Torch traces the personal crisis she endured after the death of her mother and a painful divorce, which prompted her ambition to undertake a dangerous 1,100-mile solo hike that both drove her to rock bottom and helped her to heal.
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Thursday, August 12th at 10:30amBeautiful ruins : a novelby Jess WalterThe award-winning author of The Financial Lives of the Poets presents his most romantic and enjoyable novel yet that follows a young Italian innkeeper and his almost-love affair with a beautiful American starlet, which draws him into a glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.
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Tuesday, August 19th at 7:30pmBeautiful ruins : a novelby Jess WalterThe award-winning author of The Financial Lives of the Poets presents his most romantic and enjoyable novel yet that follows a young Italian innkeeper and his almost-love affair with a beautiful American starlet, which draws him into a glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.
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Thursday, July 17th at 1:30pmPalisades Parkby Alan BrennertSharing a family life in the 1930s near the legendary Palisades Amusement Park, a family of dreamers explores ambitions and cultural boundaries that are challenged by the realities of the Great Depression, multiple wars and the park's eventual closing in 1971.
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Tuesday, July 22nd at 7:15pmIn the kitchen : a novelby Monica AliStruggling to maintain his culinary integrity in a hotel restaurant surrounded by an unruly if talented staff of cooks, executive chef Gabriel Lightfoot finds his secret ambition to become the hotel's owner compromised by the murder of a porter, his father's cancer diagnosis, and pressure from his girlfriend and investors.
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Thursday, August 7th at 1:30pmShanghai girls : a novelby Lisa SeeForced to leave Shanghai when their father sells them to California suitors, sisters May and Pearl struggle to adapt to life in 1930s Los Angeles while still bound to old customs, as they face discrimination and confront a life-altering secret
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Tasty Bites and Books
Bring a bag lunch and share your thoughts on the books you've read.
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Monday, July 21st at NoonThe Buddha in the atticby Julie OtsukaPresents the stories of six Japanese mail-order brides whose new lives in early twentieth-century San Francisco are marked by backbreaking migrant work, cultural struggles, children who reject their heritage, and the prospect of wartime internment
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Monday, August 18th at NoonThe language of flowers : a novelby Vanessa DiffenbaughDiscovering the symbolic meanings of flowers while languishing in the foster-care system, eighteen-year-old Victoria is hired by a florist when her talent for helping others is discovered, a situation that leads her to confront a painful secret from her past
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Monday, August 11th at 11:00amDeath comes to Pemberleyby 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, July 10th at 7:00pmWe need to talk about Kevin : a novelby Lionel ShriverEva Khatchadourian writes to her estranged husband Frank, trying to solve what went wrong in raising their son Kevin after he kills seven classmates and a teacher in his high school in upstate New York
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Thursday, August 14th at 7:00pmMistress of the art of deathby Ariana FranklinSent to medieval Cambridge in order to exonerate a group of Jewish prisoners with financial ties to King Henry I, University of Salerno medical examiner Adelia and a group of companions struggle to avoid being accused of witchcraft and discover that the killer may be a former crusader.
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Social Action Book Club
Books may be borrowed from the library by contacting Anne Mellen by email (amellen@hotmail.com) or going to the library main desk.
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