Calendar of Events

Book Discussion Group

A Celebration of Reading!

Read each selection & join staff member Michele Reinhart for a spirited discussion!

Last Wednesday of each month at 7 pm in the Conference Room.

December 26: Blame by Michelle Huneven

December is National Impaired Driving Prevention Month. Especially during the holidays, as we toast our family and friends, we are encouraged to remember the risks of drunk, drugged, and distracted driving. This month we will consider the consequences of impaired driving while reading and discussing Michelle Huneven’s 2009 novel Blame.

Blame covers 20 years in the rest of Patsy MacLemoore’s life, beginning with the morning in 1981 when she wakes up in jail, with no memory of how she got there. Although it’s not the first time she’s blacked out after a night of drinking and driving, Patsy can tell by the icy demeanor of the police officers and her lawyer that something about this arrest is very, very different.

Across from her, [the detective] snapped the elastic band on an accordion file, a battered and cloudy-brown thing, the corners worn to white. Patsy couldn’t help but read the word felt-tipped on its side. HOMICIDE.

[The detective] began reading aloud. Jane Robin Parnham, female Caucasian, aged thirty-four, massive contusions to ribs and right arm, cause of death, crushed pulmonary cavity, suffocation. Jessica Elizabeth Parnham, female Caucasian, aged twelve, contusions to rib cage, shoulder, spleen, and kidneys crushed, cause of death, extensive internal bleeding.

Despite Patsy’s not remembering the accident, with two victims struck by her car, in her driveway, it’s an open-and-shut case. Arraignment, indictment, preliminary hearing, sentencing …the rest of her life to accept the blame.

Please check our online catalog for copies of the book and join us for our discussion on December 26.

• January 30: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• February 27: The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton
• March 27: The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
• April 24: Digging to America by Anne Tyler
• May 29: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Questions? Call Reference at 614-481-3776.