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May selection: Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Wellness by Nathan Hill, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

June selection: The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Wellness by Nathan Hill, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Libby or Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

August selection: The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction, with forays into non-fiction, older works and classics. Past selections include: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

July selection: Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Erasure by Percival Everett, Wellness by Nathan Hill, The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel, and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Libby or Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

September selection: Lincoln in the Bardo by George Sanders Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Wellness by Nathan Hill, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Libby or Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

October selection: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Wellness by Nathan Hill, Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel, and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Libby or Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

In honor of Women’s History Month, this collage workshop invites participants to explore collage as a practice rooted in storytelling, care, and reclamation. Together, we will look at how women and femmes have historically used cutting, layering, assemblage, and repair as forms of documentation and self expression, often working outside traditional art spaces and definitions of what is understood to be "fine art.” Participants will create collages using photographs, found papers, textiles, and personal ephemera, reflecting on lineage, memory, and the quiet labor of the women that shapes our lives. No prior collage experience is necessary. This workshop is designed as a welcoming, reflective space where participants are encouraged to work intuitively, honor their own histories, and engage with material in a tactile, intentional way. All are welcome. Registration is required.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Stephen Greenblatt—Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, a leading scholar of English Renaissance literature, and author of sixteen books, including the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winner The Swerve—to celebrate the paperback release of Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival, which released in hardcover in 2025 and received immense praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. In addition to the paperback release of Dark Renaissance, Greenblatt's first work Sir Walter Ralegh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles, originally published in 1973 and based on Greenblatt's dissertation, will be rereleased in paperback on September 1, 2026 with a new foreword from Greenblatt. Registration is required.

September selection: The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science by Dava Sobel Reading Interests: We read mostly contemporary Fiction and Non-Fiction, with forays into older works and classics. Past selections include: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. How to get the print book: Copies of the book are set aside at the O'Connell Branch. Click here for O'Connell Branch Hours How to get the e-book or digital audiobook: This month’s book is available as a digital audio and e-book through Hoopla. This book group meets in person at the O'Connell Branch. No registration is needed. Drop-ins welcome. For more information contact the branch at 617-349-4019.

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Brandon M. Terry—John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research—for a discussion of his new book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. He will be joined in conversation by Danielle Allen—James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—and Michael Sandel—Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University and the bestselling author of The Tyranny of Merit and Democracy’s Discontent. Registration is required.