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.
January
The Fiction Book Club is meeting on Thursday, January 22nd at Fiesta Acapulco
Join us out at a local restaurant and let’s discuss the following book(s) in the Fiction/Classics/Historical Fiction genres: (choose 1 or more)
FICTION: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans – A retired, divorced woman named Sybil Van Antwerp, told through her letters and emails to family, friends, and strangers, which explores themes of family, guilt, and connection as she grapples with aging and a past mystery
CLASSIC: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – A semi-autobiographical novel, published in 1963, about a brilliant young woman, Esther Greenwood, who experiences a mental breakdown while navigating societal pressures and her own ambitions in 1950s America, leading to a descent into depression and institutionalization.
HISTORICAL FICTION: Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones – Two half-sisters in 1980s Atlanta, whose lives become intertwined through their bigamist father, who has a public family and a secret one.
February
The Mystery Book Club is meeting on Thursday, February 12th at Patriot Lounge
Join us out at a local restaurant and let’s discuss the following book(s) in the Mystery/Thriller/True Crime genres: (choose 1 or more)
Mystery: Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman – Four septuagenarian friends in a peaceful retirement village—Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim, and Ron—who solve cold cases for fun. When a local property developer is murdered, the group tackles a real-life case, outsmarting the police to find the killer.
Thriller: The Angel Maker by Alex North – A dark thriller centering on Katie Shaw, who tries to find her estranged, missing brother, Chris, linked to a brutal murder, a past attack, and a legendary serial killer who allegedly saw the future.
True Crime: American Demon by Eliot Ness and Daniel Stashower – True Crime, chronicling legendary lawman Eliot Ness’s frustrating, often overlooked 1930s hunt for a sadistic serial killer (“The Torso Killer”) in Cleveland.
March
The Sci Fi Book Club is meeting on Thursday, March 19th at Inka Terra
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
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 28th at 6pm at Los Andes
- 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 Tuesday, June 16th at Patriot Lounge
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 Tuesday, July 21st at Sakura
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
- 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.
September
The Fiction Book Club – Thursday September 24 at the Hudson Water Club
· FICTION: [The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife – Anna Johnston] A humorous tale of a man mistaken for a nursing home resident. He tries to convince them he is not but is not believed, so he takes on that identity & lives out his life.
· CLASSIC FICTION: [To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf] The story of the Ramsay family’s visits to the Isle of Skye. An examination of the complex tensions between men & women and the allegiances of family life.
· HISTORICAL FICTION: [Lincoln in the Bardo – George Saunders] Magical Realism. Fighting has begun in earnest in The Civil War, and Lincoln’s 11yo boy is gravely ill and dies. A grief-stricken Lincoln visits his crypt several times… From that seed of historical truth, this story of familial love & loss breaks free into a thrilling, supernatural realm.
October
The Mystery Book Club – Thursday, October 22 at Patriot Lounge
·COZY MYSTERY: [Two Parts Sugar, One Part Murder – Valerie Bruno] Maddy is a social media expert starting over in a small town after inheriting her great-aunt’s bakery. But something strange is happening there and Maddy is going to need more than a trending hashtag to save her reputation — and her life.
· THRILLER: [The Maid – Nita Prose] Heartwarming journey of the spirit. Explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet be entirely different. Reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.
· TRUE CRIME: [Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud & the Last Trial of Harper Lee – Casey Cep] This is the story Harper Lee wanted to write. This is the story of why she couldn’t. Stunning story of an Alabama serial killer. From the shocking murders, to the courtroom drama, to the racial politics of the Deep South in the 1970s. Deeply moving portrait of one of America’s most beloved authors and her struggle with fame, success and the mystery of artistic creativity.
November
The Sci Fi Book Club – Thursday, November 19 at Hudson’s Mill
· SCI FI: [Sleeper Beach (sequel to Titanium Noire) – Nick Harkaway] Cal Sounder is a detective first and a Titan second. On the shore of a rundown holiday town, a young woman washes up on a beach. The matriarch of a local dynasty suspects a member of her own family might be involved in her murder.
· FANTASY: [The Other Valley – Scott Alexander Howard] A speculative novel about an isolated town that is neighbored on either side by its own past and future.
· DYSTOPIAN: [The Running Man – Richard Bachman] In 2025, Ben Richards is out of work and out of luck. For a man from the poor side of town with no cash and no hope, there’s only one thing to do: become a contestant on the Network’s game show where you can win more money than you’ve ever dreamed of—or die trying.
December
The Non-Fiction Book Club – Thursday, December 17 at 6pm at Pasta Cucina
· NON-FICTION: [Maurice & Maralyn: A Whale, a Shipwreck, a Love Story – Sophie Elmhirst] Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maurice and Maralyn plan their escape: sell the house, build a boat, set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway around the world, their beloved boat is struck by a whale and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
· BIOGRAPHY: [Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, An Epic Journey, A Lost Age – Reid Mitenbuler] Mesmerizing, larger-than-life adventurer who traversed some of the greatest frontiers of the 20th century. From uncharted Arctic wastelands to the underground resistance networks of World War II.
· MEMOIR: [The Whole Staggering Mystery: A Story of Fathers Lost & Found – Sylvia Brownrigg] When Sylvia received a package for her father that had been lost for 50 years, she wanted to deliver it to him before it was too late. She did not expect her father would choose not to open it. So, she & her brother did.
Please contact our Book Club Organizer with any questions.
Joy Buckhout, jbuckhout@rcls.org
