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.
April 18: A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Gilliland
In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina’s leader. The country is now under the control of a military junta, with army chief Jorge Rafael Videla at the helm. With quiet support from the United States and tacit approval from much of Argentina’s people, who are tired of constant bombings and gunfights, the junta swiftly launches the National Reorganization Process or El Proceso—a bland name masking their ruthless campaign to crush the political left and instill the country with “Western, Christian” values. The junta holds power until 1983 and decimates a generation.
One of the military’s most diabolical acts is kidnapping hundreds of pregnant women. After giving birth in captivity, the women are “disappeared,” and their babies secretly given to other families—many of them headed by police or military officers. For mothers of pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law, the source of their grief is twofold—the disappearances of their children, and the theft of their grandchildren. A group of fierce grandmothers forms the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, dedicated to finding the stolen infants and seeking justice from a nation that betrayed them. At a time when speaking out could mean death, the Abuelas confront military officers and launch protests to reach international diplomats and journalists. They become detectives, adopting disguises to observe suspected grandchildren, and even work alongside a renowned American scientist to pioneer groundbreaking genetic tests.
2026 Book Club Selections
April 18: A Flower Traveled in My Blood by Haley Gilliland (semi- local author who will join in the book club discussion)
May 16: How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair
June 20: Hard Times, You Say? Smile, This is the Great Depression by R. Leslie Howe (local author who will join in the book club discussion)
July 18: Tell me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
August 15: Home Inside the Globe by Gail Straub (local author who will join in the book club discussion)
Sept 19: The Boy From the North Country by Susan Sussamn
Oct 17: Confessions of A Bar Brat: Growing Up In Rosendale NY by Judith A. Boggess (local author who will join in the book club discussion)
Nov 21: Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Dec 19: The Sisters by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
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.
March 23: Better the Blood by Michael Bennett, #1 in Hana Westerman Series - New Zealand
A tenacious Māori detective, Hana Westerman juggles single motherhood, endemic prejudice, and the pressures of her career in Auckland CIB. Led to a crime scene by a mysterious video, she discovers a man ritualistically hanging in a secret room and a puzzling inward-curving inscription. Delving into the investigation after a second, apparently unrelated, death, she uncovers a chilling connection to an historic crime: 160 years before, during the brutal and bloody British colonization of New Zealand, a troop of colonial soldiers unjustly executed a Māori Chief.
Hana realizes that the murders are utu—the Māori tradition of rebalancing for the crime committed eight generations ago. There were six soldiers in the British troop, and since descendants of two of the soldiers have been killed, four more potential murders remain. Hana is thus hunting New Zealand’s first serial killer.
2026 International Mystery Book Club Selections
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.
April: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal by George Packer
In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions―discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities―and how difficult they are to remedy.
In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer oppression.
2026
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 Kem
May 26 (substitute date for regular June meeting): On Liberty, by Timothy Snyder
July 7: Attack From Within, by Barbara McQuade
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.
March 26: Dig by A.S. King
Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account—wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. “Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says.
But for the Hemmings cousins, “thriving” feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born. As the rot beneath the surface of the Hemmings’ white suburban respectability destroys the family from within, the cousins find their ways back to one another, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name.
2026 (Forth Thursday)
March 26: Dig by A.S. King
April 23: Girl dinner : a novel
May 28: TBD
June 25: TBD