The History Book Group will discuss Charles King’s “Gods of the Upper Air” at 6:30 p.m. Thurs. Nov. 21^st on the 2^nd floor of the library. At the end of the 19th century, everyone knew that people were defined by their race and sex. But one researcher looked at the data and decided everyone was wrong. Franz Boas proposed that cultures did not exist on a continuum from primitive to advanced; instead, every society solves the same basic problems—from childrearing to how to live well—with its own set of rules, beliefs, and taboos. Boas and his students mapped vanishing civilizations from the Arctic to the South Pacific and overturned the relationship between biology and behavior. Their work reshaped how we think of women and men, normalcy and deviance, and re-created our place in a world of many cultures and value systems.

The Speculative Fiction Book Group will meet Wed. Dec. 18^th at 5:15 p.m. on the 2^nd floor of the library to discuss Tamsyn Muir’s “Gideon the Ninth.” Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude, but her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service. Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds, she will become an all-powerful servant of the Resurrection—but without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

For more information, contact Carmen Buss (Friday Book Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717.

The History Book Group will meet at 6:00 p.m. Thurs. Dec. 19^th on the 2^nd floor of the library to discuss David O. Stewart’s “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.” Future meetings of the History Book Group will also be held at 6:00 p.m. In 1868, Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment—whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war. David Stewart challenges the traditional version of this pivotal moment in American history and explains how the Tennessean squandered Lincoln’s political legacy of equality and fairness and helped force the freed slaves into a brutal form of agricultural peonage across the South.

For more information, contact Carmen Buss (Friday Book Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717.

The Friday Book Group will meet at 2:00 p.m. Fri. Dec. 20^th on the 2^nd floor of the library to discuss Felicity Hayes-McCoy’s “The Library at the Edge of the World.” Driving her mobile library van through Finfarran’s farms and villages, local librarian Hanna Casey tries not to think of the sophisticated London life she abandoned when she left her cheating husband. With her daughter Jazz traveling the world and her relationship with her mother growing increasingly fraught, Hanna decides to reclaim her independence. Then, when the threatened closure of her library puts her plans in jeopardy, she finds herself leading a battle to restore the heart and soul of the fragmented community. Will she also find the new life she’s been searching for?

For more information, contact Carmen Buss (Friday Book Group) or Kristin Torresdal (Happy Hour, History, and Speculative Fiction Book Groups) at 563-382-3717.