On the second Wednesday of each month, a small group of seniors gathers at the Senior/Community for a book discussion.  The time has been changed to run from 2:00 PM until 3:00 PM starting on July 11^th.

Mary Perry, Library Secretary, and Giselle Stevens, Assistant Head Librarian, well-known librarians at the Newburyport Public Library, will come to the July meeting to talk about some program changes and to introduce Jessica Atherton, Information Services, a librarian at the Newburyport library. Jessica will get input from attendees about the kind of books they would like to discuss and how best to choose books for the group. She will also facilitate the July and August book discussions.

The Newburyport Public Library staff will call the members on our Retired Readers list to inform them of the time change and to check if they would like us to request the July book for them. Please consider joining the Retired Readers Daytime book group!

These are the books selected for the following months:

• • July – “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” by Elizabeth Berg
    
    “New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Berg takes us to Chicago at the time of World War II in this wonderful story about three sisters, their lively Irish family, and the men they love.
    As the novel opens, Kitty and Louise Heaney say good-bye to their boyfriends Julian and Michael, who are going to fight overseas. On the domestic front, meat is rationed, children participate in metal drives, and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller play songs that offer hope and lift spirits. And now the Heaney sisters sit at their kitchen table every evening to write letters–Louise to her fiancé, Kitty to the man she wishes fervently would propose, and Tish to an ever-changing group of men she meets at USO dances. In the letters, the sisters send and receive are intimate glimpses of life both on the battlefront and at home. For Kitty, a confident, headstrong young woman, the departure of her boyfriend and the lessons she learns about love, resilience, and war will bring a surprise and a secret and will lead her to a radical action for those she loves. The lifelong consequences of the choices the Heaney sisters make are at the heart of this superb novel about the power of love and the enduring strength of family.”
  • August – “Imagine Me Gone” by Adam Haslett

    “When Margaret’s fiancé, John, is hospitalized for depression in 1960s London, she faces a choice: carry on with their plans despite what she now knows of his condition, or back away from the suffering it may bring her. She decides to marry him. Imagine Me Gone is the unforgettable story of what unfolds from this act of love and faith. At the heart of it is their eldest son, Michael, a brilliant, anxious music fanatic who makes sense of the world through parody. Over the span of decades, his younger siblings–the savvy and responsible Celia and the ambitious and tightly controlled Alec–struggle along with their mother to care for Michael’s increasingly troubled and precarious existence.”

  • September – “Funny Girl” by Nick Hornby

    “Set in 1960’s London, Funny Girl is a lively account of the adventures of the intrepid young Sophie Straw as she navigates her transformation from provincial ingénue to television starlet amid a constellation of delightful characters.”

    “Insightful and humorous, Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl does what he does best: endears us to a cast of characters who are funny if flawed, and forces us to examine ourselves in the process.”

A Goodreads Group exists for Retired Readers.  The Group is Senior Readers of Greater Newburyport Area.  This “Online” Group is essentially a companion to the “Retired Readers” Club at the Newburyport Senior/Community Center.  Several books are on the bookshelf from the previous incarnation of “Retired Readers”.