Contemporary Fiction

Readers Services Librarian Kristin Pehnke leads this discussion of noteworthy, contemporary fiction (and sometimes nonfiction). Free and open to the public; no registration is necessary.

September Book:  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is a precocious inventor and Shakespearean actor who is on an urgent, secret search through New York to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Thursday, September 14, 10:30 a.m.

October Book:  The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

The lives of three people from different worlds collide in the Sundarbans, an immense labyrinth of tiny islands in the Bay of Bengal - an isolated world where political turmoil exacts a personal toll that is every bit as powerful as the ravaging tide.

Thursday, October 12, 10:30 a.m.

November Book:  Midnight at the Dragon Café by Judy Fong Bates

Set in a small Ontario town in the 1960s, this is the story of Su-Jen and her paren ts as they settle uneasily into their new life in a town where they are the only Chinese family, isolated by language and long hours at the diner they own.

Thursday, November 9, 10:30 a.m.

Book Bites 

             Luncheon Book Discussion

Bring your lunch and a favorite (or not-so-favorite) book to this brown-bag book discussion group and give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to what you've read.

Gente y Cuentos
(People and Stories)

Book Discussions in Spanish
Angélica Mariani leads this series of readings and discussions in Spanish of Latin American short stories. Participants will draw on their life experiences and personal knowledge in discussing the stories in this free program.
Thursdays, 7 p.m.: September 7, 14 and 21

Mysterious Mondays

The Mystery Book Group

Join Reference Librarian Gayle Stratton in discussing the most intriguing and puzzling of mystery books.  Please register for this book group by calling 924-9529, ext. 220 or by emailing books@princetonlibrary.org.

September Book: A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin

It is 1947, and the long-retired Sherlock Holmes, now ninety-three, lives in a remote  Sussex farmhouse. Holmes has settled into the routine of tending his apiary, writing in journals, and grappling with the diminishing powers of his razor-sharp mind, when he comes upon the case of a Mrs. Keller, the long-ago object of Holmes's deep - and never acknowledged - infatuation.

Monday, September 11, 7:30 p.m.

October Book: Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum; translated from the Norwegian by Felicity David

In a small Norwegian village at the foot of the Kollen Mountains, neighbors know  neighbors and children play happily in the streets. But after a teenage girl's body is found by the lake on the mountaintop, Inspector Sejer uncovers layer upon layer of distrust and lies beneath the town's seemingly perfect facade.

Monday, October 2, 7:30 p.m.

November Book: Blood Hollow by William Kent Krueger

When the corpse of a beautiful high school student is discovered on a hillside four months after her disappearance on New Year's Eve, all evidence points to her boyfriend, local bad boy Solemn Winter Moon, who has also disappeared.  Cork O'Connor, Aurora's former sheriff, isn't about to hang the crime on the kid, whom O'Connor is convinced is innocent

Monday, November 6, 7:30 p.m.