Book Club

NEW MEETING OPTIONS

Choose a daytime meeting at 1 pm or a nighttime meeting at 7 pm on the first Thursday of each month. Both meetings are held at the library but a virtual option will be offered at the 7pm meeting via Zoom. Please contact the library at 991-1660 or mtlaurel@shelbycounty-al.org for more information or to get on the book club mailing list. Check the calendar here for additional information.

READING THE BOOK
The primary purpose of the book club is to have an exchange of ideas, which means you need to attempt to read the book. So, please give the book a try and read as much of it as possible. If you aren’t able to  finish the entire book, you will still be able to participate and be a welcome addition to the group based on how much you read. Hopefully, at the end of the discussion you will be able to answer the question: “Did what you hear make you want to finish the book?” 

REQUESTING THE BOOK:
The library will do its best to supply books to all members of the book club through print copies, ebook downloads, and audiobooks. Due to the increasing number of the group and popularity of certain books, we may not always have enough books available in the system at one time. It is strongly encouraged that you read ahead or plan to get the book independently of the library if none are available. 

BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS

Current Book Club Brochure

Upcoming Mt Laurel book club books are listed below. Click the title to place holds via the library catalog. Ebook and eAudiobook availability through Libby and Hoopla is indicated after each title.

January: Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)

February: The Secret Book of Flora Lea by Patti Callahan Henry | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)

March: Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library) | available through hoopla

April: The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post by Allison Pataki | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)

May: The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library) | available through hoopla

June: The Kitchen Front by Jennifer Ryan | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)

Previous Selections

Click on the title for more information

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

Elephant Company by Vicki Croke

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain  

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

In Manchuria by Michael Meyer 

Keeping the Faith by Wayne Flynt 

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel   

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

Great House by Nicole Krauss

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende  

The Crossing by Howard Fast

My Life in France by Julia Child

Strapless by Deborah Davis

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

El Paso by Winston Groom 

Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah 

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan  

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo

Educated by Tara Westover

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict

The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See 

The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl

The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

Stars of Alabama by Sean Dietrich

Three Sisters by Heather Morris

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

The Wright Brothers by David McCullough

Cold Winter Rain by Steven P. Gregory

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri 

Audubon’s Elephant by Duff Hart-Davis

The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro

Defending Jacob by William Landay

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah 

The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey 

The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate

The Bettencourt Affair by Tom Sancton

The Moviegoer by Walker Percy 

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens 

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell

Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Educated by Tara Westover

When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor

The Address by Fiona Davis

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan

When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie  

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

The Overstory by Richard Powers

The Children’s Blizzard: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin

The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict

The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table by Rick Bragg

Solito by Javier Zamora

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine 

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

The Husband’s Secret by Laine Moriarty

The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Padgett

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini 

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown 

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Love, Life and Elephants by Daphne Sheldrick

The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg 

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

Love by the Glass by Dorothy Gaiter & John Brecher

The Good Neighbor: The Life & Works of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson

If the Creek Don’t Rise by Leah Weiss

The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan Henry

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy

The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes

The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak

A Girl Stands at the Door by Rachel Devlin

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

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