BOOK CLUB
This relaxed adult book group meets on the last Wednesday of the month. Call the library with questions 608-676-5569.
September 2023
One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer
Wednesday, September 27, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
It’s where you sit down that determines everything in life.
Sarah’s aunt Edna paints portraits of chairs. Not people in chairs, just chairs. The old house is filled with her paintings, and the chairs themselves surround her work—a silent yet vigilant audience. At the funeral of Grandma Hutton—whom Edna has cared for through a long and vague illness—Sarah begins helping her aunt clean up the last of a life. This includes honoring Grandma’s surprising wish to have her ashes scattered in Scotland. As the novel turns from the oppressive heat of Texas to the misty beauty of Scotland, Sarah learns of her aunt’s remarkable secret life and comes to fully understand the fragile business of living, and even of dying.
August 2023
Little, Big by John Crowley
Wednesday, August 30, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
John Crowley’s Little, Big, an extraordinary, sweeping and strange novel, can perhaps be best described through the metaphor of its central setting: Edgewood, the house in which many generations (and permutations) of the Drinkwater family live. Edgewood is designed by the patriarch, a renowned architect, to be many houses within a single structure. It unfolds, as the viewer circles around it, to reveal many different facades — Victorian, modern, gothic — like a complex piece of origami.
July 2023
Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns
Wednesday, July 26, 1:00 PM at the library.
Want 2 Free Wisconsin State Fair Passes?
Participants that read the book and come to the discussion will receive two free Wisconsin State Fair passes!
About this book:
On the banks of the River Avon, five sisters are born. The seasons come and go, the girls take their lessons under the ash tree, and always there is the sound of water swirling through the weir. Then, unexpectedly, an air of decay descends upon the house: ivy grows unchecked over the windows, angry shouts split the summer air, the milk sours in the larder and their father takes out his gun. Tragedy strikes the family, and before long the furniture is being auctioned off and the sisters dispersed among relatives. In her daring first novel, originally published in 1947, Barbara Comyns’ unique young heroine relates the vivid, funny and bittersweet story of a childhood.
June 2023
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
Wednesday, June 28, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
The novel is a detective story set in an alternative history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska, in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel is set in Sitka, which it depicts as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis.
May 2023
Prurple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Wednesday, May 31, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
Purple Hibiscus is an exquisite novel about the emotional turmoil of adolescence, the powerful bonds of family, and the bright promise of freedom.
April 2023
Remarkable Creatures by Tracey Chevalier
Wednesday, April 26, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
From the New York Times bestselling novelist, a stunning historical novel that follows the story of Mary Anning and Elizabeth Philpot, two extraordinary 19th century fossil hunters who changed the scientific world forever.
March 2023
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Wednesday, March 29, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
February 2023
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan
Wednesday, February 22, 1:00 PM at the library.
About this book:
When Savannah history professor Everly Winthrop is asked to guest-curate a new museum collection focusing on artifacts recovered from the steamship Pulaski, she’s shocked. The ship sank after a boiler explosion in 1838, and the wreckage was just discovered, 180 years later. Everly can’t resist the opportunity to try to solve some of the mysteries and myths surrounding the devastating night of its sinking.
January 2023
The Personal Library by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Wednesday, January 25, 1:00 PM
New Meeting Location: We will now meet at the lIbrary!
About this book:
A remarkable novel about J. P. Morgan’s personal librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, the Black American woman who was forced to hide her true identity and pass as white in order to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation, from New York Times bestselling authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.
November 2022
Driftless by David Rhodes
Wednesday, November 30, 1:00 PM
New Meeting Location: We will now meet at the lIbrary!
About this book:
Driftless is a novel by David Rhodes that was published in 2008. It is set in the Driftless area of southwestern Wisconsin. The novel is about the inhabitants of the unincorporated town of Words, and it is told through their eyes and via the ways they interact with and impact one another.