Lunchtime Book Club

RT Library Lunchtime Book Club

Bring your lunch and join us for the Lunchtime Book Club. We meet at Rockaway Township Library on the third Tuesday afternoon each month from 11:45am – 1:00pm.

Registration is not required: you are welcome to join us for any discussion.

RT Library obtains copies of each month’s selection which are then borrowed by book club members.

For more information, call the library at 973-627-2344 or email us at rockawaytwplibrary@rtlibrary.org.

Please make sure to give your e-mail to Pierre so that he can sign you up for our Lunchtime Bookclub’s e-newsletter to get special announcements and last minute book club meeting date changes.

Current Selection

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (February 2018)

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him ‘the bitter neighbor from hell’. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.

Next Month’s Selection

March Free Reading! (March 2018)

Select Your Own Book or Poem to Read. Choose your favorite poet, re-read a favorite book, or discover something new to share with the club. The only restriction is that it can’t be a former or current book club book!

Upcoming Selections (Monthly Order is Tentative and subject to change)

Voting has ended and results have been tallied – the winners are:

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (April 2018)

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout

Autumn by Aki Smith

A kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Churchill and Orwell: The fight for freedom by Thomas Ricks

Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (December 2018)

A Gentleman in Moscow immerses us in another elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.

Past Selections

The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick (December 19, 2017)

Slavery is back. America, 1962. Having lost a war, America finds itself under Nazi Germany and Japan occupation. A few Jews still live under assumed names. The ‘I Ching’ is prevalent in San Francisco. Science fiction meets serious ideas in this take on a possible alternate history.

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (November 21, 2017)

[T]he enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives. One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly–thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (October 17, 2017)

A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.

September 2017 Dune by Frank Herbert

Follows the adventures of Paul Atreides, the son of a betrayed duke given up for dead on a treacherous desert planet and adopted by its fierce, nomadic people, who help him unravel his most unexpected destiny.

August America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray

As Thomas Jefferson’s oldest daughter, Patsy becomes his helpmate, protector, and constant companion in the wake of her mother’s death. She travels with him when he becomes American minister to France. It is in Paris that Patsy learns about her father’s liaison with Sally Hemings, a slave girl her own age. Meanwhile, Patsy has fallen in love with her father’s protégé William Short, a staunch abolitionist and ambitious diplomat. Her choices will follow her in the years to come, and as scandal, tragedy, and poverty threaten her family Patsy must decide how much she will sacrifice to protect her father’s reputation.

July 2017 White trash : the 400-year untold history of class in America by Nancy Isenberg

Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, history professor Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society ; where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery.

June 20, 2017 Barkskins : a novel by Annie Proulx

Barskins open in New France in the late 18th century as Rene Sel, an illiterate woodsman makes his way from Northern France to the homeland to seek a living. Bound to a “seigneur” for three years in exchange for land, he suffers extraordinary hardship and violence, always in awe of the forest he is charged with clearing. In the course of this epic novel, Proulx tells the stories of Rene’s children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, as well as the descendants of his friends and foes, as they travel back to Europe, to China, to New England, always in quest of a livelihood or fleeing stunningly brutal conditions–war, pestilence, Indian attacks, the revenge of rivals.

April 2017 Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

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, author of the classic memoir Out of Africa.

March 2017 Free Reading!

Select your own book club book that you’ve never read before (and that’s not on our to-read list below) and then give us a 5 minute oral presentation about why you loved the book!

February 2017 All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.

January 2017 Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

December, 2017 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks.

“An aging King David reflects upon the battles, loves, and the slaying of a giant that have brought him to his prophesied glory. He requests his longtime confidant, Natan, to visit the key players in his life and chronicle his unvarnished past. Having witnessed as a child his father’s death at David’s hand, Natan knows firsthand about the flawed king and wonders what good will come of recording the reminiscences of the people who have reason to hate David.”

-Library Journal

October, 2017 The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be–until they find a love letter he wrote many years before, to a Burmese woman they never heard of.

August 16, 2016 Dead Wake by Erik Larson

In this accessible account for general readers, he offers a chronological narrative of the sinking of the luxury ocean liner the Lusitania in May 1915. Alternating between German and British civilian, military, and government perspectives, the author uses techniques of suspense and romance, while drawing on primary sources. Throughout the book, anything in quotes comes from real-life sources such as memoirs, letters, telegrams, or other historical documents.

July 19, 2016 Home Front by Kristin Hannah

Struggling with a marital estrangement that is further complicated when one of them is deployed, military couple Michael and Joleen Zarkades are forced to confront their problems while protecting the security of their family in the wake of a brutal tragedy

June 21, 2016 The Hurricane Sisters by Dorothea Benton Frank

When an emotional hurricane blows through their lives, testing them in ways they never thought possible, 23-year-old Ashley Anne Waters, her mother Liz and Maisie, the family matriarch, must turn to each other for strength and support as the bonds they share are ultimately transformed.

April 19, 2016 Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

A teenage girl goes missing and is later found to have drowned in a nearby lake, and suddenly a once tight-knit family unravels in unexpected ways….tantalizingly thrilling, Ng’s emotionally complex debut novel captures the tension between cultures and generations with the deft touch of a seasoned writer.

March 15, 2016 Me before you by Jojo Moyes

Taking a job as an assistant to extreme sports enthusiast Will, who is wheelchair bound after a motorcycle accident, Louisa struggles with her employer’s acerbic moods and learns of his shocking plans before demonstrating to him that life is still worth living.

February 16, 2016 The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

The story follows Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah’s eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid. “The Invention of Wings” follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined.

January 19, 2016 The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

“After World War I, Tom Sherbourne takes a job as lighthouse keeper on isolated Janus Rock, off the coast of Australia, where the supply boat comes only four times a year. His spunky wife, Isabel, suffers two miscarriages and a still birth in three years, so it’s no surprise that when a boat washes up carrying a dead man and a live baby, Isabel persuades Tom not to report the incident and takes the baby as hers. That causes trouble, of course, when they eventually return to the mainland. Big in-house excitement for this first novel, which will be backed by NPR coverage and a reading group guide. Tops on my reading list.”

-Library Journal

December 15, 2015 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

“Every day, Rachel takes the same London commuter train and passes the same suburban scenery, yet one house catches her eye—mainly because of the married couple she glimpses living there. This leads Rachel to conjure up an entire dream life for this husband and wife, even naming them and giving them make-believe careers. Rachel’s life has been spiraling downward, and her fantasy about this couple gives her a little joy. But all is not what it seems and Rachel is soon embroiled in a murderous thriller.

-Library Journal, vol 139, issue 17, p80”

November 17, 2015 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

(2013, Fiction, 771 pgs)

“In Tartt’s much-anticipated latest, following 1992’s The Secret History and 2002’s The Little Friend, young Theo survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, he lives with a friend’s family in New York, where his obsession with a small painting that reminds him of his mother leads him to the art underworld. With a 250,000-copy first printing and what’s billed as a social media extravaganza.’

October 20, 2015 Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

(1996, Epic fiction; Fantasy fiction, 835 pgs.)

“In a world where the approaching winter will last four decades, kings and queens, knights and renegades struggle for control of a throne. Some fight with sword and mace, others with magic and poison. Beyond the Wall to the north, meanwhile, the Others are preparing their army of the dead to march south as the warmth of summer drains from the land….When Lord Stark of Winterfell, an honest man, comes south to act as the King’s chief councilor, no amount of heroism or good intentions can keep the realm under control. It is fascinating to watch Martin’s characters mature and grow, particularly Stark’s children, who stand at the center of the book. Martin’s trophy case is already stuffed with major prizes, including Hugos, Nebulas, Locus Awards and a Bram Stoker. He’s probably going to have to add another shelf, at least.”

RT Library Lunchtime Book Club

Current Selection

​A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (February 2018)

Next Month’s Selection

March Free Reading! (March 2018)

Upcoming Selections (Monthly Order is Tentative and subject to change)

Voting has ended and results have been tallied – the winners are:

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster (April 2018)

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (December 2018)

Past Selections

The man in the high castle by Philip K. Dick (December 19, 2017)

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (November 21, 2017)

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (October 17, 2017)

September 2017 Dune by Frank Herbert

June 20, 2017 Barkskins : a novel by Annie Proulx

April 2017 Circling the Sun by Paula McLain

March 2017 Free Reading!

February 2017 All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

January 2017 Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

December, 2017 The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks.

October, 2017 The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker

August 16, 2016 Dead Wake by Erik Larson

July 19, 2016 Home Front by Kristin Hannah

June 21, 2016 The Hurricane Sisters by Dorothea Benton Frank

April 19, 2016 Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

March 15, 2016 Me before you by Jojo Moyes

February 16, 2016 The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

January 19, 2016 The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

December 15, 2015 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

November 17, 2015 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

October 20, 2015 Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Older Selections

July 21, 2015 Mary by Janis Cooke Newman

June 16, 2015 The boys in the boat

May 19, 2015 Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Apr 14, 2015 On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Mar 17, 2015 Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Feb 17, 2015 All-of-A-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

Jan 20, 2014 To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Dec 16, 2014 Vanished Smile

Nov 18, 2014 Half the Sky

Oct 21, 2014 The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Sept 16, 2014 Stones from the River

Aug 19, 2014 Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

Resources

Event Calendar

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (February 2018)