LaRose, by Louise Erdrich

 

In-person discussion on Tuesday, November 25, at 2

In this literary masterwork, Louise Erdrich, the bestselling author of the National Book Award-winning The Round House and the Pulitzer Prize nominee The Plague of Doves wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture. (goodreads.com)

The Morningside, by Tea Obreht

October 21, 2025, at 2:00 PM

(in-person discussion)

There’s the world you can see. And then there’s the one you can’t. Welcome to the Morningside.

After being expelled from their ancestral home, Silvia and her mother finally settle at the Morningside, a crumbling luxury tower in Island City where Silvia’s aunt Ena serves as the superintendent. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place where she was born and spent her early years, nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an a person willing to give the young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality. (goodreads.com)

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.