Book Discussion Groups | Cumberland Public Library

These are subject to change, but here's an idea of what we will be reading this year. Pick up your copy at the Main Desk on the First Floor and join us! Questions? Call 401-333-2552 x2

Morning Book Discussion

Meets on the 2nd Wednesday of each month at 10:00am

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.
Date: Wednesday, January 10^th, 2024
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendon Slocumb
A mystery about a Black classical musician whose family heirloom violin is stolen on the eve of the most prestigious classical music competition in the world.
Date: Wednesday, February 14^th, 2024
Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt
Remarkably Bright Creatures is an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
Date: Wednesday, March 13^th, 2024
A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki
In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century.
Date: Wednesday, April 10^th, 2024
Flight of Dreams
by Ariel Lawhon
Flight of Dreams is a fiercely intimate portrait of the real people on board the last flight of the Hindenburg. Behind them is the gathering storm in Europe and before them is looming disaster. But for the moment they float over the Atlantic, unaware of the inexorable, tragic fate that awaits them.
Date: Wednesday, May 8^th, 2024
Finding Me
by Viola Davis
Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.
Date: Wednesday, June 12^th, 2024
Delicious Foods
by James Hannaham
Delicious Foods tells the gripping story of three unforgettable characters: a mother, her son, and the drug that threatens to destroy them.
Date: Wednesday, July 10^th, 2024
There There
by Tommy Orange
Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.
Date: Wednesday, August 14^th, 2024
Radium Girls
by Kate Moore
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
Date: Wednesday, September 11^th, 2024
The Sun Down Motel
by Simone St. James
In this atmospheric suspense novel, the secrets lurking in a rundown roadside motel ensnare a young woman, just as they did her aunt thirty-five years before.
Date: Wednesday, October 9^th, 2024
The Pull of the Stars
by Emma Donoghue
In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new Flu are quarantined together. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders -- Doctor Kathleen Lynn, a rumored Rebel on the run from the police , and a young volunteer helper, Bridie Sweeney. In the darkness and intensity of this tiny ward, over three days, these women change each other's lives in unexpected ways.
Date: Wednesday, November 13^th, 2024
Homecoming
By Kate Morton
In the Midst of Winter: A Novel
by Isabel Allende
Three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story.
Date: Wednesday, December 11^th, 2024

Evening Book Discussion

Meets on the 2nd Monday of each month at 6:30 pm

Where the Crawdads Sing
by Delia Owens
For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say.
Date: Monday, January 8^th, 2024
In the Midst of Winter: A Novel
by Isabel Allende
Three very different people are brought together in a mesmerizing story that moves from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil, sparking the beginning of a long overdue love story.
Date: Monday, February 12^th, 2024
Solito: A Memoir
by Javier Zamora
A young poet tells the story of his harrowing migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this memoir.
Date: Monday, March 11^th, 2024
The Postmistress
by Sarah Blake
What would happen if someone did the unthinkable-and didn't deliver a letter? Filled with stunning parallels to today, The Postmistress is a sweeping novel about the loss of innocence of two extraordinary women-and of two countries torn apart by war.
Date: Monday, April 8^th, 2024
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman
When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins.
Date: Monday, May 13^th, 2024
The Color of Water
by James McBride
James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful debut.
Date: Monday, June 10^th, 2024
The Obituary Writer
by Ann Hood
Part literary mystery and part love story, The Obituary Writer examines expectations of marriage and love, the roles of wives and mothers, and the emotions of grief, regret, and hope.
Date: Monday, July 8^th, 2024
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
A modern classic about star-crossed lovers that explores questions of race and being Black in America—and the search for what it means to call a place home.
Date: Monday, August 19^th, 2024
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
In this brilliant book, Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.
Date: Monday, September 9^th, 2024
Mad Honey
by Jodi Picoult
Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.
Date: Monday, October 21^st, 2024
Forever
by Pete Hamill
This widely acclaimed bestseller is the magical, epic tale of an extraordinary man who arrives in New York in 1740 and remains . . . forever.
Date: Monday, November 18^th, 2024
Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt
Remarkably Bright Creatures is an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
Date: Monday, December 9^th, 2024

