Book Discussion Group
About the Group
Founded in 1988, the Bucks County Community College Book Discussion Group meets live online from 7:30 to 9 p.m. on the second Thursday of the month throughout most of the academic year. Titles range from fiction to nonfiction, classics to recent publications, and are selected by group participants twice a year (usually in June and December). Discussions are moderated by Language & Literature Professor Emeritus Michael Hennessey.
Meetings are free and open to the public. You can join from home or wherever you have internet access, as we meet using the Microsoft Teams web-conferencing tool. A limited number of spaces are available each month. If you are interested in joining a discussion, please contact Prof. Hennessey at mhenn88@comcast.net at least a week in advance of the discussion date.
Spring 2026 Selections
March 12 – A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst (2025 – 256p.)
In 1973, Maurice and Maralyn Bailey were sailing alone toward the Galápagos Islands when their boat was wrecked by a whale, leaving them adrift in the Pacific for 118 days. Elmhirst “sets her reader down inside a world that is both tiny and vast, at once ruthlessly monotonous and violently unpredictable,” said Jessica Winter in The New Yorker. And as we watch Maralyn and Maurice wrestle with sharks, take in a pet turtle they later eat, and lean repeatedly on Maralyn’s optimism and pragmatism to overcome Maurice’s defeatism, A Marriage at Sea proves “an enthralling account of a partnership in extremes, and of how the commonest hazards of married life… become totalized amid disaster.”
April 9 – Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby (2009 – 406p.)
From the beloved New York Times bestselling author, Juliet, Naked is a quintessential Nick Hornby tale of music, superfandom, and the truths and lies we tell ourselves about life and love. Annie finds herself caught in the web of a relationship with Duncan, who adores Tucker Crowe, a reclusive singer-songwriter who vanished from the music scene years ago. As Annie's love for Duncan fades, an unexpected email correspondence with Tucker sparks a connection between two searching souls. What happens when a washed-up musician looks for another chance? And miles away, a restless, childless woman looks for a change? Juliet, Naked is a powerfully engrossing, humblingly humorous novel about music, love, loneliness, and the struggle to live up to one’s promise.
May 14 – Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: A Novel by Olga Tokarczuk (2019 – 288p.)
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and a New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit, if only anyone would pay her mind.
June 11 – American Ramble: A Walk of Memory and Renewal by Neil King (2024 – 368p.)
The author’s desire to walk from Washington, D.C., to New York City began as a whim and soon became an obsession. By the spring of 2021, recent events gave his desire greater urgency. His neighborhood still reeled from the January 6 insurrection. Covid lockdowns and a rancorous election had deepened America’s divides. King himself bore the imprints of a long battle with cancer. Determined to rediscover what matters in life and to see our national story with new eyes, he turned north with one mission in mind: To pay close attention to the land he crossed and the people he met. What followed is an extraordinary 26-day journey through historic battlefields and cemeteries, over the Mason-Dixon line, past Quaker and Amish farms, along Valley Forge stream beds, atop a New Jersey trash mound, across New York Harbor, and finally, to his ultimate destination: the Ramble, where a tangle of pathways converges in Central Park.
July 9 – The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong (2025 – 416p.)
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, 19-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to transform Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community on the brink.
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