TELL ME EVERYTHING, BY ELIZABETH STROUT

 

BOOK DISCUSSION ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2025

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?”- goodreads

Discussion will be both in-person and on Zoom, via our events calendar at www.hwpl.org

THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON, BY EDITH WHARTON

 

Set in the 1920s, Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, a couple with the right connections but not much in the way of funds. They devise a shrewd bargain: they'll marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas. As Susy explains, "We should really, in a way, help more than hamper each other. We both know the ropes so well; what one of us didn't see the other might - in the way of opportunities, I mean". The other part of the plan states that if either one of them meets someone who can advance them socially, they're free to dissolve the marriage. How their plan unfolds is a comedy of errors that will charm all fans of Wharton's work.  (goodreads.com)

HWPL READERS DISCUSSION

ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, AT 2:00 PM

IN-PERSON AND ON ZOOM

VIA CALENDAR OF EVENTS

North Woods, by Daniel Mason

 

Book Discussion  Tuesday July 15,

 at 2:00 PM

in-person and on Zoom

via events calendar at www.hwpl.org

Mason’s ambitious, kaleidoscopic novel ushers readers over the threshold of a house in the wilds of western Massachusetts and leaves us there for 300 years and almost 400 pages. One after another, in sections interspersed with letters, poems, song lyrics, diary entries, medical case notes, real estate listings, vintage botanical illustrations and assorted ephemera not normally bound into the pages of a novel, we get to know the inhabitants of the place from colonial times to present day. There’s an apple farmer, an abolitionist and a wealthy manufacturer. A pair of beetles. A landscape painter. A ghost. Their lives (and deaths) briefly intersect, but mostly layer over each other in dazzling decoupage. All the while, the natural world looks on — a long-suffering, occasionally destructive presence. Mason is the consummate genial host, inviting you to stay as long as you like and to make of the place what you will.  (nytimes.com)

The Safekeep, by Yael Van Der Wouden

 HWPL READERS BOOK DISCUSSION ON TUESDAY JUNE 17, 2025

AT 2:00 PM

An exhilarating, twisted tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past

Shortlisted for 2024 Booker Prize..

James, by Percival Everett

Book Discussion: Tuesday May 20, 2025

A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view. Winner of the 2024 National Book Award and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize. 

THE GOD OF THE WOODS, BY LIZ MOORE

 

BOOK DISCUSSION 

TUESDAY, APRIL 29

AT 2:00 PM

IN-PERSON AND ON  ZOOM

SEE OUR UPCOMING EVENTS AT WWW.HWPL.ORG FOR LINK

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.

PROPHET SONG, BY PAUL LYNCH

 

BOOK DISCUSSION

IN-PERSON AND VIA ZOOM

TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 2025

AT 2:00 PM

On a dark, wet evening in Dublin, scientist and mother-of-four Eilish Stack answers her front door to find two officers from Ireland’s newly formed secret police on her step. They have arrived to interrogate her husband, a trade unionist.

Ireland is falling apart, caught in the grip of a government turning towards tyranny. As the life she knows and the ones she loves disappear before her eyes, Eilish must contend with the dystopian logic of her new, unraveling country. How far will she go to save her family? And what—or who—is she willing to leave behind?

The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother’s fight to hold her family together.

THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS, BY LUIS ALBERTO URREA

 

Book Discussion 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

At 2:00 PM

The definitive Mexican-American immigrant story, a sprawling and deeply felt portrait of a Mexican-American family occasioned by the impending loss of its patriarch, from one of the country's most beloved authors.

Prizewinning and bestselling writer Luis Urrea has written his Mexican coming-to-America story and his masterpiece. Destined to sit alongside other classic immigrant novels, The House of Broken Angels is a sprawling and epic family saga helmed by patriarch Big Angel. The novel gathers together the entire De La Cruz clan, as they meet for the final birthday party Big Angel is throwing for himself, at home in San Diego, as he nears the end of his struggle with cancer and reflects on his long and full life.

But when Big Angel's mother, Mama America, approaching one hundred, dies herself as the party nears, he must plan her funeral as well. There will be two family affairs in one weekend: a farewell double-header. Among the attendants is his half-brother and namesake, Little Angel, who comes face to face with the siblings with whom he shared a father but not, as the weekend proceeds to remind him, a life.

This story of the De La Cruzes is the story of what it means to be a Mexican in America, to have lived two lives across one border. It is a tale of the ravaging power of death to shore up the bits of life you have forgotten, whether by choice or not. Above all, this finely wrought portrait of a deeply complex family and the America they have come to call home is Urrea at his purest and best. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, The House of Broken Angels cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank. (www.goodreads.com)