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) 949-3523.

#BookTalk

Wednesday, March 27, 2024
6:00 – 7:00 PM
New Albany Central Library Applegate Room

Do you love reading and talking about books? Join us to socialize and 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:

Circe by Madeline Miller

Follows Circe, the banished witch daughter of Helios, as she hones her powers and interacts with famous mythological beings before a conflict with one of the most vengeful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

Dusting Off the Classics

Tuesday, April 2, 2024
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 with leader Christopher Proctor, IU Southeast Librarian. 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:

The Bhagavad Gita

This early epic poem recounts the conversation between the warrior and his charioteer, the divine manifestation. It sets out the important lessons to learn to change the outcome of the war in the moments before a great battle that the warrior fights, and culminates in revealing the true cosmic warrior and counselling him to search for the universal perfection of life. This most important work ranges from yoga postures to dense moral discussion and serves as a practical guide to living well.

Monday Mystery Book Club

Monday, April 15, 2024
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. Print copies of the books are available at the Upper Customer Service desk.

This month:

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen, and Natalie have worked for the Museum, an elite network of assassins, for forty years. Now their talents are considered old-school and no one appreciates what they have to offer in an age that relies more on technology than people skills. When the foursome is sent on an all-expenses paid vacation to mark their retirement, they are targeted by one of their own. Only the Board, the top-level members of the Museum, can order the termination of field agents, and the women realize they’ve been marked for death. Now to get out alive they have to turn against their own organization, relying on experience and each other to get the job done, knowing that working together is the secret to their survival. They’re about to teach the Board what it really means to be a woman—and a killer—of a certain age.”

A More Perfect Union

Monday, April 8, 2024
6:00-7:30 PM
New Albany Central Library Auditorium

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.

This month:

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison

In Anti-Diet, Christy Harrison takes on diet culture and the multi-billion-dollar industries that profit from it, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health, and happiness. It will turn what you think you know about health and wellness upside down, as Harrison explores the history of diet culture, how it’s infiltrated the health and wellness world, how to recognize it in all its sneaky forms, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat “perfectly” actually helps to improve people’s health—no matter their size. Drawing on scientific research, personal experience, and stories from patients and colleagues, Anti-Diet provides a radical alternative to diet culture, and helps readers reclaim their bodies, minds, and lives so they can focus on the things that truly matter.

Read Between the Spines Book Group

Tuesday, April 23, 2024
5:30 – 6:30 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.

This month:

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her–only that her books have been banned–and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.

Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both.

Reading the Rainbow

Wednesday, April 17, 2024
IU Southeast Library or online via Zoom
4201 Grant Line Rd. 

Join us to discuss an LGBTQ+ themed book each month with leader Christopher Proctor, IU Southeast Librarian. 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:

The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhadar

From the author of the acclaimed and award-winning debut The Map of Salt and Stars, a remarkably moving and lyrical novel following three generations of Syrian Americans who are linked by the truths they carry close to their hearts. Five years after a suspicious fire killed his mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for a new one. He has been unable to paint since his mother’s ghost has begun to visit him each evening. The only time he feels truly free is when he slips out at night to paint murals on buildings in the once-thriving Manhattan neighborhood known as Little Syria. One night, he finds the tattered journal of a Syrian American artist named Laila Z. She famously and mysteriously disappeared more than sixty years before, but her journal contains proof that Laila Z’s past is intimately tied to his mother’s-and his grandmother’s–in ways he never could have expected. Even more surprising, Laila Z’s story reveals the histories of queer and transgender people within his community that he never knew. Following his mother’s ghost, he uncovers the silences kept in the name of survival by his own community, his own family, and within himself, and discovers the family that was there all along. The Thirty Names of Night is an imaginative and intimate exploration of how we all search for and ultimately embrace who we are.