The RVL Book Group meets monthly either in person at RVL or via Zoom depending on the weather and availability of book group members. Meetings are held the last Monday of the month at 6pm. Copies of the titles selected for discussion are available for checkout at the circulation desk. FMI about the book group or to reserve your copy, please contact the library.
June
The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
The story of Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan’s personal librarian, hired to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for the Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world. But Belle has a secret. She was born Belle Marion Greener, the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and advocate for equality. Belle’s dark complexion is explained away as her Portuguese heritage. This helps her pass as white. Belle must preserve her white identity in the racist world in which she lives.
July
The Maid by Nita Prose
Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills. Her Gran used to interpret the world for her. When her Gran dies, 25-year-old Molly must navigate life on her own. As a hotel maid, her obsessive love of cleaning and etiquette, make her an ideal fit for her job at the Regency Grand. But her life is changed the day she enters the suite of wealthy Charles Black, only to find him dead in his bed. Molly is the lead suspect. She unexpectedly finds friends who help her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black.
August
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water id drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. In this uncertain time, Elsa Martinelli must make a choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life.
September
The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn
In 1937, in the snowbound city of Kiev, student Mila Pavlichenko, organizes her life around her library job and her young son, but Hitler’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia sets her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila becomes a deadly sniper, known as Lady Death. When news of her 300th kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself removed from the battlefields and sent to America on a goodwill tour into the glittering world of Washington, DC. But her past comes to find her and Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.
October
The Ride of Her Life: the True Story of a Woman, Her Horse, and Their Last-chance Journey Across America by Elizabeth Letts
In 1954, Annie Wilkins, a 63-year-old farmer from Maine, who had only 2 years left to live, embarked on a horseback journey to see the Pacific Ocean before she died. She headed out from Maine in mid-November hoping to beat the snow. She had no map, no GPS, no phone. Annie, Tarzan her horse, and her dog, Depeche Troi, travelled over 4,000 miles, through America’s big cities and small towns, meeting ordinary people and celebrities. They captured the imagination of a Cold War America.
November
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and ther Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist, has been trained to ask questions of nature tempered by the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers and that we must acknowledge our dependent relationship with the rest of the living world.
