Friends of the Laurel Library

Laurel Branch of PGCMLS

507 7th St, Laurel, MD 20707

Laurel Library Book Discussions

7pm on the 4th Tuesday of Each Month

All are Welcome

Framed by John Grisham and Jim McClosky July 26
The Women by Kristin Hannah August 25
To Be Announced September 22
No Sense in Wishing by Lawrence Burney, The Maryland One Book October 27
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner November 24
The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman December 22

*Video sessions are available - Email mike@mdcsr.com for the link

Books Under Consideration for 2027

1. Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghose

A travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research it traces the transformative effect the opium trade had on Britain, India, and China, as well as the world at large.
2. The Book of Everlasting Things by Anacha Malhotra

Lush, sensuous, and deeply romantic, this is the story of two lovers and two nations, split apart by forces beyond their control, yet bound by love and memory.

3. Trust Exercise by Susan Choi

National Book Award for Fiction 2019. In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement and acting classes.

4. Hello Beautiful, by Ann Napolitano

Chicago Public Library's Best of the Year. William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him but he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him.

5. Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2024. A beautifully rendered novel set in West Virginia’s Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in the aftermath of the Civil War where a severely wounded Union veteran, a 12-year-old girl and her mother, long abused by a Confederate soldier, struggle to heal.

6. Bewilderment by Richard Powers

Oprah's Book Club, The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, who is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals.

7. Deacon King Kong by James McBride

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction. In September 1969, a fumbling, cranky old church deacon known as Sportcoat shuffles into the courtyard of the Cause Houses housing project in south Brooklyn, pulls a .38 from his pocket, and, in front of everybody, shoots the project’s drug dealer at point-blank range. Why?

8 .Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Amazon Editor's Book of the Year. Though he battled for seven years to marry her, King Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle.

9. Olive Again by Elizabeth Stout

People Magazine 10 Best of the Year. Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is “a compelling life force” and she struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine.

10. Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2026. A breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence.

11. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2023. A masterful recasting of “David Copperfield,” narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them.

12. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Library recommendation. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities.

13. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

GMA Book Club. The first female scientists and astronauts join NASA in the 1980s. Its perfect balance of thrilling space-program drama, romance, and thought-provoking character dynamics makes for lively discussions.

14. The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

GMA Book Club. Riveting historical fiction.
15. 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.
16. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Best Book Club Books. Character driven mystery.

Books Discussed & Recommended by the Group

Challenger: A True Story of the Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

by Adam Higginbotham

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Lifelines by Leana Wen

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocum

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Books for Discussion 2018 thru 2026

2026

Challenger: A True Story of the Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

by Adam Higginbotham

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: A Novel by James McBride

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

Framed by John Grisham and Jim McClosky

The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Maryland One Book - No Sense in Wishing by Lawrence Burney

Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner

The Lies They Told by Ellen Marie Wiseman

2025

The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rolas

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

Great Expectations by Vinson Cunningham

The Beauty of Dusk by Frank Bruni

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

The Museum of Failures by Thrity Umrigar

The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

The Maryland One Book - Kin: Rooted in Hope

by Carole Boston Weatherford illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatherford

Playground by Richard Powers

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

2024

Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocum

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Hell of a Book by Jason Mott

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff

Trust by Herman Diaz

The Wren, the Wren by Anne Enright

What Storm, What Thunder by Myriam J.A. Chancy

(Maryland One Book selection for 2024)

The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

2023

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Of Women and Salt: a novel by Gabriela Garcia
Libertie: a novel by Imbolo Mbue
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

I am these Truths by Sunny Hostin

The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

Lifelines : a doctor's journey in the fight for public health by Leana Wen

2022

Circe by Madeline Miller

Ladies of the House by Lauren Edmondson

On Earth We're Briefly Georgeous by Ocean Vuong

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America by R. Eric Thomas

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid