By George Orwell
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, September 27, 2016. 1:30 PM.

Portrays a terrifying vision of life in the future when a totalitarian government, considered a "Negative Utopia," watches over all citizens and directs all activities, becoming more powerful as time goes by.

By Tayari Jones
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 14, 2019. 7:30 PM.

When her new husband is arrested and imprisoned for a crime she knows he did not commit, a rising artist takes comfort in a longtime friendship only to encounter unexpected challenges in resuming her life when her husband's sentence is suddenly overturned.

With Donna Burger, Readers' Services Librarian

Twitter Book Discussion

Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 8 PM

Love Twitter? Love reading? Join us for a book discussion of SOME TAME GAZELLE by Barbara Pym. Use #SPLReads to join the conversation. This title is available for instant download using your library card on Hoopla. Hoopla books can be read on your computer or smart device.

Visit https://www.hoopladigital.com/ 

Belinda and Harriet Bede live together in a small English village. Shy, sensible Belinda has been secretly in love with Henry Hoccleve—the poetry-spouting, married archdeacon of their church—for thirty years. Belinda’s much more confident, forthright younger sister Harriet, meanwhile, is ardently pursued by Count Ricardo Bianco. Although she has turned down every marriageable man who proposes, Harriet still welcomes any new curate with dinner parties and flirtatious conversation. And one of the newest arrivals, the reverend Edgar Donne, has everyone talking. A warm, affectionate depiction of a postwar English village, Some Tame Gazelle perfectly captures the quotidian details that make up everyday life. With its vibrant supporting cast, it’s also a poignant story of unrequited love.

By Edith Wharton
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, February 23, 2016. 1:30 PM.

An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870's, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May's cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence. 

By Paulo Coelho
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, September 10, 2013. 7:30 PM.

A fable about undauntingly following one's dreams, listening to one's heart, and reading life's omens features dialogue between a boy and an unnamed being.

By Erich Maria Remarque
With Brenda Cherry, Reference Librarian, Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, July 8, 2014. 7:30 PM.

The testament of Paul Baumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I, illuminates the savagery and futility of war.

By Wallace Stegner
With Lisa Caputo, Assistant Library Director

Tuesday, May 24, 2011. 1 PM & 7:30 PM.

Retirees Joseph and Ruth Allston find their placid, rural California life disrupted by a hippie who builds a treehouse on their property and by a young married couple tragically affected by pregnancy and cancer.

By Chris Kyle
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 10, 2015. 7:30 PM.

American Sniper is the astonishing autobiography of SEAL Chief Chris Kyle, who is the record-holding sniper in U.S. military history. Kyle has more than 150 officially confirmed kills (the previous American record was 109), though his remarkable career total has not been made public by the Pentagon.

By Agatha Christie
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, March 12, 2013.  7:30 PM.

When ten people arrive on private Indian Island off England's southwest coast, lured to a mansion by invitations from a mysterious host, terror mounts as one guest after another is murdered, in a classic whodunit that is an elaboration of the famous children's rhyme "Ten Little Indians."

By George Orwell
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, July 14, 2015. 7:30 PM.

A satire on totalitarianism in which farm animals overthrow their human owner and set up their own government.

 

Became the movie: Animal Farm.

By Anne Frank
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, March 10, 2020. 7:30 PM.

 

Commemorating the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank's death

Teens Welcome

The autobiographical reminiscences of a young Jewish girl coming of age during World War II describes her life in hiding from the Nazis and offers a poignant study of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

By Jacqueline Woodson
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 14, 2017. 7:30 PM

Torn between the fantasies of her youth and the realities of a life marked by violence and abandonment, August reunites with a beloved old friend who challenges her to reconcile her past and come to terms with the difficulties that forced her to grow up too quickly.

By B.A. Shapiro
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 26, 2014. 1:30 PM.

An artist whose reputation has been tarnished stumbles on a piece of art that disappeared twenty-five years ago and agrees to forge it for a gallery owner, until she realizes that the art she is forging may itself be a forgery.

By Chad Harbach
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, February 26, 2013.  1:30 PM.

A baseball star at a small college near Lake Michigan launches a routine throw that goes disastrously off course and inadvertently changes the lives of five people, including the college president, a gay teammate, and the president's daughter.

By Jan-Philipp Sendker
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, April 28, 2015. 1:30 PM.

"When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter has any idea where he might be—until they find a love letter he wrote many years before, to a Burmese woman who is unknown to them (From the Publisher)."

By Garth Stein
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian
With Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference, Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian, Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian, Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

“He Said, She Said” Book Discussion
Join us for a special evening to celebrate a year of great books and discussions.

Monday, December 19, 2011. 7:30 PM.

