THE LANPHER LIBRARY HOSTS A BOOK DISCUSSION ON THE THIRD TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH FROM 6:30-8:00 THE DISCUSSIONS ARE FREE AND ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN US!  COPIES OF THE BOOK ARE AVAILABLE FOR LOAN IN ADVANCE AT THE LANPHER LIBRARY AND ARE DUE BACK ON OR BEFORE THE EVENING OF THE DISCUSSION. 
Participants take turns choosing the book and facilitating the discussion.  Light refreshments are also the responsibility of the person who chose the book. 

May 21, 2019 Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.” Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy’s body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction’s ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

Past discussion titles include:
April 2019  The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka
March 2019, An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones
February 2019 The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
January 2019 March: Book 1, by John Lewis
November 2018: Women and Power, by Mary Beard
October 2018: Educated, by Tara Westover
September 2018 The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware
August 2018 The Girl with Seven Names, by Hyonseo Lee
July 2018 An Address in Amsterdam, by Mary Dungee Fillmore
June 2018: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
May 2018: Doc, by Mary Doria Russell
April 2018:  Maisie Dobbs, by Jaqueline Winspear
March 2018: Bread and Roses Too, by Katherine Paterson (VT READS 2018)
February 2018: Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
January 2018 Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See
Nobember 2017 A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman
October 2017 Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline
Septbember 2017 Transatlantic, by Colum McCann
August 2017 Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
July 2017 Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
June 2017 Tribe, by Sebastian Junger
May 2017 A Long Way Home, by Saroo Brierly
April 2017  The Grass Harp, by Truman Capote
March 2017 Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
February 2017: Brown Girl Dreaming , by Jaqueline Woodson (VT READS 2017)
December 2016/January 2017: The Thornbirds, by Colleen McCullough
November 2016: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, by Jan-Philipp Sendker
October 2016:  Not a Wasted Breath, by LaRecea Taylor Gibbs
September 2016, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, by Laurie R. King
August 2016, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Valliant
July 2016, A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Iriving
June 2016, Goodbye for Now, by Laurie Frankel
May 2016 A Slant of Light, by Jeffrey Lent
April 2016 H is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald
March 2016  Too Late the Phalarope, by Alan Paton
February 2016  Three Can Keep a Secret, by Archer Mayor
January 2016, All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr
December 2015, The All of It, by Jeannette Haien
November 2015 The Professor's House, by Willa Cather
October 2015: Water Witches, by Chris Bohjalian
September 2015: Naked, by David Sedaris
August 2015 Watership Down, by Richard Adams
July 2015: Postmistress, by Sara Blake
June 2015: Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie (VT Reads 2015)
May 2015: October Light, by John Gardner
April 2015: The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford
March 2015: White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
February 2015: A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley
January 2015: The Orphan Master's Son, by Adam Johnson
December 2014: Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
November 2014 The Proving Ground, by G. Bruce Knecht
October 2014: The Alchemist, by Paolo Coelho
September 2014: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
August 2014: A Stranger in the Kingdom, by Howard Frank Mosher
July 2014 Wonder, by R.J. Palacio (VT Reads 2014)
June 2014: Daisy Miller, by Henry James
May 2014: Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
April 2014: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang
March 2014: Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder
February 2014: The Lives of Girls and Women, by Alice Munro
January 2014: The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
December 2013: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai SiJie
November 2013: A Study in Scarlett, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
October 2013: When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro
September 2013: The Last Telegraph, by Liz Trenow
August 2013: My Antonia, by Willa Cather
July 2013: Secret Daughter, by Shipli Somaya
May 2013: The Terra Cotta Dog, by Andrea Camillieri
April 2013: The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
March 2013: Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem
February 2013: Coyote Wisdom, by Lewis Mahl Madrone
January 2013: The Pilot's Wife, by  Anita Shreve
2012 Titles: 
Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Wolf
Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks
Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
Bull Run, by Paul Fliechman
Skinwalkers, by Tony Hillerman
The Water is Wide, by Pat Conroy