Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

5:30-7:00pm in Meeting Room #4

Next up: Friday, September 18th - "Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, September 18, in Meeting Room #4 at the Main Library. We'll be discussing the novel "Skippy Dies," by Paul Murray. Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing contemporary fiction written or translated within the last twenty years. Discussions are led by library staff members, start at 5:45 pm, and generally go until 7:00 pm.  Light refreshments provided.


About the book
Why does Skippy, a fourteen-year-old boy at Dublin's venerable Seabrook College, end up dead on the floor of the local doughnut shop? Could it have something to do with his friend Ruprecht Van Doren, a genius who is determined to open a portal into a parallel universe using ten-dimensional string theory? Could it involve Carl, the teenage drug dealer and borderline psychotic who is Skippy's rival in love? Or could "the Automator"--the ruthless, smooth-talking headmaster intent on modernizing the school--have something to hide? Why Skippy dies and what happens next is the subject of this dazzling and uproarious novel, unraveling a mystery that links the boys of Seabrook College to their parents and teachers in ways nobody could have imagined.


New members are always welcome! Please email hartsig@portlandpubliclibrary.org or call the Reader’s Advisory desk at 871-1700, ext. 705, if you have any questions about the group. This program is free and registration is preferred.

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

5:30-7:00pm in Meeting Room #5

Next up: Friday, May 15th for “Relish” by Lucy Knisley

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, May 15, in Meeting Room 3 at the Main Library. Doors open at 5:30; discussion starts at 5:45 and generally goes till 7:00 p.m. Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing contemporary fiction written or translated within the last twenty years. Discussions are led by library staff members. 

This month the club will discuss the graphic novel "Relish" by Lucy Knisley. Light refreshments provided.

About the book:

Lucy Knisley loves food. The daughter of a chef and a gourmet, this talented young cartoonist comes by her obsession honestly. In her forthright, thoughtful, and funny memoir, Lucy traces key episodes in her life thus far, framed by what she was eating at the time and lessons learned about food, cooking, and life. Each chapter is bookended with an illustrated recipe -- many of them treasured family dishes, and a few of them Lucy's original inventions.

New members are always welcome! Please email hartsig@portlandpubliclibrary.org or call the Reader’s Advisory desk at 871-1700, ext. 705, if you have any questions about the group. This program is free and registration is preferred.

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

5:30-7:00pm in Meeting Room #5

Next up: Friday, April 17th for “Life Among Giants” by Bill Roorbach

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, April 17, in Meeting Room 3 at the Main Library. Doors open at 5:30; discussion starts at 5:45 and generally goes till 7:00 p.m. Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing contemporary fiction written or translated within the last twenty years. Discussions are led by library staff members.   

This month the club will discuss the novel “Life Among Giants" by Bill Roorbach. Light refreshments provided.

About the book:

David “Lizard” Hochmeyer lives across the pond from The High Side, a mansion the size of an embassy, home to the world famous ballerina Sylphide and her even more famous husband, the English rocker Dabney Stryker-Stewart. When Lizard’s parents are mysteriously killed, he and his brilliant but unstable sister, Kate, are left adrift and full of questions. We follow young Lizard through the years as he attempts to make sense of his world and his past. And what a varied and giant life it is: from football star at Princeton to Miami Dolphins quarterback, from confidant of the alluring Sylphide to owner and chef of a high-end restaurant, and all the while haunted by his parents' murders and determined to wreak his revenge--if only he can find the killers.

New members are always welcome! Please email hartsig@portlandpubliclibrary.org or call the Reader’s Advisory desk at 871-1700, ext. 705, if you have any questions about the group. This program is free and registration is preferred.

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club Next up: Friday, March 27th for “Lucky Us” by Amy Bloom‏

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

5:30-7:00pm in Meeting Room #5

Next up: Friday, March 27th for “Lucky Us” by Amy Bloom 

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, March 27, in Meeting Room 5 at the Main Library. Doors open at 5:30; discussion starts at 5:45 and generally goes till 7:00 p.m. Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing contemporary fiction written or translated within the last twenty years. Discussions are led by library staff members.  
This month the club will discuss the novel “Lucky Us" by Amy Bloom. Light refreshments provided.