Nearing the end of his life, Enzo, a dog with a philosopher’s soul, tries to bring together the family, pulled apart by a three year custody battle between daughter Zoe’s maternal grandparents and her father Denny, a race car driver.

By Emily X. R Pan
With Meghan Fangmann, Librarian, Pam Strudler, Librarian

Tuesday, August 6, 2019. 7:30 PM.

A teen grieving the loss of her mother travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time and search for her mother's spirit while uncovering tragic family secrets and struggling to reconcile the truth about how her mother's life really ended.

By Hilma Wolitzer
With Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference, Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian, Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian, Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

The Afternoon and Evening Book Clubs unite for a special evening to celebrate a year of great books and discussions.

 

Tuesday, December 18. 7:30 PM.

“Inadvertently attracting several single women while mourning the death of his adored wife, Edward Schuyler is profiled in a singles ad by his stepchildren... (From the Publisher).”

By Melanie Benjamin
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 26, 2013. 1:30 PM.

A story inspired by the marriage between Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh traces the romance between a handsome young aviator and a shy ambassador's daughter whose relationship is marked by wild international acclaim.

By Fredrik Backman
Series Beartown Series
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 28, 2018. 1:30 PM.

In the tiny forest community of Beartown, the possibility that the amateur hockey team might win a junior championship, bringing the hope of revitalization to the fading town, is shattered by the aftermath of a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized.

By Jess Walter
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 28, 2013.  1:30 PM.

A novel that spans fifty years. The Italian housekeeper and his long-lost American starlet; the producer who once brought them together, and his assistant. A glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.

By Lisa Wingate
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, May 28, 2019. 1:30 PM.

Learning that her grandmother was a victim of the corrupt Tennessee Children's Home Society, attorney and aspiring politician Avery Stafford delves into her family's past and begins to wonder if some things are best kept secret.

By Katherine Boo
Recommended By Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, April 9, 2013.  7:30 PM.

Winner of the 2012 National Book Award for Non-Fiction
“Profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother, and a young scrap metal thief, illuminating how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by religious, caste, and economic tensions (From the Publisher).”

By Imbolo Mbue
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 28, 2017. 1:30 PM

An immigrant working class couple from Cameroon and the upper class American family for whom they work find their lives and marriages shaped by financial circumstances, infidelities, secrets, and the 2008 recession.

By Ben Fountain
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 14, 2013.  7:30 PM.

A satire set in Texas during America's war in Iraq that explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. Follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive "Victory Tour" at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.

By Jose Saramago
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, June 13, 2017. 7:30 PM.

A city is hit by an epidemic of “white blindness” whose victims are confined to a vacant mental hospital, while a single eyewitness to the nightmare guides seven oddly assorted strangers through the barren urban landscape.

By Cristina Henriquez
Recommended By Pam Martin, Assistant Library Director
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, June 23, 2015. 1:30 PM.

Moving from Mexico to the United States when their daughter suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras confront cultural barriers, their daughter’s difficult recovery, and her developing relationship with a Panamanian boy.

By Daniel Tammet

Tuesday, April 24. 1 PM & 7:30 PM.

In honor of National Autism Awareness Month

"Traces the inspiring story of an autistic savant with genius-level mathematical talents, describing how he was eschewed by his classmates in spite of his near-photographic memory and super-human capacity for math and language, in a firsthand account that offers insight into how he experiences the world (From the Publisher)."

By Daniel James Brown
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, March 8, 2016. 7:30 PM.

Traces the story of an American rowing team from the University of Washington that defeated elite rivals at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, sharing the experiences of their enigmatic coach, a visionary boat builder, and a homeless teen rower.

By Aldous Huxley
With Lisa Caputo, Assistant Library Director

Tuesday, February 28, 2012. 1 PM & 7:30 PM.

The story of a futuristic World State where all emotion, love, art, and human individuality have been replaced by social stability.

 

Became the movie: Brave New World.

By Colm Toibin
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, May 25, 2010.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

A diligent young woman with few opportunities in nineteen–fifties Ireland is packed off by her family to Brooklyn, where she encounters new and bewildering experiences before a family crisis presents her with a stark choice between her new life and her old one.

By Julie Otsuka
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 28, 2012.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

Presents 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.

By Kazuo Ishiguro
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, February 9, 2016. 7:30 PM.

A tale of lost memories, vengeance and war by the award-winning author of The Remains of the Day follows the experiences of a couple who journeys across a troubled land of mist and rain with the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.

By Meg Medina
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian
With Meghan Fangmann, Librarian, Pam Strudler, Librarian

Tuesday, August 7, 2018. 7:30 PM

Enduring the infamous New York summer of 1977 in the wake of arson fires, a massive blackout and the Son of Sam serial killings, 17-year-old Nora Lopez navigates the additional stresses of her family's limited finances, her father's absence and her brother's growing violence.

