At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

Tuesday

September 20, 2016

From Tracy Chevalier, bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring, a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier. 1838: James and Sadie Goodenough have settled where their wagon got stuck – in the muddy, stagnant swamps of northwest Ohio. They and their five children work relentlessly to tame their patch of land, buying saplings from a local tree man known as John Appleseed so they can cultivate the fifty apple trees required to stake their claim on the property. But the orchard they plant sows the seeds of a long battle. James loves the apples, reminders of an easier life back in Connecticut; while Sadie prefers the applejack they make, an alcoholic refuge from brutal frontier life. Spanning 15 years and a journey from the Black Swamp of northeastern Ohio to California's redwood forests, Chevalier's latest draws readers into the simple highs and the frequent lows of 19th-century pioneer life. 

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

Tuesday

August 16, 2016

7:00

From the New York Times  bestselling author of The Dovekeepers  and The Museum of Extraordinary Things: a forbidden love story set on the tropical island of St. Thomas about the extraordinary woman who gave birth to painter Camille Pissarro—the Father of Impressionism. Hoffman unfolds the intriguing story of Pissarro’s beginnings. She adeptly and beautifully imagines the tempestuous life of the artist’s mother, Rachel Pomié, who defied convention for passion, and how his formative years on the island influenced him personally and professionally.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance by Jonathan Evison

Tuesday

July 19, 2016

7:00

With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise only to discover through a series of revelations that she’s been living the past sixty years of her life under entirely false pretenses. Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with a supremely endearing heroine at its center. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman with great warmth, humanity, and humor. 

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Dead Wake by Erik Larson

Tuesday

June 21, 2016

7:00

From the bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction comes the enthralling story of the sinking of the Lusitania. Larson delivers a riveting account of one of the most tragic events of WWI. The fact a German U-boat sank the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland in May 1915 is undisputed, so Larson crafts the story as historical suspense by weaving information about the war and the development of submarine technology with an interesting cast of characters. He expertly builds tension up to the final encounter. 

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian

Tuesday

May 17, 2016

7:00

From the bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls comes the spellbinding tale of a party gone horribly wrong: two men lie dead in a suburban living room; two women are on the run from police; and a marriage is ripping apart at the seams. Richard Chapman’s life rapidly spirals into a nightmare. The police throw him out of his home, now a crime scene; his investment banking firm puts him on indefinite leave; and his wife finds herself unable to forgive him for the moment he shared with a dark-haired girl in the guest room. But the dark-haired girl, Alexandra, faces a much graver danger. In one breathless, violent night, she is free, running to escape the police who will arrest her and the gangsters who will kill her in a heartbeat. A literary thriller you will be unable to put down!

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Tuesday

April 19, 2016

7:00

Tom Sherbourne is a lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a tiny island a half day’s boat journey from the coast of Western Australia. When a baby washes up in a rowboat, he and his young wife Isabel decide to raise the child as their own. The baby seems like a gift from God, and the couple’s reasoning for keeping her seduces the reader into entering the waters of treacherous morality even as Tom--whose moral code withstood the horrors of World War I--begins to waver. M. L. Stedman’s vivid characters and gorgeous descriptions of the solitude of Janus Rock and of the unpredictable Australian frontier create a perfect backdrop for the tale of longing, loss, and the overwhelming love for a child that is The Light Between Oceans.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Circling the Sun by Paula McClain

Tuesday

March 15, 2016

7:00

Paula McLain, author of the phenomenal bestseller The Paris Wife, now returns with her keenly anticipated new novel, transporting readers to colonial Kenya in the 1920s. Circling the Sun brings to life a fearless and captivating woman—Beryl Markham, a record-setting aviator caught up in a passionate love triangle with safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and Karen Blixen, who as Isak Dinesen wrote the classic memoir Out of Africa.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman

Tuesday

February 16, 2016

7:00

Laura Lippman, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I’d Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know, returns with an addictive story that explores how one man’s disappearance echoes through the lives of the wife, mistress, and daughters he left behind. 

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

NO MEETING IN DECEMBER

Tuesday

January 19, 2016

7:00

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet . . . So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother’s bright blue eyes and her father’s jet-black hair. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Some Luck by Jane Smiley

Tuesday

November 17, 2015

7:00

This sweeping, carefully plotted novel traces the history, from 1920 to the Cold War era, of a single Iowa farming family. Each chapter focuses on one year, setting the minor catastrophes and victories of the family’s life against a backdrop of historical change, particularly the Great Depression. As the children branch out from their tiny town, so, too, does the story, eventually encompassing several generations, cities, and cultural movements. The first of a trilogy, this novel was published in 2014, followed by Early Warning and just published Golden Age. Smiley delivers a straightforward, old-fashioned tale of rural family life in changing times, depicting isolated farm life with precision.

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat by Lisa Scottoline & Francesca Serritella

Tuesday

October 20, 2015

7:00

The unstoppable, irreverent mother-daughter team presents a new collection of funny stories and true confessions that every woman can relate to. From identity theft to the hazards of bicycling to college reunions and eating on the beach, Lisa and Francesca tackle the quirks, absurdities, and wonders of everyday life with wit and warmth.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Tuesday

September 15, 2015

7:00

In this bestselling and charming debut from one of Sweden’s most successful authors, a grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door. 

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

The Magician’s Lie by Greer Macallister

Tuesday

August 18, 2015

7:00

“Water for Elephants meets The Night Circus in The Magician's Lie, a debut novel in which the country's most notorious female illusionist stands accused of her husband's murder―and she has only one night to convince a small-town policeman of her innocence.”

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Someone by Alice McDermott

Tuesday

July 21, 2015

7:00

An ordinary life—its sharp pains and unexpected joys, its bursts of clarity and moments of confusion—lived by an ordinary woman: this is the subject of Someone, Alice McDermott’s extraordinary novel.Marie’s first heartbreak and her eventual marriage; her brother’s brief stint as a Catholic priest, subsequent loss of faith, and eventual breakdown; the Second World War; her parents’ deaths; the births and lives of Marie’s children; the changing world of her Irish-American enclave in Brooklyn—McDermott sketches all of it with sympathy and insight. 

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Little Mercies by Heather Gudenkauf

Tuesday

June 16, 2015

7:00

Ellen is a social worker and an advocate for children who has seen some pretty awful things — neglect, abuse and just pure evil. She finds herself fulfilled in protecting these children and tries to balance her career with her husband and children. On a day where her attention is elsewhere she finds herself on the other side of her job as her daughter’s life is in jeopardy and her role as a mother could be shaken up. At the same time, a little girl named Jenny finds her way into Ellen’s life. Jenny’s on her own because of some decisions her father made and she isn’t sure she wants to go home…at least not without finding out what she came for.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger

Tuesday

May 19, 2015

7:00 pm

New Bremen, Minnesota, 1961. It was a time of innocence and hope for a country with a new, young president. But for thirteen-year-old Frank Drum it was a grim summer in which death visited frequently and assumed many forms. Accident. Nature. Suicide. Murder.
Told from Frank’s perspective forty years after that fateful summer, Ordinary Grace is a brilliantly moving account of a boy standing at the door of his young manhood, trying to understand a world that seems to be falling apart around him. It is an unforgettable novel about discovering the terrible price of wisdom and the enduring grace of God. New York Times Bestseller and winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Novel.

Meetings are the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm 

 Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or emailing Connie Gray at grayco@oplin.org

One Plus One by JoJo Moyes

 Tuesday

April 21, 2015

7:00

One single mom. 

One chaotic family. 

One quirky stranger.

One irresistible love story from the New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Tuesday

March 17, 2015

7:00

From the celebrated author of The Secret Life of Bees, a magnificent novel about two unforgettable American women. Inspired by the true story of early-nineteenth-century abolitionist and suffragist Sarah Grimké, Kidd paints a moving portrait of two women inextricably linked by the horrors of slavery. 

Join the Good Reads Book Discussion Group 

meeting the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 7:00 pm

Please preregister by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Tuesday

February 17, 2015

     

7:00 pm

"In a high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from blowing up thousands. "On one level, Mr. Mercedes is an expertly crafted example of the classic race-against-the-clock thriller. On another, it is a novel of depth and character enriched throughout by the grace notes King provides in such seemingly effortless profusion. It is a rich, resonant, exceptionally readable accomplishment by a man who can write in whatever genre he chooses."

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or

email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org

Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly Corrigan

Tuesday

January 20, 2015

     

7:00 pm

Kelly Corrigan’s heartfelt homage to motherhood is every bit as tough and funny as it is nostalgic and searching. It’s a tale about growing up, gaining wisdom, and reconciling with Mom (something we all must do eventually), but it’s also an honest meditation on our deepest fears of death and abandonment.

Join Mercer County Library's Newest Book Discussion Group

Meeting the 3rd Tuesday of the month at 7:00 pm

Please pre-register by calling 419-586-4442 or email Connie Gray at connieg@mercerlibrary.org