The Community Library Book Club 2024-25

5:30pm, February 5, 2025
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Hosted by Programs and Education Manager Martha Williams

In a work that beautifully demonstrates the rewards of closely observing nature, Elisabeth Tova Bailey shares an inspiring and intimate story of her encounter with a Neohelix albolabris–a common woodland snail. While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own place in the world.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is a remarkable journey of survival and resilience, showing us how a small part of the natural world can illuminate our own human existence, while providing an appreciation of what it means to be fully alive.
Find it in our collection in print and ebook here.
Read Martha’s book review here.

5:30pm, December 4, 2024
Atomic Habits by James Clear
Hosted by Communications Manager Kyla Merwin

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights. More from the author here.
Find it in our Collection in print, eaudiobook, and CD here.

5:30pm, October 2, 2024
North Woods by Daniel Mason
Hosted by Librarian Andrea Nelson

This magisterial and highly inventive novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason brims with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature, and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment, to history, and to one another. It is not just an unforgettable novel about secrets and destinies, but a way of looking at the world that asks the timeless question: How do we live on, even after we’re gone?
Find it in our Collection in print, ebook, CD, and eaudiobook here.
Read Andrea’s review of North Woods here.

5:30pm, August 7, 2024
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Hosted by Molly! Goodyear

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.
France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever―and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name. Find it in our Collection in print, CD, and eaudiobook here.

5:30pm, June 5, 2024
Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo
Hosted by Information Systems Manager Will Duke

In this transcendent memoir, grounded in tribal myth and ancestry, music and poetry, Joy Harjo details her journey to becoming a poet. Born in Oklahoma, the end place of the Trail of Tears, Harjo grew up learning to dodge an abusive stepfather by finding shelter in her imagination, a deep spiritual life, and connection with the natural world. Narrating the complexities of betrayal and love, Crazy Brave is a haunting, visionary memoir about family and the breaking apart necessary in finding a voice. Find it in our Collection here.

5:30pm, April 3, 2024
Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett
Hosted by Children’s Librarian Ellen O’Dell

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics.
Find it in our Collection here.
Read Ellen’s O’Dell’s review of Tom Lake.