This past winter BHML hosted another Maine Humanities Council’s “Let’s Talk About It” reading group on the theme: Re-Imagining the American Family. The skilled facilitator and lively group missed just one meeting due to COVID-19 cancellations, and resumed to finish out the meetings online using Zoom.
“We’ve all enjoyed each others’ company, observations and comments. Wouldn’t it be interesting to draw from our individual experiences with books that we love?” ~ 2020 Let’s Talk About It Participant
Below find some of the titles the group recommended. We’re excited to share their recommendations to the wider BHML Community! Maybe you’ll find a new favorite.
BHML owns the titles in green…place a hold for curbside pickup today! Learn more about Curbside Pickup here.
| Book Title | Author | Reader’s comments |
| Giants in the Earth | Ole Edvart Rolvagg | Norwegian immigrant family travel west by wagon to Dakota Territory. Hardships historically accurate. |
| Stone Angel | Margaret Laurence | Canadian. Ninety year old woman struggles against being put in a nursing home. |
| The Woman Who Walked into Doors | Roddy Doyle | A battered mother of 4 in working class Dublin. |
| Beautiful and the Damned | F. Scott Fitzgerald | |
| Germinal | Emile Zola | |
| King Lear | Wm. Shakespeare | These are the first 10 that came to mind today. Probably would have a different list on another day. |
| Anna Karenina | Tolstoy | |
| Middlemarch | George Elliot | |
| The Return of the Native | Thomas Hardy | |
| War and Peace | Tolstoy | |
| First novel of the Paliser or Barchester Towers series | Anthony Trollope | |
| Wolf Hall | Hilary Mantel | |
| Dead Wake | Erik Larson | |
| Collapse | Jared Diamond | |
| The Cat’s Table | Michael Ondaatje | |
| Middlemarch | George Eliot | |
| Tortilla Curtain | T.C, Boyle | |
| Poisonwood Bible | Barbara Kingsoliver | or any of her books |
| Home | Marilyn Robinson | |
| People of the Book | Geraldine Brooks | |
| Nickel and Dimed | Barbara Ehrenreich | |
| Americanah | Ngozi Adichie, | |
| The Hidden Life of Trees | Peter Wohlleben | |
| All the Light We Cannot See | Anthony Doerr | |
| Between the World and Me | Ta-Nehisi Coates | |
| My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry | Fredrik Backman | or any of his books or short stories |
| Catch 22 | Joseph Heller | crazy making but fascinating |
| The Sociopath Next Door | Martha Stout | it explains so much, especially in today’s world |
| Needful Things | Stephen King | Ahhh, Mr. King, this one is the best. |
| House of Light | Mary Oliver | “Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life!” from The Summer Day |
| The Cat Who Went to Paris | Peter Gethers | guilty pleasure, read years ago and it was just what I needed so it makes my list but not for literary genius |
| A Yellow Raft in Blue Water | Michael Dorris | Again, right book at the right time |
| Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café | Fannie Flagg | This is my favorite movie of all time, too. |
| Kent Family Chronicles and The North and South Trilogy | John Jakes | Throwback to high school reading for pleasure |
| A Tree Grows in Brooklyn | Betty Smith |