December 2024
The December meeting will be on Tuesday, December 10 at 7:00 pm to discuss The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner. Some print copies of The Idea Factory are available for checkout; the eAudiobook is available on hoopla and the eBook & eAudiobook may be available on Libby.
If you need a copy of the book or would like to join the Morning or Evening book group, please contact the Reference Department in person, by phone (908) 608-8603 x3, or email reference@bhplnj.org.
Evening Book Group Title List (by year)
2024
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: a novel by Gabrielle Zevin
Fly Girl by Ann Hood
Foster by Claire Keegan
Hester: a novel by Laurie Lico Albanese
Remarkably Bright Creatures: a novel by Shelby Van Pelt
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson
The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner
2023
The Reading List: a novel by Sara Nisha Adams
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Circe by Madeline Miller
The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali
Hello, Sunshine by Laura Dave
The Only Woman in the Room by Marie Benedict
The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories by Truman Capote
2022
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Catch and Kill: lies, spies, and a conspiracy to protect predators by Ronan Farrow
A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
Grayson by Lynne Cox
The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian
The Wife: a novel by Meg Wolitzer
The Tale Teller by Anne Hillerman
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd
2021
Dinner with Edward by Isabel Vincent
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
The Engineer’s Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood
The Tenth Muse by Catherine Chung
Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge
Nomadland by Jessica Bruder
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the quest for a fantastic future by Ashlee Vance
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Last Romantics: a novel by Tara Conklin
The Nickel Boys: a novel by Colson Whitehead
2020
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Gown: a novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi
The Darwin Affair by Tim Mason
The Mountains Sing by Phan Que Mai Nguyen
The Bear by Andrew Krivak
Notorious RBG: the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
2019
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
Euphoria by Lily King
Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
Killers of the Flower Moon by John Berendt
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
2018
Carry Me by Peter Behrens
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg
Resistance by Owen Sheers
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
2017
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Woods by Harlan Coben
Love Anthony by Lisa Genova
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
Rainbow Comes and Goes by Anderson Cooper
Shelter by Jung Yun
Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
2016
The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Uncle Tungsten: memories of a chemical boyhood by Oliver W. Sacks
Left Neglected: a novel by Lisa Genova
Teatime for the Firefly by Shona Patel
The Martian: a novel by Andy Weir
Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Brooklyn, a novel by Colm Toibin
Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
2015
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Letters from Skye by Jessica Brockmole
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Testament of Mary by Colm Toiban
The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard Morais
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
My Kind of Place, travel stories from a woman who’s been everywhere by Susan Orlean
Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman
The Children Act by Ian McEwan
The Illusionists by Rosie Thomas
The $60,000 Dog: my life with animals by Lauren Slater
2014
The Pact by Davis, Jenkins and Hunt
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N. Murari
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Someone by Alice McDermott
The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma
The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian
Dubliners by James Joyce
2013
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
How It All Began by Penelope Lively
The Light of Day by Graham Swift
Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Defending Jacob by William Landay
2012
The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair
The Reservoir by John Milliken Thompson
Troubles by J.G. Farrell
Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht
Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald
2011
Tales from the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Feed by M.T. Anderson
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart
The Rapture by Liz Jensen
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
2010
The Comedians by Graham Greene
Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’Nan
How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
The Seduction of Water by Carol Goodman
The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson
The Traveler by Ron McLarty
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith
The Ghosts of Belfast by Stuart Neville
Theme selections: memoirs and novels on the immigrant experience in the United States; American expatriate memoirs
2009
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Crow Road by Iain Banks
The Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
Theme selections: favorite summer books; hard-boiled mysteries, Agatha Christie and the Golden age of mysteries
2008
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull
Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
China Boy by Gus Lee
Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley
Men Are From Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes
2007
The Borgia Bride by Jeanne Kalogridis
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Triangle: the Fire That Changed America by David Von Drehle
The Lucky Gourd Shop by Joanna C. Scott
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
The Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
2006
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Child of My Heart by Alice McDermott
Nickel and Dimed: on (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King
Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert A. Heinlein
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Forever by Pete Hamill
Aloft by Chang-rae Lee
March by Geraldine Brooks
Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat
2005
The Kitchen Boy: a Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich
The Devil in the White City : Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
The Blessing Stone by Barbara Wood
Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min
The Green Mile by Stephen King
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
2004
The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O’Neill
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang
The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
2003
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy
Chiefs by Stuart Woods
Days of Awe by Achy Obejas
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Year of Wonders: a Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Anne Morrow Lindbergh: Her Life by Susan Hertog
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Islam: a Short History by Karen Armstrong
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam by John L. Esposito
2002
Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss
The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds
Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Los Alamos by Joseph Kanon
Tess of the D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwinkle
One Thousand White Women: the Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
The Hook by Donald E. Westlake
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
2001
Falling Leaves: the True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah
Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis De Bernieres
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Uncivil Seasons by Michael Malone