Shelf Indulgence
If you enjoy reading a diverse mix of literary fiction and nonfiction, then this book club is for you! We read one book each month, and meet on the third Thursday at 11:00am to discuss it. Past selections have come from popular genres such as Historical Fiction, Mysteries, Biographies and Memoirs, Travel Tales, Thrillers, Comedies, and Nonfiction. We welcome new members!
June Book:
The Engineer's Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood (Historical Fiction)
Emily Roebling built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow. Discover the fascinating woman who helped design and construct the Brooklyn Bridge. Perfect for book clubs and fans of Marie Benedict. Emily refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she's determined to make change. But then her husband asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible. Emily's fight for women's suffrage is put on hold, and her life transformed when her husband Washington Roebling, the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistance and overwhelming obstacles. But as the project takes shape under Emily's direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers, or her husband's. As the monument rises, Emily's marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridge finally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it? – Amazon.com
July Book:
The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis (Mystery)
It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she is drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. And when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process. Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history. – Amazon.com
August Book:
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Humor/Adventure)
Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning a letter arrives, addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl, from a woman he hasn’t heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. But before Harold mails off a quick reply, a chance encounter convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. In his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold Fry embarks on an urgent quest. Determined to walk six hundred miles to the hospice, Harold believes that as long as he walks, Queenie will live. – Amazon.com
January:
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Memoir)
February:
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman (Historical Fiction)
March:
Dovetail by Karen McQuestion (Mystery/Suspense)
April:
Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang (Memoir)
May:
The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (Biography/Mystery)
January:
The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
February:
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
March:
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
April:
News of the World by Paulette Jiles
May:
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
June:
The Book of Two Ways by Jodi Picoult
July:
Long Bright River by Liz Moore
August:
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
September:
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
October:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
November:
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
December:
Bring your Favorite Titles!
January:
A Star For Mrs. Blake by April Smith
February:
Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler
March - September:
No Book Club due to COVID-19
October:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
November:
Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhorn
December:
All Adults Here by Emma Straub
January:
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Britt Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
February:
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and The Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
In The Midst of Winter by Isabel Allende
March:
The Widow by Fiona Barton
April:
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
May:
Old World Murders by Kathleen Ernst (Wisconsin Author)
June:
The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
July:
The River by Peter Heller
August:
The Orchard: A Memoir by Theresa Weir
September:
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
October:
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
November:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
December:
The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd
January:
Gray Mountain by John Grisham
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
February:
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
March:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
April:
The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers
May:
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
June:
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
July:
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
August:
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
Caroline: Little House, Revisited by Sarah Miller
September:
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
October:
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The German Girl by Armando Lucas Correa
November:
The Woman’s Hour by Elaine Weiss
December:
Montaigne in Barn Boots by Michael Perry
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley