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

Oelwein Reads

This new Community Book Club will meet every other month in  Ampersand’s fireplace room located at 110 S. Frederick Avenue in Oelwein.  The focus will be on books about Iowa or the Midwest. This next meeting will be on September 26th, 2024 at 6:00 p.m.  The book selected is Dubuque's Forgotten Cemetery by Robin Lillie & Jennifer Mack.

Brief summary: Atop a scenic bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and downtown Dubuque there once lay a graveyard dating to the 1830s, the earliest days of American settlement in Iowa. Though many local residents knew the property had once been a Catholic burial ground, they believed the graves had been moved to a new cemetery in the late nineteenth century in response to overcrowding and changing burial customs. But in 2007, when a developer broke ground for a new condominium complex here, the heavy machinery unearthed human bones. Clearly, some of Dubuque's early settlers still rested there--in fact, more than anyone expected. For the next four years, staff with the Burials Program of the University of Iowa Office of the State Archaeologist excavated the site so that development could proceed.