What we’re about
Welcome to the Harrisburg Book Club. If you enjoy reading and discussing good books and getting to know interesting new people, this club is for you! We meet on the third Wednesday of each month to discuss a book with new found friends. The meetings are held in the evening at a local area restaurant or at a member's home. We usually read modern fiction but we also consider reading non-fiction books depending on our members' interests. We try to choose a variety of books and everyone is welcome to make suggestions and vote on the books we read.
Anyone is welcome to join - more members lead to better discussions and more friends! Please feel free to come to the next meeting even if you haven't read the book. We look forward to discussing interesting books and eating great food with as many people as possible.
Upcoming events (3)
See all- Lucky Jim by Kingsley AmisRookie's Craft Burger Bar, Harrisburg, PA
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Lucky-York-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590175751/
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/395182.Lucky_Jim
Synopsis:
A hilarious satire about college life and high class manners, this is a classic of postwar English literature.
Regarded by many as the finest, and funniest, comic novel of the twentieth century, Lucky Jim remains as trenchant, withering, and eloquently misanthropic as when it first scandalized readers back in 1954. This is the story of Jim Dixon, a hapless lecturer in medieval history at a provincial university who knows better than most that “there was no end to the ways in which nice things are nicer than nasty ones.” Kingsley Amis’s scabrous debut leads the reader through a gallery of emphatically English bores, cranks, frauds, and neurotics with whom Dixon must contend in one way or another in order to hold on to his cushy academic perch and win the girl of his fancy.
More than just a merciless satire of cloistered college life and stuffy postwar manners, Lucky Jim is an attack on the forces of boredom, whatever form they may take, and a work of art that at once distills and extends an entire tradition of English comic writing, from Fielding and Dickens through Wodehouse and Waugh. As Christopher Hitchens has written, “If you can picture Bertie or Jeeves being capable of actual malice, and simultaneously imagine Evelyn Waugh forgetting about original sin, you have the combination of innocence and experience that makes this short romp so imperishable.”
About the Author:
Sir Kingsley William Amis CBE (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and literary criticism. He is best known for satirical comedies such as Lucky Jim (1954), One Fat Englishman (1963), Ending Up (1974), Jake's Thing (1978) and The Old Devils (1986).His biographer Zachary Leader called Amis "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century". In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945. He was the father of the novelist Martin Amis.
Article:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/kingsley-amis - Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van PeltRookie's Craft Burger Bar, Harrisburg, PA
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Remarkably-Bright-Creatures-Shelby-Pelt/dp/0063204150
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58733693-remarkably-bright-creatures
Synopsis:
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Fiction (2022), Nominee for Readers' Favorite Debut Novel (2022)Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.
After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.
Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors - until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.
Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.
Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.
Author’s Website: https://shelbyvanpelt.com/
- Before We Were Yours by Lisa WingateRookie's Craft Burger Bar, Harrisburg, PA
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Before-We-Were-Yours-Novel/dp/0425284700/
Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32148570-before-we-were-yours
Synopsis:
Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge - until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents - but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.
Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals - in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country - Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
About the Author:
Lisa Wingate is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Before We Were Yours, which remained on the bestseller list for over two years. Her award-winning works have been selected for state and community One Book reads, have been published in over forty languages, and have appeared on bestseller lists worldwide. The group Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Lisa and six others as recipients of the National Civics Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life. She lives in Texas and Colorado with her family and her deceptively cute little teddy bear of a dog, Huckleberry. Find her at www.lisawingate.com, on Facebook at LisaWingateAuthorPage, or on Instagram @author_lisa_wingateAuthor’s Website:
https://lisawingate.com/Videos about books (scroll down for “Before We Were Yours”):
https://lisawingate.com/for-book-clubs/
