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.
November 15: Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses follows three generations of a Palestinian family and asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can’t go home again.
Winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Arab American Book Award
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967.
2025 Book Club Selections
November 15: Salt Houses by Hala Alyan
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.
November 17:
Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill - Laos
Dr. Siri Paiboun, one of the last doctors left in Laos after the Communist takeover, has been drafted to be national coroner. He is untrained for the job, but this independent seventy-two-year-old has an outstanding qualification for the role: curiosity. And he does not mind incurring the wrath of the party’s hierarchy as he unravels mysterious murders, because the spirits of the dead are on his side—and a little too close for comfort.
Dr. Siri performs autopsies and begins to solve the mysteries relating to a series of deaths by what seem to be bear bites, to explain why a government official ran at full speed through a seventh-story window and fell to his death, and to discover the origins of the two charred bodies from the crashed helicopter in the temple at Luang Prabang. As it turns out, not surprisingly, not all is peaceful and calm in the new Communist paradise of Laos.
2025 Book Club Selections
November 17: Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill - Laos
December 15: Hold Your Breath China by Qiu Xialong - China
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.
December 2: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow
Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis.
2025
December 2: Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow
2026
January: No group meeting this month
February 3: The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
March 3: Attack From Within: How Disinformation is Destroying America by Barbara McQuade
April 7: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer
May 5: Who Is Government: The Untold Story of Public Service edited by Michael Lewis
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. The book for the first meeting on November 6th will be Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. Book selection for the rest of 2025 and 2026 will be discussed at the first meeting.
December 4th: Babel by R. F. Kuang
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.
Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
2025 (First Thursday)
December 4: Babel by R. F. Kuang
2026 (Forth Thursday)
January 22: TBD
February 26: TBD
March 26: TBD
April 23: TBD
May 28: TBD
June 25: TBD