Book Discussion Groups
The Book (Club)
Was Better
Copies of the book and movie are available at the Elmore Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Email Sierra at
circ@harriselmorelibrary.org
February 6, 2025
11:00 PM
Damschroder Meeting Room
Join us each month as we discuss books that were adapted into movies and TV shows!
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisticated hotel has stalled, and that such amenities as water and electricity are . . . infrequent. But what their new life lacks in luxury, they come to find, it’s plentiful in adventure, stunning beauty, and unexpected love.
You can pick up a copy of the book and movie each month at the Harris-Elmore Library.
Read Between the Wines Book Group
February 10, 2025
11:30 PM
The Portage Inn
Goodreads Choice Award - Nominee for Readers' Favorite Romance (2023)
An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.
Copies of the book are available at the Elmore Library Circ Desk and the Genoa Library Book Club Shelf.
eBooks and Audiobooks are free to download from the Libby app.
Questions? Call Bekkir at
(419) 855-3380 ext. 203
Evening Discussion
Genoa Library
Copies of the book are available at the Genoa Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Call Meg at
(419) 855-3380 ext 201.
February 18, 2025
11:00 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.
On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.
Morning Discussion
Genoa Library
Copies of the book are available at the Genoa Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Call Abigail at
(419) 855-3380 ext 202.
February 20, 2025
2:30 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
A gripping, inspiring novel based on the true story of Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
When Hollywood auctioneer Emsley Wilson finds her famous grandmother's diary while cleaning out her New York brownstone, the pages are full of surprises. The first surprise is, the diary isn't her grandmother's. It belongs to Johanna Bonger, Vincent van Gogh's sister-in-law.
Johanna inherited Vincent van Gogh's paintings. They were all she had, and they weren't worth anything. She was a 28 year old widow with a baby in the 1800s, without any means of supporting herself, living in Paris where she barely spoke the language. Yet she managed to introduce Vincent's legacy to the world.
The inspiration couldn't come at a better time for Emsley. With her business failing, an unexpected love turning up in her life, and family secrets unraveling, can she find answers in the past?
small town PRIDE!
Traveling Book Group
Copies of the book are available at the Elmore Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Call Bekkir at
(419) 855-3380 ext. 203
January 27, 2025
11:30 PM
Birchard Public Library - Fremont, OH
(Optional carpool leaves from the Harris-Elmore Library at 5:45pm)
You don't need to drive hours to find others in the LGBTQ+ community. Join us as we come together from small towns to form a book club with big Pride!
We will travel to local small towns to enjoy and discuss books written by and/or about LGBTQ+ people.
Allies are welcome!
The New York Times Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2022
Named one of Vanity Fair 's “Best Books of 2022 ”
“Not since Robert Caro’s Years of Lyndon Johnson have I been so riveted by a work of history. Secret City is not gay history. It is American history.”
― George Stephanopoulos
Washington, D.C., has always been a city of secrets. Few have been more dramatic than the ones revealed in James Kirchick’s Secret City .
For decades, the specter of homosexuality haunted Washington. The mere suggestion that a person might be gay destroyed reputations, ended careers, and ruined lives. At the height of the Cold War, fear of homosexuality became intertwined with the growing threat of international communism, leading to a purge of gay men and lesbians from the federal government. In the fevered atmosphere of political Washington, the secret “too loathsome to mention” held enormous, terrifying power.
Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of “the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,” James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century.
Cultural and political anxiety over gay people sparked a decades-long witch hunt, impacting everything from the rivalry between the CIA and the FBI to the ascent of Joseph McCarthy, the struggle for Black civil rights, and the rise of the conservative movement. Among other revelations, Kirchick tells of the World War II–era gay spymaster who pioneered seduction as a tool of American espionage, the devoted aide whom Lyndon Johnson treated as a son yet abandoned once his homosexuality was discovered, and how allegations of a “homosexual ring” controlling Ronald Reagan nearly derailed his 1980 election victory.
Magisterial in scope and intimate in detail, Secret City will forever transform our understanding of American history.
Book Discussion
Elmore Library
Copies of the book are available at the Elmore Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Call Jen at
(419) 862-2482 ext. 101
January 23, 2025
3:00 PM
Damschroder Meeting Room
Lost something? Gabriela Rose knows how to get it back. As a recovery agent, she’s hired by individuals and companies seeking lost treasures, stolen heirlooms, or missing assets of any kind. She’s reliable, cool under pressure, and well trained in weapons of all types. But Gabriela’s latest job isn’t for some bamboozled billionaire, it’s for her own family, whose home is going to be wiped off the map if they can’t come up with a lot of money fast.
Inspired by an old family legend, Gabriela sets off for the jungles of Peru in pursuit of the Ring of Solomon and the lost treasure of Cortez. But this particular job comes with a huge problem attached to it—Gabriela’s ex-husband, Rafer. It’s Rafer who has the map that possibly points the way to the treasure, and he’s not about to let Gabriela find it without him.
Rafer is as relaxed as Gabriela is driven, and he has a lifetime’s experience getting under his ex-wife’s skin. But when they aren’t bickering about old times the two make a formidable team, and it’s going to take a team to defeat the vicious drug lord who has also been searching for the fabled ring. A drug lord who doesn’t mind leaving a large body count behind him to get it.
The Recovery Agent marks the start of an irresistible new series that will have you clamoring for more and cheering for the unstoppable Gabriela Rose on every page.
True Crime Tuesdays
Genoa Library
Copies of the book will be available at the Genoa Library Circ Desk or on the Libby app as an Ebook
Questions? Call Meg or Tricia at (419) 855-3380 ext 203.
January 28, 2025
11:30 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
Ages 18+
Join us at the Genoa Branch Library for True Crime Tuesday!
For much of the twentieth century, a series of terrible events--abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths--took places inside orphanages. The survivors have been trying to tell their astonishing stories for a long time, but disbelief, secrecy, and trauma have kept them from breaking through. For ten years, Christine Kenneally has been on a quest to uncover the harrowing truth.
Centering her story on St. Joseph's, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally has written a stunning account of a series of crimes and abuses. But her work is not confined to one place. Following clues that take her into the darkened corners of several institutions across the globe, she finds a trail of terrifying stories and a courageous group of survivors who are seeking justice. Ghosts of the Orphanage is an incredible true crime story and a reckoning with a past that has stayed buried for too long, with tragic consequences.
Don't want to read the book?? Check out the shows, podcasts and other articles linked on our website!
Our Next Meeting will be on February 25th discussing Tony Costa
Book Buddies
Book Discussion For
Children Grades 3-5
Join our Google Classroom
for the latest information!
code: bym6yyc
Questions? Email Abby at
genoaclerk2@
harriselmorelibrary.org
January 29, 2025
10:00 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent young fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally." When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella's life and well-being seem to be in grave peril. But her intelligence and saucy nature keep her in good stead as she sets out on a quest for freedom and self-discovery as she tries to track down Lucinda to undo the curse, fending off ogres, befriending elves, and falling in love with a prince along the way. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you'll ever read.
Gail Carson Levine's examination of traditional female roles in fairy tales takes some satisfying twists and deviations from the original. Ella is bound by obedience against her will, and takes matters in her own hands with ambition and verve. Her relationship with the prince is balanced and based on humor and mutual respect; in fact, it is she who ultimately rescues him. Ella Enchanted has won many well-deserved awards, including a Newbery Honor.