Book Discussions

The mystery book group meets on the first Thursday of every month to discuss books, series, characters and more. All are welcome. Reserve your book online or at the circulation desk.

Reserve your book at the circulation desk or online. All welcome, no sign up necessary, free! The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers. Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you. - from the publisher, Simon and Schuster

Join us on the third Thursday of every month in the magazine area of the library. Open to all. This month's title, "Brothers"  is by local author George Howe Colt who will visit Tilton on February 23rd. Books are available online or at the adult circulation desk. Free and open to the public.

We'll discuss a second mystery titled "Open Season", this one by C. J. Box. As with the last "Open Season" this one is also a debut novel. The group is open to anyone and is free, no sign up necessary.

"Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?: a Memoir by Roz Chast is this month's title for discussion. From Booklist New Yorker cartoonist and prolific author Chast (What I Hate from A to Z, 2011) writes a bravely honest memoir of watching her parents decline, become too frail to stay in the Brooklyn apartment they called home for five decades, suffer dementia and physical depletion, and die in their nineties in a hospice-care facility. Unlike many recent parent-focused cartoon memoirs, such as Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? (2012) and Nicole J. George’s Calling Dr. Laura (2012), in which the story is as much about the cartoonist’s current work and family life as it is about his or her parents, Chast keeps her narrative tightly focused on her mother and father and her own problematic—though not uncommon—guilt-provoking relationships with them. Chast’s hallmark quirky sketches are complemented by annotated photos from her own and her parents’ childhoods. Occasionally, her hand-printed text will take up more than a full page, but it’s neatly wound into accompanying panels or episodes. An unflinching look at the struggles facing adult children of aging parents. --Francisca Goldsmith

This is our third and final (we hope) mystery titled "Open Season". Join us on the first Thursday of the month for lively discussion and pizza (while it lasts). "Originally entitled The Stalking Horse (a title that was used on another book published just a month before this was set to appear,) Open Season concerns a mysterious man in a ski mask, who forces the police to reopen an old murder case by compromising all the members of the old jury. Joe, soon realizing that his department is being used as a stalking horse to flush out the real murderer, must discover who that person is, before the man in the ski mask gets to him first." (from the author's website). Reserve your copy of Archer Mayor's debut online or at the circulation desk.

This month's title is our first from science fiction -  a tale of survival against enormous odds. Find out what the hype is all about, reserve your copy online or at the circ desk and join us at the library at 6:30. Special guest, James Cambias, author of "A Darkling Sea" will help lead the discussion.

Mystery and suspense readers are invited to the library on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 for a lively discussion of the book and other of life's mysteries. This month's title, The Bootlegger's Daughter, by Margaret Maron is the first in the Deborah Knott mystery series which won all four major mystery awards: the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar and Macavity. From Kirkus: "A keen view of families, southern-discomfort style, with an edge and a wryness that surpass anything Edgar-winner Julie Smith ever dreamed up. Deb, her wily old dad, Detective Dwight are all nicely rendered, and the homosexuals here are, praise be, used well rather than exploited. A fine start to a promising new series." Borrow your copy at the adult circulation desk or order online.