Decorah Public Library: March Book Group Titles

Decorah Public Library staff are hosting four book discussions in March. The groups are open to the public and newcomers are encouraged to attend. Anyone interested should call the library at 382-3717 to learn more or to reserve a book.

• The Happy Hour Book Group will meet at Rubaiyat on Wed. March 11th at 5:15 p.m. to discuss Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s “The Revisioners.” In 1925, Josephine is the proud owner of a thriving farm. As a child, she channeled otherworldly power to free herself from slavery. Nearly a century later, Josephine’s descendant, Ava, is a single mother who has just lost her job. She moves in with her white grandmother Martha. But Martha’s behavior soon becomes erratic and threatening, and Ava must escape before her story and Josephine’s converge.
• The History Book Group will meet at 6:00 p.m. Thurs. March 19th on the 2nd floor of the library to discuss Gordon Chang’s “The Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad.” Chinese migrants spent years building the Transcontinental Railroad. Those who survived would suffer a different kind of death—a historical one, as they were pushed first to the margins of American life and then to the fringes of public memory. Award-winning scholar Gordon H. Chang draws on unprecedented research to recover the Chinese railroad workers’ stories and celebrate their role in remaking America.
• The Friday Book Group will meet at 2:00 p.m. Fri. March 20th on the 2nd floor of the library to discuss Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. In an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she had a husband and daughter, a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now.
• The Speculative Fiction Book Group will meet Wed. March 25th at 5:15 p.m. on the 2nd floor of the library to discuss Arkady Martine’s “A Memory Called Empire.” Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn’t an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.

For more information, contact Carmen Buss (Friday Book Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717. Carmen can also be reached at cbuss@decorah.lib.ia.us.