Lunch & a Book

The library's lunchtime book discussion group started in September 1998. Books include works of fiction and nonfiction, classics and contemporary novels. We meet on the second Thursday of the month from Noon to 1:00 PM. The December meeting is used to share favorite titles and make suggestions for the coming year.

Eclectic Book Group (Lunch and a Book): December

The Eclectic Book Group (Lunch and a Book) will again be meeting in person on Thursday, December 9 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm in the Friends' Activity Room to get together for a Holiday Tea.

For those who prefer to meet via Zoom, you may opt to attend this book discussion virtually – it is up to you! The registration process is the same for in person and virtual attendance. Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a Zoom link to join the discussion. 

For those that plan on meeting in person, simply come to the library. We will meet in the Friends' Activity Room.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Eclectic Book Group (Lunch and a Book): November

The Eclectic Book Group (Lunch and a Book) will again be meeting in person on Thursday, November 18 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm in the Friends' Activity Room to discuss Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley.

For those who prefer to meet via Zoom, you may opt to attend this book discussion virtually – it is up to you! The registration process is the same for in person and virtual attendance. Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a Zoom link to join the discussion. 

For those that plan on meeting in person, simply come to the library. We will meet in the Friends' Activity Room.

Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe--many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, October 14, 2021

Lunch and a Book will again be meeting in person on Thursday, October 14, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the Friends Activity Room to discuss Circe by Madeline Miller. For those who prefer meeting via zoom, you can still opt to attend this meeting virtually – it is up to you! The registration process is the same for in person and virtual attendance.

Circe : a novel by Madeline Miller
Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook | large print

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child -- not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power -- the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources. For those that plan on meeting in person simply come to the library. We will meet in the Friends Activity Room.

Registration Required.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, September 9, 2021

Beginning in September, Lunch and a Book will again be meeting in person on Thursday, September 9, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. in the Friends Activity Room to discuss What the Eyes Don't See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City by Mona Hanna-Attisha. For those who prefer meeting via zoom, you can still opt to attend this meeting virtually – it is up to you! The registration process is the same for in person and virtual attendance.

Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook

From the heroic pediatrician who rallied a community and brought the fight for justice to national attention comes a powerful firsthand account of the Flint water crisis--a dramatic story of failed democracy and inspiring citizen advocacy and action. In the heart of the world's wealthiest nation, one hundred thousand people were poisoned by the water supply for two years--with the knowing complicity of their government. Written by the crusading pediatrician who helped turn the crisis into a transformative movement for change, What the Eyes Don't See is a devastating insider chronicle of the Flint water crisis, the signature environmental disaster of our time, and a riveting narrative of personal advocacy. Here is the dramatic story of how Dr. Mona used science to prove Flint kids were exposed to lead, and how she courageously went public with her research and faced a brutal backlash. With persistence and single-minded sense of mission, she spoke truth to power. The book explores the horrific reality of how misguided austerity policies and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk. A medical and scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don't See grapples with our country's history of environmental injustice while telling the inspiring personal story of Dr. Mona--an immigrant, a doctor, and a scientist--whose family roots in social justice activism buoyed her through the fight for justice in Flint. It captures a timely and essential story of how communities can come together to fight for social justice, even in opposition to their own governments.

If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources. For those that plan on meeting in person simply come to the library. We will meet in the Friends Activity Room.

Registration Required.

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, August 12, 2021

Join us for a live virtual program on Thursday, August 12, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom video conference as Lunch and a Book discusses:

Also available in: e-book | audiobook | e-audiobook

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the National Forest campgrounds of California to Amazon's CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older Americans. Finding that social security comes up short, often underwater on mortgages, these invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in late-model RVs, travel trailers, and vans, forming a growing community of nomads: migrant laborers who call themselves "workampers." In a secondhand vehicle she christens "Van Halen," Jessica Bruder hits the road to get to know her subjects more intimately. Accompanying her irrepressible protagonist, Linda May, and others, from campground toilet cleaning to warehouse product scanning to desert reunions, then moving on to the dangerous work of beet harvesting, Bruder tells a compelling, eye-opening tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy--one that foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, she celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these quintessential Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive. Like Linda May, who dreams of finding land on which to build her own sustainable "Earthship" home, they have not given up hope.

These books are immediately available on Hoopla in e-books format. If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources.

Registration Required

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, July 8, 2021

Join us for a live virtual program on Thursday, July 8, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom video conference as Lunch and a Book discusses:

Also available in: e-book

A young interfaith chaplain is joined on her hospital rounds one night by an unusual companion: a rough-and-tumble dog who may or may not be a ghost. As she tends to the souls of her patients-young and old, living last moments or navigating fundamentally altered lives-their stories provide unexpected healing for her own heartbreak. Balancing wonder and mystery with pragmatism and humor, Ellen Cooney (A Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances) returns to Coffee House Press with a generous, intelligent novel that grants the most challenging moments of the human experience a shimmer of light and magical possibility.

These books are immediately available on Hoopla in e-books format. If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources.

Registration Required

 

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, June 10, 2021

Join us for a live virtual program on Thursday, June 10, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom video conference as Lunch and a Book discusses:

Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook

A literature professor tries to rediscover who she is after the sudden death of her husband, even as a series of family and political jolts force her to ask what we owe those in crisis in our families, biological or otherwise.

These books are immediately available on Hoopla in e-books format. If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources.

Registration Required

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, May 13, 2021

Join us for a live virtual program on Thursday, May 13, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom video conference as Lunch and a Book discusses:

Also available in: e-book

From beloved, award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction-a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted-no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape-she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance. "What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts. Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.

These books are immediately available on Hoopla in e-books format. If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources.

Registration Required

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Lunch and a Book, Thursday, April 8, 2021

Join us for a live virtual program on Thursday, April 8, 2021 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. via Zoom video conference as Lunch and a Book discusses:

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Kawaguchi, Toshikazu, 1971- author
Also available in: e-book | e-audiobook

 

If you could go back, who would you want to meet? In a small back alley of Tokyo, there is a café that has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers something else besides coffee-the chance to travel back in time. Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of making that journey. But time travel isn't so simple, and there are rules that must be followed. Most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold. Heartwarming, wistful, mysterious and delightfully quirky, Toshikazu Kawaguchi's internationally bestselling novel explores the age-old question: What would you change if you could travel back in time?

These books are immediately available on Hoopla in e-books format. If you would like to reserve a print copy, you may stop in to pick one up or call 734-397-0999 and select option 4. Curbside pick up of materials is also available. 

Registered participants will receive an email one day before the program with a link to the discussion. To help make the most of your virtual program experience, we have compiled some tips and resources.

Registration Required

Upcoming sessions

There are no upcoming sessions available.

Reader Wearing a Medical Mask - Photo by Mat Reding on Unsplash

 

 

 

During this pandemic year, some of our book club members found that they had extra time to do extra reading, while others found themselves suffering from a lack of focus. Some discovered new formats and found books to help them on new journeys, while others turned to old favorites. Regardless of the reading challenges of 2020, here are the recommendations from the Lunch and a Book Club of some of the best books they read this year.

 

 

Masked Reader - Photo by Mat Reding on Unsplash

Fiction

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