book
DISCUSSIONS
The library has seven book discussion series that meet regularly. Patrons will enjoy lively discussion and connecting to community members at each session.
Books are available at the Adult and Teen Services Desk one month before the discussion, or any time through our catalog or eLibrary. Didn't finish the book? No problem, everyone is welcome to join in!
Real Reads
coffee, doughnuts, and true stories you can't put down
The Great Contradiction by Joseph Ellis
Tuesday, July 21
9:30 - 11 a.m.
A major new history from the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Founding Brothers and the National Book Award winner American Sphinx, on how America's founders--Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams--regarded the issue of slavery as they drafted the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. In this daring and important work, our most trusted voice on the founding era reckons with the realities and regrets of our founding and the tragedy of its two great failures: the failure to end slavery and the failure to avoid Indian removal.
Marriage at Sea
by Sophie Elmhirst
Tuesday, August 18
9:30 - 11 a.m.
Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?
What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests.
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
by Caitlin Doughty
Tuesday, September 15
9:30 - 11 a.m.
Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry―especially chemical embalming―and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased.
Pages and Pints
join us at Goldfinger Brewing Company to discuss fiction titles.
Ages 21+
Life, and Death, and Giants
by Ron Rindo
Tuesday, August 4 or
Wednesday, August 5
8 p.m.
Gabriel Fisher was born an orphan, weighing eighteen pounds and measuring twenty-seven inches long. No one in Lakota, Wisconsin, knows what to make of him. He walks at eight months, communicates with animals, and seems to possess extraordinary athletic talent. But when the older brother who has been caring for him dies, Gabriel is taken in by his devout Amish grandparents who disapprove of all the attention and hide him away from the English world. But it’s hard to hide forever when you’re nearly eight feet tall. At seventeen, Gabriel is spotted working in a hay field by the local football coach. What happens next transforms not only Gabriel’s life but the lives of everyone he meets. Life, and Death, and Giants is a moving story of faith, family, buried secrets, and everyday miracles.
Heart the Lover
by Lily King
Tuesday, September 1 or
Wednesday, September 2
8 p.m.
"You knew I'd write a book about you someday." Our narrator understands the highs and free falls of love, but her own greatest love story never followed simple rules. In her senior year of college, star students Sam and Yash sweep her into an intoxicating world of academic fervor and raucous card games. Nicknamed "Jordan," she navigates unpredictable passions, ultimately finding herself at the center of a charged.
A Guardian and a Thief
by Megha Majumdar
Tuesday, October 6 or
Wednesday, October 7
8 p.m.
In a near-future Kolkata beset by climate blight, Ma and her family are days from joining her husband in Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas, they awaken to discover their treasured documents stolen. This propulsive novel alternates between Ma’s frantic search for the thief to save her family’s future, and Boomba, the thief whose desperate hunger drives him to a life-altering crime.
Stellar Reads
explore new worlds and magic in sci-fi/fantasy reads
A Far Better Thing
by H.G. Parry
Wednesday, July 8
7 - 8 p.m.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell meets 'A Tale of Two Cities' in H. G. Parry's 'A Far Better Thing', a heart-rending fantasy of faery revenge set during the French Revolution. The faeries stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faery Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead. It will take magic and cunning--cold iron and Realm silver--to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition. Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine.
Ancillary Justice
by Ann Leckie
Wednesday, August 12
7 - 8 p.m.
One Esk -- an electronic artificial intelligence -- once commanded an entire starship, the formidable Justice of Tore. Now confined to a mortal body cobbled together from interchangeable human parts as the entity called "Breq," the AI must survive as a multisegmented, ancillary humanoid being in a galactic empire ruled by an oppressive government -- without disobeying the law that forbids AIs from harming their creators.
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins
by P. Djèlí Clark
Wednesday, September 9
7 - 8 p.m.
Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins-resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories-have only three unbreakable vows. First, the contract must be just. That's above Eveen's pay grade. Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen's a professional. She's never missed her mark. The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen's newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn't supposed to remember and a vow she can't forget.
Celebrity Reads
read books written by or about celebrities and discuss their lives and impact
Black. Single. Mother.: Real Life Tales of Longing and Belonging
by Jamilah Lemieux
Tuesday, August 11
1 - 2 p.m.
A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews, by a celebrated cultural critic.Through her signature candid, humorous and yet often biting takes, Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that doesn’t see the full worth of women like her. Interspersed with beautifully written personal narrative, readers will find cultural and historical analysis, and interviews with single mothers from all walks of life, telling it how it really is.
How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love, and Plentyby Bonny Reichert
Tuesday, October 13
1 - 2 p.m.
A memoir that explores intergenerational trauma, identity, and healing through the lens of food, connecting the author's life with her Holocaust survivor father's story. The book uses the central metaphor of an egg to discuss themes of hunger, love, and plenty, weaving together Reichert's experiences as a chef and journalist with her father's harrowing past in concentration camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A Very Punchable Face
by Colin Jost
Tuesday, December 8
1 - 2 p.m.
From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school, to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump. You’ll go behind the scenes at SNL and Weekend Update (where he’s written some of the most memorable sketches and jokes of the past fifteen years). And you’ll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian—from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall. Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy—with a face you can’t help but want to punch.
Armchair Detectives
true crime stories that will keep you looking over your shoulder
The Sinners All Bow
by Kate Winkler Dawson
Thursday, July 16
7 p.m.
A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews, by a celebrated cultural critic.Through her signature candid, humorous and yet often biting takes, Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that doesn’t see the full worth of women like her. Interspersed with beautifully written personal narrative, readers will find cultural and historical analysis, and interviews with single mothers from all walks of life, telling it how it really is.
Shadow of the Bridge
by Áine Cain
Thursday, August 20
7 p.m.
A personal meditation on, examination of, and tribute to Black single motherhood, unapologetically told through poignant essays and candid interviews, by a celebrated cultural critic.Through her signature candid, humorous and yet often biting takes, Lemieux suffers no fools while also courageously revealing the scars of her own parenting journey and search for self-acceptance in a world that doesn’t see the full worth of women like her. Interspersed with beautifully written personal narrative, readers will find cultural and historical analysis, and interviews with single mothers from all walks of life, telling it how it really is.
Walk & Talk Book Club
take a walk around Barth Pond in this book discussion in partnership with the Downers Grove Park District
The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans
Thursday, August 26
Sybil is seventy-three years old, in the winter of her life. Sybil has always made sense of the world through writing letters and through this epistolary novel we see how she comes to terms with her past and present and learns forgiveness.
Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan
Thursday, September 30
In the jubilant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, shares a single, life-altering moment with Margaret Salt, a woman determined to outrun her past. Cal is married to Becky, whose spiritual gifts help the living speak to the dead, while Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving at sea, believed to be safe—until a telegram suggests otherwise.
What begins as a fleeting transgression becomes a complex secret that irrevocably binds all four of them in unexpected ways. As their small Ohio town remakes itself in the postwar boom, the Salt and Jenkins families remain in each other’s orbit, and the consequences of choices made long ago begin to emerge, reshaping their lives in ways that will forever impact the next generation.
The Whistler
by Ann Patchett
Thursday, November 4
7 p.m.
When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.
Next Chapter Book Club
literacy program for adults (ages 18+) with intellectual and developmental disabilities
About the Next Chapter Book Club
- Get together to enjoy books, make friends, and have fun
- Books will be read together during the meeting
- All are welcome, regardless of the ability to read
- Books will be provided to all participants
- Meet twice a month online, via Zoom
Meetings are held on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 6:30 p.m.