The Geisel Library Book Group is an informal book club welcoming all students, faculty, staff, and monastic members of Saint Anselm College. We provide copies of the books we read through our print, ebook and audiobook (Overdrive/Libby) collections and from the NH State Library and other participating libraries for our attendees to borrow. Then we meet in the Library Reading Room or over Zoom to discuss the popular fiction and non-fiction titles.
For more information, contact Melinda Malik, Head of Collection Development.
Thursday, February 22, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Library Classroom (upper level)
"A startling and eye-opening look into America’s First Family, Never Caught is the powerful narrative of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave who risked it all to escape the nation’s capital and reach freedom" (GoodReads.com).
Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Library Classroom (upper level)
"When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition" (GoodReads.com).
Thursday, April 18, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Library Classroom (upper level)
"After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find...[and] mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind" (GoodReads.com).
Mexican Gothic by 
Thursday, June 20, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Zoom (email for link)
Zadie Smith makes 1860s London feel alive, and recognizable. Her new novel, “The Fraud,” is based on a celebrated 19th-century criminal trial, but it keeps one eye focused clearly on today’s political populism" (New York Times, 2023).
Thursday, July 25, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Zoom (email for link)
"Her novel became a best seller. The trouble: she didn’t write it. In “Yellowface,” R.F. Kuang satirizes the publishing industry with a tale of a struggling writer who passes off her recently deceased friend’s book as her own" (New York Times, 2023). Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Fiction in 2023.
YellowfaceThursday, August 29, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. | Library Classroom (upper level)
"James McBride’s latest is a murder mystery inside a great American novel. 'The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store' opens with the discovery of a skeleton in a well, and then flashes back to explore its connection to a town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history" (New York Times, 2023). Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Best Historical Fiction.
