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.

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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.

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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