Bookmarks Book Group

Bookmarks Book Discussion Group meets at the Robert Beverly Hale Library the last Thursday of the month at 7 p.m., September through May. There is no meeting in December. New members always welcome.

Book List


2021-2022
  • Monogamy by Sue Miller
  • Mill Town: Reckoning of What Remains by Kerri Arsenault
  • The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dugoni
  • The Familiar Dark by Amy Engel
  • Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
  • Send for Me by Lauren Fox
  • The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
  • What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
2020-2021
  • A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
  • Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson 
  • The World that We Knew by Alice Hoffman
  • Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane 
  • Code Name: Lise by Larry Loftis 
2019-2020
  • The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
  • Once We Were Brothers by Ronald Balson
  • The Gown by Jennifer Robson
  • Becoming by Michelle Obama
  • The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso 
  • The Stranger in the Woods: the Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel 
  • Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan
2018-2019
  • The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
  • Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
  • The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg 
  • The Great Influenza by John Barry 
  • Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys 
  • Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden 
  • Never Caught: the Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
  • Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
2017-2018
  • Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
  • Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
  • The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee
  • Born A Crime by Trevor Noah
  • A Gentlemen of Moscow by Amor Towles
  • Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard
  • We Were the Lucky Ones by Georgia Hunter
  • The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood

2016-2017

  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  • H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
  • Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
  • Lila by Marilynne Robinson
  • The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
  • The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
  • A Common Struggle by Patrick Kennedy

2015-2016


  • All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  • Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
  • The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  • The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
  • The Italian Wife by Ann Hood
  • Norwegian by Night by Derek Miller
  • What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

2013-2014


  • Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  • Defending Jacob by William Landay
  • The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
  • The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman
  • My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
  • Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rafka Brunt
  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
  • Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

2012-2013


  • Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
  • The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
  • A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
  • Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly
  • Left Neglected by Lisa Genova
  • The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
  • Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

2011-2012


  • Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
  • The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
  • Room by Emma Donoghue
  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill
  • Still Alice by Lisa Genova
  • The Unforgiving Minute by Craig Mullaney
  • Valley Forge by Newt Gingrich

2010-2011


  • Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
  • A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
  • The Help by Kathryn Stockett
  • Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
  • Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons
  • Sarah's Key by Tatiana DeRosnay
  • That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

2009-2010


  • American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
  • The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
  • Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
  • Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  • The Shack by William P. Young
  • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  • Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
  • The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman

2008-2009


  • The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
  • Inheriting the Trade by Thomas Norman DeWolf
  • Keeper and Kid by Edward Hardy
  • Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
  • Peony in Love by Lisa See
  • Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  • Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

2007-2008


  • The Beast in the Garden by David Baron
  • The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
  • Mayflower: a Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
  • The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier
  • The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
  • My Antonia by Willa Cather
  • The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

2006-2007


  • The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky by Ken Dornstein
  • Emma by Jane Austen
  • Leap of Faith by Queen Noor
  • A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
  • My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
  • The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
  • Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

2005-2006


  • Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
  • Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
  • The Good Wife by Stewart O'Nan
  • Ice Bound by Jerri Nielsen
  • The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason
  • Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

2004-2005


  • Border Passage by Leila Ahmed
  • Don't Let's Go To the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
  • Empire Falls by Richard Russo
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
  • The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  • The Prince of Providence by Mike Stanton

2003-2004


  • Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
  • Island Justice by Elizabeth Winthrop
  • The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
  • The Pact by Jodi Picoult
  • Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
  • The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  • The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

2002-2003


  • The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  • Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
  • The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
  • Possession: a Romance by A.S. Byatt
  • The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
  • The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
  • While You Were Gone by Sue Miller

2001-2002


  • The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
  • Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
  • Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
  • The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  • House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III
  • Springs of Affection by Maeve Brennan
  • We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

2000-2001


  • Cider House Rules by John Irving
  • Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
  • Wait Till Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin
  • Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
  • The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck

1999-2000


  • Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
  • The Color of Water by James McBride
  • The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
  • Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  • Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
  • Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg

1998-1999


  • The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
  • A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
  • The Legacy (A Town Like Alice) by Nevil Shute
  • Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
  • The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
  • Snow in August by Pete Hamill
  • West With the Night by Beryl Markham