Download the 2025 Schedule | Download the List of Previous Books
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Wednesday, November 12 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Louisburg Library | 206 S. Broadway St., Louisburg
Jawbone Holler by Mace Thornton
Perry Adams has hit rock bottom, fed by the demons of too much alcohol and not enough patience. Hard knocks are driving his decision to skedaddle. Perry is the bane of his Indiana hometown and his only choice is to pack a saddlebag. The great-great-grandson of a pirate, Perry desires a fresh start far from the clutches of his abusive father. He steals his father’s mule and trades his bottle of rum for adventure and freedom along a soulful trek of exploration and growth that takes him to the promised land of Kansas Territory. While his quest for self, serenity, and redemption is inspiring, his perils and adventures do not cease after reaching the region known as Bleeding Kansas. Arriving in the new land as an unprepared squatter during a ruthless winter, Perry discovers life in the unfamiliar territory is cruel. Even before the war, beatings, pillage, lynchings, and murder stalk the region as brutal lines are drawn between those supporting and opposing slavery. Perry’s dream of establishing a farm, finding love, and starting a family is beset by dramatic hurdles and soul-wrenching decisions at every turn. As he struggles to carve a successful farm out of the wilderness, he grows through relationships with the local constable, a pair of freed slaves, a bartending couple, a shopkeeper, and a “genie.” He meets the love of his life, an angelic but mysterious young schoolteacher who also plays piano at the bar. Surviving the war and winning her heart become his obsessions.-- Provided by publisher.
selected by Jim R.
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Wednesday, December 10 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
selected by Holly M.
A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.
Join us as we watch one of the many film adaptations of the book.
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Watch for the 2026 Schedule.
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Wednesday, January 14 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
Share a "teaser" about a book you've read recently
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Wednesday, February 11 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Louisburg Library | 206 S. Broadway St., Louisburg
One Book, One Burg: Louisburg Reads
Fighting Words by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Depending on an older sister who protected her when their mother went to prison and their mother's boyfriend committed a terrible act, 10-year-old Della tries to figure out what to do when her older sister attempts suicide.
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Wednesday, March 11 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
The Mathews Men by William Geroux
selected by Gene S.
Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery -- but it sent one of the largest concentrations of sea captains and U.S. merchant mariners of any community in America to fight in World War II. The Mathews Men tells that heroic story through the experiences of one family whose seven sons (and their neighbors), U.S. merchant mariners all, suddenly found themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the U-boats bearing down on the coastal United States in 1942. From the late 1930s to 1945, virtually all the fuel, food, and munitions that sustained the Allies in Europe traveled not via the Navy but in merchant ships. After Pearl Harbor, those unprotected ships instantly became the U-boats' prime targets. And they were easy targets -- the Navy lacked the inclination or resources to defend them until the beginning of 1943. Hitler was determined that his U-boats should sink every American ship they could find, sometimes within sight of tourist beaches, and to kill as many mariners as possible, in order to frighten their shipmates into staying ashore. As the war progressed, men from Mathews sailed the North and South Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and even the icy Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle, where they braved the dreaded Murmansk Run. Through their experiences we have eyewitnesses to every danger zone, in every kind of ship. Some died horrific deaths. Others fought to survive torpedo explosions, flaming oil slicks, storms, shark attacks, mine blasts, and harrowing lifeboat odysseys -- only to ship out again on the next boat as soon as they'd returned to safety. The Mathews Men shows us the war far beyond traditional battlefields -- often the U.S. merchant mariners' life-and-death struggles took place just off the U.S. coast -- but also takes us to the landing beaches at D-Day and to the Pacific. "When final victory is ours," General Dwight D. Eisenhower had predicted, "there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine." Here is the story of those merchant seamen, recast as the human story of the men from Mathews.
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Wednesday, April 8 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill
selected by David M.
On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square, leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide. This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, award-winning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.
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Wednesday, May 13 | 6:00 - 7:30 pm
Timbercreek Bar & Grill | 14 E. Amity St., Louisburg
Title TBA
selected by Royce M.
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Wednesday, June 10 | 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Fox Community Hall | 201 S. Broadway St., Louisburg
The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
selected by Chris K.
From legendary writer Paul Theroux, an international bestseller that is a spellbinding adventure story of an American family that rejects its homeland and tries to find a happier life in the jungles of Central America. The paranoid and brilliant inventor Allie Fox uproots his family from their New England farm to live in the Honduran jungle, determined to build a civilization better than the one they've left. An individualist, Allie sees modern America as wasteful, immoral, and messy. Fleeing from materialism and conformity, he hopes to rediscover a purer life. Told by fourteen-year-old Charlie Fox, who observes his father with a mixture of love, astonishment, and ultimately horror, The Mosquito Coast is a twisted Swiss Family Robinson or an ironic take on Robinson Crusoe. For as Allie becomes ever more lost to reality, this utopian experiment takes a dark turn as his obsessions lead the family toward unimaginable danger.
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Wednesday, July 8 | 6:00 - 7:30 pm
Timbercreek Bar & Grill | 14 E. Amity St., Louisburg
The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski
selected by Holly M.
Geralt of Rivia, a witcher, uses his vast sorcerous powers to hunt down the monsters that threaten the world, but he soon discovers that not every monstrous-looking creature is evil, and not everything beautiful is good.
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Wednesday, August 12 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Louisburg Library | 206 S. Broadway St., Louisburg
Title TBA
selected by TBD
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Wednesday, September 9 | 6:00 - 7:30 pm
Timbercreek Bar & Grill | 14 E. Amity St., Louisburg
Title TBA
selected by Jim G.
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Wednesday, October 14 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
Title TBA
selected by David M.
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Wednesday, November 11 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
Title TBA
selected by TBD
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Wednesday, December 9 | 7:00 - 8:00 pm
Starbrooke Clubhouse | 1212 Third St., Louisburg
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
selected by Holly M.
Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, was banned from flying in the U. S. when an overly probing search wand caused him to blow his top at LaGuardia Airport. Now, the train is his only option to get to Los Angeles for Christmas to be with his girlfriend. To finance the trip, he pitches a story about a train ride taken during Christmas season to his ex-flame editor, Eleanor.
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