We're Talkin' Books! Club (hybrid meeting)

The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss (was the June pick) and is now the July book pick for the We're Talkin' Books! Club meeting. Join in person at the Civic Center Library in the Board Room or via Zoom at tinyurl.com/WTBLPL on Thursday, July 2, at 7 p.m.
Book Summary: "Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see the stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.
Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including the Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, the Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over the course of more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who signed books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.
The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them."–the publisher
It's Summer Learning time through August 4, 2026. All ages receive a free book just for signing up! Register at Livermore.beanstack.org/ or on the Beanstack app. Paper gameboards are also available at all Livermore Library locations. Participants who track their reading and activities will earn raffle tickets towards drawings for prizes. Thanks to Friends of the Livermore Library and our other partners for making the Summer Learning program and events possible.
Book Clubs at the Livermore Public Library
We're Talkin' Books! Club (WTBC) hybrid meetings are held at 7 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month on Zoom at tinyurl.com/WTBLPL and in person at Civic Center Library Board Room. WTBC is member-centered and led by a small group of book club veterans. Reading selections based on member recommendations and consensus.