Book groups

Information on Book Groups at ELPL.

Top Ten Book Group Picks

The Great GatsbyBelong to a book group or just looking for a good book to read? Here is a list of the most popular book club books in May from Bookmovement.com. The popularity of the new Great Gatsby movie has pushed that classic to the top of the list!

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
3. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail by Cheryl Strayed
4. Unbroken: A World War II Tale of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
6. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
7. Defending Jacob by William Landay
8. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
9. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
10. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Books On Tap - Looking Ahead to this Summer!

Here's a list of what we'll be talking about this summer at Books on Tap. 

June 11 - Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
July  9 - This is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
August 13 - Manhunt by James L. Swanson

September 10 - The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers - This year's One Book, One Community selection.

We have new people drop in every month! So if you have been looking for a place to meet and discuss books, stop by Jimmy's Pub the 2nd Tuesday of the month.

Have a drink and join the discussion!

Books & Bagels Group Will Discuss the Book Breadcrumbs

Saturday, April 13th
2-3 pm
For children in grades 4-6

Join us for juice and bagels, discussion of the book Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu, and a fun activity! This fantasy book is full of interesting content that provokes a wide range of responses in readers. Listen to a fascinating interview with Anne Ursu from NPR's 

Books On Tap - May 14, 2013

Join us May 14 at 6:30pm when we will discuss The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Books On Tap meets at Jimmy's Pub the 2nd Tuesday of the month.

A riveting, powerful debut novel about a pilot living in a world filled with loss—and what he is willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds, connection, love, and grace.

Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows. His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and to pretend that things are the way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a better life—something like his old life—exists beyond the airport. Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return—not enough fuel to get him home—following the trail of the static-broken voice on the radio. But what he encounters and what he must face—in the people he meets, and in himself—is both better and worse than anything he could have hoped for.

Looking Ahead:
June 11, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Books On Tap - April 9, 2013

Join us April 9 at 6:30pm when we will discuss Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle. Books on Tap meets at Jimmy's Pub, located at 16804 Chadler Road.

An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggle.

In 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing jobs, and tensions often flared with the KKK in ascendance and violence rising. Ossian Sweet, a proud Negro doctor-grandson of a slave-had made the long climb from the ghetto to a home of his own in a previously all-white neighborhood. Yet just after his arrival, a mob gathered outside his house; suddenly, shots rang out: Sweet, or one of his defenders, had accidentally killed one of the whites threatening their lives and homes.

And so it began-a chain of events that brought America's greatest attorney, Clarence Darrow, into the fray and transformed Sweet into a controversial symbol of equality. Historian Kevin Boyle weaves the police investigation and courtroom drama of Sweet's murder trial into an unforgettable tapestry of narrative history that documents the volatile America of the 1920s and movingly re-creates the Sweet family's journey from slavery through the Great Migration to the middle class. Ossian Sweet's story, so richly and poignantly captured here, is an epic tale of one man trapped by the battles of his era's changing times.

Arc of Justice is the winner of the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction and a Michigan Notable Book for 2005.

Looking ahead:
May 14, The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

Top Ten Book Group Picks


The following titles were the most popular book group picks in January based on votes at Bookmovement.com.

1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
3. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
4. Beautiful Ruins by Walter Jess
5. Defending Jacob by William Landay
6. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
7. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
8. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
9. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
10. Sutton by J.R. Moehringer

So consider one of these titles for your book group. Don't belong to a book group? Then consider trying one of the groups offered through the library!

Better Living Book Club
Books on Tap
International Book Club
Out of This World

Top Ten Book Group Picks


The following titles were the most popular book group picks in January based on votes at Bookmovement.com.

1. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
2. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
3. What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
4. Beautiful Ruins by Walter Jess
5. Defending Jacob by William Landay
6. The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
7. Wild by Cheryl Strayed
8. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
9. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
10. Sutton by J.R. Moehringer

So consider one of these titles for your book group. Don't belong to a book group? Then consider trying one of the groups offered through the library!

Better Living Book Club
Books on Tap
International Book Club
Out of This World

Top Book Club Books in June

The following were the most popular book club books during June based on votes from readers and leaders of more than 35,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

International Book Club notes for March 15, 2012 - Cuba

  We had a wonderful evening on Thursday.  Thank you to our speaker, Margarita, for coming to help us better understand one person's experiences of Operation Pedro Pan.  And thank you, Margarita, for the food, too!  Yum!

Here are some of the books mentioned. This is the one about the woman in Cuba who blogs:

Havana Real: one woman fights to tell the truth about Cuba today by Yoani Sánchez ; translated by M.J. Porter.

Books and Bagels

East Lansing Public Library

Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata is March's Books and Bagels featured title. 

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Speed Friending for Book Lovers

Meeting Room

Speed friending for book lovers is a fun way to talk about your favorite or least favorite book and meet new people!  Bring your book to tell other people about it in five-minute segments and see if you can make a match! 
This program is intended for adults, 21 and up.

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Books and Bagels

East Lansing Public Library

February's title is:

The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine

Discussion, bagels and a fun activity or craft.  Free book while supplies last.

For ages 4-6.  Registration is required for this program, please contact the Circulation desk to register.

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Books and Bagels

East Lansing Public Library

January's title is:

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

Discussion, bagels and a fun activity or craft.  Free book while supplies last.

For grades 4-6.  Registration is required for this program, please contact the Circulation desk to register.

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October is National Reading Group Month

National Reading Group Month, an initiative of The Women's National Book Association, announces its 2010 Great Group Reads selections. The titles below were selected on the basis of  "their appeal to reading groups for whom they are bound to open up lively conversations about a host of timely and provocative topics, from the intimate dynamics of family and personal relationships to major cultural and world issues."

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