Book Discussion Groups
Our book groups are free and open to all. This page covers Adult Book Discussion Groups. For Youth Book Clubs, visit our Youth Programs page. For Teen Book Clubs, visit our Teen Programs page. Visit our online calendar to see all upcoming book clubs,
Copies of each title are available for checkout with a library card. Click the title below, or call the library at 603-427-1540 to place a hold.
NEW! Mystery Book Club
The library's new Mystery Book Club meets at 1 PM on the first Tuesday of each month. All are welcome.
Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!
This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
Tuesday September 5 – The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King
In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees in Sussex when a young woman literally stumbles onto him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern, twentieth-century woman proves a deft protégée and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective. They are soon called to Wales to help Scotland Yard find the kidnapped daughter of an American senator, a case of international significance with clues that dip deep into Holmes's past.
Tuesday October 3 – The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
In Dashiell Hammett's famous crime novel, we meet one of the detective-story master's most enchanting creations, Nick and Nora Charles, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a classic murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.
Tuesday November 7 – The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman
Homicide is always an abomination, but there is something exceptionally disturbing about the victim discovered in a high, lonely place—a corpse with a mouth full of sand—abandoned at a crime scene seemingly devoid of tracks or useful clues. Though it goes against his better judgment, Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn cannot help but suspect the hand of a supernatural killer.
There is palpable evil in the air, and Leaphorn's pursuit of a Wolf-Witch leads him where even the bravest men fear, on a chilling trail that winds perilously between mysticism and murder.
Tuesday December 5 – The Talented Miss Farwell by Emily Tedrowe
At the end of the 1990s, with the art market finally recovered from its disastrous collapse, Miss Rebecca Farwell has made a killing at Christie's in New York City, selling a portion of her extraordinary art collection for a rumored 900 percent profit. Dressed in couture YSL, drinking the finest champagne at trendy Balthazar, Reba, as she's known, is the picture of a wealthy art collector. To some, the elusive Miss Farwell is a shark with outstanding business acumen. To others, she's a heartless capitalist whose only interest in art is how much she can make. But a thousand miles from the Big Apple, in the small town of Pierson, Illinois, Miss Farwell is someone else entirely, a quiet single woman known as Becky who still lives in her family's farmhouse, wears sensible shoes, and works tirelessly as the town's treasurer and controller.
Classics Book Club
We define a classic not by its specific time period, but by its staying power and recognized value to society and the literary canon. We will endeavor to include a diverse group of authors, across gender, race, nationality and sexuality. Classics Book Club meets on the first Tuesday of each month at 7 PM.
Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!
This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
Tuesday September 5 – The Art of War by Sun Tzu (Any Translation)
Written in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu's The Art of War is still used as a book of military strategy today. Napoleon, Mae Zedong, General Vo Nguyen Giap and General Douglas MacArthur all claimed to have drawn inspiration from it. And beyond the world of war, business and management gurus have also applied Sun Tzu's ideas to office politics and corporate strategy.
Tuesday October 3 – Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
In an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten - a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife - the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca.
Tuesday November 7 – Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's great tragedy tells of the lord Macbeth, who plots with his wife to assume the throne of Scotland by murdering the king.
We’ll hold two discussions of the Scottish play, in conjunction with Shakespeare Discussion Group!
On Tuesday, October 31 at 4 PM (in Shakespeare Group) we will discuss our viewing experience of Macbeth.
On Tuesday, November 7 at 7 PM (in Classics Book Club) we will discuss our reading experience of Macbeth.
Tuesday December 5 – A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
“Never before, the entire history of the American theater, has so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage," observed James Baldwin shortly before A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway in 1959.
Indeed Lorraine Hansberry's award-winning drama about the hopes and aspirations of a struggling, working-class family living on the South Side of Chicago connected profoundly with the psyche of black America--and changed American theater forever. The play's title comes from a line in Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem," which warns that a dream deferred might "dry up / like a raisin in the sun."
Fiction Book Club
The library's Fiction Book Club meets the second Monday each month at 1 PM and 7 PM. Attend at either time!
Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!
This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
Monday August 14 – Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky
Charlotte and Nicole were once the best of friends, spending summers together in Nicole's coastal island house off of Maine. But many years, and many secrets, have kept the women apart. A successful travel writer, single Charlotte lives on the road, while Nicole, a food blogger, keeps house in Philadelphia with her surgeon-husband, Julian. When Nicole is commissioned to write a book about island food, she invites her old friend Charlotte back to Quinnipeague, for a final summer, to help. Outgoing and passionate, Charlotte has a gift for talking to people and making friends, and Nicole could use her expertise for interviews with locals. Missing a genuine connection, Charlotte agrees.
