Mt Laurel Book Club
NEW MEETING OPTIONS
Choose a daytime meeting at 1 pm or a nighttime meeting at 7 pm on the first Thursday of each month. Both meetings are held at the library but a virtual option will be offered at the 7pm meeting via Zoom. Please contact the library at 205-991-1660 or mtlaurel@shelbycounty-al.org for more information or to get on the book club mailing list. Check the calendar here for additional information.
READING THE BOOK
The primary purpose of the book club is to have an exchange of ideas, which means you need to attempt to read the book. So, please give the book a try and read as much of it as possible. If you aren’t able to finish the entire book, you will still be able to participate and be a welcome addition to the group based on how much you read. Hopefully, at the end of the discussion you will be able to answer the question: “Did what you hear make you want to finish the book?”
REQUESTING THE BOOK:
The library will do its best to supply books to all members of the book club through print copies, ebook downloads, and audiobooks. Due to the increasing number of the group and popularity of certain books, we may not always have enough books available in the system at one time. It is strongly encouraged that you read ahead or plan to get the book independently of the library if none are available.
BOOK CLUB SELECTIONS
Upcoming Mt Laurel book club books are listed below. Click the title to place holds via the library catalog. Ebook and eAudiobook availability through Libby and Hoopla is indicated after each title.
August 3: Stars of Alabama by Sean Dietrich | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library) | available through Hoopla
September 7: Solito by Javier Zamora | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)
October 5: The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)
November 2: Three Sisters by Heather Morris | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)
December 7: The Candy House by Jennifer Egan | available through Libby (log in using North Shelby Library)
Previous Selections
Click on the title for more information
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Elephant Company by Vicki Croke
Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
In Manchuria by Michael Meyer
Keeping the Faith by Wayne Flynt
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Great House by Nicole Krauss
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
The Crossing by Howard Fast
My Life in France by Julia Child
Strapless by Deborah Davis
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
El Paso by Winston Groom
Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World by Laura Spinney
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Irena’s Children: The Extraordinary Story of the Woman Who Saved 2,500 Children from the Warsaw Ghetto by Tilar J. Mazzeo
Educated by Tara Westover
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The Taking of Jemima Boone by Matthew Pearl
The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Cold Winter Rain by Steven P. Gregory
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker
Audubon’s Elephant by Duff Hart-Davis
The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
Defending Jacob by William Landay
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan
Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
The Bettencourt Affair by Tom Sancton
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Clementine: The Life of Mrs. Winston Churchill by Sonia Purnell
Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
Educated by Tara Westover
When We Were Young and Brave by Hazel Gaynor
The Address by Fiona Davis
Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal
Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan
When Crickets Cry by Charles Martin
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Children’s Blizzard: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict
The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table by Rick Bragg
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
The Husband’s Secret by Laine Moriarty
The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Padgett
And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Whistling Past the Graveyard by Susan Crandall
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Love, Life and Elephants by Daphne Sheldrick
The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Love by the Glass by Dorothy Gaiter & John Brecher
The Good Neighbor: The Life & Works of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson
If the Creek Don’t Rise by Leah Weiss
The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley
Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan Henry
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy
The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
A Girl Stands at the Door by Rachel Devlin
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn