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Book Club

Join the Talking Book Program (TBP) Book Club for discussions, reviews, and information about books available in the Talking Book Program's collection.

TBP Book Club discussions are hosted via Zoom. You can join via landline, phone, smartphone, tablet, or computer. We will email you an “one click” number or direct link to join the discussion. Patrons who register for the discussion will receive this information a week before the Book Club meeting. Please contact a Reader's Advisory Librarian at 1-800-252-9605 or at tbp.ral@tsl.texas.gov with any questions or to RSVP.

When you are ordering a title for TBP Book Club, let us know so we can get the title out to you as soon as possible. All selected titles are also available for download from BARD. Whether ordering or downloading, please let us know if you plan on joining our book club discussion.

Check this page often to read all about upcoming Book Club dates and titles! Subscribe to the TBP blog to receive Book Club and other informative posts via email. 

See the previous titles our Book Club has read on our Previous Book Club Titles page. 

UPCOMING BOOK CLUB TITLES
* * Titles and Dates Subject to Change * *

anuary 30 (Tuesday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED: ESSAYS ON A HUMAN-CENTERED PLANET by John Green (DB 103903)
In this collection of personal essays adapted and expanded from his podcast, the author reviews the contradictions found within humanity. He discusses how mankind is both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough and covers topics ranging from the QWERTY keyboard to Canada geese. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2021.J

March 21 (Thursday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus (DB 107538, BR 24813)
In the early 1960s, chemist Elizabeth Zott has a lot of challenges as the only woman on her team at Hastings Research Institute. She falls for colleague Calvin Evans, but the double standards of the day eventually have her looking for a new chapter outside academia, hosting a television cooking show. Strong language and some violence. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2022..

2024 Book Club Selections
** Titles & Dates Subject to Change **

January 30 (Tuesday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED: ESSAYS ON A HUMAN-CENTERED PLANET by John Green (DB 103903)
In this collection of personal essays adapted and expanded from his podcast, the author reviews the contradictions found within humanity. He discusses how mankind is both far too powerful and not nearly powerful enough and covers topics ranging from the QWERTY keyboard to Canada geese. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2021.

March 21 (Thursday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY by Bonnie Garmus (DB 107538, BR 24813)
In the early 1960s, chemist Elizabeth Zott has a lot of challenges as the only woman on her team at Hastings Research Institute. She falls for colleague Calvin Evans, but the double standards of the day eventually have her looking for a new chapter outside academia, hosting a television cooking show. Strong language and some violence. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2022.

May 21 (Tuesday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)MERCURY RISING: JOHN GLENN, JOHN KENNEDY, AND THE NEW BATTLEGROUND OF THE COLD WAR by Jeff Shesol (DB 110864)
A riveting history of the epic orbital flight that put America back into the space race. If the United States couldn’t catch up to the Soviets in space, how could it compete with them on Earth? That was the question facing John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War--a perilous time when the Soviet Union built the wall in Berlin, tested nuclear bombs more destructive than any in history, and beat the United States to every major milestone in space. The race to the heavens seemed a race for survival--and America was losing. On February 20, 1962, when John Glenn blasted into orbit aboard Friendship 7, his mission was not only to circle the planet; it was to calm the fears of the free world and renew America’s sense of self-belief. Mercury Rising re-creates the tension and excitement of a flight that shifted the momentum of the space race and put the United States on the path to the moon. Drawing on new archival sources, personal interviews, and previously unpublished notes by Glenn himself, Mercury Rising reveals how the astronaut’s heroics lifted the nation’s hopes in what Kennedy called the “hour of maximum danger.” Commercial audiobook.

July 25 (Thursday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite (DB 93043)
Though it wears on her, Korede has grown very good at cleaning up her sister’s messes--namely, those left after she murders her boyfriends. The bright spot in Korede’s life is a kind doctor at the hospital where she works--until the day he meets Korede’s sister and asks for her number. Some violence. Bestseller. Commercial audiobook. 2018.

September 24 (Tuesday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
LIAR’S DICTIONARY by Eley Williams (DB 103312)Peter Winceworth, Victorian lexicographer, is toiling away on Swansby’s multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary, but boredom leads him to insert fictitious entries. In the present day, Mallory, a young intern employed by the publisher, is tasked with uncovering these fake words before the work is digitized. Some strong language. Commercial audiobook. 2021.

November 21 (Thursday), 7 - 8 p.m. (Central)
UNRAVELING: WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT LIFE WHILE SHEARING SHEEP, DYEING WOOL, AND MAKING THE WORLD’S UGLIEST SWEATER by Peggy Orenstein (DB 113482)
The COVID pandemic propelled many people to change their lives in ways large and small. Some adopted puppies. Others stress-baked. Peggy Orenstein, a lifelong knitter, went just a little further. To keep herself engaged and cope with a series of seismic shifts in family life, she set out to make a garment from the ground up: learning to shear sheep, spin and dye yarn, then knitting herself a sweater. Orenstein hoped the project would help her process not just wool but her grief over the recent death of her mother and the decline of her dad, the impending departure of her college-bound daughter, and other thorny issues of aging as a woman in a culture that by turns ignores and disdains them. What she didn’t expect was a journey into some of the major issues of our time: climate anxiety, racial justice, women’s rights, the impact of technology, sustainability, and, ultimately, the meaning of home. With her wry voice, sharp intelligence, and exuberant honesty, Orenstein shares her year-long journey as daughter, wife, mother, writer, and maker--and teaches us all something about creativity and connection. Unrated. Commercial audiobook.