Calendar of Events

Book Discussion Group

A Celebration of Reading!

Read each selection & join staff member Michele Reinhart for a spirited discussion!

Last Wednesday of each month at 7 pm in the Conference Room.

February 27: The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton

There’s a serious epidemic of Downton Abbey fever on PBS’s Masterpiece this cold & flu season! Grab your tissues, as Season 3 of the popular British television drama wraps up on February 17. In honor of the upstairs and downstairs inhabitants of Downton Abbey, from Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, to Daisy, the kitchen maid, this month we will be reading and discussing Edith Wharton’s novel of American heiresses and British nobles, The Buccaneers.

The Buccaneers was left unfinished at the time of Edith Wharton’s death in 1937. The following year, her unedited, 89,000-word manuscript was published in its truncated form, along with her original synopsis of the story. The Buccaneers was later completed by writer Marion Mainwaring and published to mostly positive reviews in 1993. In the end, Ms. Wharton wrote approximately three-fifths of the completed novel and Ms. Mainwaring two-fifths.

The Buccaneers of the title are Connie, Lizzy, Jinny, and Nan, four American women with more money than ancestry. Unable to commandeer a place in heavily fortified 1870s New York society, the young women set their sights on England, where the aristocracy is more than willing to barter inherited titles for inherited fortunes.

Please check our online catalog for copies of the book and join us for our discussion on the February 27.

COMING UP

• March 27: The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
• April 24: Digging to America by Anne Tyler
• May 29: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Questions? Call Reference at 614-481-3776.