Book Groups at the Library
Virtual, International Murder Mystery—we have something for everyone. Interested in starting a new book group? Let us know!
Virtual Book Club
This online book club meets on the third Saturday of the month at 4:00 p.m.
December 20: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.
2025 Book Club Selections
December 20: The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
You can request a book, or ebook from the Mid-Hudson library system. Please call the library with any questions: 845-657-2482
International Murder Mystery Book Club
This book club meets in person at the library on the 3rd Monday of each month at 2 p.m., led by Henrietta Shannon.
December 15: Hold Your Breath China by Qiu Xialong - China
Chief Inspector Chen and Detective Yu Guangming are brought into a serial murder case when the Homicide squad proves incapable of solving it. But before Chen can make a start, he is called away by a high-ranking Party member for a special assignment: to infiltrate a group of environmental activists meeting to discuss the pollution levels in the country and how to prompt the government into action.
Chen knows it will be a far from simple task, especially when he discovers the leader of the group is a woman from his past. Meanwhile, Yu is left to investigate a serial murder case on his own.
Both Chen and Yu face pressure from those above to resolve the cases in a satisfactory way . . . even if that means innocents face the punishment.
2025 Book Club Selections
December 15: Hold Your Breath China by Qiu Xialong - China
2026 International Mystery Book Club Selections
January 26: The Last Party by Clare MacIntosh, #1 DC Morgan Series – Wales
February 23: 6:40 to Montreal by Eva Jurczyk - Canada
March 23: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett, #1 in Hana Westerman Series - New Zealand
April 20: The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid, # 3 in Karen Pirie Series - Scotland
May 18: The Museum Detective by Maha Khan Phillips - Pakistan
June 15: The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer – England
July 20: – TWO BOOKS:
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind – 18th Century Paris
and
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley- #1 Flavia de Luce Series – England
August 17: Sleep Well my Lady by Kwei Quartey - #2 in Emma Djan Investigation Series -Ghana
September 28: Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story by Leonine Swann - #1 in the SheepDetective Series - England
October 19: Red Wolf by Liza Marklund - #5 Annika Bengtzon Series – Sweden
November 16: The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell - #1 Cutter and Bliss Series - Victorian England
December 21: An Enemy in the Village the Woods by Martin Walker - #18 Bruno, Chief of Police – Rural France
Defending Democracy Book Club
In-person book club meeting the first Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m., led by author David Corbett.
February: The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt’s definitive work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is an essential component of any study of twentieth-century political history. It begins with the rise of anti-Semitism in central and western Europe in the 1800s and continues with an examination of European colonial imperialism from 1884 to the outbreak of World War I. This edition includes an introduction by Anne Applebaum – a leading voice on authoritarianism and Russian history – who fears that “once again, we are living in a world that Arendt would recognize.”
Hannah Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time, Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left. From this vantage point, she discusses the evolution of classes into masses, the role of propaganda in dealing with the nontotalitarian world, the use of terror, and the nature of isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total domination.
2026
January: No group meeting this month
February: The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
March: Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right by Laura K. Field
April: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer
May: Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse by Luke Kemp
Reading Away Our Teens
This new in-person teen book club will meet monthly on Thursdays from 5:00 - 6:00 pm at the Olive Free Library. It’s led by Jenny Albright, for teens ages 13 - 19.
January 22: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
This book tells the story of a woman who rejects the life that society has fixed for her in favor of freedom and the most unexpected of alliances. Starting as a straightforward, albeit beautifully written family saga, it tips suddenly into extraordinary, lucid wildness.” —Helen Macdonald in The New York Times Book Review's “By the Book."
In Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner tells of an aging spinster's struggle to break way from her controlling family—a classic story that she treats with cool feminist intelligence, while adding a dimension of the supernatural and strange. Warner is one of the outstanding and indispensable mavericks of twentieth-century literature, a writer to set beside Djuna Barnes and Jane Bowles, with a subversive genius that anticipates the fantastic flights of such contemporaries as Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson.
2026 (Forth Thursday)
January 22: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
February 26: TBD
March 26: TBD
April 23: TBD
May 28: TBD
June 25: TBD