BOOK CLUBS

American Lives Book Club

This group meets on the Second Tuesday of the month at 6:30 pm. The American Lives is a non-traditional book group that focuses on the lives of influential Americans. It will focus on the person rather than the book. Choose to read one or more biographies about our subject, each book on the list presents a different view. This will prompt lively discussions facilitated by Bill Wilson. Remote participation available.

Participants are invited to read additional biographies as well.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024 – 6:30 PM – The Struggles – A Look at American History Through Major Social Movements

• Abolitionism
  • Frederick Douglas: Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight
  • The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights, by Dorothy Wickenden
  • The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina, by Gerda Lerner
  • Lincoln and the Abolitionists: John Quincy Adams, Slavery, and the Civil War, by Fred Kaplan
• Prohibition
  • Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, by Daniel Okrent
  • The Bourbon King: The Life and Crimes of George Remus, Prohibition’s Evil Genius, by Bob Batchelor
• Women’s Suffrage/ Women’s Rights
  • The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights, by Dorothy Wickenden
  • Century of Struggle: The Women’s Rights Movement in the United States, by Eleanor Flexner
  • The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan
• Civil Rights
  • His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, by John Meacham and John Lewis (Afterword)
  • The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
  • Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, by David J. Garrow

Monday, September 16, 2024 (please note day change) – 6:30 PM – In One Era and Out the Other: Colonial Settlement 1600s-1763

• The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, by Nikole Hannah-Jones
  
• This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony, and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving, by David J. Silverman
• The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America, by Walter R. Borneman
• American Colonies: The Settling of North America, by Alan Taylor
• Savage Kingdom: The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America, by Benjamin Wooley

Tuesday, October 8, 2024 – 6:30 PM – In One Era and Out the Other: American Revolution 1763-1783

• Common Sense, by Thomas Paine
  
• 1776, by David McCullough
• Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, by Walter Isaacson
• The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, by Stacy Schiff
• Washington: The Indispensable Man, by James Thomas Flexner
• The Creation of the American Republic: 1776 – 1787, by Gordon S. Wood

Monday, November 11, 2024 (please note day change) – 6:30 PM – In One Era and Out the Other: The New Nation 1783-1815

• The Federalist Papers, by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
  
• Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
• Friends Divided, by Gordon S. Wood
• Washington: The Indispensable Man, by James Thomas Flexner
• Founding Brothers, by Joseph Ellis
• Undaunted Courage: The Pioneering First Mission to Explore America’s Wild Frontier, by Stephen Ambrose
• 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, by Walter Borneman

Tuesday, December 10, 2024 – 6:30 PM – In One Era and Out the Other: National Expansion & Reform 1815-1880

• A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, The Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent, by Robert W. Merry
  
• Manifest Destinies: America’s Westward Expansion and the Road to the Civil War, by Steven E. Woodworth
• Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion, by Robert Morgan
• American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Joh Meacham
• Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation, by John Ehle
• The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream, by H. W. Brands

Library Hours

Monday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tuesday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Wednesday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Thursday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Friday : 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Sunday: 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.