book groups

The Evening Book Group  meets the last Thursday of every month at 5:00 p.m.   Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, this month, the group will meet on November 18.

We will be discussing Interior Chinatown written by Charles Yu.

Here is what folks are saying about Interior Chinatown: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

“One of the funniest books of the year…. A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire.” —The Washington Post

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?  After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

The Evening Book Group  meets the last Thursday of every month at 4:30 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on October 28.   If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.  If not, we will be in the Community Room.

We will be discussing The Mystery of Mrs. Christie written by Marie Benedict.

The Evening Book Group  meets the last Thursday of every month at 4:30 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on September 30.   If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.

We will be discussing Go Tell it on the Mountain and/or Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin.

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on August 26 at 4:30 pm.   If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.

We will be discussing A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris.

It tells the story of three generations of Native American women: Rayona, who is half African-American, her mother Christine, and Christine’s mother Aunt Ida. The story is told in three distinct sections, one for each woman. Throughout the book, themes of family, identity, and heritage are highlighted and examined.

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on July 29 at 4:30 pm.   If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.

We will be discussing Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley.

Paras, short for “Perestroika,” is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and–she’s a curious filly–wanders all the way to the City of Light. She’s dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn’t afraid.

Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians. Paras and Frida coexist for a time in the city’s lush green spaces, nourished by Frida’s strategic trips to the vegetable market. They keep company with two irrepressible ducks and an opinionated raven. But then Paras meets a human boy, Etienne, and discovers a new, otherworldly part of Paris: the ivy-walled house where the boy and his nearly-one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother live in seclusion.

As the cold weather nears, the unlikeliest of friendships bloom. But how long can a runaway horse stay undiscovered in Paris? How long can a boy keep her hidden and all to himself? Jane Smiley’s beguiling new novel is itself an adventure that celebrates curiosity, ingenuity, and the desire of all creatures for true love and freedom. [Amazon.com]

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on June 24 at 6:00 pm.   If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.

We will be discussing Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart.

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE, NATIONAL BESTSELLER, AND FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh “Shuggie” Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher’s policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city’s notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.  Shuggie’s mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie’s guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good—her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamorous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion’s share of each week’s benefits—all the family has to live on—on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs. Agnes’s older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is “no right,” a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her—even her beloved Shuggie.  A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Édouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell. [AMAZON]

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on May 27 at 6:00 pm.  If you would like to participate in our meeting via Zoom, please call the Library (207-967-2778) or email ml@graves.lib.me.us  to be added to the invitation list.  If the weather is perfect, we will consider meeting outside of the Library in the garden.

A link will be sent to all participants early in the day to access the meeting.  We will be discussing Mill Town : Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault.

KERRI ARSENAULT is the Book Review Editor at Orion magazine, and Contributing Editor at Lithub. Arsenault received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and studied in Malmö University’s Communication for Development master’s programme. Her writing has appeared in Freeman’s, Lithub, Oprah.com, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among other publications. She lives in New England. Mill Town is her first book.

What People are Saying About Mill Town – “Clear-eyed and self-deprecating, Arsenault is a welcome guide through the history of Mexico and Rumford, capturing the voices of their inhabitants, the stories they tell and the confidences they keep. She is tenacious in her search for answers, tender in her interactions with her mother and their neighbors. A riveting blend of reportage and memoir reveals the secrets of a paper mill town.”―Michael Berry, Maine Sunday Telegram

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on April 29 at 6:00 pm.  If you would like to participate in our meeting via Zoom, please call the Library (207-967-2778) or email ml@graves.lib.me.us  to be added to the invitation list.

A link will be sent to all participants early in the day to access the meeting.  We will be discussing American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson.

“An excitingly sharp debut novel by the talented newcomer Lauren Wilkinson . . . Rest assured that American Spy will not only keep you turning the pages, it will do much more than that. Wilkinson steeps her thriller in a complicated awareness of huge, thorny themes: race, Cold War amorality, the politics of our intelligence services and the ease with which we can become complicit with deeds we actually abhor.”—NPR “Fresh Air”

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on March 25 at 6:00 pm.  If you would like to participate in our meeting via Zoom, please call the Library (207-967-2778) or email ml@graves.lib.me.us  to be added to the invitation list.

A link will be sent to all participants early in the day to access the meeting.  We will be discussing The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult.

“The Book of Two Ways is a return for Picoult to the themes of her earliest books—motherhood, complicated romantic love. . . . Picoult, at this point in her career, could skillfully build tension in a broom closet, but the best part of this book is not the suspense; it’s the look at the complexity of a woman as she enters middle age. . . . Picoult always tells both sides of a story not with judgment, but with grace.”—The Washington Post

The Evening Book Group usually meets the last Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m.   This month, the group will meet on February 25 at 6:00 pm.  If you would like to participate in our meeting via Zoom, please call the Library (207-967-2778) or email ml@graves.lib.me.us  to be added to the invitation list.

A link will be sent to all participants early in the day to access the meeting.  We will be discussing Let the Great World Spin written by Colum McCann.

In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people.  [Amazon.com]