July 23 @ 7:30 pm - Evening Book Discussion: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Join us on July 23 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But, as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

This event will be held at the East Meadow Jewish Center, 1400 Prospect Ave., East Meadow, NY 11554.

June 18 @ 7:30 pm - Evening Book Discussion: A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua

Join us on June 18 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss A River of Stars by Vanessa Hua. Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the married owner, Boss Yeung. Now she’s carrying his baby. To ensure that his first son has every advantage, Boss Yeung has shipped Scarlett off to give birth on American soil. Then a new sonogram of Scarlett’s baby reveals the unexpected. Panicked, she goes on the run by hijacking a van—only to discover that she has taken on a stowaway who intends to track down the father of her own child. The two flee to San Francisco’s bustling Chinatown, where Scarlett will join countless immigrants desperately trying to seize their piece of the American dream. What Scarlett doesn’t know is that her baby’s father is not far behind.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

This event will be held at the East Meadow Jewish Center, 1400 Prospect Ave., East Meadow, NY 11554.

June 10 @ 1 pm - Lunch 'N Books: The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

Join us on June 10 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore. New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history—and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer takes a case that seems impossible to win. His client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country? In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison.

Location: East Meadow Public Library, 1886 Front St., East Meadow, NY

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for The Last Days of Night.

May 21 @ 7:30 pm - Evening Book Discussion: Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

Join us on May 21 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak. It’s Christmas, and for the first time in years, the Birch family will be under one roof. For the next week, the Birches are locked down, cut off from the rest of humanity and forced into each other’s orbits. Frivolous daughter Phoebe is fixated on her upcoming wedding, while Olivia deals with the culture shock of being immersed in first-world problems. As Andrew sequesters himself in his study, writing scathing restaurant reviews and remembering his glory days as a war correspondent, Emma hides a secret that will turn the whole family upside down. But nothing is more shocking than the unexpected guest who’s about to arrive .

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for Seven Days of Us.

May 14 @ 1 pm - Lunch 'N Books: Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

Join us on May 14 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. In 2014, Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos founder and CEO, was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup “unicorn” promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes’s worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn’t work.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

April 23 at 7:00 p.m. - Book Discussion/Author Skype: The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis

Join us on April 23 at 7:00 p.m. as we discuss The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis. The author will join us by Skype!

In her latest captivating novel, national best-selling author Fiona Davis takes readers into the glamorous lost art school within Grand Central Terminal, where two very different women, fifty years apart, strive to make their mark on a world set against them.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for The Masterpiece.

April 4th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books/Long Island Reads: The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Join us on April 4 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer. Charming and wise, knowing and witty, Meg Wolitzer delivers a novel about power and influence, ego and loyalty, womanhood and ambition. At its heart, The Female Persuasion is about the flame we all believe is flickering inside of us, waiting to be seen and fanned by the right person at the right time. It’s a story about the people who guide and the people who follow (and how those roles evolve over time), and the desire within all of us to be pulled into the light.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for The Female Persuasion.

March 18th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books: The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Join us on March 18 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss The Library Book by Susan Orlean. On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous; it reached 2,000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains. Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading, into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Discussion guide for The Library Book.

February 28th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books: A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Join us on February 28 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza. As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. There is Hadia, their headstrong, eldest daughter, whose marriage is a match of love and not tradition. Huda, the middle child, is determined to follow in her sister’s footsteps. Lastly, their estranged son, Amar, returns to the family fold for the first time in three years, to take his place as brother of the bride. What secrets and betrayals have caused this close-knit family to fracture? Can Amar find his way back to the people who know and love him best?

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for A Place For Us.

February 19th at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Book Discussion/Author Skype: Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict

Join us on February 19 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss Carnegie’s Maid by Marie Benedict. The author will join us by Skype!

Clara Kelley is not the experienced Irish maid hired to work in one of Pittsburgh’s grandest households. She’s a poor farmer’s daughter with nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, so Clara is pretending to be her . . . if she can keep up the ruse. Carnegie’s Maid tells the story of a brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie toward philanthropy.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Discussion guide for Carnegie’s Maid.

January 15th at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Book Discussion: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Join us on January 15 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah. Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Ernt’s wife and daughter learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for The Great Alone.

