ICPL's Let's Talk Books discussion group meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesday evenings each month via Zoom. Each week we talk about our favorite reads from a specific theme or genre. This list of our favorite books comes from the current members of the group. See some of your favorites here? Join us for a discussion. You can see a list of upcoming discussions on the ICPL calendar.
To kill a mockingbird
Harper Lee
FICTION Lee, Harper
Fiction, Classics
To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee. Although it was written in 1960 it is set in the mid-1930s in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama. It is narrated by Scout Finch, a six-year-old tomboy who lives with her lawyer father Atticus and her ten-year-old brother Jem. During the novel Scout, Jem and their friend Dill try to make their reclusive neighbor Boo Radley leave his house. Boo has not been seen in Maycomb since he was a teenager. Many residents of Maycomb are racists and during the novel Atticus is asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. Atticus takes on the case even though everyone knows he has little hope of winning. The reader sees the trial develop through the childlike eyes of Scout, as gradually both she and her brother learn some valuable life lessons from their father about tolerance, empathy and understanding.
Truly Devious
Maureen Johnson
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Johnson Maureen
Fiction, Young Adult
When Stevie Bell, an amateur detective, begins her first year at a famous private school in Vermont, she sets a plan to solve the cold case involving the kidnapping of the founder's wife and daughter shortly after the school opened.
Ancillary justice
Ann Leckie
SCIENCE FICTION Leckie Ann
Science Fiction
The only novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards and the first book in Ann Leckie's New York Times bestselling trilogy. On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy. Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
FICTION McMurtry, Larry
Fiction
A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize— winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember
A walk in the woods : rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Bill Bryson
917.4 /Bryson
Nonfiction, Nature
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America—majestic mountains, silent forests, sparking lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way—and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in)
A man called Ove : a novel
Fredrik Backman
FICTION Backman, Fredrik
Fiction
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon; the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him 'the bitter neighbour from hell'. But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.
My Antonia
Willa Cather
FICTION Cather, Willa
Fiction
Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of a fateful sleigh ride, Antonia's desperately homesick father and self-indulgent mother, and the coy Lena Lingard. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching, free-spirited Antonia.
The Clan of the Cave Bear
Jean M Auel
FICTION Auel, Jean M.
Fiction
. A natural disaster leaves the young girl wandering alone in an unfamiliar and dangerous land until she is found by a woman of the Clan, people very different from her own kind. To them, blond, blue-eyed Ayla looks peculiar and ugly--she is one of the Others, those who have moved into their ancient homeland; but Iza cannot leave the girl to die and takes her with them. Iza and Creb, the old Mog-ur, grow to love her, and as Ayla learns the ways of the Clan and Iza's way of healing, most come to accept her. But the brutal and proud youth who is destined to become their next leader sees her differences as a threat to his authority. He develops a deep and abiding hatred for the strange girl of the Others who lives in their midst, and is determined to get his revenge. Book one of the Earth's Children Series.
Crossing to safety
Wallace Earle Stegner
FICTION Stegner, Wallace Earle
Fiction
Two young ambitious couples become friends in Madison, Wisconsin, when the two husbands begin their academic careers as professors at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930s. The novel follows their friendship through forty years of career ups-and-downs, health problems, children, successes, and failures.
Sense and sensibility
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
The novel follows the three Dashwood sisters as they must move with their widowed mother from the estate on which they grew up, Norland Park. Because Norland is passed down to John, the product of Mr. Dashwood's first marriage, and his young son, the four Dashwood women need to look for a new home. They have the opportunity to rent a modest home, Barton Cottage, on the property of a distant relative, Sir John Middleton. There they experience love, romance, and heartbreak
Pride and prejudice
Jane Austen
FICTION Austen, Jane
Fiction
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice centers on the conflict between marrying for love and marrying for economic reasons. None of Mr. Bennet's five daughters can inherit his estate, so they are pressured into finding security in "good" marriages. Elizabeth Bennet, the main character, struggles with the societal pressures of marriage and resists Mr. Darcy's advances and proposals. Eventually, however, she finds that she does love him, and for that reason, she decides to marry him.
