July Book Clubs
Take a break from the summer heat and dive into a good book. With this month’s book club picks, you can discover the power of language in pre-war England, take a thrilling ride with a suburban family in danger and explore the literal meaning of life. Or join us to share your own favorite reads. Check out (or download) this month’s books and get ready to read and discuss online or in-person. See all 2024 book club picks here.
Monday, July 1 at 3pm
Hybrid, meeting in-person at Haggard Library and on Zoom
Read and discuss great books you’ve read. Check out past recap book lists here on the blog.
Tuesday, July 9 at 7pm
Hybrid, meeting in-person at Schimelpfenig Library and on Zoom
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Available as Print | eBook | eAudiobook
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, the book reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story.
Thursday, July 11 at 7pm
Meeting virtually – register here
Read and discuss great Chinese books you’ve read.
分享一本您读过的中文好书。
Thursday, July 18 at 7pm
Hybrid, meeting in-person at Davis Library and on Zoom
What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline
Available as Print | Large Print | eBook | eAudiobook
Jason Bennett is a suburban dad, but one night, his life takes a horrific turn when his family is carjacked. A horrific flash of violence changes his life forever. Later that night, they receive a visit from the FBI, who tell them that the carjackers were members of a dangerous drug-trafficking organization and advise them to enter the witness protection program. From all they know, trapped in an unfamiliar life, the Bennetts begin to fall apart at the seams. Then Jason learns a shocking truth and realizes that he has to take matters into his own hands.
Thursday, July 25 at 12pm
Parr Library
Life’s Edge: The Search for What it Means to be Alive by Carl Zimmer
Available as Print | eBook | eAudiobook
Carl Zimmer investigates one of the biggest questions of all: What is life? The question hangs over some of society’s most charged conflicts—whether a fertilized egg is a living person, for example, and when we ought to declare a person legally dead. Zimmer journeys through the strange experiments that have attempted to re-create life. Lists of what living things have in common do not add up to a theory of life. It’s never clear why some items on the list are essential and others not. Coronaviruses have altered the course of history, and yet many scientists maintain they are not alive. Chemists are creating droplets that can swarm, sense their environment, and multiply. Have they made life in the lab? Charting the obsession with Dr. Frankenstein’s monster and how Coleridge came to believe the whole universe was alive, Zimmer leads us all the way into the labs and minds of researchers working on engineering life from the ground up.
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August Book Clubs
