Upcoming Book Discussions

New members are welcome to join any book group without registering. For assistance or to get a copy of a book, please visit the Customer Service Desk or call (812) 944-8464.

Dusting Off the Classics

Tuesday, November 4, 2025
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
New Albany Central Library Auditorium or online via Zoom

Been meaning to read more of the classics? Want to revisit books you haven’t read since you were in school? What is a “classic” anyway? Join us to read and discuss a different classic book each month. This event is hosted with a hybrid model– come to the library Auditorium if you prefer in person events, but we’ll email you a link to join the discussion on Zoom. Print copies of the books are available at the Upper Customer Service desk.

This month: 

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wo0lf

This month’s selection is Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Heralded as Virginia Woolf’s greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman’s life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old.

Read it on OverDrive or Hoopla, or pick up a copy at the library in the 4 weeks prior to the meeting

Dusting Off the Classics is presented by the Floyd County Library in partnership with Christopher Proctor, a faculty librarian at IU Southeast.

Monday Mystery Book Club

Monday, October 20, 2025
6:00 – 7:00 PM
New Albany Central Library Applegate Meeting Room

Do you love a good mystery? Join us for a lively discussion of a different mystery book each month. From cozy mysteries to detective novels to thrillers, chat about your prime suspects, the crime, characters, and more. You do not have to finish the book before you come, but be warned: spoilers lie ahead. Print copies of the books are available at the Upper Customer Service desk or you can listen or read on OverDrive.

This month: 

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen 

“Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil-human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . . Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”-those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city-from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power-on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

Read Between the Spines Book Group

Tuesday, October 21, 2025
5:30 – 6:45 PM
Galena Digital Branch
6954 Hwy 150

Read great books and make new friends at this new book discussion at the Galena Digital Branch. Print copies of the book will be available at the Galena Digital Branch.

How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…

The book is available to listen or read on OverDrive.

Reading the Rainbow

Wednesday, November 19, 2025
6:00 – 7:00 PM
IU Southeast Library or online via Zoom
4201 Grant Line Rd. 

Join us to discuss an LGBTQ+ themed book each month. This discussion is open to all adults; members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies are welcome. Print copies of the books are available at the Floyd County Library Upper Customer Service Desk and at the IU Southeast Library. If you’d like to attend online via Zoom, register at the link below to receive the Zoom link.

This month: 

Roly Playing by Cathy Yardley

(For content warnings, check out the book’s page on StoryGraph and scroll to the bottom)

Maggie is an unapologetically grumpy forty-eight-year-old hermit. But when her college-aged son makes her a deal—he’ll be more social if she does the same—she can’t refuse. She joins a new online gaming guild led by a friendly healer named Otter. So that nobody gets the wrong idea, she calls herself Bogwitch.Otter is Aiden, a fifty-year-old optimist using the guild as an emotional outlet from his family drama caring for his aging mother while his brother plays house with Aiden’s ex-fiancée.Bogwitch and Otter become fast virtual friends, but there’s a catch. Bogwitch thinks Otter is a college student. Otter assumes Bogwitch is an octogenarian.

When they finally meet face-to-face—after a rocky, shocking start—the unlikely pair of sunshine and stormy personalities grow tentatively closer. But Maggie’s previous relationships have left her bitter, and Aiden’s got a complicated past of his own.

Everything’s easier online. Can they make it work in real life?

#BookTalk

Thursday, November 6, 2025
6:00 – 7:00 PM
New Albany Central Library
Applegate Room

Do you love reading and talking about books? Join us to discuss a recently popular title each month! We meet in person at the Central Branch of the Floyd County Library (180 W. Spring Street.) You can pick up a print copy of the book at the Upper Customer Service Desk, or download an eBook from the Indiana Digital Library. Don’t miss this opportunity to share your thoughts and insights with other readers.

This month: 

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Follows the harrowing experiences of two African-American teens at an abusive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

eBook Audiobook

A More Perfect Union

Currently on hiatus - stay tuned for more information!

After the April 28 meeting, More Perfect Union will be taking a hiatus. Please stay tuned for more information about this book group. 

Book group description: In this book club for adults, we dive into different civic topics as we strive to be part of a "more perfect union". Topics will vary, but we aim for a neighborly discussion as we unpack some of the issues facing us as a society today. Print copies of the book are available at the Upper Customer Service Desk. This book group offers a free copy of the book to keep, while supplies last.