January Title

This one has been highly sought after by book clubs recently!  We have copies to loan, including audio and large print editions. The group will meet on Wednesday January 15th at 1pm by the fireplace as usual.  Join us!

 On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there’s more to this crime than meets the eye.

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting—a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum—in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire’s studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery.Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.   --goodreads.com

December Title

Our December title is The Postmistress by Sarah Blake.  Copies of the book are available to borrow at the library.  Join us by the fireplace on Wednesday December 18 at 1pm.

In London covering the Blitz with Edward R. Murrow, Frankie Bard meets a Cape Cod doctor in a shelter and promises that she'll deliver a letter for him when she finally returns to the United States. Filled with stunning parallels to today's world, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women--and of two countries torn apart by war.

November Title

 Join the group on Wednesday November 20th at 1pm by the fireplace at the library!

After eight commanding works of fiction, the Pulitzer Prize winner now turns to memoir in a hilarious, moving, and always surprising account of his life, his parents, and the upstate town they all struggled variously to escape.

Anyone familiar with Richard Russo's fiction will recognize Gloversville, New York, once famous for producing that eponymous product and anything else made of leather. This is where the author grew up, the only son of an aspirant mother and a good-time, second-fiddle father who were born into this close-knit community. But by the time of his childhood in the 1950s, prosperity was inexorably being replaced by poverty and illness (often tannery-related), everyone barely scraping by under a very low horizon. A world elsewhere was the dream his mother instilled in Rick, and strived for for herself, and their subsequent adventures and tribulations--beautifully recounted here--were to prove lifelong, as would Gloversville's fearsome grasp on them both.  --from the publisher

October title

Copies of Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver are now available to borrow from the library for our discussion on Wednesday October 16th at 1pm.  Stop by for your copy today!

"Kingsolver is a gifted magician of words." -Time The extraordinary New York Times bestselling author of The Lacuna (winner of the Orange Prize), The Poisonwood Bible (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize), and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Barbara Kingsolver returns with a truly stunning and unforgettable work. Flight Behavior is a brilliant and suspenseful novel set in present day Appalachia; a breathtaking parable of catastrophe and denial that explores how the complexities we inevitably encounter in life lead us to believe in our particular chosen truths. Kingsolver's riveting story concerns a young wife and mother on a failing farm in rural Tennessee who experiences something she cannot explain, and how her discovery energizes various competing factions-religious leaders, climate scientists, environmentalists, politicians-trapping her in the center of the conflict and ultimately opening up her world. Flight Behavior is arguably Kingsolver's must thrilling and accessible novel to date, and like so many other of her acclaimed works, represents contemporary American fiction at its finest.

September title

Stop by and pick up a copy of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Frye by Rachel Joyce - our September book group choice.  Discussion will take place on Wednesday September 18th at 1pm by the fireplace.  See you there!

Meet Harold Fry, recently retired. He lives in a small English village with his wife, Maureen, who seems irritated by almost everything he does, even down to how he butters his toast. Little differentiates one day from the next. Then one morning the mail arrives, and within the stack of quotidian minutiae is a letter addressed to Harold in a shaky scrawl from a woman he hasn't seen or heard from in twenty years. Queenie Hennessy is in hospice and is writing to say goodbye. Harold pens a quick reply and, leaving Maureen to her chores, heads to the corner mailbox. But then, as happens in the very best works of fiction, Harold has a chance encounter, one that convinces him that he absolutely must deliver his message to Queenie in person. And thus begins the unlikely pilgrimage at the heart of Rachel Joyce's remarkable debut. Harold Fry is determined to walk six hundred miles from Kingsbridge to the hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed because, he believes, as long as he walks, Queenie Hennessey will live. Still in his yachting shoes and light coat, Harold embarks on his urgent quest across the countryside. Along the way he meets one fascinating character after another, each of whom unlocks his long-dormant spirit and sense of promise. Memories of his first dance with Maureen, his wedding day, his joy in fatherhood, come rushing back to him--allowing him to also reconcile the losses and the regrets. As for Maureen, she finds herself missing Harold for the first time in years. And then there is the unfinished business with Queenie Hennessy. A novel of unsentimental charm, humor, and profound insight into the thoughts and feelings we all bury deep within our hearts, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry introduces Rachel Joyce as a wise--and utterly irresistible--storyteller. Advance praise for The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry "When it seems almost too late, Harold Fry opens his battered heart and lets the world rush in. This funny, poignant story about an ordinary man on an extraordinary journey moved and inspired me."--Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank "There's tremendous heart in this debut novel by Rachel Joyce, as she probes questions that are as simple as they are profound: Can we begin to live again, and live truly, as ourselves, even in middle age, when all seems ruined? Can we believe in hope when hope seems to have abandoned us? I found myself laughing through tears, rooting for Harold at every step of his journey. I'm still rooting for him."--Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife "Marvelous! I held my breath at his every blister and cramp, and felt as if by turning the pages, I might help his impossible quest succeed."--Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand "Harold's journey is ordinary and extraordinary; it is a journey through the self, through modern society, through time and landscape. It is a funny book, a wise book, a charming book--but never cloying. It's a book with a savage twist--and yet never seems manipulative. Perhaps because Harold himself is just wonderful. . . . I'm telling you now: I love this book."--Erica Wagner, The Times (UK) "The odyssey of a simple man . . . original, subtle and touching."--Claire Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life From the Hardcover edition.

