What we’re about
Tired of stuffy library book clubs? Get together at a local restaurant (that's where the 'One Drink Minimum' comes into play, although any menu item would do) to discuss this month's book. Fiction or non-fiction, paperback or hardcover, you'll read a new book every month. Come to laugh, learn, share stories and make new friends!
Upcoming events (2)
See all- 'Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea ...' By Peter Godfrey-SmithUno Chicago Grill, Hamilton, NJ
Full title: 'Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness'
* NO SHOW POLICY: No Show once and you're dropped from our group.*
* Available at Mercer County Library:
https://merl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/mcl/search/results?qu=Other+minds+%3A+the+octopus%2C+the+sea%2C+and+the+deep+origins+of+consciousness&te=
Goodreads description:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739-other-minds"If this is philosophy, it works, because Godfrey-Smith is a rare philosopher who searches the world for clues. Knowledgeable and curious, he examines, he admires. His explorations are good-natured. He is never dogmatic, yet startlingly incisive." —Carl Safina, The New York Times Book Review
"Fascinating . . . After reading this book, to paraphrase Byron, you will 'love not man the less, but cephalopods more.'" —Callum Roberts, The Washington Post
Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds
Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
- description from the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- 'Razorblade Tears' by S.A. CosbyUno Chicago Grill, Hamilton, NJ
* NO SHOW POLICY: No Show once and you're dropped from our group.*
Available at Mercer County Library:
https://merl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/mcl/search/results?qu=razorblade+tears&te=
Goodreads description:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54860585-razorblade-tears?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16New York Times Notable Book • NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • Washington Post’s Best Thriller and Mystery Books of the Year • TIME Magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 • New York Public Library’s Best Books of the Year • One of Barack Obama's Recommended Reads for Summer
“Cosby’s prose is vibrant and inventive, his action exuberant and relentless … You may come for the setup, but you’ll stay for the storytelling. Cosby writes in a spirit of generous abundance and gleeful abandon.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Superb ... Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times.” —Michael Connelly
A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.
Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.
The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.
Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed of his father's criminal record. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.
Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.
- description from the publisher Macmillan
