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