Book Clubs
Join the Discussion
Book Talk meets monthly on the last Monday of the month at 10:00 am.
This group gathers in the library's meeting room for discussion. Everyone welcome.
Join us in our love of books!
We’ll provide a reading suggestion for each month. You pick your own book to read.
Monthly Reading Themes for 2024
January: Title matches song lyrics
February: Book with a yellow spine
March: Iowa author
April: Subject you know little about
May: By a neurodivergent author
June: All read the same title
July: House on the cover
August: Set in the 1960's
September: Banned book
October: Released in 2024
November: Graphic novel
December: Set during a holiday you don't celebrate
Past Book Club selections can be found here.
Oelwein Reads
Thursday, January 23rd at 6:00. p.m.
Oelwein Reads Book Club meets at Ampersand located at 110 South Frederick Ave. for the book discussion at 6:00 p.m. This book club will focus on books about Iowa or the Midwest.
The book selected is Bottomland by Michelle Hoover.
Brief summary:
At once intimate and sweeping, Bottomland follows the Hess family in the years after World War I, as they attempt to rid themselves of the Anti-German sentiment that left a stain on their name. But when the youngest two daughters vanish in the middle of the night, the family must piece together what happened while struggling to maintain their life on the unforgiving Iowa plains. In the weeks after Esther and Myrle's disappearance, their siblings desperately search for them, through the stark farmlands to unfamiliar world of far-off Chicago. Have the girls run away to another farm? Have they gone to the city to seek a new life? Or were they abducted? Ostracized and misunderstood in their small town in the wake of the war, the Hesses fear the worst. Bottomland is a haunting story of pride, love, and betrayal, set among the rugged terrain of Iowa, the fields of war-torn Flanders, and the bustling Chicago streets. With exquisite lyricism, Michelle Hoover deftly examines the intrepid ways a person can forge a life of one's own despite the dangerous obstacles of prejudice and oppression.
For more information on Book Talk contact Deann at the library.
319-283-1515 or email at dfox@oelwein.lib.ia.us