Book Discussions
Discuss books with fellow lit lovers in the community! We meet the second Thursday of every month at 1:30pm at the Argenta Library. The library can place a hold on the monthly selections for you if you wish. We also try to keep a few spare copies at the circulation desk.
We’re always open to new members – join at any time! Contact us if you’d like more information.
November Selection
The Woman in Cabin 10
by Ruth Ware
Discussion: Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 1:30pm
at the Argenta Library
Description:
Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
December Selection
Oil and Marble
by Stephanie Storey
Discussion: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 1:30pm
at the Argenta Library
Description:
From 1501-1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was a charming, handsome fifty year-old at the peak of his career. Michelangelo was a temperamental sculptor in his mid-twenties, desperate to make a name for himself. Michelangelo is a virtual unknown when he returns to Florence and wins the commission to carve what will become one of the most famous sculptures of all time: David. Even though his impoverished family shuns him for being an artist, he is desperate to support them. Living at the foot of his misshapen block of marble, Michelangelo struggles until the stone finally begins to speak. Working against an impossible deadline, he begins his feverish carving. Meanwhile, Leonardo’ life is falling apart: he loses the hoped-for David commission; he can’t seem to finish any project; he is obsessed with his ungainly flying machine; he almost dies in war; his engineering designs disastrously fail; and he is haunted by a woman he has seen in the market–a merchant’s wife, whom he is finally commissioned to paint. Her name is Lisa, and she becomes his muse. Leonardo despises Michelangelo for his youth and lack of sophistication. Michelangelo both loathes and worships Leonardo’s genius.
January Selection
All the Winters After
by Sere Prince Halverson
Discussion: Thursday, December 11, 2018 at 1:30pm
at the Argenta Library
Description:
Kachemak Winkel’s mother used to tell him that Alaska doesn’t forgive mistakes. A lot of mistakes where made the day she died in a plane crash with Kache’s father and brother– and Kache still feels responsible. He fled Alaska for good, but now his aunt Snag insists on his return. Returning to his family’s cabin in the woods, he finds smoke rising from the chimney and a mysterious Russian woman hiding from her own troubled past. Nadia has stayed there, afraid and utterly isolated, for ten years. Together, can they find forgiveness?
Past discussion selections:
October 2017: Plainsong by Kent Haruf — Our Rating: 4.1
September 2017: What She Left Behind by Ellen Marie Wiseman — Our Rating: 2.5
August 2017: Maine by Ellen Marie Wiseman — Our Rating: 3.6
July 2017: Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger — Our Rating: 4.2
June 2017: The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee — Our Rating: 4.0
May 2017: The Lake House by Kate Morton — Our Rating: 3.4
April 2017: The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian — Our Rating: 4.6
March 2017: The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom — Our Rating: 2.3
February 2017: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah — Our Rating: 4.9
January 2017: The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens — Our Rating: 4.6
December 2016: The Christmas Train by David Baldacci — Our Rating: 3.6
November 2016: Cattle Kate by Jana Bommersbach — Our Rating: 4.0
October 2016: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan — Our Rating: 4.1
September 2016: Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates — Our Rating: 1.7
August 2016: Faithful Place by Tana French — Our Rating: 3.75
July 2016: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett — Our Rating: 3.5
June 2016: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain — Our Rating: 3.8
May 2016: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell — Our Rating: 1.7
April 2016: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt — Our Rating: 4.0
March 2016: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho — Our Rating: 2.4
February 2016: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman — Our Rating: 4.6
January 2016: The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
December 2015: Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas by Stephanie Barron
November 2015: The Loop by Nicholas Evans
October 2015: Whistling Through the Graveyard by Susan Crandall
September 2015: The Martian by Andy Weir
August 2015: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
July 2015: Ella Minnow Pea: a novel in letters by Mark Dunn
June 2015: The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man by W. Bruce Cameron
May 2015: The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin
April 2015: The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
March 2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
February 2015: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
January 2015: Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
December 2014: A Christmas Blizzard by Garrison Keillor
November 2014: The Collector of Lost Things by Jeremy Page
October 2014: Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
September 2014: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
August 2014: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
July 2014: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
June 2014: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
May 2014: And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
April 2014: Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes
March 2014: The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman
February 2014: Widow of the South by Robert Hicks
January 2014: A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy
December 2013: Full of Grace by Dorothea Benton Frank
November 2013: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Interested in participating? Let us know!
We’ll keep you informed of future discussions and even place a hold on the book for you.
Each month the Book Discussion Group rates the book that we have read on a scale from 1-5.