Book discussions are held at the Library on Thursday evenings 7-9pm. Books are available one month prior to the discussion. You may pick up books at the previous meeting, or you may get them at the Main Desk anytime the Library is open. Please bring your library card to the meeting to check books out. In the case of cancellation for bad weather or any other reason, the meeting will be rescheduled as time and space permit. Cancellation information is posted on the Library’s website. Additional Book Discussion information is available on our website at All books announced in this flyer are tentative, based on availability of multiple copies. To confirm dates, book selections, or for more information call the Library at 978-686-4080 ext. 10.
September 7 – Summer Reading Round-Up!
Join us for our annual book-review-fest of all the books we read this summer that we loved and hated! Come prepared to talk about at least one or two books you read this summer, and armed with a pencil to jot down suggestions from group members.
Fall Series: It Takes A Village…
Sometimes it does take people other than biological or adoptive parents to help raise a child, or boost a teen through those difficult years. Here are five novels which illuminate the idea of unconventional families and adults who are helping kids that may not be their own.
October 5 – The Burgess BoysbyElizabeth Strout
Two brothers are called home to Maine to help a sister with a troubled teenage son. As they return to the landscape of their childhood, the long-buried tensions that have shaped and shadowed their relationship begin to surface in unexpected ways that will change them forever.
Show Less
November 2 – Heft by Liz Moore
Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn’t left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life in a rich school, as the poor kid with a difficult home life. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur’s. Profound change is about to take place.
December 7– All I Love and Know by Judith Frank
Daniel and Matt have a good life together in Northampton, MA. A family tragedy that leaves them the guardians of two young children is the catalyst in this story about the meaning of love and family.
January 4 –Plainsongby Kent Haruf
In a small Colorado town, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone…a pregnant teenage girl has nowhere to go…and out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they've ever known. From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together.
February1 – Glitter & Glue by Kelly Corrigan
After college Kelly Corrigan took off for Australia to see things and do things and Become Interesting. But it didn’t turn out the way she planned…eventually her choice was clear -- get a job or go home. So Kelly took a job as a live-in nanny for two motherless children. Suddenlyher own mother’s voice was everywhere, nudging and advising, cautioning and directing, escorting her through a terrain as foreign as any she had ever trekked.
Spring Series: The World Down Under
Australia is a fascinating, mysterious, yet familiar country. As an English-speaking, developed nation in the British Commonwealth it is a sister nation to ours. However its vastly different history, landscape, wildlife and attitudes make it a very alien country that draws our interest and deserves our attention.
March1 – The Secret River by Kate Grenville
In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman steals a load of wood and is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. This sweeping historical novel is thestory of his deep love for the small, exotic corner of his new world, and his gradual realization that if he wants to make a home for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him.
April 5 – The Road From Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
In a classic memoir Jill Ker Conway tells the story of her astonishing journey into adulthood—a journey that would ultimately span immense distances and encompass worlds, ideas, and ways of life that seem a century apart. This is her story of growing up at Coorain, her parents' thirty thousand windswept acres in the Australian outback, moving to Sydney to go to school, and finally making a life-altering move to America.
May 3– A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute’s most beloved novel, a tale of love and war, follows its enterprising heroine from the Malayan jungle during World War II to the rugged Australian outback. A modern classic.
June7 – In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
Here is Bill Bryson’s report on what he found in Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiosity.
Nevins Memorial Library 305 Broadway Methuen, MA 01844 978-686-4080