Discussion Group

A Novel Idea

A book discussion for adults featuring thought-provoking titles with the goal of stimulating a spirited discussion. Meetings will be on the second Thursday at 7:00 pm and third Wednesday at 2:00 pm of every month. The same title will be discussed at both meetings; come to the meeting which is most convenient for you. Stop by the Reference Desk to pick up the featured book and come to either discussion to get the next month’s title. Anyone with a library card may join the group.

The Library Book by Susan OrleanApril’s title: The Library Book by Susan Orlean

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’ ” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library, and if so, who?

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

Discussion Date

Meets the second Thursday and third Wednesday of every month. Monthly selections subject to change.

2020 Dates

See Previous Titles