Albany Ladies Book Club

Spring is here!

Bring your books and head to Washington Park Sunday, May 4 at 1pm. We can hang out in the green space just above the lake house amphitheater. Feel free to bring snacks, beverages, blankets, chairs, friends, partners, dogs, etc. No gender restrictions on social events.

Attendees are welcome to read quietly among friends or socialize and enjoy the sunshine.

If it rains or is too chilly, we will move this social/reading event to the upstairs at Lionheart Pub, just across the street from the park.

P.S. May celebrates the 2nd anniversary of the Albany Ladies Book Club. Thank you all for being part of this wonderful community <33

We're reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante Thursday, May 8th at Professor Java’s. Let the barista know to put your order on the Book Club tab and please send me the estimated cost via cash or Venmo (@LeScriz) so I can settle up at the end of our meeting.

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy’s most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante’s inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighbourhood, a city and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her two protagonists.

Upper Hudson Library System Access:
ebook via Hoopla & Libby
audiobook via Libby
physical copies (regular & large print)

Future meetings will generally be on the second Thursday of the month. Drop book suggestions here: https://forms.gle/pEQ8rBtNUnLM58ov8

We're reading Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty Thursday, June 12th.

If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.
How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.”

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.

Upper Hudson Library System Access:
ebook via Libby
audiobook via Libby
physical copies (regular & large print)

Future meetings will generally be on the second Thursday of the month. Drop book suggestions here: https://forms.gle/pEQ8rBtNUnLM58ov8

We're reading Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Thursday, July 10th.

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

Upper Hudson Library System Access:
ebook via Hoopla & Libby
audiobook via Hoopla & Libby
physical copies (regular print)

Future meetings will generally be on the second Thursday of the month. Drop book suggestions here: https://forms.gle/pEQ8rBtNUnLM58ov8