Book Clubs
To find out about CALS book club kits to the community, click here.
Fletcher Library
Evening Book Discussion
Meetings are held the first Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the checkout desk. Call (501) 663-5457 for more details. Registration is not required.
June Book Selection:
Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway
While a cellist plays at the site of a mortar attack to commemorate the deaths of twenty-two friends and neighbors, two other men set out in search of bread and water to keep themselves alive, and a woman sniper secretly protects the life of the cellist as her army becomes increasingly threatening.
Upcoming Books:
Lunchtime Book Group
Meetings are held the third Wednesday of the month at 11:30 a.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the checkout desk. Bring your lunch; drinks are provided. Call (501)663-5457 for more details. Registration is not required.
June Book Selection:
Tender at the Bone, by Ruth Reichl
A restaurant critic for The New York Times offers a beautifully written, laugh-out-loud memoir – with recipes – of a life spent as a restaurant owner, chef, and food critic, from California to New York City
Upcoming Books:
Main Library
Food for Thought Book Club – NEW!
Food for Thought is a weekend lunchtime book club that meets on the fourth Saturday of each month, in the Harper Lee Room on the fifth floor, at 12:00 p.m. A new fiction or nonfiction title will be featured each month.
Also located on the fifth floor, Prose Garden Café, a soothing spot for a quick lunch, snack, or beverage, will be open for book club patrons. Registration is not required; copies of each month's book are available for check-out on the fifth floor. Call (501) 918-3020 for more details.
May Book Selection
Manhunt: The 12-Day Hunt for Lincoln's Killers, by James L. Swanson
The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror.
A Confederate sympathizer and a member of a celebrated acting family, John Wilkes Booth threw away his fame and wealth for a chance to avenge the South's defeat. Based on rare archival materials, obscure trial transcripts, and Lincoln's own blood relics, this book is a fully documented work, but it is also a tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal, an hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters.
Upcoming Books:
- June 22: Climbing the Mango Trees: a Memoir, by Madhur Jaffrey
- July 27: Life of Pi: a Novel, by Yann Martel
- August 24: The Prize Winner of Defiance, OH, by Terry Ryan
- September 28: Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
- October 26: Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, by Fannie Flagg
- November 23: Bridge of Sighs, by Richard Russo
- December 28: To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Wolfe
- January 25, 2014: Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
Maumelle Library
Maumelle's Second Monday Book Club
Meetings are held on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. Call (501) 851-2551 for more details. Registration is not required.
June Book Selection
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
Elizabeth Bennet's chances of happiness are endangered by the foibles of human nature in this classic nineteenth-century novel.
Upcoming Books:
2nd Monday "No Borders" Book Club
The 2nd Monday "No Borders" Book Club is a new kind of book club - one that will fit your schedule! It is an expansion of the existing Maumelle Library's 2nd Monday Book Club. With a growing interest in the book club mixed with the busy schedules of the readers, we open the book club to online discussion and online participation.
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McMath Library
Girlfriends, Books, and Brunch
Meetings are held once a month on Saturdays. Call (501) 225-0066 for exact day and time each month. Registration is not required.
Milam Library
Adult Book Chat
Meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at 12:30 pm. and will feature a book of the month. The book will be available for checkout at the circulation desk in advance. Bring you brown bag lunch and join us for a lively discussion.
May Book Selection
Miles to Go, by Richard Paul Evans
A vicious roadside attack has interrupted Alan's trek and robbed him of his one source of solace: the ability to walk. When a mysterious woman enters his life and invites him into her home, Alan realizes he must help her with her journey before he can return to his own.
Upcoming Book Schedule:
Nixon Library
Nixon Book Worms
Meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the Circulation Desk.
May Book Selection
Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan
Mamah and her husband, Edwin, commission the renowned architect to design a new home for them. During the construction of the house, a powerful attraction developed between Mamah and Frank, and in time the lovers, each married with children, embarked on a course that would shock Chicago society and forever change their lives.
Upcoming Book Schedule:
- June 25: Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls
- July 23: Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
- August 27: Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton
- September 24: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, by Tom Franklin
- October 22: Crying Tree, by Naseem Rakha
- November 26: Book of Bright Ideas, by Sandra Kring
- December 24: Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
- January 28, 2014: Bookmaker's Daughter, by Shirley Abbott
True Stories Book Club
Meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at 2:00 p.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the Circulation Desk
June Book Selection
Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared – Lt. Louis Zamperini. Captured by the Japanese and driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor.
Upcoming Book Schedule:
Sanders Library
Book Chats
Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month at 2 p.m. Members read whatever they choose and share with the group. Call (501) 835-7756 for more information.
The Page Turners
Meetings are held on the first Thursday of every month at 10:30 a.m. Members read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 835-7756 for more information.
Terry Library
Book Lover's Book Club
Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of every month, September through May, at 11:00 a.m. Members will read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 228-0129 for more details. Registration is not required, but appreciated.
May Book Selection
Old Filth, by Jane Gardam
Sir Edward Feathers has progressed from struggling young barrister to wealthy expatriate lawyer to distinguished retired judge, living out his last days in comfortable seclusion in Dorset. The engrossing and moving account of his life, from birth in colonial Malaya, to Wales, where he is sent as a "Raj orphan," to Oxford, his career and marriage, parallels much of the 20th century's torrid and twisted history.
Upcoming Book Schedule
Honey Rock Book Club
Meetings are held on the first Thursday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Members will read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 228-0129 for more details. Registration is not required.
June Book Selection
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
Things Fall Apart tells two intertwining stories, both centering on Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria. The first, a powerful fable of the immemorial conflict between the individual and society, traces Okonkwo’s fall from grace with the tribal world. The second, as modern as the first is ancient, concerns the clash of cultures and the destruction of Okonkwo's world with the arrival of aggressive European missionaries. These perfectly harmonized twin dramas are informed by an awareness capable of encompassing at once the life of nature, human history, and the mysterious compulsions of the soul.
Upcoming Book Schedule
Thompson Library
Evening Book Club
Meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month (no meeting in December) at 7:00 p.m. Members will read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 821-3060 for more details. Registration is not required, but appreciated.
May Book Selection
Whistling Season, by Ivan Doig
Hired as a housekeeper to work on the early 1900s Montana homestead of widower Oliver Milliron, the irreverent and perpetually whistling Rose and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris, endeavor to educate the widower's reluctant sons while witnessing local efforts on a massive irrigation project.
Upcoming Book Schedule
Online Book Clubs
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