PCL Book Club 2023 Reading List
Reading List
PCL Book Club meets at 7pm on the third Tuesday of the month. All are welcome. Non-residents may participate with their own copy of the book.
Click the links below to view our catalog and place a hold.
Be sure to RSVP on our events calendar.
*Reading list is subject to change.
January
As Bright As Heaven by Susan Meissner
February
Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis
March
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer
April
A Year To The Day by Robin Benway
May
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
June
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
July
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
August
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
September
The Splendid And The Vile by Erik Larson
October
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
November
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
January
As Bright As Heaven
by Susan Meissner
“From the darkest hours rises life in all its glory…From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and A Bridge Across the Ocean comes a new novel set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which tells the story of a family reborn through loss and love. In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters–Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa–a chance at a better life. Their dreams are short-lived. Just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even asthey lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges that surround them, they learn what they cannot live without–and what they are willing to do about it. Under the Canopy of Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it”
February
Magnolia Palace
by Fiona Davis
Eight months since losing her mother, twenty-one-year-old Lillian Carter’s life has completely fallen apart. So when she stumbles upon an employment opportunity at the Frick mansion, a building that, ironically, bears her “own” visage, Lillian jumps at the chance. But the longer she works as a private secretary to the imperious and demanding Helen Frick, the daughter and heiress of industrialist and art patron Henry Clay Frick, the more deeply her life gets intertwined with that of the family, pulling her into a tangled web of romantic trysts, stolen jewels, and family drama that runs so deep, the stakes just may be life or death. Nearly fifty years later, mod English model Veronica Weber has her own chance to make her career-and with it, earn the money she needs to support her family back home, within the walls of the former Frick residence, now converted into one of New York City’s most impressive museums. But when she, along with a charming intern-budding art curator named Joshua, is dismissed from the Vogue shoot taking place at the Frick Collection, she chances upon a series of hidden messages in the museum: messages that will lead her and Joshua on a hunt that could not only solve Veronica’s financial woes but could finally reveal the truth behind a decades-old murder in the infamous Frick family.
March
The Things We Cannot Say
by Kelly Rimmer
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor.
All programming is sponsored by The Friends of the Parkland Community Library.
Learn more about The Friends on their webpage.
February is Black History Month
Black History Month 2023 celebrates “Black Resistance” Black History Month has been celebrated annually in the United States in recent years. However, one man with an innovative idea about how the country viewed Black Americans made a difference in U.S. history. The History In February 1926, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, founder of the Association for…
Food Collection
January & February 2023 Parkland CARES is seeking donations of Granola Bars (Regular Size Boxes)Mac and CheeseCanned Chicken Noodle Soup 10.75 oz.Meal in a Can 15 oz.Apple Sauce Cups or Pouches (No Fruit Cups in Syrup)Please consider donating to this worthy cause this MONTH! We are pleased to announce our continued partnership with our local…
LGBTQ+ Authors at Parkland Community Library
Contemporary and classic queer authors share their stories. Queer stories for a rainbow of readers 🏳️🌈 The Thirty Names of Night by Zeyn Joukhador Perfect for readers looking for a coming-of-age immigrant experience Five years after a suspicious fire killed his mother, a closeted Syrian American trans boy sheds his birth name and searches for…
Continue Reading LGBTQ+ Authors at Parkland Community Library