Bethel’s Byrd’s Books Celebrates the Gift of Words with December Book Groups

Every month, Bethel’s Byrd’s Books hosts Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Sci-Fi Fantasy book groups, free to the public and welcome to all to join in spirited discussion. December is an especially lively month as the popular independent book shop celebrates the gifts of word and community. For convenience, the popular community hub makes book group selections available in paperback. Book groups are now meeting in person at Byrd’s Books, located at 178 Greenwood Avenue across from the Bethel Public Library, and on Zoom by request. In order by date:

Thursday, December 14th, 7:30pm - The Non-Fiction Book Group meets every 2nd Thursday of the month. Readers of How Iceland Changed the World: The Big History of a Small Island, by Egill Bjarnason, will be taken on a tour of history, showing them how Iceland played a pivotal role in events as diverse as the French Revolution, the Moon Landing, and the foundation of Israel. The history of Iceland began 1,200 years ago and became a nation whose diplomats and musicians, sailors and soldiers, volcanoes and flowers, altered the globe forever. Called “[A] joyously peculiar book” by The New York Times, this book tells just how it all happened.

 Tuesday, December 19th, 7:30pm - The Sci-Fi Fantasy Book Group meets every 3rd Tuesday of the month. The Cat Who Saved Books: A Novel, by the #1 bestselling author in Japan, Sosuke Natsukawa, will be the center of conversation.This heartwarming tale is about a bookish high school student who inherits a secondhand bookstore and a talking cat who appears with an unusual request: To liberate the world’s unread and unloved books. “The Cat Who Saved Books,” notes The Japan Times, “invites us to remember the joy of curling up with a favorite book, and savoring the tactile pleasure that comes with turning the pages and immersing ourselves in a good story.”

Thursday, December 21st, 7:30pm - The Fiction Book Group meets every 3rd Thursday of the month. George Saunders, “the best short-story writer in English” (Time magazine), provides readers with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community. Entitled Liberation Day: Stories, here is a selection of wickedly funny and fine tuned stories that caused The Boston Globe to write, “it’s that equilibrium of groundbreaking craft and bone-deep compassion—plus his rangy, tilt-a-whirl voice—that raises a Saunders above other masters of the form.”

Author discussions and Book Group gatherings are regularly added to Byrd’s Books’ calendar of events at ByrdsBooks.com are Tuesdays to Saturdays 10:00am to 6:00pm, Sundays 12:00 noon to 4;00pm, Closed Mondays. For directions to the store or more information, call Byrd’s Books at 203-730-2973. To review the shop’s expanded catalog of new titles, go to ByrdsBooks.com