By Julie Kibler
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk, Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 25, 2014. 1:30 PM.

“Follows the experiences of hairdresser and African-American single mom Dorrie, who while struggling with difficult family dynamics reluctantly agrees to drive an octogenarian client to a funeral several states away (From the Publisher).”

By Joseph Heller
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, September 29, 2015. 1:30 PM.

Depicts the struggles of a U.S. airman attempting to survive the lunacy and depravity of a World War II base.

 

Became the movie: Catch 22.

By David R. Gillham
Recommended By Jean Buchholtz, Library Clerk, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, January 28, 2014.  1:30 PM.

Hiding her clandestine activities behind the persona of a model Nazi soldier's wife at the height of World War II, Sigrid Schroeder dreams of her former Jewish lover and risks everything to hide a mother and two young children who she believes might be her lover's family. 

By Stacy Schiff
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, February 11, 2014. 7:30 PM.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer brings to life the most intriguing woman in the history of the world: Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt. Though her life spanned fewer than 40 years, it reshaped the contours of the ancient world.

By Elizabeth Wein
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director
With Pam Strudler, Librarian, Sharon Long, Teen Librarian

Tuesday, July 22, 2014. 1:30 PM.

In 1943, a British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France and the survivor tells a tale of friendship, war, espionage and great courage as she relates what she must do to survive.

By Anthony Marra
Recommended By Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian
With Ralph Guiteau, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, March 11, 2014. 7:30 PM.

“In December 2004 in a rural village in Chechnya, failed doctor Akhmed harbors the traumatized eight-year-old daughter of a man abducted by Russian forces and treats a series of wounded refugees while exploring the shared past that binds him to the child.” (From the Publisher)

By Erik Larson
With Barney Levantino, Reference Librarian

Tuesday, December 8, 2015. 7:30 PM.

A chronicle of the sinking of the Lusitania discusses the factors that led to the tragedy and the contributions of such figures as Woodrow Wilson, bookseller Charles Lauriat, and architect Theodate Pope Riddle.

By Kaui Hart Hemmings
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, July 24, 2012.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

“A descendant of royalty and one of the largest landowners in Hawaii, Matthew King struggles to deal with his out-of-control daughters, ten-year-old Scottie and seventeen-year-old Alex, as well as his comatose wife, whom they are about to remove from life-support (From the Publisher).”

By Candice Millard
Recommended By Sonia Grgas, Reference Librarian
With Sonia Grgas, Health Reference Librarian

Tuesday, March 25, 2014. 1:30 PM.

A narrative account of the twentieth president's political career offers insight into his background as a scholar and Civil War hero, his battles against the corrupt establishment, and Alexander Graham Bell's failed attempt to save him from an assassin's bullet.

By Elizabeth Gilbert
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, November 30, 2010.  1 PM & 7:30 PM.

After a failed marriage Gilbert sets off to discover her true self by eating in Italy, praying in India and finding love in Indonesia.

 

 

Became the movie: Eat, Pray, Love.

 

 

By Tara Westover
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Neela Vass, Head of Acquisitions
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, February 26, 2019. 1:30 PM.

Traces the author's experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family's paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.

By Gail Honeyman
Recommended By Meghan F., Children's Services Librarian , Sue Ann R., Head of Children's Services, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, July 10, 2018. 7:30 PM.

A socially awkward, routine–oriented loner teams up with a bumbling IT guy from her office to assist an elderly accident victim, forging a friendship that saves all three from lives of isolation and secret unhappiness.

By Elizabeth Graver
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk, Ed Goldberg, Head of Reference
With Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, August 5, 2014. 7:30 PM.

“Returning to Ashuant Point to escape from the chaos of rapidly changing times, Helen Porter and her son Charlie soon discover that the Point has not remained unscathed from events unfolding beyond its borders (From the Publisher).”

By Thrity Umrigar
Recommended By Audrey Honigman, Library Clerk
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, July 24, 2018. 1:30 PM.

An African American lawman struggles to come to terms with the moral fallout of crimes committed by his loved ones when he learns that he was wrongly taken from his biological mother and that his white foster father exploited their family's influences to retain custody.

By Mira T. Lee
With Jean Simpson, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday, October 23, 2018. 1:30 PM

The bond between a responsible, self–contained older sister and her mentally ill, impulsive younger sister is shaped and tested over years marked by the loss of their mother, an impetuous first marriage, a fling that results in the birth of a baby, and painful sacrifices.

By Celeste Ng
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Lisa Jones, Readers' Services Librarian

Tueday, July 28, 2015. 1 PM.

A story of the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family explores the fallout of the drowning death of Lydia Lee, the favorite daughter of a Chinese-American family in 1970s Ohio.