Events
Book Clubs and Discussion Groups
To find out about CALS book club kits to the community, click here.
Fletcher Library
Evening Book Discussion
Meetings are held the first Tuesday of the month at 6:30 p.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the checkout desk. Call (501)663-5457 for more details. Registration is not required.
August Book Selection:
The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig
Hired as a housekeeper to work on the early 1900s Montana homestead of widower Oliver Milliron, the irreverent and perpetually whistling Rose and her fount-of-knowledge brother, Morris, endeavor to educate the widower's reluctant sons while witnessing local efforts on a massive irrigation project.
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Upcoming Books:
- TBA
Lunchtime Book Group
Meetings are held the third Wednesday of the month at 11:30 a.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the checkout desk. Bring your lunch; drinks are provided. Call (501)663-5457 for more details. Registration is not required.
August Book Selection:
Shanghai Girls
by Lisa See
May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl's parents arrange for their daughters to marry "Gold Mountain men" who have come from Los Angeles to find brides. But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel's Island (the Ellis Island of the West)—where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months—they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she's pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.
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Upcoming Books:
- TBA
Main Library
Book of the Month for Adults
Book of the Month for Adults will meet on the second Tuesday of every month from 12-1 p.m. in the East Room on the first floor of the Main Library. Bring your lunch. Drinks and cookies provided.
July Book Selection:
People of the Book
by Geraldine Brooks
In 1996, Hanna Heath, a young Australian book conservator is called to analyze the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless six-hundred-year-old Jewish prayer book that has been salvaged from a destroyed Bosnian library. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in the centuries' old binding, she unwittingly exposes an international cover up.
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Upcoming Books:
- TBA
Maumelle Library
Maumelle's Second Monday Book Club
Meetings are held on the second Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m. Call (501) 851-2551 for more details. Registration is not required.
August Book Selection
My Life in France
by Julia Child
Here is the captivating story of Julia Child's years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found "her true calling." From the moment she and her husband Paul, who worked for the USIS, arrived in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn't speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. She teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book on French cooking for Americans.
Filled with her husband's beautiful black-and-white photographs as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Bon appétit!
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Upcoming Books:
- TBA
Mystery Lovers Book Club
Meetings are held on the last Monday of every month at 7:00 p.m. Members read whatever they choose by a particular author and share with the group. Call (501) 851-2551 for more details. Registration is not required.
Milam Library
Adult Book Chat
Meetings are held on the second Thursday of every month at 12:30 pm. and will feature a book of the month. The book will be available for checkout at the circulation desk in advance. Bring you brown bag lunch and join us for a lively discussion.
August Book Selection
The Kite Runner
by Khaled Hosseini
Amir is the son of a prominent and wealthy man, while Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant, is a Hazara—a shunned ethnic minority. Their intertwined lives, and their fates, reflect the eventual tragedy of the world around them. When Amir and his father flee the country for a new life in California, Amir thinks that he has escaped his past. And yet he cannot leave the memory of Hassan behind him.
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Upcoming Book Schedule:
- September 9: Breathing Lessons, by Ann Tyler
Nixon Library
Book Chats
Meetings are held on the third Thursday of every month at 6:00 p.m. Members read whatever they choose and share with the group. Call (501) 457-5038 for more details. Registration is not required, but appreciated.
Book Club Divas
Meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. Copies of the selected book are available at the Circulation Desk
July Book Selection
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson
Trond's friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning was different. What began as a joy ride on "borrowed" horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day—an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys.
Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer.
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Upcoming Book Schedule:
- August 24: The Guernsey Literary Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Sanders Library
Book Chats
Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month at 2 p.m. Members read whatever they choose and share with the group. Call (501) 835-7756 for more information.
The Page Turners
Meetings are held on the first Thursday of every month at 10:30 a.m. Members read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 835-7756 for more information.
Terry Library
Book Lover's Book Club
Meetings are held on the third Tuesday of every month, September through April, at 11:00 a.m. Members will read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 228-0129 for more details. Registration is not required, but appreciated.
September Book Selection
TBA
Thompson Library
Evening Book Club
Meetings are held on the fourth Tuesday of every month (no meeting in December) at 7:00 p.m. Members will read a single book for discussion at the meeting. Call (501) 821-3060 for more details. Registration is not required, but appreciated.
July Book Selection
Bible Salesman
by Clyde Edgerton
In post-war North Carolina, a member of a car-theft ring picks up an innocent nineteen-year-old Bible saleman and recognizes the young man as just the associate he needs—one who will believe he is working as an FBI spy, one who will drive the cars he steals.
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Upcoming Book Schedule
- August 24: I Feel Bad About My Neck, by Nora Ephron
- September 28: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean-Dominique Bauby
- October 26: The Coral Thief, by Rebecca Stott
- November 16: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larson
- January 25: Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See
- February 22: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
- March 22: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
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