But what both women don't know is that they are each holding something back that may change their lives forever. For Nicole, what comes to light could destroy her marriage, but it could also save her husband. For Charlotte, the truth could cost her Nicole's friendship, but could also free her to love again. And her chance may lie with a reclusive local man, with a heart to soothe and troubles of his own.
Monday September 11 – The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
Working at the local library, Aleisha reads every book on a secret list she found, which transports her from the painful realities she's facing at home, and decides to pass the list on to a lonely widower desperate to connect with his bookworm granddaughter.
Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Wembley after losing his beloved wife. He worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright teenager working at the local library for the summer. She discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird; it is a list of novels that she has never heard of, and she impulsively decides to read every book on the list. When Mukesh arrives at the library seeking to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list. The shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.
Monday October 2 – Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
For more than two hundred years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town. Gillian and Sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One will do so by marrying, the other by running away. But the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic....
Monday November 13 – Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty
Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy. In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty—with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight—breathes life into tales of family and a community as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family's unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's projects the past onto her grandson; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.
Monday December 11 – The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
A. J. Fikry, the irascible owner of Island Books, has recently endured some tough years: his wife has died, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and his prized possession—a rare edition of Poe poems—has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly. Until a most unexpected occurrence gives him the chance to make his life over and see things anew.
Nonfiction Book Club
The library's Nonfiction Book Club meets the third Monday each month at 7 PM.
Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!
This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
Monday August 21 – Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
Through poverty, adolescence, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley C. Ford wishes she could turn to her father for hope and encouragement. There are just a few problems: he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there. She doesn't know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates. When the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley desperately searches for meaning in the chaos. Then, her grandmother reveals the truth about her father's incarceration . . . and Ashley's entire world is turned upside down.
Somebody's Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl in Indiana with a family fragmented by incarceration, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she embarks on a powerful journey to find the threads between who she is and what she was born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.
Monday September 18 – Meet Me By the Fountain by Alexandra Lange
Few places have been as nostalgized, or as maligned, as malls. Since their birth in the 1950s, they have loomed large as temples of commerce, the agora of the suburbs. In their prime, they proved a powerful draw for creative thinkers such as Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury, and George Romero, who understood the mall's appeal as both critics and consumers. Yet today, amid the aftershocks of financial crises and a global pandemic, as well as the rise of online retail, the dystopian husk of an abandoned shopping center has become one of our era's defining images. Conventional wisdom holds that the mall is dead. But what was the mall, really? And have rumors of its demise been greatly exaggerated?
Monday October 16 – Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner
Zauner tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Monday November 20 – Consumed by Aja Barber
In Consumed, Barber calls for change within an industry that regularly overreaches with abandon, creating real imbalances in the environment and the lives of those who do the work--often in unsafe conditions for very low pay--and the billionaires who receive the most profit. A story told in two parts, Barber exposes the endemic injustices in our consumer industries and the uncomfortable history of the textile industry, one which brokered slavery, racism, and today's wealth inequality. Once the layers are peeled back, Barber invites you to participate in unlearning, to understand the truth behind why we consume in the way that we do, to confront the uncomfortable feeling that we are never quite enough and why we fill that void with consumption rather than compassion. Barber challenges us to challenge the system and our role in it. The less you buy into the consumer culture, the more power you have. Consumed will teach you how to be a citizen and not a consumer.
Monday December 18 – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.
Speculative Fiction Book Club
The Portsmouth Public Library Speculative Fiction Book Club will meet on the final Tuesday of each month at 7 PM. Spec Fic is a genre that encompasses fantasy, science fiction, horror and everything in between. Speculative fiction asks, what if?
Registration is optional - register to receive reminders!
This club will be held in hybrid format. Come in person at the library, or attend online! Click this link to connect via Zoom. Password: 3GWdHC
Tuesday August 29 – The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Now, in the stunning continuation of the epic adventure begun in Hyperion , Simmons returns us to a far future resplendent with drama and invention. On the world of Hyperion, the mysterious Time Tombs are opening. And the secrets they contain mean that nothing--nothing anywhere in the universe--will ever be the same.
Note: in July and August, Spec Fic Book Club will read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, which together make up one complete story. We invite you to join us for both discussions!
