Talking Books Library Book Discussion

Call the Talking Books Library staff at (401)574-9310 or email talking.books@olis.ri.gov for Zoom link and dial-in phone numbers or if you need a book sent to you.

Book Discussion Schedule 2025

January 28, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah DB 102287 15 hr. 5 min.

Texas, 1921. Elsa Wolcott has few prospects before her as she's considered too old to marry. Then she meets Rafe Martinelli. Thirteen years later, everything on the Martinelli farm is dying--including their marriage. Elsa must decide to fight for the land of her heart or head to California. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Long Book. Bestseller. Historical Fiction. 2021.
 

March 25, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout DB 124184  11hr. 2 min.

With her "extraordinary capacity for radical empathy" (The Boston Globe), remarkable insight into the human condition, and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst; fall in love and yet choose to be apart; and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it: What does anyone's life mean? It's autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. Together, they spend afternoons in Olive's apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known--"unrecorded lives," Olive calls them--reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning"-- Provided by publisher.  --  Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Psychological Fiction. 2024.

May 27, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn DB 107522  13 hr.

Kiev, 1937. Bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila becomes a deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Bestseller. 2022. Historical Fiction.  Long Book. 2022.
 

July 22, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

Northeaster: A Story of Courage and Survival by Cathie Pelletier 
DBC 11712   9 hr. 39 min.

For many, the past few years have been defined by climate disaster. Stories about once-in-a-lifetime hurricanes, floods, fires, droughts and even snowstorms are now commonplace. But dramatic weather events are not new and Northeaster, Cathie Pelletier's breathtaking account of the 1952 snowstorm that blanketed New England, offers a valuable reminder about nature's capacity for destruction as well as insight into the human instinct for preservation. Northeaster weaves together a rich cast of characters whose lives were uprooted and endangered by the storm. Housewives and lobstermen, loggers and soldiers were all trapped as snow piled in drifts twenty feet high. The storm smothered hundreds of travelers in their cars, covered entire towns, and broke ships in half. In the midst of the blizzard's chaos, there were remarkable acts of heroism and courageous generosities. Doctors braved the storm to help deliver babies. Ordinary people kept their wits while buried in their cars, and others made their way out of forests to find kind-hearted strangers willing to take them in. It's likely that none of us know how we would handle a confrontation with a blizzard or other natural disaster. But Northeaster shows that we have it inside to fight for survival in some of the harshest conditions that nature has to offer. Adult. Some strong language. Biography, Nature, History, United States. 2023.
 

September 23, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

Prohibition Wine by Marian Knapp DBC 11705  2hr. 30 min.

In 1918, Rebecca Goldberg?a Jewish immigrant from the Russian Empire living in rural Wilmington, Massachusetts?lost her husband, Nathan, to a railroad accident, a tragedy that left her alone with six children to raise. Desperate to feed her family and keep them together, and determined to make sure her kids would all graduate from high school, Rebecca became a wary participant in the illegal alcohol trade. After being caught in 1925, her case became headline news. Unrated. Criminology. Biography. 2021.

November 25, 2025
2:00 - 3:00 pm

The House Is On Fire by Rachel Beanland DB 120593  12hr .32 min.

Richmond, Virginia 1811. It's the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia's gentleman planters, along with their wives and children, have made the long and arduous journey to the capital in hopes of whiling away the darkest days of the year. At the city's only theater, the Charleston-based Placide & Green Company puts on two plays a night to meet the demand of a populace that's done looking for enlightenment at the front of a church. On the night after Christmas, the theater is packed with more than six hundred holiday revelers. In the third-floor boxes, sits newly-widowed Sally Henry Campbell, who is glad for any opportunity to relive the happy times she shared with her husband. One floor away, in the colored gallery, Cecily Patterson doesn't give a whit about the play but is grateful for a four-hour reprieve from a life that has recently gone from bad to worse. Backstage, young stagehand Jack Gibson hopes that, if he can impress the theater's managers, he'll be offered a permanent job with the company. And on the other side of town, blacksmith Gilbert Hunt dreams of one day being able to bring his wife to the theater, but he'll have to buy her freedom first. When the theater goes up in flames in the middle of the performance, Sally, Cecily, Jack, and Gilbert make a series of split-second decisions that will not only affect their own lives but those of countless others. And in the days following the fire, as news of the disaster spreads across the United States, the paths of these four people will become forever intertwined. Based on the true story of Richmond's theater fire, The House Is on Fire offers proof that sometimes, in the midst of great tragedy, we are offered our most precious--and fleeting--chances at redemption" -- Provided by publisher.  --  Unrated. Commercial audiobook. Historical Fiction. 2023.