What are book groups?

Book Discussion Groups are informal gatherings. Members take turns choosing a book for all to read, and then discuss. One book per month seems to work well, but any new group could set their own schedule. The book groups sometimes order their selections through the library or through independent sources with members paying for their own copies. Presently there are three active discussion groups:

The Red Tent Group chose their name after being unanimously delighted by Anita Diamont’s book of that title. This group has about twelve members, and has bonded so successfully that it meets away from the library at times, and has its own social life. They meet the third Tuesday of each month at the library or at a member's home at 7:00 p.m.

Book Group Too! is our latest book group. They are a smaller group that also read modern literature. They meet the third Monday of each month at the library or at a member's home at 7:00 p.m.

The Classics Group choose a "classic" title to read and discuss each month. Presently there are six members, and they would welcome more at any time. They meet the first Monday of each month at the library or at a member's home at 7:00 p.m.

Scroll down to view current, upcoming & past books which have been read, enjoyed and discussed by each of our book groups. When there are less than 12 books listed in a year it simply means the book group took a break for a period of time.

Red Tent Group

2012 Red Tent Book List

• January - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• February - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
• March - The Linen Queen by Patricia Falvey
• April - The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
• May - Prayers For Sale by Sandra Dallas
• June - Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Books read by Red Tent since its beginning:

2011

• The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
• Apologize, Apologize by Elizabeth Kelly
• The Secret Scripture: A Novel by Sebastian Barry
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Med Head by James Patterson & Hal Friedman
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
• The Yellow House by Patricia Falvey
• The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball
• The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
• The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
• Pictures of You by Caroline Leavitt
• Room by Emma Donoghue

2010

• Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
• The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell
• Hats & Eyeglasses: A Memoir by Martha Frankel
• The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
• Cold Rock River: A Novel by J. L. Miles
• Looking For Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gilmore
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
• The Language of Sand by Ellen Block
• The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
• Book of Bright Idea's by Sandra King

2009

• The Shack by William Young
• Wild Swans by Jong Chang
• Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall
• One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
• Nights of Rodanthe by Nicholas Sparks
• The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
• The People of the Book by Geraldine Brookes
• Molokai by Alan Brennert
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova

2008

• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• Cage of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• Two Women of Galilee by Mary Rourke
• Night by Elie Wiesel
• March by Geraldine Brooks
• PS, I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Those Who Saved Us by Jenna Blum
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• Whistling In the Dark by Lesley Kagen
• The Long Walk Home by Will North

2007

• Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach
• Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
• The Summer Guest by Justin Cronin
• What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandel by Zoe Heller
• At First Sight by Nicolas Sparks
• The Same Sweet Girls by Cassandra King
• Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks
• Lily's Ghost by Cheryl Drake Harris
• All Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India by Rachel Manija Brown
• The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan
• The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King
• Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards

2006

• A Shred of Evidence by Kathy Herman
• Bitter Brew:Faith, Power, and Poisin in a Small New England Town, by Christine Ellen Young
• Eva's Cousin by Sibylle Knauss
• Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
• Gods Other Son by Don Imus
• Jimmy by Robert Whitlaw
• She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
• Snow Flower and Secret Fan by Lisa See
• The 10th Circle by Jodi Picoult
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon
• The Mermaid Chair by Sue Kidd
• Two Old Women by Velma Wallis

2005

• A Changed Man by Francine Prose
• Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona by Ryan Harty
• Chocolat: A Novel by Joanne Harris
• Comfort Me With Apples by Ruth Reichl
• Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• I Have Lived a Thousands Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
• Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir... by Azar Nafisi
• She Flew the Coop ... by Michael Lee West
• The Accidental Pope by Raymond Flynn & Robin Moore
• The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

2004

• A Can of Peas by Traci DePree
• Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett
• City of God by E L Doctorow
• Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
• Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia
• Into the Forest by Jean Heglund
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• My Dog Skip by Willie Morris
• My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• The #1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
• White Dawn by Jack Houston

2003

• A Morbid Taste for Bones by Elis Peters
• Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik
• Carry Me Across The Water by Ethan Canin
• Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
• Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan
• My Only Story by Monica Wood
• Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
• Strong for Potatoes by Cynthia Thayer
• Sula by Toni Morrison
• The Holy Man by Susan Trott