Tuesday September 26 – Redwall by Brian Jacques
When the peaceful life of ancient Redwall Abbey is shattered by the arrival of the evil rat Cluny and his villainous hordes, Matthias, a young mouse, determines to find the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior which, he is convinced, will help Redwall's inhabitants destroy the enemy.
Tuesday October 24 – The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber—which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan's 1984 movie The Company of Wolves—she spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like "Little Red Riding Hood," "Bluebeard," "Puss in Boots," and "Beauty and the Beast," giving them exhilarating new life in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition.
Tuesday November 28 – Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
Elatsoe—Ellie for short—lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the ancestral magics and knowledge of its Indigenous and immigrant groups. She can raise the spirits of dead animals--most importantly, her ghost dog Kirby. When her beloved cousin dies, all signs point to a car crash, but his ghost tells her otherwise: He was murdered.
Who killed him and how did he die? With the help of her family, her best friend Jay, and the memory great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Elatsoe, must track down the killer and unravel the mystery of this creepy town and it's dark past. But will the nefarious townsfolk and a mysterious Doctor stop her before she gets started?
Tuesday December 19 – To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
At the turn of the twenty-second century, scientists make a breakthrough in human spaceflight. Through a revolutionary method known as somaforming, astronauts can survive in hostile environments off Earth using synthetic biological supplementations. They can produce antifreeze in subzero temperatures, absorb radiation and convert it for food, and conveniently adjust to the pull of different gravitational forces. With the fragility of the body no longer a limiting factor, human beings are at last able to journey to neighboring exoplanets long known to harbor life. A team of these explorers, Ariadne O'Neill and her three crewmates, are hard at work in a planetary system fifteen light-years from Sol, on a mission to ecologically survey four habitable worlds. But as Ariadne shifts through both form and time, the culture back on Earth has also been transformed. Faced with the possibility of returning to a planet that has forgotten those who have left, Ariadne begins to chronicle the story of the wonders and dangers of her mission, in the hope that someone back home might still be listening.
Shakespeare Discussion Group
How now good friends? Dost thou seek a monthly passtime to broaden the mind and entice the senses? Look no further than Shakespearean Discussion Group! Enjoy the selected play of the month in the way ‘twas presented: to the masses! Pick up a video recording of the play to view at your leisure, and then join us on the last Tuesday of the month at 4 PM to discuss your experience with The Bard’s work. Mayhaps thou shalt stumble upon some new friends there as well… Be not perturbed of your knowledge of Shakespeare’s works, for we encourage fellows of all ages, areas of interest and expertise to attend!
Shakespeare Discussion Group now meets in the library's MacLeod Board Room. Registration is optional - register to receive reminders. Visit our library calendar to register!
Print and DVD copies of this play will be available for checkout with a library card. Library cardholders also have streaming access to the BBC production on Kanopy – visit cityofportsmouth.com/library/kanopy to connect. Or, watch any of the freely available productions linked from the calendar.
Tuesday August 29 – Love's Labour's Lost
Tuesday September 26 – Pericles
Tuesday October 31 – Macbeth
Tuesday November 28 – Winter's Tale
Past Book Discussions
2023
- January Classic: Persuasion by Jane Austen
- January Fiction: The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P.D. James
- January Nonfiction: Owls of the Eastern Ice by Johnathan Slaght
- January Specfic: All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- February Classic: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- February Fiction: The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
- February Nonfiction: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
- February Specfic: Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers
- March Classic: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- March Fiction: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
- March Nonfiction: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
- March Specfic: The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
- April Classic: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- April Fiction: Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson
- April Nonfiction: The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
- April Specfic: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
- May Fiction: The Story Hour by Thrity Umrigar
- May Nonfiction: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green
- May Specfic: Foundation by Isaac Asimov
- May & June Classic: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
- June Fiction: Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
- June Nonfiction: Before and After by Judy Christie & Lisa Wingate
- June Specfic: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix Harrow
- July Classic: Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
- July Fiction: The Life She Was Given by Ellen Marie Wiseman
- July Nonfiction: The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
- July Specfic: Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- August Classic: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
2022
- January Classic: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- January Fiction: The Color of Air by Gail Tsukiyama
- January Specfic: The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
- February Classic: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
- February Fiction (Nonfiction for Fiction): The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
- February Specfic: Dune by Frank Herbert
- March Classic: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- March Fiction: Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
- March Specfic: Circe by Madeline Miller
- April Classic: Walden by Henry David Thoreau
- April Fiction: A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
- April Specfic: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
- May Classic: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- May Fiction: A Window Opens by Elisabeth Egan
- May Specfic: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
- June Classic: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- June Fiction: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- June Specfic: The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
- July Classic: The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
- July Fiction: Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
- July Specfic: Ammonite by Nicola Griffith
