Home > Reader's Shelf > Join a Book Group > Friends of the Library Book Clubs

A Short History of the Friends of the Library Book Club: Twelve Years of Good Reading

Amherst Town Library Book Club was organized by the late Joyce Kenne in l997 as an enrichment opportunity for Friends of the Library. Since its inception, the club has read, reviewed and discussed over 100 books––an eclectic collection of fiction and nonfiction…best sellers and classics…contemporary and history.

The club chose for its first meeting The Raven, by Peter Landesman, a novel based on the mysterious disappearance of a charter boat off coastal Maine in l941. Although several members were repulsed by book’s graphic drowning scenes and found it hard to read, they joined in a lively conversation about the book. Interesting discussions continued as a notable feature of the monthly meetings.

Although there is no record of books read the first two years, three stand-outs were The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, classic novel about Old New York; Personal History, a memoir by Katharine Graham who piloted the Washington Post through the Watergate era, and Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose, an account of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the opening of the American West.

Following is the list of books read since l999:

1999-2000
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Thomas Jefferson, an Intimate History, Fawn Brodie
Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Gordon
Appetite for Life, Bio of Julia Child, Nora Riley Fitch
Confederates in the Attic, Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, Tony Horowitz
Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
The Optimist’s Daughter, Eurdor Welty
I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
Endurance, Shackleton’s Incredible Journey, Alfred Lansing

2000-2001
Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende
I Dreamed of Africa, Kuki Gallmann
The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
The Red Tent, Anita Diament
The Children, David Halberstom
A Year by the Sea, Joan Anderson
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather
The Hungry Ocean, Linda Greenlaw
Ordinary Resurrections-Children in The Years of Hope, Jonathan Kozol

2001-2002
We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Simple Gifts: Lessons in Living from a Shaker Village, June Sprigg
Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe
Midwives, Chris Bohjalian
The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Mrs, Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
Waiting, Ha Jin
John Adams, David McCullough
Back When We Were Grownups, Anne Tyler

2002-2003
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
Cane River, Lolita Tademy
The Pickup, Nadine Gordimer
Carry Me Home, Diane McWhorter
Pope Joan, Donna Wolfolk Cross
Empire Falls, Richard Russo
All Souls, Michael P. McDonald
Truman, David McCullough
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

2003-2004
Sea Biscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
Last of the Mohicans, J.F. Cooper
Not for Ourselves Alone, Jeffry Ward
The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl
Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis or James Madison, Gary Wills
The Path between the Seas, the Panama Canal, David McCullough
The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd
Persian Pickle Club, Sandra Dallas
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

2004-2005
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
A Sorrow in our Heart, Allan Eckhart
In Praise of Slowness, Carl Honore
The Book Group, Ellen Slezak
Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
The Orchid Thief, Susan Olean
The Founding Mothers, Cokie Roberts
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward
The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

2005-2006
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi
Atonement, Ian McEwan
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Mrs. Miniver, Jan Struther
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Apprentice, Jacques Pépin
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
The Mermaid’s Chair, Sue Monk Kidd
Girl with the Pearl Earring, Tracey Chevalier
Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow

2006-2007
The Secret Supper, Javier Sierra
In the Heart of the Sea, Nathan Philbrick
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See
Rebecca of Sunnysbrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin
Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery
The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman
The Buffalo Soldier, Chris Bohjalian
1776, David McCullough
East of Eden, John Steinbeck
The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Mowauk, Richard Russo

2007-2008
The Double Bind, Chris Bohjalain
The Good Earth, Pearl Buck
Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, Tracy Kidder
“ Esther’s Gift,” Jan Karon
“Village Christmas,” Miss Read
Memory Keeper’s Daughter, Kim Edwards
Team of Rivals, The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin
It Happened in New Hampshire, Stillman Rogers
Dessert Queen, Janet Wallach
A Perfect Union: Dolley Madison and the Creation of the American Nation, Catherine Allgor
Huck Finn, Mark Twain

2008-2009
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene
Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
John Stark: Maverick General by Ben Z. Rose
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
March by Geraldine Brooks
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, D.O. Relin
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

2009-2010
Emma by Jane Austen
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Kahled Hosseini
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl
Old Christmas: 5 Stories in the Sketch Book by Washington Irving
The Lost City of Z by David Grann
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bohjalain
Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

2010-2011
Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad
Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout
Without a Map by Meredith Hall
Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances hodgson Burnett
Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay
The Help by Katryn Stockett
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Polk: The Man who transformed the Presidency and America by Walter Borneman
The country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

2011-2012
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
The Maltese Falcon by dashiell Hammett
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Hans Brinker by Mary Mapes Dodge
The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva
Brave Companions by David McCullough
A Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Stones into Schools by Greg Mortenson
The Monuments Men by Robert Easel