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.
Dusting Off the Classics
Tuesday, April 1, 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:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Among the first works of American literature to be written in regional vernacular English, this is the story of a nineteenth-century boy from a Mississippi River town recounts his adventures as he travels down the river with a runaway slave, encountering a family involved in a feud, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer’s aunt who mistakes him for Tom. Huck Finn is an orphaned drifter who loves freedom more than respectability. He isn’t above lying and stealing, but he faces a battle with his conscience when he meets up with a runaway slave named Jim, who provides him with his first experiences of love, acceptance, and a sense of responsibility.
Monday Mystery Book Club
Monday, March 17, 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. Print copies of the books are available at the Upper Customer Service desk.
This month:
The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill
When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother’s doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?
What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.
A More Perfect Union
Monday, March 24, 2025
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:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.
Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.
But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, child abuse/neglect, domestic abuse, death, drug use, fire, gun violence, institutional racism, murder, police brutality, and racism
Read Between the Spines Book Group
Tuesday, March 18, 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.
This month: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Steadman
After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.
Reading the Rainbow
Wednesday, March 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: (In partnership with the Classics book group) The Price of Salt, or Carol by Patricia Highsmith
(For content warnings, check out the book’s page on StoryGraph and scroll to the bottom)
Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith’s own life, The Price of Salt (or Carol) tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany–the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to gravitate toward the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese’s job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society’s confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation.