BOOK CLUBS

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Started in 1998, this long-running book club boasts a truly dedicated following of readers who welcome actual discussions of the monthly selection. The group selects a mix of fiction and non-fiction by both contemporary and vintage authors. Topics range from current issues to simply pleasurable. Anyone is welcome to join in. As many members are located around the country, we offer Zoom for everyone's convenience. FMI email waterfordmelibrary@gmail.com

1998

Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt

Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier

A Civil Action – Jonathan Harr

The Perfect Storm – Sebastian Junger

The Color of Water – James McBride

John Irving books

Stones From the River – Ursula Hegi

God of Small Things – Roy Arundhati

Wait ‘till Next Year – Doris Kearns Goodwin

Straight Man – Richard Russo

Into the Wild – Jon Krakauer

Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood

1999

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

Two Old Women – Velma Wallis

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Visions – Michio Kaku

A Pale View of Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro

A Walk in the Woods – Bill Bryson

The Pilot’s Wife – Anita Shreve

The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood – Rebecca Wells

Undaunted Courage – Stephen Ambrose

One Man’s Meat – E.B. White

December meeting: Group shared favorite poems

2000

Second Nature – Michael Pollan

Moonstone – Wilkie Collins

Birds of America (short stories) – Lorrie Moore

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

The Golden Spur – Dawn Powell

Mrs. Dalloway, The Hours – M. Cunningham

Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester

The Red Tent – Anita Diamant

Wit (play) – Margaret Edson

Plainsong – Kent Haruf

Waiting – Ha Jin

December meeting cancelled (snow storm)

2001

Chocolat – Joanne Harris

Wyoming Stories (short stories) – Annie Proulx

A Reason For Hope – Jane Goodall

Galileo’s Daughter – Dava Sobel

Call It Sleep – Henry Roth

Girl with the Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier

Girl in Hyacinth Blue – Susan Vreeland

We Were the Mulvaneys – Joyce Carol Oates

The Vision of Emma Blau – Ursula Hegi

Anil’s Ghost – Michael Ondaatje

Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner 

A Certain Slant of Light – Laura Whitcomb

River Horse – William Least Heat Moon 

2002

Personal History - Katherine Graham

A Maine Hamlet – Lura Beam

Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

Driving Mr. Albert – Michael Paterniti

Rebel Angels – Robertson Davies

Empire Falls – Richard Russo

The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch

The Spirit Catches you, and You Fall Down – Ann Fadiman

Women of the Dawn – Bunny McBride

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Sailing Around the Room (poems) – Billy Collins

On Writing – Stephen King

2003

Founding Brothers – Joseph Ellis 

Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks

A Prayer for the Dying – Stewart O’Nan

Nickel and Dimed in America – Barbara Ehrenreich

Atonement – Ian McEwan

The Meaning Of It All – Richard Feynman

Island (short stories) – Alistair MacLeod

Bel Canto – Ann Patchett

The Emperor of Ocean Park – Steven Carter

The Dance of the Dissident Daughter – Sue Monk Kidd

Wild Swans – Jung Chang

Proof (play) – David Auburn

Mary Oliver poems

2004

The Piano Tuner- Daniel Mason

Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Mafisi

Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee 

Abraham – Bruce Feiler

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

Daisy Miller/Washington Square – Henry James

The Master Butcher’s Singing Club – Louise Erdrich

The Known World – Edward P. Jones

We Took to the Woods – Louise Dickinson Rich

The Kite Runner – Khaled Husseini

The Big House – George Colt

Delights and Shadows (poems) – Ted Kooser

2005

The Great Fire – Shirley Hazzard

Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder

Ernie’s Ark – Monica Wood

Dinner With Friends (play) – Donald Margulies

Ex Libris – Anne Fadiman

The Namesake – Jhumpa Lahiri

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

The Jane Austen Book Club – Karen Joy Fowler

The Devil in the White City – Erik Larson

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

The Pine Barrens – John McPhee

Hateship, Friendship, Loveship, Marriage (short stories) – Alice Munro

2006

The Birth of Venus – Sarah Dunant

Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides

Suburban Safari – Hannah Holmes

The Price (play) – Arthur Miller

Washington’s Crossing – David Hackett Fischer

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon

The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls

Snowflower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Cry The Beloved Country – Alan Paton

Tortilla Curtain – T. C. Boyle

I Saw Ramallah – Mourid Baghouti 

2007

Leap of Faith - Queen Noor 

Moon Tiger – Penelope Lively

Yeh Yeh’s House – Evelina Chao

Waiting for Snow in Havana – Carlos Eire

Augusta (Play)

Abide With Me – Elizabeth Strout 

The Solace of Leaving Early – Haven Kimmel

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter – Kim Edwards

Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky

Widow of the South – Robert Hicks

Forever – Pete Hamill

Ali and Nino – Kurban Said 

2008

On the Road – Jack Kerouac

Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

Here If You Need Me – Kate Braestrup

Doubt (play) – John Patrick Shanley

Peace Like a River – Leif Enger

Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson

Traveling Mercies – Anne Lamott

Charity Girl – Michael Lowenthal

The Ministry of Special Cases – Nathan Englander

Team of Rivals – Doris Kearns Goodwin (2 meetings)

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller

2009

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name – Vendela Vida  

Loving Frank – Nancy Horan 

The Road – Cormac McCarthy  

The Inheritance of Loss – Kiran Desai  

The Drawer Boy (play) – Michael Healey  

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte  

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer  

An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro   

Mayflower – Nathaniel Philbrick

Olive Kitteridge - by Elizabeth Strout

Run - by Ann Patchett

Too Far To Go - John Updike

2010

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.

Push, by Sapphire.

People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.

Wandering Star, by J.M.G. Le Clézio.

Bach at Leipzig, a play by Itamar Moses.by

Little Giant of Aberdeen County, by TiffanyBaker.

Little Bee, by Chris Cleeve. 

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.

Old Filth, and The Man in the Wooden Hat, by Jane Gardam.

The Power of One, by Bryce Courtenay.

The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien 

Tinkers, by Paul Harding  

2011    

January: The Places In Between, by Rory Stewart  

February: Cutting For Stone, by Abraham Verghese

March: Mockingbird, by Charles J. Shields 

April: Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder

May: The Syringa Tree, by Pamela Gien (play)

June: Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson.

July: Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens

August: Half Broke Horses, by Jeannette Walls. 

September: Winters Bone, by Daniel Woodrell.

October: The Three Weissmans of Westport, by Cathleen Schine 

November: The Immortal life of Henriete Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.

December: The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obrecht. 

2012

January: The Bells, by Richard Harvell.

February: The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal.

March: Sylvia Plath poems.

April: Unbowed: A Memoir, by Wangari Maathai.

May: Marie Antoinette: the Color of Flesh; a play by Joel Gross.

June: Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff 

July: The Tennis partner, by Abraham Verghese

August, The Tin Ticket, by Deborah Swiss

September: The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, by Heidi Durrow

October: The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough

November: A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

December: The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka

2013

January: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

February: State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

March: Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles

April: The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje

May: Wittenberg, a play by David Davalos 

June: The Paris Wife, by Paula Mclain  

July: The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

August: Show Me Good Land, by Shonna Milliken Humphrey  

September: Freud's Sister, by Goce Smilevski 

October: The Round House, by Louise Erdrich 

November: Heat and Dust, by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala 

December: When We Were the Kennedys, by Monica Wood

2014

January: The Elephant Whisperer, by Lawrence Anthony

February: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, by Rachel Joyce

March: Quiet, by Susan Cain 

April: The Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline

May: The Savannah Disputation, a play by Evan Smith

June: The Art Forger, by B.A. Shapiro 

July: The Light Between Oceans, by M.L. Stedman 

August: My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante  

September: Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier 

October: The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri 

November: Etched In Sand, by Regina Calcaterra 

December:  The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

2015

January: Appointment in Samarra, by John O'Hara

February: Americanah,  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

March: The Pecan Man, by Cassie D. Selleck

April: The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

May: Papermaker, a play, by Monica Wood

June: Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway

July: Boys in the Boat, by Daniel Brown 

August: Silas Marner, by George Eliot 

September: Empress Dowager Cixi, by Jung Chiang 

October: The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins 

November: Cinnamon and Gunpowder, by Eli Brown 

December:  A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman

2016

January: Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo

February: Bird Skinner, by Alice Greenway

March: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra

April: Sweetland, by Michael Crummy

May: They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! A play by Dario Fo

June: Elsewhere, by Richard Russo

July: Shotgun Lovesongs, by Nickolas Butler

August: The Boston Girl, by Anita Diamant

September: The Life We Bury, by Allen Eskens

October: Dracula, by Bram Stoker

November: O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather

December: The Prince of Los Cocoyos: a Miami Childhood, by Richard Blanco

2017

January: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy 

February: A Passage to India, by E.M. Forester 

March: The Fisherman, by Chigozie Obioma

April: The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin

May: Disgraced, a play by Ayad Akhtar

June: The One-in-a-Million Boy, by Monica Wood.  Fiction. 