American dirt
Jeanine Cummins
FICTION Cummins Jeanine
Fiction
Acapulco. Lydia Quixano Perez runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca; her wonderful husband is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is fairly comfortable. Javier browses at the store and comes up to the register with two of her favorites books. Javier is charming... and the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When her husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, Lydia and Luca find themselves making their way north toward the United States, the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. But what exactly are they running to? -- adapted from jacket
The fellowship of the ring: being the first part of The lord of the rings
J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien
SCIENCE FICTION Tolkien, J. R. R.
Science Fiction
In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages, it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit. In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.
The hobbit : or, There and back again
J. R. R. (John Ronald Reuel) Tolkien
jFICTION Tolkien, J. R. R.
Early Chapter Books
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to share in an adventure from which he may never return.
Where the red fern grows : the story of two dogs and a boy
Wilson Rawls
jFICTION Rawls, Wilson
Early Chapter Books
A young boy living in the Ozarks achieves his heart's desire when he becomes the owner of two redbone hounds and teaches them to be champion hunters.
Anne of Green Gables.
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
jFICTION Montgomery, L. M.
Early Chapter Books
Anne, an eleven-year-old orphan, is sent by mistake to live with a lonely, middle-aged brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm and proceeds to make an indelible impression on everyone around her.
Little women
Louisa May Alcott
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Alcott, Louisa May
Young Adult
Little Women is many things: a coming-of-age story; a collection of anecdotes illustrating life in Civil War-era America; a pastiche of domestic and didactic fictions; a reflection on living morally and a proto-feminist critique of 19th-century “separate spheres” ideology. Louisa May Alcott’s best-known, beloved novel draws readers into the world of the four March sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy – and their mother, Marmee, and follows the girls as they grow from impulsive teens into mature young women. Alcott’s episodic narrative showcases the girls’ individuality and ambitions, their triumphs and trials, their shortcomings and evolving characters, and their relationships with one another, with their mother and with society at large. Its voice is in a manner that is, alternatingly, humorous, uplifting and, sometimes, heartbreaking. Alcott’s novel doesn’t resist sentimentality, but it balances, and, ultimately, transcends it with realistic depictions of the challenges inherent in the pursuit of true vocation and true love, the burden of domestic labor, and the effects of social pressures and life’s challenges – including illness – on female ambition.
A tree grows in Brooklyn
Betty Smith
FICTION Smith, Betty
Fiction
Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn't fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer. Late in the afternoon the sun slanted down into the mossy yard belonging to Francie Nolan's house, and warmed the worn wooden fence. Looking at the shafted sun, Francie had that same fine feeling that came when she recalled the poem they recited in school. This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld. The one tree in Francie's yard was neither a pine nor a hemlock. It had pointed leaves which grew along green switches which radiated from the bough and made a tree which looked like a lot of opened green umbrellas. Some people called it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed fell, it made a tree which struggled to reach the sky. It grew in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it was the only tree that grew out of cement. It grew lushly, but only in the tenements districts.
Richard Nixon : the life
John A. (John Aloysius) Farrell
BIOGRAPHY Nixon, Richard
Nonfiction, Biographies
"Brilliantly researched, authoritatively crafted by a prize-winning biographer, and lively on the page, this is the Nixon we've been waiting for. Richard Nixon opens with young Navy lieutenant "Nick" Nixon returning from the Pacific and setting his cap at Congress, an idealistic dreamer seeking to build a better world. Yet amid the turns of that now legendary 1946 campaign, Nixon's finer attributes quickly gave way to unapologetic ruthlessness. It is a stunning overture to John A. Farrell's magisterial portrait of a man who embodied postwar American cynicism. Within four years of that first win, Nixon would be a U.S. senator; in six the vice president of the United States of America. "Few came so far, so fast, and so alone," Farrell writes. Finally president, Nixon's staff was full of bright young men who devised forward-thinking reforms addressing health care, poverty, civil rights, and protection of the environment. It was a fine legacy, but Nixon cared little for it. He aspired to make his mark on the world stage instead, and his 1972 opening to China was the first great crack in the Cold War. Nixon had another legacy, too: an America divided and polarized. It was Nixon who launched the McCarthy era, who set South against North, and who spurred the Silent Majority to despise and distrust the country's elites. He persuaded Americans to gnaw, as he did, on grievances--and to look at one another as enemies. Finally, in August 1974, after two years of the mesmerizing intrigue and scandal known as Watergate, Nixon became the only president to resign in disgrace. Richard Nixon is an enthralling tour de force biography of our darkest president, one that reviewers will hail as a defining portrait, and the full life of Nixon readers have awaited."
