Join Patty Bailey and other local readers for a friendly and informal discussion.

The January selection is The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue.  A novel set in 1918 Dublin offers a three-day look at a maternity ward during the height of the Great Flu pandemic.  In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have fallen sick are quarantined into a separate ward to keep the plague at bay. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders, a woman doctor who is a rumored Rebel, and a teenage girl, Bridie, procured by the nuns from their orphanage as an extra set of hands. At first, this Bridie seems unschooled in life, she makes up a bed with only the rubber mat and savors the weak tea and barely edible porridge from the hospital kitchen. But in the intensity of this ward, over three brutal days, Julia and the women come together in unexpected ways.

Copies of the book in regular, large print as well as audio are available at the circulation desk.

This registration page is for the morning, in-person event; to attend the evening, virtual session, please click here.