Books & Brews Book Club

For October we'll be reading All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell. You can read all about it below, and if you'd like copies of the books we'll have some available at the Reference Desk of the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford. Not able to come in to pick it up? Call us to see about having a copy sent to your home library! 203-488-1441 x 318

All the Living and the Dead by Hayley Campbell
We are surrounded by death. It is in our news, our nursery rhymes, our true-crime podcasts. Yet from a young age, we are told that death is something to be feared. How are we supposed to know what we’re so afraid of, when we are never given the chance to look?

Fueled by a childhood fascination with death, journalist Hayley Campbell searches for answers in the people who make a living by working with the dead. Along the way, she encounters mass fatality investigators, embalmers, and a former executioner who is responsible for ending sixty-two lives. She meets gravediggers who have already dug their own graves, visits a cryonics facility in Michigan, goes for late-night Chinese with a homicide detective, and questions a man whose job it is to make crime scenes disappear.

Through Campbell’s incisive and candid interviews with these people who see death every day, she asks: Why would someone choose this kind of life? Does it change you as a person? And are we missing something vital by letting death remain hidden? A dazzling work of cultural criticism, All the Living and the Dead weaves together reportage with memoir, history, and philosophy, to offer readers a fascinating look into the psychology of Western death.

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You can find us in the back room of Thimble Island Brewery, or outside if the weather is nice. We're asking that everyone continue to RSVP if you intend on joining us so we can keep an eye on the headcount for the meeting. New members always welcome!

For August we'll be reading Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. You can read all about it below, and if you'd like copies of the books we'll have some available at the Reference Desk of the James Blackstone Memorial Library in Branford.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam
From the bestselling author of Rich and Pretty comes a suspenseful and provocative novel keenly attuned to the complexities of parenthood, race, and class. Leave the World Behind explores how our closest bonds are reshaped—and unexpected new ones are forged—in moments of crisis.

Amanda and Clay head out to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they’ve rented for the week. But a late-night knock on the door breaks the spell. Ruth and G. H. are an older couple—it’s their house, and they’ve arrived in a panic. They bring the news that a sudden blackout has swept the city. But in this rural area—with the TV and internet now down, and no cell phone service—it’s hard to know what to believe.

Should Amanda and Clay trust this couple—and vice versa? What happened back in New York? Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a truly safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other?

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You can find us in the back room of Thimble Island Brewery, or outside if the weather is nice. We're asking that everyone continue to RSVP if you intend on joining us so we can keep an eye on the headcount for the meeting. New members always welcome!