Book Discussion Groups
Read Between the Wines 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
August 12, 2024
10:30 PM
The Portage Inn
One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.”
That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go…
Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.
Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.
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.
September 17, 2024
10:00 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?
In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.
Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?
Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.
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.
August 15, 2024
1:30 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust shares the never-before-told complete story of the remarkable relationship between country music icons Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn.
Loretta Lynn and the late Patsy Cline are legends--country icons and sisters of the heart. For the first time ever Loretta tells their story: a celebration of their music and their relationship up until Patsy's tragic and untimely death.
Full of laughter and tears, this eye-opening, heartwarming memoir paints a picture of two stubborn, spirited country gals who'd be damned if they'd let men or convention tell them how to be. Set in the heady streets of the 1960s South, this nostalgia ride shows how Nashville blossomed into the city of music it is today. Tender and fierce, Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust is an up-close-and-personal portrait of a friendship that defined a generation and changed country music indelibly--and a meditation on love, loss and legacy.
small town PRIDE!
Traveling Book Group
August 26, 2024
10:30 PM
King Road Branch Library - Toledo, 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!
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
It is 2007, in New York where Demetrio, 24, is a celebrated pastry chef at the French restaurant, Le Bourrelet. It will be his seventh year as their patissier and the chef-owner, stern, but paternal feels he should move on. When Demetrio is offered a position as Head of Pastries at a Michelin-starred restaurant, he wants nothing more than to accept it. Undocumented, he is missing one crucial thing: papers. Terrified he will be found out, he makes the difficult decision of voluntary departure to permanently return to his homeland which he has not seen since he was a small child. This will mean leaving the only family he knows, his beloved uncle Chus, who brought him up and who he still lives with. On his flight to Madrid, he sits next to the handsome, playful and sensitive Jacobo, a student at NYU going home to his aristocratic, fascist family and there is an instant, unacknowledged electricity between them.
In dimly lit bars in Madrid and on pebbled beaches by the sea far outside the city, Demetrio and Jacobo's subtle but intense relationship unfolds. Demetrio is tortured by a fear of true intimacy, and anxiety about their class difference. Both are struggling with their identities and sexuality and they avoid their true feelings and deep passion until a family tragedy sets them on a collision course back into one another's lives. Powerfully sensual, and dramatic, Countries of Origin is a story which immerses you in the intense emotions and conflicts of love and loss.
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
August 22, 2024
2:00 PM
Damschroder Meeting Room
Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem grows up to learn the ominous consequences of this coincidence. His every act is mirrored and magnified in events that sway the course of national affairs; his health and well-being are inextricably bound to those of his nation; his life is inseparable, at times indistinguishable, from the history of his country. Perhaps most remarkable are the telepathic powers linking him with India’s 1,000 other “midnight’s children,” all born in that initial hour and endowed with magical gifts.
This novel is at once a fascinating family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people–a brilliant incarnation of the universal human comedy. Twenty-five years after its publication, Midnight’ s Children stands apart as both an epochal work of fiction and a brilliant performance by one of the great literary voices of our time.
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.
July 30, 2024
10:30 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
Ages 18+
Join us at the Genoa Branch Library for True Crime Tuesday!
This Summer we're going Off The Books! We will be discussing cases that do not yet have books available. You can watch TV shows, listen to podcasts, however you want to do your own research and come to discuss with us!
This July, we are covering the murder of Gabby Petito. High school sweethearts, Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie, had set out in July in a converted van to visit national parks in the West. They got into a fight along the way, and Laundrie was alone when he returned in the van to his parents' home in September, police said.
Don't know where to start? Check out the shows, podcasts and other articles linked on our website!
Our Next Meeting will be on August 27th discussing the disappearance of Brian Shaffer
Book Buddies
Book Discussion For
Children Grades 3-5
July 31, 2024
9:00 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
For Bixby Alexander Tam (nicknamed Bat), life tends to be full of surprises — some of them good, some not so good. Today, though, is a good-surprise day. Bat’s mom, a veterinarian, has brought home a baby skunk, which she needs to take care of until she can hand him over to a wild-animal shelter.
But the minute Bat meets the kit, he knows they belong together. And he’s got one month to show his mom that a baby skunk might just make a pretty terrific pet.
Join our Google Classroom
for the latest information!
code: bym6yyc
Questions? Email Abby at
genoaclerk2@
harriselmorelibrary.org
Reading Rebels
Book Discussion For
Children Grades 6+
Join our Google Classroom
for the latest information!
code: 36vojaq
Questions? Email Abby at
genoaclerk2@
harriselmorelibrary.org
July 31, 2024
9:00 PM
Thackrey Meeting Room
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
Welcome to Weep.