We are currently offering 2 book club discussions through the library. The Monday morning book discussion group meets the 2nd Monday of the month at 10am at the library. The virtual book club meets the last Tuesday of the month via Zoom at 4pm.
please Register here or email Monique Gerken if you are interested in joining.
In-Person Book Club
The book club meets in person at the East Granby Public Library, conference room, at 10am. Meeting, October 11th (TUESDAY), 2022 The Curse by Robert H. Steele During the 1990s, two Connecticut Indian tribes built the world’s two biggest casinos in the southeastern corner of the state, resulting in what has been called a “gambling Chernobyl.” The Curse is a novel set against those events. It begins in 1637 with the massacre of the Pequot Indians and a curse delivered by a Pequot sachem to the young English soldier who is about to kill him. The story then jumps 350 years as the soldier’s thirteenth-generation descendant, Josh Williams, becomes embroiled in a battle to stop a new-minted Indian tribe from building a third casino that threatens his town and ancestral home. The lure of easy money drives everyone from the tribe’s chief to a shadowy Miami billionaire, venal politicians, and Providence mobsters, while a small, quintessential New England town must choose between preserving its character or accepting an extraordinary proposal that will change it forever. As the battle over the casino reaches a climax, Josh discovers startling truths about his family’s past – including centuries-old events that appear to be impacting the present with devastating effect. Connecticut author Martin Shapiro (Scroll of Naska) has described the book as “compelling and timely – an epic story of politics, identity and greed that will make you wonder where America is headed.” Robert H. Steele is vice chairman of an international retail marketing agency and has been a director of numerous companies. A graduate of Amherst College and Columbia University, he served in the CIA and Congress, and was a candidate for governor of Connecticut. He lives with his wife in Essex, Connecticut. |
Virtual Book Club
The virtual book club meets via Zoom the last Tuesday of the month at 4pm. Meeting, September 27th ANY BOOK BY ANN LEARY Ann Leary will be joining us for an author talk on October 3rd. Pick any book this month written by Ann and we will discuss! Titles: The Foundling The Good House Outtakes from a Marriage The Children |
In-Person Book Club
The book club meets in person at the East Granby Public Library, conference room, the second Monday of the month at 10am. Meeting, November 14th, 2022 The Forest of Vanishing Stars by Kristen Harmel After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest—and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything. |
Virtual Book Club
The virtual book club meets via Zoom the last Tuesday of the month at 4pm. Meeting, October 25th The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry Book by Gabrielle Zevin SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A New York Times Bestseller A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew. |
In-Person Book Club
The book club meets in person at the East Granby Public Library, conference room, the second Monday of the month at 10am. Meeting, December 12th, 2022 Embers by Sandor Marai Originally published in 1942 and now rediscovered to international acclaim, this taut and exquisitely structured novel by the Hungarian master Sandor Marai conjures the melancholy glamour of a decaying empire and the disillusioned wisdom of its last heirs. In a secluded woodland castle an old General prepares to receive a rare visitor, a man who was once his closest friend but who he has not seen in forty-one years. Over the ensuing hours host and guest will fight a duel of words and silences, accusations and evasions. They will exhume the memory of their friendship and that of the General’s beautiful, long-dead wife. And they will return to the time the three of them last sat together following a hunt in the nearby forest--a hunt in which no game was taken but during which something was lost forever. Embers is a classic of modern European literature, a work whose poignant evocation of the past also seems like a prophetic glimpse into the moral abyss of the present. |
Virtual Book Club
The virtual book club meets via Zoom the last Tuesday of the month at 4pm. Meeting, November 29th We Are Not Free by Traci Chee From New York Times best-selling and acclaimed author Traci Chee comes We Are Not Free, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II. Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart. |