December 10th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books: Educated by Tara Westover

Join us on December 10 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss Educated by Tara Westover. “Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag.” The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.”

Discussion guide for Educated.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

November 5th at 12:30 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books/Author Skype: Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Join us on November 5 at 12:30 p.m. as we discuss Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. After the discussion, the author will join us by Skype!

Neurosurgeon Eitan Green has the perfect life–married to a beautiful police officer and father of two young boys. Then, speeding along a deserted moonlit road in Israel, after an exhausting hospital shift, he hits someone. Seeing that the man, an African migrant, is beyond help, he flees the scene. When the victim’s widow knocks at Eitan’s door the next day, holding his wallet and divulging that she knows what happened, Eitan discovers that her price for silence is not money. It is something else entirely, something that will shatter Eitan’s safe existence and take him into a world of secrets and lies he could never have anticipated.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

October 18th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books/Audio Call: The Secrets Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

Join us on October 18 at 1:00 p.m. for a discussion and special voice appearance by Thrity Umrigar. The author of Bombay Time, If Today Be Sweet, and The Weight of Heaven, Umrigar is as adept and compelling in The Secrets Between Us (the long-awaited sequel to The Space Between Us) — vividly capturing the social struggles of modern India in a luminous, addictively readable novel of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family. A portrayal of two women discovering an emotional rapport as they struggle against the confines of a rigid caste system, Umrigar’s captivating novel echoes the timeless intensity of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible—a quintessential triumph of modern literary fiction.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

September 12th at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Book Discussion: The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott

Join us on September 12 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott. In Catholic Brooklyn during the early part of the twentieth century, decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence. Yet, his suicide, though never spoken of, reverberates through many lives — testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations. Rendered with remarkable delicacy, heart, and intelligence, this novel is a crowning achievement of one of the finest American writers at work today.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Click here for the discussion guide.

September 4th at 7:30 p.m. – Meet the Author: Rhiannon Navin

Our Evening Book Discussion recently had a fantastic discussion on Only Child by Rhiannon Navin. Several members wondered if we could skype with the author. We did one better! She will come in person to do a reading and answer any questions. Don't worry if you were unable to attend the July discussion. Copies will be available at the Reference Desk. It is a wonderful, timely and important book.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Please click here for the reading group guide for Only Child.

August 15th at 7:30 p.m. - Evening Book Discussion: Saints For All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan

Join us on August 15 at 7:30 p.m. as we discuss Saints For All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan. Rich storytelling of two young girls who leave their home in Ireland for America, not yet ready for the world that awaits them. “This year’s best book about a family” – Washington Post.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236.

Discussion guide for Saints For All Occasions.

July 23rd at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Join us on July 23 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss The Plot Against America by Philip Roth. The novel begins in 1940, with the election of Charles Lindbergh, who blamed the Jews for pushing America toward war with Nazi Germany. Lindbergh’s admiration of Hitler and his openly anti Semitic speeches cause increasing turmoil in the Roth household, and in nine-year-old Philip, as political events abroad overtake their lives. History will not let go, and as America is whipped into a deadly frenzy by demagogues, the Roths begin to expect the worst. The novel explores the convulsive collision of history and family.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Discussion guide for The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.

June 19th at 1:00 p.m. - Lunch 'N Books: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Join us on June 19 at 1:00 p.m. as we discuss Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. In Shaker Heights everything is planned. No one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren, an enigmatic artist and single mother who arrives with her daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this community. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets and the ferocious pull of motherhood.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Discussion guide for Little Fires Everywhere.

June 7th - Adult Summer Reading Kickoff With Author Judy Blundell

The Reader Services Department of the East Meadow Public Library is thrilled to announce the kickoff of our seventh annual Adult Summer Reading Club on Thursday, June 7th. Register for our reading club and meet Judy Blundell, author of The High Season, who will be joining us for a book talk and signing at 7:30 p.m. The High Season is set on Orient Point and promises to be the ultimate summer read! The registration for our reading club will be held in the lobby from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and at the kickoff party which will be from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. After June 7th, you can register anytime at the Reference Desk or online. Our reading club will provide members the opportunity to attend exciting book events along with a delightful party at the end of the program.

For more information, please call the Reader Services Department at 516-794-2570 ext. 236

Please click here for more information on this not to be missed event!

Please click here for the reading group guide for The High Season.