2026 Book Club Selections

September 8 at 2:00pm – Tuesday Teabirds Book Club

“The Personal Librarian” By Marie Benedict & Victoria Christopher Murray
“In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. Pierpont Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection. But Belle has a secret: she was born Belle Marion Greener, daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s alleged Portuguese heritage lets her pass as white, but she will go through great lengths to preserve her carefully crafted identity in a racist world.”–Adapted from dust jacket.

September 16 at 6:00pm – Night Owls Book Club

“Wild and Distant Seas” by Tara Karr Roberts
“Evangeline Hussey has made a home for herself on Nantucket, though she knows she is still an outsider to the island’s small, close-knit community, one that by 1849 has started to feel the decline of a once-thriving whaling industry. Her husband, Hosea, and the life they built together, was once all she needed-but now Hosea is gone, lost at sea. Evangeline is only able to hold on to his inn, and her place on the island, by employing a curious gift to glimpse and re-form the recent memories of those who would cast her out. One night, an idealistic sailor appears on her doorstep asking her to call him Ishmael. He seeks only a warm bed and a bowl of chowder, and yet suddenly, unsettlingly, her careful illusion begins to fracture. He soon sails away with Ahab to hunt an infamous white whale, and Evangeline is left to forge a new life from the pieces that remain.” — Page 2 of cover.