Events Calendar / Book Discussion

Main Library Book Discussion: Bear: A Novel by Julia Philips thumbnail Photo

Main Library Book Discussion: Bear: A Novel by Julia Philips

The Main Library Book Discussion meets on the first Tuesday of each month. Books chosen are generally literary fiction or narrative nonfiction. Participants take turns leading the discussion. This discussion currently meets online via Zoom. Register here: https://bit.ly/fpl-adultbookdiscussion.

This month, we discuss Bear by Julia Philips, the celebrated bestselling author of Disappearing Earth. Bear is about two sisters on a Pacific Northwest island whose lives are upended by an unexpected visitor—a tale of family, obsession, and a mysterious creature in the woods.

Next discussion on April 1: Table for Two by Amor Towles

McAuliffe Book Discussion (Evening): This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin thumbnail Photo

McAuliffe Book Discussion (Evening): This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin

The McAuliffe Branch hosts two book discussion groups to discuss various fiction and nonfiction, as well as contemporary and classic literature. You can join us anytime to discuss one particular book or become a regular. Register here: https://bit.ly/mca-bookdiscussions

This month we discuss This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. 

  • Taking on prominent thinkers who argue that music is nothing more than an evolutionary accident, Levitin poses that music is fundamental to our species, perhaps even more so than language. Drawing on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen, he reveals:
    • How composers produce some of the most pleasurable effects of listening to music by exploiting the way our brains make sense of the world
    • Why we are so emotionally attached to the music we listened to as teenagers, whether it was Fleetwood Mac, U2, or Dr. Dre
    • That practice, rather than talent, is the driving force behind musical expertise
    • How those insidious little jingles (called earworms) get stuck in our head

Next discussion on April 8: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James Loewen

Sci-Fi Book Discussion: Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang thumbnail Photo

Sci-Fi Book Discussion: Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang

The Sci-Fi Book Discussion reads and discusses both classic and contemporary science fiction, covering subgenres such as speculative fiction, alternate history, and apocalyptic. This discussion meets the second Wednesday of the month, from 7-8 pm. This group is hybrid, meeting at the Main Library and streaming to Zoom. Register here: https://bit.ly/fpl-scifidiscussion

This month we discuss Land of Milk and Honey by C. Pam Zhang.

  • A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.

    There, the sky is clear again. Rare ingredients abound. Her enigmatic employer and his visionary daughter have built a lush new life for the global elite, one that reawakens the chef to the pleasures of taste, touch, and her own body.

    In this atmosphere of hidden wonders and cool, seductive violence, the chef’s boundaries undergo a thrilling erosion. Soon she is pushed to the center of a startling attempt to reshape the world far beyond the plate.

    Sensuous and surprising, joyous and bitingly sharp, told in language as alluring as it is original, Land of Milk and Honey lays provocatively bare the ethics of seeking pleasure in a dying world. It is a daringly imaginative exploration of desire and deception, privilege and faith, and the roles we play to survive. Most of all, it is a love letter to food, to wild delight, and to the transformative power of a woman embracing her own appetite.Next discussion on April 9: Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei

Queer Reads: A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske thumbnail Photo

Queer Reads: A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske

The Queer Reads Book Discussion celebrates queer authors, books, and themes. This discussion meets in person every third Tuesday of the month and alternates between the McAuliffe Branch Library and the Main Library. Register here: https://bit.ly/fpl-queerbookdiscussion

This month we discuss A Marvellous Light by Freya Marske.

  • Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.

    Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it―not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.

    Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles―and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.

 

Next discussion on April 15: Howl by Allen Ginsberg

McAuliffe Book Discussion (Morning): North Woods by Daniel Mason thumbnail Photo

McAuliffe Book Discussion (Morning): North Woods by Daniel Mason

The McAuliffe Branch hosts two book discussion groups to discuss various fiction and nonfiction, as well as contemporary and classic literature. You can join us anytime to discuss one particular book or become a regular. Register here: https://bit.ly/mca-bookdiscussions

North Woods by Daniel Mason:

  • When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave—only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

    This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?

 

Next discussion on April 17: The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex