Salem Public Library Book Club – Salem, MA

This Month’s Selection: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Join us for a discussion of this bestselling novel by the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife!

Discussion Questions

Warning: discussion questions contain plot spoilers

This Month’s Selection: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Join us for a discussion of this bestselling novel!

Discussion Questions

Warning: discussion questions contain plot spoilers

This Month’s Selection: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Join us for a discussion of this bestselling novel!

Discussion Questions

Warning: discussion questions contain plot spoilers

This Month’s Selection: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

Join us for a discussion of this “bitterly funny” bestselling novel!

Discussion Questions

Warning: discussion questions contain plot spoilers

This Month’s Selection: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Five People You Meet in Heaven weaves together three stories about 83-year-old Eddie, a maintenance man at Ruby Point Amusement park who is killed in a tragic accident trying to save the life of a little girl. In heaven, Eddie meets five people, each with a story to share, a secret to reveal and a lesson to impart which hold deep meaning for Eddie on the real purpose of his life.
Join us for a discussion of this bestselling novel!

This Month’s Selection: Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Join us for a discussion of this fascinating novel!
Remarkable Creatures is the story of Mary Anning, who has a talent for finding fossils, and whose discovery of ancient marine reptiles such as the ichthyosaur shakes the scientific community and leads to new ways of thinking about the creation of the world. Working in an arena dominated by middle-class men, however, Mary finds herself out of step with her working-class background. In danger of being an outcast in her community, she takes solace in an unlikely friendship with Elizabeth Philpot, a prickly London spinster with her own passion for fossils. The strong bond between Mary and Elizabeth sees them through struggles with poverty, rivalry and ostracism, as well as the physical dangers of their chosen obsession. It reminds us that friendship can outlast storms and landslides, anger and and jealousy. (via tchevalier.com)

This Month’s Selection: The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Join us for a discussion of this bestselling novel! Set in 1946, it begins when “writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.”

This Month’s Selection: Dark Tide by Stephen Puleo

“Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston’s waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles per hour. When the tide receded, a section of the city’s North End had been transformed into a war zone. The Great Boston Molasses Flood claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals, injured 150, and caused widespread destruction.”
Join us for a discussion of Stephen Puleo’s in-depth account of this surreal, little known disaster.

This Month’s Selection: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Join us for a discussion of Katherine Howe’s bestselling novel, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. Set alternately in the 1990s and 1692, this acclaimed novel is the story of a graduate student who goes looking for a missing document and who ultimately finds her own powerful connection to the Salem witch trials.

This Month’s Selection: The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Join us for a discussion of Audrey Niffenegger’s acclaimed first novel. It is a supernatural love story about Henry, a librarian who has a genetic disorder that causes him to move unexpectedly through time, and his wife Clare. The Time Traveler’s Wife reveals the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare’s marriage and their undying love for one another as the story unfolds from both points of view.