2026 Meet-Ups
Prefer exploring books by theme? Attend an upcoming Genre Meetup, held off-site at a local restaurant, where readers gather to explore a mix of titles within a specific genre like Science Fiction, Mystery, or even Cookbooks. Take a deep dive into each genre by reading and discussing 3 books that fit the theme (try to read at least one). A great evening out centered on our favorite hobby – reading! Register for our next meeting on our events calendar.
March
The Sci Fi Book Club is meeting on Thursday, March 19th at Inka Terra in Stony Point!
Join us for food, drinks, fun, and new friends – as we take a deep dive into the Science Fiction genre(s). Please read at least one of the book selections:
• SCI FI: [Land of Milk & Honey – C Pam Zhang] A rapturous and revelatory novel about a young chef whose discovery of pleasure alters her life and, indirectly, the world. A smog has spread. Food crops are rapidly disappearing. A chef escapes her dying career in a dreary city to take a job at a decadent mountaintop colony seemingly free of the world’s troubles.
• FANTASY: [The Great When – Alan Moore] A new fantasy series about murder, magic, and madness in postWWII London. Dennis Knuckleyard is a hapless 18-year-old who works and lives in a second-hand bookstore. One day, his boss & landlady sends him to retrieve some rare books, one of which should not exist – a fictitious book that appears in a real novel by another author – yet it is physically there in his hands, nonetheless.
• DYSTOPIAN: [Denial – Jon Raymond] The year is 2052. Climate change has had a predictably devastating effect, yet it could be much worse. Two decades earlier, the global protest movement helped break the planet’s fossil fuel dependency, and the subsequent Trials convicted the most powerful for crimes against the environment. But not all of them.
April
The Non-Fiction Book Club is meeting on Thursday April 16th at 6pm at Gyro Point Plus – in Stony Point
We will discuss the following books (choose one or more):
• BIOGRAPHY: [Cleopatra’s Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen – Jane Draycott] The first modern biography of Cleopatra Selene, the only daughter of Marc Antony and Cleopatra. She was expected to marry well and bear sons; and to legitimize and strengthen her parents’ rule. Yet with their parents’ deaths by suicide, the princess and her brothers found themselves the inheritors of Egypt, a claim that placed them squarely in the warpath of the Roman emperor.
• MEMOIR: [Song so Wild & Blue: Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell – Paul Lisicky] A gorgeous account of how Joni Mitchell’s work shaped Paul Lisicky’s artistry throughout his life. From the moment he heard Joni Mitchell, he recognized she was a rarity among musicians—a talent whose combination of introspection, liberation, and deep musicality set her apart. As a young man, Paul was a budding songwriter but as he matured, he set his guitar aside and lost himself in prose, which eventually takes him to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and into the professional world of letters.
• NON-FICTION: [The Ruin of All Witches: Life & Death in the New World – Malcolm Gaskill] In Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen: food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. As tensions rise, rumors spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation.
May
The Fiction Book Club is meeting on Thursday May 14th at 6pm at Los Andes in Stony Point (43 N Liberty Dr, Stony Point, NY 10980) to discuss the following books (choose one or more):
- HISTORICAL FICTION: [Katherine, The Wright Sister – Tracey Emerson Wood] The Wright sister is the surprising architect & mastermind of logistics, the powerful force and voice, full of enthusiasm and persuasion, behind her two brothers and the achievement of human flight.The Non-Fiction Book Club is meeting on Thursday April 16th at 6pm at Gyro Point Plus – in Stony Point
- FICTION: [Parasol Against the Axe – Helen Oyeyemi] Magical Realism. An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel set in Prague where words in a book change depending on the day, or who is reading them.
- CLASSIC FICTION: [1984 – George Orwell] The story of one man’s Nightmare Odyssey as he pursues a forbidden love affair through a world ruled by warring states and a power structure that controls not only information but also individual thought and memory. Big Brother is watching!
June
The Mystery Book Club is meeting on Thursday, June 11th at Patriot Lounge in Stony Point (19 Clubhouse Lane, Stony Point, NY 10980). Join us for food, drinks, fun, and new friends – as we take a deep dive into the Mystery genre. Please read at least one of the following book selections:
- MYSTERY: [Small Mercies – Dennis Lehane] Boston, 1974. Set against the violence of desegregation in public schools. Superb thriller, brutal depiction of criminality & power and an unflinching portrait of American racism.
- THRILLER: [Incendiary – Chris Cleave] A letter to Osama Bin Laden from a young mother who lost both her husband and her son in a fictional terrorist attack he orchestrated.
- TRUE CRIME: [The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics and the end of the Jazz Age – Michael Wolraich] Riveting story of how the murder of femme fatale Vivian Gordon in 1931 brought about the downfall of a NYC mayor and led to the end of Tammany Hall’s dominance.
July
The Sci Fi Book Club is meeting on Thursday, July 16th at Sakura in Stony Point (22 Holt Dr #105, Stony Point, NY 10980)! Join us for food, drinks, fun, and new friends – as we take a deep dive into the Science Fiction genre(s). Please read at least one of the book selections:
- SCI FI [The Gods Themselves – Isaac Asimov] In the 22nd century Earth obtains limitless, free energy from an exchange between Earth & a parallel universe. But even free energy has a price. The process will eventually lead to the destruction of Earth itself.
- FANTASY [The Morningside – Tea Obreht] Magical novel about mothers & daughters, displacement & belonging. Myths both old and new.
- DYSTOPIAN [World Made by Hand (#1) – James Howard Kunstler] Dystopian Post Climatic Apocalypse. Residents of Union Grove, NY, struggle with the new way of life in a world of abandoned highways, empty houses, and horses working the fields.
August
The Non-Fiction Book Club is meeting on Thursday August 13th at 6pm at Raices – in Tomkins Cove (337 N Liberty Dr, Tomkins Cove, NY 10986) to discuss the following books (choose one or more):
- NON-FICTION: [Four Shots in the Dark: A True Story of Spies, Murder and Justice in Northern Ireland – Henry Heming] Story of the killing of Frank Hegarty, an IRA member turned British informant. Riveting story of his role in the Troubles.
- BIOGRAPHY: [Vigilance: The life of William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad – Andrew K. Diemer] Remarkable and inspiring story about an unknown abolitionist who dedicated his life managing a critical section of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia helping hundreds of people escape slavery.
- MEMOIR: [That Librarian: The Fight against book banning in America – Amanda Jones] Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of vicious culture wars.
Please contact our Book Club Organizer with any questions.
Joy Buckhout, jbuckhout@rcls.org