Stephen King Book & Movie Club

Meets on the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 6:30 pm

The Regulators
There's a place in Wentworth, Ohio, where summer is in full swing. It's called Poplar Street. Up until now it's been a nice place to live. The idling red van around the corner is about to change all that. Let the battle against evil begin. Here come...The Regulators.
Date: Tuesday, January 16^th, 2024
The Green Mile
Masterfully told and as suspenseful as it is haunting, The Green Mile is Stephen King’s classic #1 New York Times bestselling dramatic serial novel and inspiration for the Oscar-nominated film starring Tom Hanks.
Date: Tuesday, February 20^th, 2024
Desperation
There's a place along Interstate 50 that some call the loneliest place on Earth. It's known as Desperation, Nevada. It's not a very nice place to live. It's an even worse place to die. Let the battle against evil begin. Welcome to ... Desperation.
Date: Tuesday, March 19^th, 2024
Wizard & Glass (The Dark Tower #4)
Over the course of one long magical night, Roland transports us to the Mid-World of long-ago and a seaside town called Hambry, where Roland fell in love with a girl named Susan Delgado, and where he and his old tet-mates Alain and Cuthbert battled the forces of John Farson, the harrier who ignited Mid-World’s final war.
Date: Tuesday, April 16^th, 2024
Bag of Bones
Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write, and plagued by vivid nightmares, Mike reluctantly returns to his hometown to find it held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie.
Date: Tuesday, May 21^st, 2024
Storm of the Century
They’re calling it the Storm of the Century, and it’s coming hard. The residents of Little Tall Island have seen their share of nasty Maine Nor’easters, but this one is different.
Date: Tuesday, June 18^th, 2024
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
A uniquely frightening suspense about a young girl lost in the woods as night falls, with only the voice of her beloved Red Sox relief pitcher to sustain her and help her survive—maybe.
Date: Tuesday, July 16^th, 2024
Hearts in Atlantis
Five interconnected narratives, set between 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.
Date: Tuesday, August 20^th, 2024
Dreamcatcher
A dark and sweeping adventure, Dreamcatcher is set in the haunted city of Derry - the site of Stephen King's It and Insomnia. In it, four young boys stand together and do a brave, good thing, an act that changes them in ways that they hardly understand.
Date: Tuesday, September 17^th, 2024
Black House
Abandoned by his friends as they cycle through the Wisconsin town of French Landing, ten-year-old Ty Marshall spots a crow hopping towards him down the sidewalk. Then it calls his name. Fascinated, Ty gets off his bike for a closer look - and is dragged into the shadows. Is Ty destined to become the fourth victim of the Fisherman, the serial killer who's stalking this sleepy town? If so, only ex-detective Jack Sawyer may be able to save him.
Date: Tuesday, October 15^th, 2024
Everything’s Eventual
The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet," King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade.
Date: Tuesday, November 19^th, 2024
From a Buick 8
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous.
Date: Tuesday, December 17^th, 2024

Other Worlds Book Club (Fantasy & Sci-Fi)

Meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month at 6:30 pm

Starship Troopers
by Robert A. Heinlein
A recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle against mankind’s most alarming enemy...
Date: Tuesday: January 23^rd, 2024
The Thief
by Megan Whelan Turner
Gen is a thief and proud of it. When his bragging lands him behind bars he has one chance to win his freedom, journey to a neighboring kingdom with the magus, find a legendary stone called Hamiathes’s Gift, and steal it. But Gen has plans of his own.
Date: Tuesday, February 20^th, 2024
Prey
by Michael Crichton
In the Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong. A cloud of nanoparticles—micro-robots—has escaped from the laboratory. This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing. It is intelligent and learns from experience. For all practical purposes, it is alive.
Date: Tuesday, March 26^th, 2024
The Cloisters
by Katy Hays
In this “sinister, jaw-dropping” debut novel, a circle of researchers uncover a mysterious deck of tarot cards and shocking secrets in New York’s famed Met Cloisters.
Date: Tuesday, April 23^rd, 2024
Gideon The Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir
Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated coprse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape.
Date: Tuesday, May 28^th, 2024
The Midnight Library
by Matt Haig
Tells the story of Nora, a depressed woman in her 30s, who, on the day she decides to die, finds herself in a library full of lives she could have lived, where she discovers there's a lot more to life, even her current one, than she had ever imagined.
Date: Tuesday, June 25^th, 2024
Light from Other Stars
by Erika Swyler
A poignant, fantastical novel about the electric combination of ambition & wonder that keeps us reaching toward the heavens.
Date: Tuesday, July 23^rd, 2024
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother.
Date: Tuesday, August 27^th, 2024
Cemetery Boys
by Aiden Thomas
When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.
Date: Tuesday, September 24^th, 2024
The Invisible Library
by Genevieve Cogman
Irene is a professional spy for the mysterious Library, a shadowy organization that collects important works of fiction from all of the different realities. Most recently, she and her enigmatic assistant Kai have been sent to an alternative London. Their mission: Retrieve a particularly dangerous book. The problem: By the time they arrive, it's already been stolen.
Date: Tuesday, October 22^nd, 2024
The Windup Girl
by Paolo Bacigalupi
One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed. New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe.
Date: Tuesday, November 26^th, 2024
Fourth Wing
by Rebecca Yarros
Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders.
Date: Tuesday, December 17^th, 2024