July: The Rent Collector, by Camron Wright; Fiction. 

Aug.: The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, by James McBride. NF

Sept.: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. Fiction. 

Oct.: Hillbilly Elegy. by J.P. Vance. Non-fiction. 

Nov.: Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin. Fiction. 

Dec. 13: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. Fiction. 

2018

Jan.: A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. 480 p. Fiction

Feb: Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. 176 p. Non fiction

Mar.: Stay With Me, by Ayobami Adebayo, Fiction, 272 pages

Apr.: A Piece of the World,  by Christina Baker Kline...fiction...325 pgs.

May: Sex and Other Disturbances, by Marisa Smith (play)

June : This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind, by Ivan Doig. 336 p. Autobiography.

July : Tangerine, by Christine Mangan. Fiction. 320 p. 

Aug. : Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid.  226 pags.  Fiction

Sept: Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II, by Vicki Constantine Croke.  Non-fiction.  368 pages.

Oct.:  Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders and Birth of the FBI: by David Grann;  NF

Nov:  Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi. 320 pp. Fiction.  

Dec: The Day the World Came to Town. 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, By Jim Defede. NF

2019

Jan: Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah. NF. 

Feb: Less, by Andrew Greer. fiction. 

Mar: The Storyteller's Secret, by Sajal Badani. Fiction

April : They Came Like Swallows, by William Maxwell. Fiction  

June : Educated: A Memoir, by Tara Westover. NF 

July: The Girl with Seven Names, by Hyeonseo Lee. NF

Aug.: Normal People, by Sally Rooney. Fiction. 

Sept: The Shell Collector, by Anthony Doerr.  Short-story collection.   

Oct: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Fiction 

Nov: Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner. Fiction. 

Dec: Our Souls at Night, by Kent Haruf. Fiction. 

2020

Jan: Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson. Fiction. .

Feb: The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Fiction.

March meeting cancelled due to Corona virus, no trip to Portland Stage in May.

Apr: On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin. Fiction.  (via Zoom)

May: Call Me American: A Memoir, by Abdi Nor Iftin. NF. (via Zoom)

June : Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family, by Amy Ellis Nutt. NF

July: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo. Fiction. 

Aug: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead. Fiction. 

Sept: This Tender Land, by William Kurt Krueger. Fiction. 

Oct: Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin. NF

Nov: Writers & Lovers, by Lily King. Fiction.   

2021 

Jan: The Book That Changed America: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation, by Randall Fuller. NF

Feb: Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan. Fiction

Mar: Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner. Fiction

Apr: The Reluctant Fundamentalists, by Mohsin Hamid. 

May:  Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell. Fiction. 

June : The Vanishing Half. By Britt Bennett.  Fiction.   

July: Mothers and Sons, by Colm Toibin. Fiction

Aug: Afterlife by Julia Alvarez.  Fiction.   .

Sept: Olive, Again: A Novel by Elizabeth Strout. . Fiction

Oct: The Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen. Historical Fiction, 

Nov: Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance, by Zora Neale Hurston. Fiction. 

Dec: Homeland Elegies: A Novel, by Ayad Akhtar Fiction. 

2022

Jan: The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, by Candice Millard. NF

Feb: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead; Fiction

Mar: Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay, by Beverly Jensen.   Fiction

Apr: Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu, Fiction. 

May: The Green Road, by Anne Enright. Fiction

June: Beautiful Country, by Qian Julie Wang. NF

July: Silverview, by John le Carré. Fiction

Aug The Soul of America, The Battle for our Better Angels, by Jon Meacham, NF 272 .

Sept The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich. Fiction. 400 p.

Oct: The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, Fiction, 

Nov: O, Caledonia, by Elspeth Barker. Fiction

Dec: Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America, by Gigi Georges. NF

2023

Jan. 25.The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China, by Jonathan Kaufman. Nonfiction. 382p. (Two copies available)

Feb. 22. The Woman in the Library, by Sulari Gentill. Fiction. 259 pages
Mar. 22. The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles. Fiction.  592 p.
Apr. 26. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. Fiction. 546 pages.
May 24. Night of the Living Rez, by Morgan Talty. Fiction. 296 p.
June 28. When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro – Fiction - 352p
July 26.  Mink River, by Brian Doyle: Fiction, 319 pages.
Aug. 23. The Years, by Annie Ernaux.  Autobiography.  200 p.