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Contemporary Fiction Book Club

Read and discuss award-winning contemporary fiction

2025-02-13 14:00:00 2025-02-13 15:00:00 America/Los_Angeles Contemporary Fiction Book Club A book club to discuss contemporary novels. Registration is required. Register early so we can help you find a copy of the book in time for the discussion! Belvedere Tiburon Library - Reading Room

Thursday, February 13
2:00pm - 3:00pm

Add to Calendar 2025-02-13 14:00:00 2025-02-13 15:00:00 America/Los_Angeles Contemporary Fiction Book Club A book club to discuss contemporary novels. Registration is required. Register early so we can help you find a copy of the book in time for the discussion! Belvedere Tiburon Library - Reading Room

A book club to discuss contemporary novels. Registration is required. Register early so we can help you find a copy of the book in time for the discussion!

Come to our Contemporary Fiction Book Club to discuss award-winning novels with fellow library patrons:

February 13  --  Dr. No by Percival Everett --  "The protagonist of Percival Everett's puckish novel is a brilliant professor of mathematics who goes by Wala Kitu. (Wala, he explains, means "nothing" in Tagalog, and Kitu is Swahili for 'nothing.') He is an expert on nothing. That is to say, he is an expert, and his area of study is nothing, and he does nothing about it. This makes him the perfect partner for the aspiring villain John Sill, who wants to break into Fort Knox to steal, well, not gold bars but a shoebox containing nothing. Once he controls nothing he'll proceed with a dastardly plan to turn a Massachusetts town into nothing. Or so he thinks. With the help of the brainy and brainwashed astrophysicist-turned-henchwoman Eigen Vector, our professor tries to foil the villain while remaining in his employ. In the process, Wala Kitu learns that Sill's desire to become a literal Bond villain originated in some real all-American villainy related to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. As Sill says, 'Professor, think of it this way. This country has never given anything to us and it never will. We have given everything to it. I think it's time we gave nothing back.'" -- Amazon.com

March 13 --  Shadow of the Wind by Carolos Ruiz Zafon -- Barcelona, 1945: A city slowly heals in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Daniel, an antiquarian book dealer's son who mourns the loss of his mother, finds solace in what he finds in the "cemetery of lost books," a mysterious book entitled The Shadow of the Wind , by one Julián Carax. But when he sets out to find the author's other works, he makes a shocking discovery: someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book Carax has written. In fact, Daniel may have the last of Carax's books in existence. Soon Daniel's seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets--an epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

April 10 -- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro -- "From her place in the store that sells artificial friends, Klara--an artificial friend with outstanding observational qualities--watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass in the street outside. She remains hopeful a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara she is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans. In this luminous tale, Klara and the Sun, Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?"

May 8 --  Orbital by Samantha Harvey -- Orbital is an eloquent meditation on space and life on our planet through the eyes of six astronauts circling the earth in twenty-four hours. A slender novel of epic power, Orbital deftly snapshots a day in the lives of six women and men hurtling through space-not toward the moon or the vast unknown, but around our planet. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts-from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan-have left their lives behind to travel at warp speed as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate. So are the marks of civilization far below, encrusted on the planet on which we live. Profound, contemplative, and gorgeous, Orbital is a gift-a moving elegy to our humanity, environment, and planet"

AGE GROUP: | Seniors | Adults |

EVENT TYPE: | Club/ Group |

TAGS: | featured_page2 |

Belvedere Tiburon Library

Phone: (415) 789-2661

Hours
Mon, Feb 03 9:00AM to 8:00PM
Tue, Feb 04 9:00AM to 8:00PM
Wed, Feb 05 9:00AM to 8:00PM
Thu, Feb 06 9:00AM to 8:00PM
Fri, Feb 07 10:00AM to 5:00PM
Sat, Feb 08 10:00AM to 5:00PM
Sun, Feb 09 10:00AM to 5:00PM

About the branch

The Library was designed by the firm of Bull, Stockwell, and Allen. The architectural style is that of the 19th century railroad yard in Tiburon. 
 
The site is part of the landfill of the 1890s done to create the railroad yard. Windows frame views of the marsh lands and Old St. Hilary's Open Space preserve. 
 
The expanded library was designed by Brown Reynolds Watford Architecture and added approximately 9,000 square feet, bringing the total size of the library to about 19,500 square feet. 

Upcoming Events

Sat, Feb 08, 10:00am - 2:00pm
Belvedere Tiburon Library - Founders Room
Join us to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Teddy Bear Tea! Bring your friends and family and join us for hot chocolate, tea, treats, and story time with Alicia.

Tue, Feb 11, 11:00am - 12:00pm
Belvedere Tiburon Library - Founders Room
This beginner-friendly workshop explores the fundamentals of AI,  popular AI platforms, and the basics of "prompting" to get the most out of AI tools.

Thu, Feb 13, 10:00am - 12:30pm
Belvedere Tiburon Library - Founders Room
In this session, you will learn to use your smartphone to book ride-hail trips, find out why everyone uses Uber and Lyft, and be introduced to Marin Transit's Catch-A-Ride program.