Adult Book Clubs

The Holmes Library offers two book discussion groups for adult readers, an evening group and an afternoon group. Please feel free to try either group!

Copies of the books are available at the Circulation Desk, or can be reserved through our iBistro catalog. For more information or to sign up, contact Jean for the evening group and Susan for the afternoon group.

Traditional Evening Group

     Books we have read

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Afternoon Readers

      Books we have read

      visit our blog!

Evening Group

Afternoon Readers

Evening Book Club

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

by Katherine Boo

Tuesday, May 21

Discussion at 6:30

While the distance between rich and poor is growing in the U.S., the gap between the haves and have-nots in India is staggering to behold.
This first book by a New Yorker staff writer (and Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for the Washington Post) jolts the reader’s consciousness with the opposing realities of poverty and wealth in a searing visit to the Annawaldi settlement, a flimflam slum that has recently sprung up in the western suburbs of the gigantic city of Mumbai, perched tentatively along the modern highway leading to the airport and almost within a stone’s throw of new, luxurious hotels. We first meet Abdul, whose daily grind is to collect trash and sell it; in doing so, he has “lifted his large family above subsistence.”

Boo takes us all around the community, introducing us to a slew of disadvantaged individuals who, nevertheless, draw on their inner strength to not only face the dreary day but also ponder a day to come that will, perhaps, be a little brighter. Sympathetic yet objective and eloquently rendered.
~Brad Hooper for Booklist

Books We Have Read

April	The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
March	Sutton by J.R. Moehringer
February	The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
January	Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie
December	Double Shot by Diane Shot Davidson
November	Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
October	This Time Together by Carol Burnett
September	Sex on the Moon by Ben Mezrich
August	Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gilmore
July	Chocolat by Joanne Harris
June	No One You Know by Michelle Richmond
May	Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
April	Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
March	An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
January '12	Garden of Lies by Eileen Goudge
December	The Necklace by Cheryl Jarvis
November	A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
October	Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo
September	Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter
August	Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
July	A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
June	Hank & Chloe by Jo-Ann Mapson
May	Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas
April	The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
March	The Sweet By and By by Todd Johnson
February	Merlot Murders by Ellen Crosby
January '11	A Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams
November	Family Acts by Louise Shaffer
October	The Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
September	The Girls by Lori Lansens
August	The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
July	Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan
June	The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
May	The Penny by Joyce Meyer and Deborah Bedford
April	The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Allen Bradley
March	Sudden Sea by R. A. Scotti
February	Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
January '10	The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser	~
December	In a Gilded Cage by Rhys Bowen
November	Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron (author visit)
October	The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
September	The Widow's War by Sally Gunning
August	The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig
June	First Light by Philip R. Craig and William Tapply	~
May	Black Mass by Dick Lehr
April	Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland
March	Limitations by Scott Turow
February	Harriet and Isabella by Patricia O'Brien
January	How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed
December	The Childrens Blizzard by David Laskin	~
November	Deafening by Frances Itani
October	Blessings by Anna Quindlen
September	North River by Pete Hamill
	Death in Belmont by Sebastion Junger
	Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Afternoon Readers' Book Club

For more information or to sign up, please contact Susan at (781)293-2271 or by email. This month's selection...

Fresh Disasters

by Stuart Woods

Tuesday, June 11

1:00 p.m.

Smooth-talking New York lawyer Stone Barrington gets dragged into an impossible case in Stone's entertaining 13th outing. Stone's bosses at the high-class law firm of Woodman and Weld want him to sue major league Mafia don Carmine Dattila for beating up a character from earlier Stone adventures, the hapless Herbie Fisher.

It's all pretty much good fun until the tale turns darker with the introduction of a psychotic sculptor, Devlin Daltry, who's the ex-boyfriend of Stone's current flame. Woods delivers few surprises, but there are plenty of laughs as the pages speed by. Series regulars and newcomers alike will be perfectly satisfied.

Books We Have Read

May	The Columbus Affair by Steve Berry
April	The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
March	March by Geraldine Brooks
February	The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey
January '13	Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie
December	Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff
November	State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
October	Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
September	Honeymoon with my Brother by Franz Wisner
August	Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
July	Chocolat by Joanne Harris
June	Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison
May	The Maytrees by Annie Dillard
April	Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
March	The Murder of King Tut by James Patterson
February	Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich
January '12	Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
December	The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
November	Thanksgiving Night by Richard Bausch
October	The Dressmaker of Khair Khana
Sept.	Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
August	Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
July	The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
June	The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
May	The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
April	The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson
March	Burning Marguerite by Elizabeth Inness-Brown
February	I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn
January'11	A Perfect Crime by Peter Abrahams
Dec	Plum Pudding Murder by Joanne Fluke
Nov	High Plains Tango by Robert James Waller
Oct	Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Sept	The Secret by Beverly Lewis
August	Away With the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood
July	Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan
June	Atmospheric Disturbances by Rivka Galchen
May	Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood
May	Run by Ann Patchett
April	Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
March	Watchers of Time by Charles Todd
February	The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman
January	A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve
December	The Cat Who Came For Christmas by Cleveland Amory
November	Lily of the Valley by Suzanne Strempek Shea