SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-01-26 18:30 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | Zoom, Virtual
The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune • Selected by Elaine Gallagher
Winner: Alex Award (2021)

“It’s a witty, wholesome fantasy that’s like to cause heart-swelling.” –The Washington Post
Find The House in the Cerulean Sea in MILS
“Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He’s tasked with determining whether six dangerous magical children are likely to bring about the end of the world.
Arthur Parnassus is the master of the orphanage. He would do anything to keep the children safe, even if it means the world will burn. And his secrets will come to light.
The House in the Cerulean Sea is an enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place―and realizing that family is yours.” –From the author’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-02-23 18:30 - 19:30
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher • Selected by Sally McConnell
Winner: Hugo Award for Best Novel (2023)
“Kingfisher’s combination of comedy with feminist rage in a complex fairytale setting makes for a wholly entertaining read.” –Buzzfeed
Find Nettle & Bone in MILS
“This isn’t the kind of fairytale where the princess marries a prince.
It’s the one where she kills him.
Marra never wanted to be a hero.
As the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter, she escaped the traditional fate of princesses, to be married away for the sake of an uncaring throne. But her sister wasn’t so fortunate—and after years of silence, Marra is done watching her suffer at the hands of a powerful and abusive prince.
Seeking help for her rescue mission, Marra is offered the tools she needs, but only if she can complete three seemingly impossible tasks:
—build a dog of bones
—sew a cloak of nettles
—capture moonlight in a jar
But, as is the way in tales of princes and witches, doing the impossible is only the beginning.
Hero or not—now joined by a disgraced ex-knight, a reluctant fairy godmother, an enigmatic gravewitch and her fowl familiar—Marra might finally have the courage to save her sister, and topple a throne.” –From author’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-03-23 18:30 - 19:30
Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee • Selected by Anneli Sundqvist
Winner: Nobel Prize in Literature (2003)
“A subtly brilliant commentary on the nature and balance of power in his homeland…Disgrace is a mini-opera without music by a writer at the top of his form.” –Time
Find Disgrace in MILS
“Refusing to apologise after an impulsive affair with a student, David Lurie, a 52-year-old professor in Cape Town, seeks refuge on his daughter’s farm. Here, a savage and disturbing attack brings into relief the faults in their relationship.
Pitching the moral code of political correctness against the values of Romantic poetry, Disgrace examines dichotomies both in personal relationships and in the unaccountability of one culture towards another.” –From The Booker Prizes website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-04-27 18:30 - 19:30
Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein • Selected by Morgan Witham
Winner: Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction (2024)
“A dazzling, hallucinatory tour de force that takes the reader through shadow selves and global fascism, leaving them gasping by the end.” –Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood
Find Doppelganger in MILS
“What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired a double? Someone almost like you, and yet not you at all?
When Naomi Klein discovered that a woman who shared her first name, but had radically different, harmful views, was getting chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously. Then suddenly it wasn’t. She started to find herself grappling with a distorted sense of reality, becoming obsessed with reading the threats on social media, the endlessly scrolling insults from the followers of her doppelganger. Why had her shadowy other gone down such an extreme path? Why was identity – all we have to meet the world – so unstable?
To find out, Klein decided to follow her double into a bizarre, uncanny mirror world: one of conspiracy theories, anti-vaxxers and demagogue hucksters, where soft-focus wellness influencers make common cause with fire-breathing far right propagandists (all in the name of protecting ‘the children’).” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-05-25 18:30 - 19:30
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx • Selected by Andrew Stoessel
Winner: Pulitzer Prize in Fiction (1994)
“The Shipping News is that rare creation, a lyric page-turner.” –Stephen Jones, Chicago Tribune
Find The Shipping News in MILS
“At thirty-six, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman is wrenched violently out of his world when his two-timing wife meets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle’s struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons—and the unpredictable forces of nature and society—and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-06-22 18:30 - 19:30
Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian • Selected by Shannon Lindsay
Winner: Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children’s & Young Adult Literature Award (2024)
“Only This Beautiful Moment is a queer epic, a defiant piece of art that transmutes the rallying cry of ‘we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it’ into even more beautiful poetry that will almost certainly change the lives of those who read it.” –BookPage
Find Only This Beautiful Moment in MILS
“2019. Moud is an out gay teen living in Los Angeles with his distant father, Saeed. When Moud gets the news that his grandfather in Iran is dying, he accompanies his dad to Tehran, where the revelation of family secrets will force Moud into a new understanding of his history, his culture, and himself.
1978. Saeed is an engineering student with a promising future ahead of him in Tehran. But when his parents discover his involvement in the country’s burgeoning revolution, they send him to safety in America, a country Saeed despises. And even worse–he’s forced to live with the American grandmother he never knew existed.
1939. Bobby, the son of a calculating Hollywood stage mother, lands a coveted MGM studio contract. But the fairy-tale world of glamour he’s thrust into has a dark side. Set against the backdrop of Tehran and Los Angeles, this tale of intergenerational trauma and love is an ode to the fragile bonds of family, the hidden secrets of history, and all the beautiful moments that make us who we are today.” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-07-27 18:30 - 19:30
Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames by Lara Maiklem • Selected by Sue Stoessel
Winner: Indie Book Award in Non-Fiction (2020)
“Engrossing…evokes the subculture of the ‘mudlarks,’ who scour the banks for fragments of London’s past.” –The New Yorker
Find Mudlark in MaineCat
“The international bestseller that mesmerizingly charts quixotic journeys through London’s past, Mudlark thrills Anglophiles and history lovers alike. Long heralded as a city treasure herself, beloved ‘Mudlark’ Lara Maiklem tirelessly treks along the Thames’ muddy shores, unearthing a myriad of artifacts and their stories—from Roman hairpins and perfectly preserved Tudor shoes to the clay pipes that were smoked in riverside taverns. Seamlessly interweaving reflections from her own life with meditations on the art of wandering, Maiklem ultimately delivers a treatise ‘as deep and as rich as the Thames and its treasures’ (Stanley Tucci).” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-09-28 18:30 - 19:30
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood • Selected by Laura Watson
Winner: Giller Prize (1996)
“Alias Grace has all the pacing of a commercial novel and all the resonance of a classic.” –The Washington Post Book World
Find Alias Grace in MILS
“It’s 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress.
Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-10-26 18:30 - 19:30
Three Junes by Julia Glass • Selected by Ellen Shockro
Winner: National Book Award (2002)
“Enormously accomplished….rich, absorbing, and full of life.” –The New Yorker
Find Three Junes in MILS
“In June of 1989 Paul McLeod, a newspaper publisher and recent widower, travels to Greece, where he falls for a young American artist and reflects on the complicated truth about his marriage.
Six years later, again in June, Paul’s death draws his three grown sons and their families back to their ancestral home. Fenno, the eldest, a wry, introspective gay man, narrates the events of this unforeseen reunion. Far from his straitlaced expatriate life as a bookseller in Greenwich Village, Fenno is stunned by a series of revelations that threaten his carefully crafted defenses.
Four years farther on, in yet another June, a chance meeting on the Long Island shore brings Fenno together with Fern Olitsky, the artist who once captivated his father. Now pregnant, Fern must weigh her guilt about the past against her wishes for the future and decide what family means to her.” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-11-23 18:30 - 19:30
Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town by Susan Hand Shetterly • Selected by Kendra Chubbuck
Winner: Maine Literary Award for Nonfiction (2011)
“Shetterly’s penetrating observations resonate with an undeniable sense of what matters most in life: the preservation of self, the protection of wilderness, and appreciation for the passage of time…” –Booklist
Find Settled in the Wild in MILS
“Settled in the Wild takes us into the woods and along the shorelines, mudflats, and paths of rural Maine, where Susan Hand Shetterly has lived and written about nature for the past thirty years. Now, she turns her attention to the ways humans and animals share the land, especially as our mutual habitat is changing. Her observations start small, looking out her window at the many living things in just one dead tree in her yard, at the wild turkeys and coyotes in the field. Then she expands to the surrounding forest, to the seaside, and to the lives of her neighbors, many of whom have always made a living off the land or sea.
Whether writing about a displaced garter snake, witnessing the paving of a beloved dirt road, catching a cricket with her young son, rescuing a fledgling raven, or rejoicing with the town at the return of the alewife migration, Shetterly pays tribute to the resilience that abounds. She argues for a consciousness that honors the values of wilderness, protects the beauty and vigor of rural communities, and teaches our children to love the gifts of the land.” –From the dust jacket
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.

SPL Book Club: Award-Winning Books
2026-12-14 18:30 - 19:30
March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell • Selected by Pat Dobbs
Winner: RFK Book Award (2014)
“A riveting and beautiful civil-rights story…Lewis’s gripping memoir should be stocked in every school and shelved at every library.” –The Washington Post
Find March in MILS
“March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement.
Book One spans John Lewis’ youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.
Many years ago, John Lewis and other student activists drew inspiration from the 1958 comic book ‘Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.’ Now, his own comics bring those days to life for a new audience, testifying to a movement whose echoes will be heard for generations.” –From the publisher’s website
Eleven readers chose 11 books, and they will lead 11 discussions in 2026. The SPL book club meets the fourth Monday of every month at 6:30pm on Zoom. There are two exceptions: there is no discussion in August when the book club takes a summer break, and the last meeting is bumped up to the second Monday, December 14, to minimize scheduling conflicts around the holidays. New readers—near and far—are always welcome. To sign up for the book club email list, please send a request to the email below.