2002

• A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• Cherry by Mary Karr
• Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
• Elvis, Jesus & Coca-Cola by Kinky Friedman
• Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Peace Like A River by Leif Enger
• The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer by Ellen Rimbauer
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall

2001

• Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
• On the Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark
• Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
• Pope Joan by Donna Woodfolk Cross
• The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Magic Ship by Sandra Paretti
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• The Rosewood Casket by Sharyn McCrumb
• The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell
• Waterlily by Ella Cara Deloria
• When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

2000

• A Short History of A Small Place by T. R. Pearson
• Dinner At the Homesick Restaurant by Ann Tyler
• The Summer Before the Dark by Doris Lessing

Book Group Too!

2012 Book Group Too! Book List

• My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese
• Atonement by Ian McEwin
• Day After Night by Anita Diamant
• I’ll Scream Later by Marlee Matlin
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett
• Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Underminding America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Books read by Book Group Too!
since its beginning:

2011

• Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution (Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters) by Wally Lamb
• Sima's Undergarments for Women: A Novel by Ilana Stanger-Ross
• Of Bees & Mist by Erick Setiawan
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
• This House: True Story Girl and Ghost by Amelia Cotter
• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
• Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
• Mistess of the Vatican: The True Story of Olimpia Maidalchini - The Secret Female Pope by Eleanor Herman

2010

• Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
• Ghost Girl by Torey Hayden
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister: A Novel by Gregory Maguire
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
• The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer
• Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
• The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel by Kathleen Kent
• The Lace Reader: A Novel by Brunonia Barry
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Change of Heart: A Novel by Jodi Picoult
• The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie: A Flavia de Luce Mystery by Alan Bradley
• The Wednesday Letters by Jason F. Wright

2009

• The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
• The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less by Terry Ryan
• Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan
• The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs
• The Shack by William P. Young
• Accordion Crimes by Annie Proulx
• The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
• Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian
• Chosen by a Horse by Susan Richards
• Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen
• The Choice by Nicolas Sparks
• The Christmas Jar by Jason Wright

2008

• The White by Deborah Larsen
• Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
• Peony in Love: A Novel by Lisa See
• Santa Cruise: A Holiday Mystery at Sea by Mary Higgins Clark

Classics Group

2012 Classics Group Book List

• January - taking the month off
• February - Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• March - The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• April - Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• June - Othello by William Shakespeare

Books read by the Classics Book Group
since its beginning:

2011

• Jane Erye by Charlotte Bronte
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
• Mutiny on the Bounty Trilogy by Charles Nordhoff, James Norman Hall
• Mary Peters by Mary Ellen Chase
• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
• Mary Peters by Mary Ellen Chase
• Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Hound of Baskervilles (Sherlock Holmes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2010

• Walden Two by B. F. Skinner
• Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
• Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
• Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

2009

• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Frankestein by Mary Shelly
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• Roughing It by Mark Twain
• Silas Marner by George Eliot

2008

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare
• Shosha by Isaac Bashevis Singer
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
• Washington Square by Henry Jones
• The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
• Arundel by Kenneth Roberts
• A Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• King Lear by William Shakespeare
• Siddhartha by Herman Hess
• The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

2007

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights by A.S. Byatt (Introduction)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• (the group took a short break from July through October this year)
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

2006

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Candide by Voltaire
• Invisible Man by H G Wells
• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
• Merchant of Venice by William Shakespear
• Mystery of Marie Roget and the Oblong Box by Edgar Allen Poe
• Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
• Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
• Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
• The Best Short Stories - The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

2005

• Charlotte Temple by Susanna Rowson
• House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• The American by Henry James
• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• Villette by Charlotte Bronte
• Waldon by Henry David Thoreau
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

2004

• A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulker
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevski
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Galileo by Bertolt Brecht
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee
• Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Marquez
• The Pearl by John Steinbeck
• The Phantom of the Opera: The Original Novel by Gaston Leroux

2003

• Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder
• Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
• Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
• Lysistrata by Aristophanes
• Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennet
• Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyon
• Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

2002

• Theban Plays by Sophocles
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
• Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
• Iliad by Homer
• Madam Bovery by Gustauve Flaubert
• Native Son by Richard Write
• Odyssey by Homer
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe