September Book Club Gathering Is Friday!

September Book Club Gathering Is Friday!

Hi everyone, the Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club for Adults gathering, for September 2025, will be held this Friday, September 12, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. at the library.

Our read for September is The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig. The book, which is in the same ball park, story-telling-format-wise as the movie It’s A Wonderful Life, tells the tale of Nora Seed, a woman in her thirties who regrets decisions she made in her teens and who is having a hard time. Her best friend has moved abroad; she isn’t getting along with her brother and has just lost her job. And to add to all of that her cat just died. So, a distraught Nora attempts suicide and winds up in limbo at a place called The Midnight Library where she will be able to see how making different decisions at different times in her life would have led to different outcomes.

Copies of the book are available at the Circulation Desk and may be picked up at any time.

Looking forward to October, we’ll be meeting on Friday, October 10 from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. and our October Read is: Tom Lake: A Novel by Ann Patchett.

Tom Lake relays the story of Lara and her three adult daughters, Emily, Nell and Maisie. The women are confined together at the family’s cherry orchard property during the COVID lock down of 2020; and Lara tells her daughters about her experiences as young actress appearing in a production of Our Town, which was put on by a theater company called Tom Lake.

Copies of Tom Lake too are available at the Circulation Desk and can be picked up at any time.

Looking to the past, our August 2025 read was a first for this group. We read a graphic novel, A First Time For Everything. The book is a coming of age tale written and illustrated by Dan Santat. The Book won the National Book Award for Youth Literature in 2023 and is based on the real youthful experiences of the author. The main character in the novel is also called Dan, and he has had a challenging time dealing with bullies at school, and starts to mature and find himself while on a school trip to France.

Book club members universally liked the book! We collectively thought it was well written and illustrated by the author, and the story was very accessible.

Hope to see everyone at our gathering on Friday!

And if you’re new to book club, please feel free to come – everyone is welcome!

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Tel: 607-936-3713 x4214

Email: reimerl@stls.org

August Book Club for Adults Gathering Is Friday, August 8!

August Book Club for Adults Gathering Is Friday, August 8!

Hi everyone, here is our monthly book club meeting reminder post!

Our August Book Club for Adults gathering will be held at the library this Friday, August 8, from 3:00 – 4:00 p.m.

We are doing something a bit different this month and reading a graphic novel, A First Time For Everything by Dan Santat.

A First Time For Everything won a National Book Award in 2023 for Young People’s Literature, and it is a bit of a bildungsroman.

And although the book is classified as fiction, it is based on a true story, in essence the experiences of the author Dan Santat who, as most of us do, found it challenging to be young, attending school and dealing with other students who were also finding their way in the world, and not always being kind to others while doing so. The book cumulates with Dan going on a class trip to France and finding his first real girlfriend, and basically, just growing up a bit. The graphics are well done, and it is a reasonably short read, so if you haven’t read it yet – you still have time to do so! Copies of the novel are available at the Circulation Desk.

And looking forward to September, we’ll be meeting on Friday, September 12 and our September read is: The Midnight Library by Matthew Haig, copies of that novel too may be picked up at the Circulation Desk at any time.

Hope everyone is having a good summer, and I hope to see you all on Friday,

Linda Reimer, SSCL

Reminder July Book Club for Adults Gathering is Friday (7.11.25)!

Reminder July Book Club for Adults Gathering is Friday (7.11.25)!

Hi everyone, just a reminder, the Southeast Steuben County Library Book Club for Adults will be gathering for our monthly meeting this Friday, July 11 at 3:00 p.m. 

We’ll be discussing our July Read, Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout; copies of the book are available at the Circulation Desk should anyone need one. 

Looking forward to August, we’ll be meeting on our usual second Friday of the month, on Friday, August 8 at 3 p.m.

And we’ll be doing something different and a bit light in keeping with the summer season and reading the graphic memoir, A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat.

The memoir won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2023, and tells the story of a student named Dan who had been bullied at school; and has low expectations for how his upcoming school trip to France is going to unfold for him; but during the trip he experiences new things and expands his world-view which is thus enriched with possibilities.

And going forward, I will have a printed list both of the books our book club has read, since its inception in 2019, and the titles book club members mentioned during the previous book club meeting ​for all who are interested in reading lists to enjoy.

Hope to see everyone on Friday,

Linda