The years of Lyndon Johnson
Robert A Caro
BIOGRAPHY Johnson, Lyndon B.
Nonfiction, Biographies
The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a biography of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson by Robert Caro. Four volumes have been published, running to more than 3,000 pages in total, detailing Johnson's early life, education, and political career. Book One: The Path to Power (1982), Book Two: Means of Ascent (1990), Book Three: Master of the Senate (2002), Book Four: The Passage of Power (2012).
Mockingbird
Kathryn Erskine
jFICTION Erskine, Kathryn
Early Chapter Books
Ten-year-old Caitlin, who has Asperger's Syndrome, struggles to understand emotions, show empathy, and make friends at school, while at home she seeks closure by working on a project with her father.
Maniac Magee
Jerry Spinelli
jFICTION Spinelli, Jerry
Early Chapter Books
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.
Permission to feel : unlocking the power of emotions to help our kids, ourselves, and our society thrive
Marc A. Brackett
152.4 /Brackett
Self Help
"Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University's Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a remarkably effective plan to improve the lives of children and adults -- a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being. The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognize the suffering, bullying, and abuse he'd endured. And that was the beginning of Marc's awareness that what he was going through was temporary. He wasn't alone, he wasn't stuck on a timeline, and he wasn't "wrong" to feel scared, isolated, and angry. Now, best of all, he could do something about it."--Amazon.
The Blue Castle
L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Montgomery, L. M.
Young Adult
In early 1920s Canada, drastic circumstances give Valancy, a twenty-nine-year-old unmarried woman resigned to being an "old maid," the courage to defy her controlling family and escape to a life of her own choosing.
Writers & lovers : a novel
Lily King
FICTION King Lily
Fiction
"Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink."--Provided by publisher.
The Eyre affair
Jasper Fforde
SCIENCE FICTION Fforde, Jasper
Science Fiction
Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed! But that's just a prelude . . . Hades' real target is the beloved Jane Eyre, and it's not long before he plucks her from the pages of Bronte's novel. Enter Thursday Next. She's the Special Operative's renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from this heinous act of literary homicide. It's tricky business, all these interlopers running about Thornfield, and deceptions run rampant as their paths cross with Jane, Rochester, and Miss Fairfax. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte's masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . .
All systems red
Martha Wells
SCIENCE FICTION Wells Martha
Science Fiction
A murderous android discovers itself in "All Systems Red", a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial intelligence. In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.
Station eleven : a novel
Emily St. John Mandel
FICTION Mandel Emily
Fiction
"An audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse, from the author of three highly acclaimed previous novels. One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear. Hours later, the world as we know it begins to dissolve. Moving back and forth in time-from the actor's early days as a film star to fifteen years in the future, when a theater troupe known as the Traveling Symphony roams the wasteland of what remains-this suspenseful, elegiac, spellbinding novel charts the strange twists of fate that connect five people: the actor, the man who tried to save him, the actor's first wife, his oldest friend, and a young actress with the Traveling Symphony, caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous self-proclaimed prophet. Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it"--
All this I will give to you
Dolores Redondo
MYSTERY Redondo Dolores
Mystery
"When novelist Manuel Ortigosa learns that his husband, Álvaro, has been killed in a car crash, it comes as a devastating shock, but it won't be the last. He's now arrived in Galicia where Álvaro died. It's where the case has already been quickly closed as a tragic accident. It's also where Álvaro hid his secrets. The man to whom Manuel was married for fifteen years was not the unassuming man he knew. Álvaro's trail leads Manuel deep into one of Spain's most powerful and guarded families. Behind the walls of their forbidding estate, Manuel is nothing but an unwelcome and dangerous intruder. Then he finds two allies: a stubbornly suspicious police lieutenant and Álvaro's old friend, and private confessor, from seminary school. Together they're collecting the pieces of Álvaro's past, his double life, and his mysterious death"--