August book

Stop by the library and pick up a copy of The Sense of an Ending for our August selection.  Julian Barnes is the author of many books including Flaubert's Parrot and Arthur & George.
The Sense of an Ending won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 and was described by The New Yorker as "Elegant, playful, and remarkable." 

The story of a man coming to terms with the mutable past, Julian Barnes's new novel is laced with his trademark precision, dexterity and insight. It is the work of one of the world's most distinguished writers. Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they navigated the girl drought of gawky adolescence together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly more intelligent, but they swore to stay friends forever. Until Adrian's life took a turn into tragedy, and all of them, especially Tony, moved on and did their best to forget. Now Tony is in middle age. He's had a career and a marriage, a calm divorce. He gets along nicely, he thinks, with his one child, a daughter, and even with his ex-wife. He's certainly never tried to hurt anybody. Memory, though, is imperfect. It can always throw up surprises, as a lawyer's letter is about to prove. The unexpected bequest conveyed by that letter leads Tony on a dogged search through a past suddenly turned murky. And how do you carry on, contentedly, when events conspire to upset all your vaunted truths?

July title

Come by and pick up a copy of our July discussion book Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.  Discussion will take place on Wednesday July 17 at 1 pm by the fireplace in the library.

In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father's prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn't be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree . . . until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides. As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown's old ways and rules. At its heart, Shanghai Girls is a story of sisters: Pearl and May are inseparable best friends who share hopes, dreams, and a deep connection, but like sisters everywhere they also harbor petty jealousies and rivalries. They love each other, but each knows exactly where to drive the knife to hurt the other the most. Along the way they face terrible sacrifices, make impossible choices, and confront a devastating, life-changing secret, but through it all the two heroines of this astounding new novel hold fast to who they are: Shanghai girls.    from the hardcover edition

May book

 Come by a pick up a copy of our May discussion book The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian.  Discussion will take place on Wednesday May 15 at 1 pm by the fireplace in the library.

When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Aleppo, Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. It’s 1915, and Elizabeth has volunteered to help deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian Genocide during the First World War. There she meets Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. After leaving Aleppo and traveling into Egypt to join the British Army, he begins to write Elizabeth letters, realizing that he has fallen in love with the wealthy young American.
 Years later, their American granddaughter, Laura, embarks on a journey back through her family’s history, uncovering a story of love, loss—and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations. ©Random House

April book

Winner of the ALA ALEX award.  Roland Merullo is also the author of Breakfast with Buddha and Golfing with God. Join us Wednesday April 17th at 1pm. Copies of the book are available to check out at the library.

In rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back-country roads, never to be seen alive again. For seventeen-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home. Marjorie's parents are so intentionally isolated from society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays their disdain for the wider world.  Tormented by her classmates, Marjorie is known as "the talk-funny girl"...by turns darkly menacing and bright with resilience, The Talk-Funny Girl is the story of one young woman's remarkable courage, a road map for the healing of childhood abuse, and a testament to the power of kindness and love.  --book jacket

March title

March is flying by and this week is our group meeting for The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler.  Wednesday March 20th at 1pm by the fireplace.

February is Hopkinton READS! month

As part of Hopkinton READS! this month, we will be discussing Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.  There will be two chances to discuss the book with our special guest Kate LaClair. Come join us Wednesday February 27th Thursday February 28th at either 1pm or 7pm.  Copies of the book are available to borrow at the library.  You can also buy a paperback copy for $5, thanks to the Hopkinton Public Library Foundation and provided by YBP. See other programs related to Hopkinton READS! here.