Adult
Third-Thursday Book Discussion Group
Join us for spirited discussions of novels and non-fiction titles on the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. in Meeting Rooms C-D at the library. Books are provided upon registration for each session. For further information, please contact Rosemary Mirsky at (248) 246-3715 or rosemary@ropl.org.
August 15, 2019
Eat the Apple: a memoir by Matt Young. 2018. BIO YOUNG
A combat veteran and writing instructor traces the darkly comic story of his youth and masculinity shaped in an age of continuous war, describing how he joined the Marines as a way to temper his reckless nature before enduring three Iraq deployments.
September 19, 2019
There There: a Novel by Tommy Orange. 2018. FICTION O
Tommy Orange writes of the plight of the urban Native American, the Native American in the city, in a stunning novel that grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide.
October 17, 2019
Heartland: a Memoir of Working Hard and Being Poor in the Richest Country on Earth by Sarah Smarsh. 2018. BIO SMARSH
During Sarah Smarsh’s turbulent childhood in Kansas in the 1980s and 1990s, the forces of cyclical poverty and the country’s changing economic policies solidified her family’s place among the working poor. By telling the story of her life and the lives of the people she loves, Smarsh challenges us to look more closely at the class divide in our country and examine the myths about people thought to be less because they earn less. Her personal history affirms the corrosive impact intergenerational poverty can have on individuals, families, and communities, and she explores this idea as lived experience, metaphor, and level of consciousness.
November 21, 2019
News of the World by Paulette Jiles. 2016. FICTION J
Jiles offers the account of a travelling news reader in 1870s Texas who agrees to return a 10-tear-old girl who was kidnapped by the Kiowa when her German immigrant mother and father were killed. The two face many of hurdles on the journey back to her relatives in San Antonio as the girl adjusts to leaving her life with the Kiowa for four years. Critics have praised Jiles for her writing style and capturing the feel of pre-Civil War Texas.
The previously listed Nov. 21 choice – The Good Neighbor: the life and work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King -- will distributed at the Nov. 21 meeting and will be addressed at the group’s Jan. 16, 2020 meeting.
The group does not meet in December.
Salter Center Book Discussion Group
The Salter Center Book Discussion Group meets the third Monday of the month at 10:00 a.m. in the Senior Room of the Jack and Patti Salter Community Center, 1545 E. Lincoln. Books are provided upon registration for each session. For further information, please contact Matthew Day at (248) 246-3732 or matthew@ropl.org.
August 19, 2019
Terror in the City of Champions: Murder, baseball, and the secret society that shocked Depression-era Detroit
by Tom Stanton (2018) 364.1523 S
A city rich with history, Detroit is widely known for its sports teams, including the Tigers (baseball), Red Wings (hockey), and Lions (football). For Detroit, the 1930s was a period of corruption, crime, sports, and murder. It was also the era of the notoriously racist "klan like" group called the Black Legion. Stanton has written an engaging piece that highlights this darkened time.
September 16, 2019
17 Carnations: The Royals, the Nazis, and the Biggest Cover-Up in History by Andrew Morton (2015) 941.084 M
The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, and his abdication in order to marry the divorcée, has provoked fascination and discussion for decades. However, the full story of the couple's links with the German aristocracy and Hitler has until now remained untold.
October 21, 2019
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate (2017) FICTION W
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge – until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents – but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.
November 18, 2019
The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music by Steve López (2008) BIO AYERS
When Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, he finds it impossible to walk away. At first, he is drawn by the opportunity to crank out another column for the Los Angeles Times, just one more item on an ever-growing to-do list: “Violin Man.”
December 16, 2019
Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (1998) 423 W
The Professor and the Madman, masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary – and literary history.