- August Classic: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- August Fiction: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- August Specfic: The Devourers by Indra Das
- September Classic: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
- September Fiction: Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
- September Nonfiction: The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
- September Specfic: Everfair by Nisi Shawl
- October Classic: My Antonia by Willa Cather
- October Fiction: The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
- October Nonfic: Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault
- October Specfic: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
- November Classic: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
- November Fiction: Run by Ann Patchett
- November Nonfic: Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby
- November Specfic: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
- December Classic: The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon
- December Fiction: The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg
- December Nonfic: The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal
- December Specfic: Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
2021
- January Classic: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- January Fiction: Pieces of Happiness: A Novel of Friendship, Hope and Chocolate by Anne Ostby
- January LGBTQ: Bingo Love by Tee Franklin
- January Specfic: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
- February Classic: The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson
- February Fiction: Only Child by Rhiannon Navin
- February LGBTQ: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
- February Specfic: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
- March Fiction: The Daring Ladies of Lowell by Kate Alcott
- March LGBTQ: On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
- March Specfic: Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
- April Classic: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- April Fiction: Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall-Smith
- April LGBTQ: Passing Strange by Ellen Klages
- April Specfic: This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- May Classic: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- May Fiction: The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henriquez
- May LGBTQ: Maurice by E.M. Forster
- May Specfic: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
- June (every group): The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- July Classic: All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
- July Fiction (Nonfiction for Fiction):When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning
- July LGBTQ: The Deep by Rivers Solomon
- July Specfic: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
- August Classic: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- August Fiction: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
- August LGBTQ: Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
- August Specfic: The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
- September Classic: Beowulf translated by Maria Dahvana Headley
- September Fiction: Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira
- September LGBTQ: George (Melissa’s Story) by Alex Gino
- September Specfic: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
- October Classic: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- October Fiction: Allie and Bea by Catherine Ryan Hyde
- October LGBTQ: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
- October Specfic: The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
- November Classic: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
- November Fiction: White Chrysanthemum by Mary Lynn Bracht
- November LGBTQ: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
- November Specfic: Lanny by Max Porter
- December Classic: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
- December Fiction: The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Baumeister
- December Specfic: The Nutcracker and Mouse King and The Tale of the Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann & Alexandre Dumas
2020
- January Fiction: Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak
- January Nonfiction: Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth
- January Specfic: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
- February Fiction: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
- February Nonfiction: 1920: The Year That Made the Decade Roar by Eric Burns
- February Specfic: The Quick by Lauren Owen
- March Fiction: Idaho by Emily Ruskovich
- March Specfic: Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
- April Fiction: The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck
- April Specfic: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
- May Fiction: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
- May Specfic: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
- June Classic: Emma by Jane Austen
- June Fiction: Good Riddance by Elinor Lipman
- June Specfic: The Princess Bride by William Goldman
- July Classic: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- July Fiction: Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
- July Specfic: Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia Butler
- August Classic: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- August Fiction: The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
- August Specfic: An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
- September Classic: Howards End by E.M. Forster
- September Fiction: The One in A Million Boy by Monica Wood
- September LGBTQ: The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy
- September Specfic: The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
- October Fiction: There, There by Tommy Orange
- October Classic: Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- October LGBTQ: Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
- November Fiction: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- November LGBTQ: Sissy by Jacob Tobia
- November Specfic: Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel Delany
- December Classic: Middlemarch by George Eliot
- December Fiction: The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens
- December LGBTQ: The Clancys of Queens by Tara Clancy
- December Specfic: Unnatural Magic by C.M. Waggoner
2019
- January Fiction: The New Year's Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini
- January Nonfiction: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
- January Specfic: Smoke by Dan Vyleta
- February Fiction: February 11 - Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
- February Nonfiction: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
- February Specfic: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- March Fiction: The Stars are Fire by Anita Shreve
- March Nonfiction: The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan
- March Specfic: Long Division by Kiese Laymon
- April Fiction: The Rent Collector by Camron Wright
- April Nonfiction: Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan
- April Specfic: Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren
- May Fiction: Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
- May Nonfiction: The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew and The Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
- May Specfic: The Power by Naomi Alderman
- June Fiction: The Stargazer’s Sister by Carrie Brown
- June Nonfiction: 13.8 The Quest to Find the True Age of the Universe and Theory of Everything by John Gribbin
- June Specfic: Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold
- July Fiction: Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
- July Nonfiction: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
- July Specfic: The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
- August Fiction: The Movement of Stars by Amy Brill
- August Nonfiction: The Interstellar Age: The Story of the NASA Men and Women Who Flew the Forty-Year Voyager Mission by Jim Bell
- August Specfic: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
- September Fiction: Five Carat Soul by James McBride
- September Specfic: The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- October Fiction: Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan
- October Nonfiction: Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? By Bill McKibben
- October Specfic: Beloved by Toni Morrison
- November Fiction: In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
- November Nonfiction: Ecology, Ethics, and Interdependence: The Dalai Lama in Conversation with Leading Thinkers on Climate Change
- November Specfic: An Accident of Stars by Foz Meadows
- December Fiction: Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
- December Nonfiction: Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken
- December Specfic: The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
2018
- January Fiction: Andy Catlett: Early Travels by Wendell Berry
- January Nonfiction: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
- January Specfic: The Subtle Knife & The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman
- January Cookbooks: Return to Healthy Eating
- February Fiction: Reflex by Dick Francis
- February Nonfiction: The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner
- February Specfic: Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- March Fiction: My Wish List by Greg Delacourt
- March Nonfiction: Tribe by Sebastian Junger
- March Specfic: Contact by Carl Sagan
- March Cookbooks: Cooking for Special Diets
- April Fiction: La's Orchestra Saves the World by A. McCall-Smith
- April Nonfiction: Better Together by Robert Putnam
- April Specfic: Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
- May Fiction: The Red Thread by Ann Hood
- May Nonfiction: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
- May Specfic: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
- June Fiction: The Heart by Maylis De Kerangal
- June Nonfiction: America Walks Into a Bar by Christine Sismondo
- June Specfic: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
- July Fiction: News of the World by Paulette Jiles
- July Nonfiction: Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
- July Specfic: The Once and Future King by T.H. White
- August Fiction: Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
- August Nonfiction: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- August Specfic: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
- September Fiction: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
- September Nonfiction: Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age by Reeve Lindbergh
- September Specfic: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
- October Fiction: The Daugher of Time by Josephine Tey
- October Nonfiction: The B Side by Ben Yagoda
- October Specfic: NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
- November Fiction: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
- November Nonfiction: The Flamingo's Smile by Stephen Jay Gould
- November Specfic: This Census-Taker by China Mieville
- December Fiction: Less by Andrew Sean Greer
- December Nonfiction: The Book That Changed America by Randall Fuller
- December Specfic: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein
2017
- January Fiction: Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill
- January Nonfiction: Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson
- January Specfic: The Passage by Justin Cronin
- February Fiction: The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
- February Nonfiction: Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
- February Specfic: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
- March Fiction: Family Life by Akhil Sharma
- March Nonfiction: Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle
- March Specfic: Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
- April Fiction: The Blessingsby Elise Juska
- April Nonfiction: We should all be feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- April Specfic: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
- May Fiction: The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard
- May Nonfiction: Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey
- May Specfic: Grass by Sherri Tepper
- June Fiction: The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
- June Nonfiction: The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
- June Specfic: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- July Fiction: At The Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier
- July Nonfiction: My Life in France by Julia Child
- July Specfic: Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- August Fiction: The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones
- August Nonfiction: Ecomind: changing the way we think to create the world we want by Frances Moore Lappé
- August Specfic: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
- September Fiction: The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward
- September Nonfiction: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
- September Specfic: Hard-Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
- October Fiction: Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
- October Nonfiction: Salt: a World History by Mark Kurlansky
- October Specfic: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
- November Fiction: Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlante
- November Nonfiction: Outliers: the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
- November Specfic: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
- December Fiction: Euphoria by Lily King
- December Nonfiction:To the End of June by Chris Beam
- December Specfic:Tenth of December by George Saunders
2016
- January Fiction: Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran
- January Nonfiction: A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
- February Fiction: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
- February Nonfiction: Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
- February Specfic: The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
- March Fiction: Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
- March Nonfiction: Rez Life by David Treuer
- March Specfic: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- April Fiction: Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld
- April Nonfiction: Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
- April Specfic: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
- May Fiction: Fever by Mary Beth Keane
- May Nonfiction: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- May Specfic: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- June Fiction: The First of July by Elizabeth Speller
- June Nonfiction: I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson
- June Specfic: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
- July Specfic: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
- August Nonfiction: Half the sky : turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide by Nicholas Kristof
- August Specfic: Sabriel by Garth Nix
- September Fiction: While I’m Falling by Laura Moriarty
- September Nonfiction: Smoke gets in your eyes and other lessons from the crematory by Caitlin Doughty
- September Specfic: The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
- October Fiction: The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
- October Nonfiction: Lest innocent blood be shed: the story of the village of Le Chambon, and how goodness happened there by Philip Paul Hallie
- October Specfic: Among Others by Jo Walton
- November Fiction: We are called to Rise by Laura McBride
- November Nonfiction: The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- November Specfic: The Girl with the Ghost Eyes by M. H. Boroson
- December Fiction: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
2015
- January 12: The Long Walk Home by Will North
- February 9: The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi Durrow
- February 17: The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
- March 9: The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
- March 17: Out of Order by Sandra Day O'Connor
- April 13: Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
- April 21: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
- May 11: Manuscript found in Accra by Paulo Coelho
- May 19: Choose Your Own Nonfiction Book! Topic: China
- June 8: The Wives of Los Alamos by Tarashea Nesbit
- June 16: The World's Strongest Librarian by Joshua Hanagarne
- July 21: An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski AND/OR In a Heartbeat by Leigh Anne Tuohy and Sean Tuohy with Sally Jenkins
- August 18: How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson
- September 14: The Edge of the Earth by Christina Schwarz
- September 15: Portsmouth Women edited by Laura Pope
- October 9: The Girls by Lori Lansens
- October 20: The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
- October 26: Vicious by V.E. Schwab
- November 9: Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
- November 17: The Family by David Laskin
- November 30: Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
- December 15: Stuff Matters by Mark Miodownik
- December 28: The Magicians by Lev Grossman
2014
- January 8: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
- January 13: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
- February 5: In the Sanctuary of Outcasts by Neil White
- February 10: Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier
- March 5: Passing Strange by Martha Sandweiss
- March 10: Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
- April 14: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
- April 16: Animal, Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
- May 12 - Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach
- May 21: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
- June 9: Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg
- June 18: Five Days at Memorial Hospital by Sheri Fink
- August 5: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
- September 8: The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls
- September 17: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
- October 15: Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
- October 20: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
- November 10: A Long Long Wayby Sebastian Barry
- November 19: Black, White, Jewish by Rebecca Walker
- December 17: The Railway Man by Eric Lomax
2013
- January 28: The Good Braider by Terry Farish
- February 25: Home by Toni Morrison
- March 25: Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
- April 3: Quiet by Susan Cain
- April 15: Memory Won't Save Me by Mimi White
- May 1: Why be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson
- May 20: Say Nice Things About Detroit by Scott Lasser
- June 5: A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez
- June 17: The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell
- September 4: A Queer and Pleasant Danger by Kate Bornstein
- September 16: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
- October 2: Wild by Cheryl Strayed
- October 21: Expats by Chris Pavone
- November 6: Happy by Alex Lemon
- November 18: Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell
- December 4: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
2012
- January 23: Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert
- February 13: The Well and the Mine by Gin Phillips
- March 12: Talk Funny Girl by Roland Merullo
- April 16: So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman
- May 4: Oxygen written by Carol Cassella
- September 17: Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
- October 15: Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan
- November 19: You Know When the Men Are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
2010-2011
- Oct. 18: Broken Teaglass written by Emily Arsenault
- Nov. 15: Crow Lake written by Mary Lawson
- February 14: Two Rivers by T. Greenwood
- March 14: The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
- April 11: Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
- May 9: Haroun and the Sea Stories by Salman Rushdie
2009-2010
- September 14: All the Living by C.E. Morgan
- October 19: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- November 9: Telex from Cuba by Rachvel Kushner
- February 8: House on Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper
- March 15: Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
- April 12: Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
- May 10: Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
- June 7: The Good Thief : A Novel by Hannah Tinti
2008-2009
- Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
- End of the Alphabet by C.S. Richardson
- The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu
- Lost City Radio by Daniel Alarcon
- Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
- The Cave by Jose Saramago
- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
- Split Estate by Charlotte Bacon
2007-2008
- Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Talk, talk by T.C. Boyle
- March by Geraldine Brooks
- Girls by Lori Lansens
- Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
- Secondhand World by Katherine Min
- Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
- Zoli by Colum McCann
- Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst
- Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid