Join the Book Discussion

The 2015 Long Island Reads book pick is The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman! 

Join the Community Library's book club on April 22nd (between 2PM and 4PM) for a discussion of this wonderful novel. Registration is open, click here to reserve your seat today!

The daughter of a curiosities museum's front man pursues an impassioned love affair with a Russian immigrant photographer who after fleeing his Lower East Side Orthodox community has captured poignant images of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. By the best-selling author of Here on Earth. (Publisher Summary)

Click here for more information on Long Island Reads and here for information about Alice Hoffman's upcoming book signing at the Plainview-Old Bethpage library on April 19th!

The 2015 Long Island Reads Pick Announced!

The Long Island Reads Committee has selected their 2015 pick for next year, and the winner is The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman!

Mesmerizing and illuminating, Alice Hoffman’s The Museum of Extraordinary Things is the story of an electric and impassioned love between two vastly different souls in New York during the volatile first decades of the 20th century. With its colorful crowds of bootleggers, heiresses, thugs, and idealists, New York itself becomes a riveting character as Hoffman weaves her trademark magic and masterful storytelling to unite her characters in a sizzling, tender, and moving story of self-discovery in tumultuous times. (Publisher Summary)

Click here to read the full announcement!

Long Island Reads 2014

Join fellow Long Islanders in reading the 2014 Long Island reads selection The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island by Mac Griswold!

In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large—twelve feet tall, fifteen feet wide—had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations. And so begins the author's journey to uncover the secrets and stories of The Manor.

Based on years of research and voyages that took Griswold as far as West Africa, this compelling history of a Long Island plantation located on Shelter Island, spanning three centuries and 11 generations, reveals the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Griswold's The Manor is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering.

An author talk and book signing will be held at Sylvester Manor on Saturday, May 17 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm.. For more information click here.

For a Reader's Guide to The Manor click here.

Join us for a book discussion about The Manor on Wednesday, April 23 from 2:00 - 4:00pm. Click the "Book Discussion" box to the right to register. Copies of the book will be available at the circulation desk after March 20.

2013 Long Island Reads Selection Announced

The Long Island Reads Committee has announced J.R. Moehringer's Sutton as it's 2013 selection.  Written by a Manhasset native, Sutton is a fictionalized account of William Francis Sutton, a  real life bank robber often referred to as a modern day Robin Hood.  This colorful novel appeals to many readers young and old including fiction lovers and history buffs.  Though Long Island Reads events traditionally take place in April, it's not too early to start reading Sutton.  

Long Island Reads

The "Long Island Reads" book selection for 2012 has been announced: The Lost Wife, by Alyson Richman.  Set in the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, and Josef, who is studying medicine, fall in love. With the promise of a better future, they marry -- only to have their dreams shattered by the imminent Nazi invasion.  Readers who loved The Lost Wife can also take a ten-day tour through the book's setting in the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary - get details here.