Hosted by the Tyngsborough Public Library
This book club, run by staff here at the Tyngsborough Library, will be meeting on the last Wednesday of the month throughout 2023.
The book club is meant to be all-encompassing when it comes to the types of books we will be reading since it’s currently the only book club run by the library. The main goal is to break you out of your comfort zone, the genre of the book selected alternating each month. We might read a genre you never thought about picking up before. Different outlooks and reading histories will inspire our conversations, reflecting on similar themes and character dynamics that appear in these various settings, writing styles, and genres; embarking us on a journey to explore the vast diversity that is the book world!
No registration required. Copies of each title are available at the circulation desk approximately one month before each meeting. Drop in to any meeting regardless of prior attendance or completion of the book (though there will be spoilers in our discussions). Email [email protected] with any questions.
2023 Schedule
August 30th at 6:30pm
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre: Gothic; Horror
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemi Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find–her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemi knows little about the region. Noemi is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemi; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemi, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemi digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.
September 27th at 6:30pm
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Genre: Historical fiction, Greek Mythology Retelling
This is the women’s war, just as much as it is the men’s. They have waited long enough for their turn . . . This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of them all . . .
In the middle of the night, a woman wakes to find her beloved city engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over. Troy has fallen.
From the Trojan women whose fates now lie in the hands of the Greeks, to the Amazon princess who fought Achilles on their behalf, to Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus, to the three goddesses whose feud started it all, these are the stories of the women whose lives, loves, and rivalries were forever altered by this long and tragic war.
A woman’s epic, powerfully imbued with new life, A Thousand Ships puts the women, girls and goddesses at the center of the Western world’s great tale ever told.
October 25th at 6:30pm
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
Genre: Mystery; Thriller
Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail – for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he’s released, he’s greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.
November 29th at 6:30pm
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Genre: Psychological fiction; War stories; Classics
This is not simply a book about the Vietnam war, it is a sequence of award-winning stories about the human heart and about the terrible weight of life’s experiences.
December 27th at 6:30pm
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Genre: Literary Fiction
After Tova Sullivan’s husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she’s been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn’t dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors–until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova’s son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it’s too late.
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