The Evening Book Group meets the first Monday of each month (with some exceptions) at 7 p.m., October through June in person and via Zoom. Titles are chosen every three months by consensus of the group. Contact Brittany Tuttle (btuttle@minlib.net) for more details. And watch this space for upcoming titles!
Meeting dates are in bold italics.
November 2 at 7 p.m.
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623.
As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle’s court, accompanied by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually, love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they encounter a variety of memorable characters, notably the melancholy traveler Jaques, who speaks one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches (“All the world’s a stage”) and provides a sharp contrast to the other characters in the play, always observing and disputing the hardships of life in the country.
More information about this book.
December 7 at 7 p.m.
A hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America, about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.
After a heated 2016 Thanksgiving political argument where retired journalist Rhys Kinnick punches his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law (Shane), Rhys throws his smartphone out the car window and retreats to an isolated family cabin in the Pacific Northwest for seven years. When his missing daughter’s children are left behind and then kidnapped by Shane’s right-wing religious cult (the “Army of the Lord”) at an Idaho compound called Rampart, Rhys is forced out of his off-grid life. Rhys embarks on a chaotic, witty road trip across a fractured America alongside a caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and a frustrated friend.
More information about this book.
January 4 at 7 p.m.
Do you dread the end of Daylight Saving Time and grouch about the long, chilly season of gray skies and ice? Do you find yourself in a slump every January and February? What if there were a way to rethink this time of year? Psychologist and winter expert Kari Leibowitz’s galvanizing HOW TO WINTER uses mindset science to help readers embrace winter as a season to be enjoyed, not endured—and in turn, learn powerful lessons that can impact our mental wellbeing throughout the year.
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February 1 at 7 p.m.
An electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits.
Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He’s a loner, awkward and obsessive; she’s charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream – as we all dream – of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away? Most of us begin and end with the daydream. But in June 1972, Maurice and Maralyn set sail. For nearly a year all went well, until deep in the Pacific, a breaching whale knocked a hole in their boat and it sank beneath the waves. What ensues is a jaw-dropping fight to survive in the wild ocean, with little hope of rescue. Alone together for months in a tiny rubber raft, starving and exhausted, Maurice and Maralyn have to find not only ways to stay alive but ways to get along, as their inner demons emerge and their marriage is put to the greatest of tests. Although they could run away from the world, they can’t run away from themselves.
More information about this book.
March 1 at 7 p.m.
Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.
Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.
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April 5 at 7 p.m.
A novel set in the rural Irish village of Ardnakelty in the west of Ireland. Cal Hooper is a 48-year-old divorced former Chicago police officer with 25 years on the force. Seeking peace, quiet, and a fresh start after leaving his career and marriage behind, Cal buys and begins fixing up a dilapidated cottage. His quiet routine is disrupted when a local 13-year-old local kid named Trey Reddy asks for his help to find her missing older brother, Brendan. Operating without a badge or local trust, Cal investigates the disappearance and uncovers dark community secrets.
More information about this book.
May 3 at 7 p.m.
Title TBD
June 7 at 7 p.m.
An aspiring archivist determined to begin a “serious” life after an undistinguished undergraduate career takes up residence in the Italian countryside. Here, he becomes the all-purpose assistant to the Baronessa, known to her friends as Coco, a defiantly youthful and naturally flamboyant woman of ninety-two. Amid a chaotic and colorful milieu of gin-swilling princesses, incomprehensible handymen, roaming boarhunters, nuns, and other local wildlife, our young man does his best to catalog the villa’s extensive collection of art and antiques—although he notices that things seem to go missing from right under his nose. Despite himself, he tumbles into an affair with a married man, complicating his future plans considerably. And when the Baronessa loses someone close to her, he becomes an unwitting accomplice in the acceleration of Coco’s great and final plan: to locate the love of her life and be reunited before it’s too late.
More information about this book.