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Fiction Book Club The Fiction Book Club meets at 7pm on the third Tuesday of each month. Meetings are offered online via Zoom and registration is required. Visit our events calendar to register. New participants are welcome at any time! To reserve a print copy of the next title to be discussed, contact the Adult Services Desk by phone at 309.590.6168 or by email to reference@bloomingtonlibrary.org. Digital copies of each title (eBook or eAudiobook) may also be available through the Libby or Hoopla Apps. See below for details about the titles we'll discuss in 2022. |
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Leave the world behind : a novel
by Rumaan Alam
Sheltering in a New York beach house with a couple that has taken refuge during a massive blackout, a family struggles for information about the power failure while wondering if the cut-off property is actually safe. 100,000 first printing.
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Libertie : a novel
by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Coming of age as a free-born Black woman in Reconstruction-era Brooklyn, Libertie Sampson struggles against her mother’s medical aspirations for her when she finds herself more drawn to a musical career that could compromise her autonomy. 75,000 first printing.
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The muralist
by Barbara A. Shapiro
Auction-house employee Danielle Abrams investigates the unsolved disappearance of her famous artist great-aunt when she discovers enigmatic paintings hidden behind Abstract Expressionist works created decades earlier. By the New York Times best-selling author of The Art Forger. (historical fiction). Simultaneous.
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His only wife
by Peace A. Medie
"Afi Tekple is a young seamstress in Ghana. She is smart; she is pretty; and she has been convinced by her mother to marry a man she does not know. Afi knows who he is, of course--Elikem is a wealthy businessman whose mother has chosen Afi in the hopes that she will distract him from his relationship with a woman his family claims is inappropriate. But Afi is not prepared for the shift her life takes when she is moved from her small hometown of Ho to live in Accra, Ghana's gleaming capital, a place of wealth and sophistication where she has days of nothing to do but cook meals for a man who may or may not show up to eat them. She has agreed to this marriage in order to give her mother the financial security she desperately needs, and so she must see it through. Or maybe not? His Only Wife is a witty, smart, and moving debut novel about a brave young woman traversing the minefield of modern life with its taboos and injustices, living in a world of men who want their wives to be beautiful, to be good cooksand mothers, to be women who respect their husbands and grant them forbearance. And in Afi, Peace Medie has created a delightfully spunky and relatable heroine who just may break all the rules"
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The Wangs vs. the world
by Jade Chang
A wealthy but fractured Chinese family loses everything in the financial crisis before embarking on a haphazard but ultimately redemptive journey across America as part of an effort to reclaim ancestral lands in China. A first novel. 75,000 first printing.
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Last night at the Telegraph Club
by Malinda Lo
When Lily realizes she has feelings for a girl in her math class, it threatens Lily's oldest friendships and even her father's citizenship status and eventually, Lily must decide if owning her truth is worth everything she has ever known
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The Fabergé secret
by Charles Belfoure
"Saint Petersburg, 1903. Prince Dimitri Markhov lives a life of luxury in the Imperial court, while middle-class Doctor Katya Golitsyn is determined to help bring revolution. When they meet at a royal ball and begin an affair, Katya exposes Dimitri to the horrors of the Tsar's regime, and Dimitri grows determined to make a stand...whatever the cost"
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The personal librarian
by Marie Benedict
Hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library, Belle de Costa Greene becomes one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she keeps.
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The Department of Sensitive Crimes
by Alexander McCall Smith
Tasked with their Swedish police department's most unusual cases, lead detective Ulf Varg and his colorful associates investigate a bizarre stabbing, a missing imaginary boyfriend, and a haunted spa
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The sweetness of water
by Nathan Harris
"In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox"
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The last bookshop in London : a novel of World War II
by Madeline Martin
Taking a job in a London bookshop just as the Blitz begins, Grace finds comfort in the power of words, storytelling and community as the bookshop becomes one of the only remaining properties to survive the bombings. 10,000 first printing.
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Join us for Book Ends on December 13, 7 pm
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