About the book:

“My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.”  So begins the story of teenage half-sisters Eva and Iris in this brilliantly written, deeply moving, and fantastically funny novel by the beloved and critically acclaimed author of Away. Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star, and Eva, the sidekick, journey across 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris’s ambitions take the sisters from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island. With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine through a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with memorable characters and unexpected turns, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, these unforgettable people love, lie, cheat, and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species.

About the author

Author of two novels, three collections of short stories, and a nominee for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and numerous anthologies here and abroad. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, among many other publications, and has won a National Magazine Award. Her most recent novel, Away, was an epic story about a Russian immigrant.   Her recent collection of short stories, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, came out in January 2010.  Her next novel, Lucky Us, (Random House) will be out in early 2014.  She lives in Connecticut and taught at Yale University for the last decade.  She is now Wesleyan University’s Distinguished University Writer in Residence.

New members are always welcome! Please email hartsig@portland.lib.me.us or call the Reader’s Advisory desk at 871-1700, ext. 705, if you have any questions about the group. This program is free and registration is preferred.

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

5:30-7:00pm in Meeting Room #5

Next up: Friday, January 16th for “This is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, January 16, in Meeting Room 5 at the Main Library. Doors open at 5:30; discussion starts at 5:45 and generally goes till 7:00 p.m. Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing contemporary fiction written or translated within the last twenty years. Discussions are led by library staff members.  Friday Night Book Club will be a social event where readers will have a chance to network and socialize before the discussion begins.  Refreshments will be provided.  This month the club will discuss “This is How You Lose Her” by Junot Diaz.  

About the book

In his short story collection This is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz turns his remarkable talent to the

Portland Public Library hosts Friday Night Book Club

Held the last Friday of each month

5:30-7:30pm in the Rines Auditorium

Next up: Friday, May 30th for “An Unnecessary Woman” by Rabih Alameddine

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library hosts the Friday Night Book Club on Friday, May 30th at 5:30pm.  Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing fiction written within the last twenty years. The group meets on the final Friday of the month at 5:30 p.m. in Rines Auditorium with discussions led by library staff members.  Friday Night Book Club will be a social event where readers will have a chance to network and socialize before the discussion begins.  Refreshments will be provided.  This month the club will discuss “An Unnecessary Woman” by Rabih Alameddine on May 30th at 5:30pm in the Rines Auditorium. 

About the book

Portland Public Library launches Friday Night Book Club

Held the last Friday of each month

5:30-7:30pm in the Rines Auditorium

Next up: Friday, March 28th for “The Dinner” by Herman Koch

Portland, Maine - Portland Public Library launches its Friday Night Book Club on Friday, March 28th at 6:00pm.  Friday Night Book Club is for those interested in reading and discussing fiction written within the last twenty years. The group meets on the final Friday of the month at 6:00 p.m. in Rines Auditorium with discussions led by library staff members.  Friday Night Book Club will be a social event where readers will have a chance to network and socialize before the discussion begins.  Complimentary refreshments will be provided.  Copies of the book to be discussed are available at the Lending Desk at Portland Public Library one month before the scheduled group meeting. The program is open to adults 21 & older.

The inaugural Friday Night Book Club will be held on March 28th at 6:00pm in the Rines Auditorium.  The group will meet to discuss The Dinner, by Herman Koch. After the first book club book selections will be based on the preferences of individuals in the book group.

New members are always welcome! Please email burrows@portland.lib.me.us or call the Readers' Advisory desk at 871-1700, ext. 705, if you have any questions about the group. This program is free but registration is required.

“Happiness needs nothing but itself; it doesn't have to be validated. Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  ~Herman Koch, The Dinner