Saturday, January 28 / 10 a.m. The Civil War Book Group will discuss A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon & Schuster, $21.00). Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was the result of a character that had been forged by experiences that raised him above his more privileged and accomplished rivals. He won because he possessed an extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires. It was this capacity that enabled Lincoln as president to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union and winning the war. We view the long, horrifying struggle from the vantage of the White House as Lincoln copes with incompetent generals, hostile congressmen, and his raucous cabinet. He overcomes these obstacles by winning the respect of his former competitors, and in the case of Seward, finds a loyal and crucial friend to see him through.

Saturday, January 28 / 1 p.m. Robin Donovan will sign Is It Still Murder Even Is She Was a Bitch? (WriteLife, $12.95). Donna Leigh owns an Omaha ad agency. She is also an energetic and somewhat sardonic menopausal woman. When a former colleague is murdered, Donna becomes the chief amateur sleuth so her toxic relationship with the victim doesn't land her at the top of the suspect list. As Donna and her colorful colleagues work feverishly to solve the case, they leave a trail of unintentional destruction in their wake; from injured police officers to collapsed buildings. Donna and her team stir things up enough to make the murderer nervous; after Donna receives a threat to "back off" things take on a more serious bent for her, but not for her ever vigilant colleagues who continue to animatedly bungle their way through the investigation until the murderer is behind bars.

Sunday, January 29 / 1 p.m. Matthew Norman will sign Domestic Violets (Harper, $14.99). Tom Violet always thought that by the time he turned thirty-five, he’d have everything going for him. Fame. Fortune. A beautiful wife. A satisfying career as a successful novelist. A happy dog to greet him at the end of the day. The reality, though, is far different. He’s got a wife, but their problems are bigger than he can even imagine. And he’s written a novel, but the manuscript he’s slaved over for years is currently hidden in his desk drawer while his father, an actual famous writer, just won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His career, such that it is, involves mind-numbing corporate buzzwords, his pretentious nemesis Gregory, and a hopeless, completely inappropriate crush on his favorite coworker. Oh . . . and his dog, according to the vet, is suffering from acute anxiety. Tom’s life is crushing his soul, but he’s decided to do something about it. Domestic Violets is the brilliant and beguiling story of a man finally taking control of his own happiness—even if it means making a complete idiot of himself along the way.

Wednesday, February 1 / Noon - 1 p.m. What Are You Reading? book chat. Join us to chat about favorite reads, books that changed our lives, or the book we just couldn't put down. No need to make reservations--just come and enjoy a little conversation about books. Carol Lynch will facilitate the discussion.

Saturday, February 4 / 10 a.m. The U.S. Presidents group reads and discusses concise biographies of past presidents, their leadership abilities and how well their reputations have withstood the test of time. February's biography is John Adams: The American Presidents Series: The 2nd President, 1797-1801 by John Patrick Diggins (Times Books, $22.00). Volatile, impulsive, irritable, and self-pitying, Adams seemed temperamentally unsuited for the presidency. Yet in many ways he was the perfect successor to Washington in terms of ability, experience, and popularity. Possessed of a far-ranging intelligence, Adams took office amid the birth of the government and multiple crises. Besides maintaining neutrality and regaining peace, his administration created the Department of the Navy, put the army on a surer footing, and left a solvent treasury. Though he was a Federalist, he sought to work outside the still-forming party system. In the end, this would be Adams's greatest failing and most useful lesson to later leaders.

Saturday, February 4 / 1 p.m. Daniel Coyle will sign The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How (Bantam, $25.00). What is the secret of talent? How do we unlock it? New York Times bestselling author Daniel Coyle provides parents, teachers, coaches, businesspeople--and everyone else--with tools they can use to maximize potential in themselves and others. Whether you're coaching soccer or teaching a child to play the piano, writing a novel or trying to improve your golf swing, this revolutionary book shows you how to grow talent by tapping into a newly discovered brain mechanism. Drawing on cutting-edge neurology and firsthand research gathered on journeys to nine of the world's talent hotbeds--from the baseball fields of the Caribbean to a classical-music academy in upstate New York--Coyle identifies the three key elements that will allow you to develop your gifts and optimize your performance in sports, art, music, math, or just about anything.

Saturday, February 4 / 3 p.m. The Golden Sowers group will discuss School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari (Little, Brown, $6.99). For the first time--maybe ever--Madeleine, Theo, Lulu, and Garrison are not looking forward to the start of summer, and three little words are to blame: School of Fear. In what they're sure will be the longest and most terrifying six weeks of their lives, the foursome must face their phobias head-on as students of the exclusive and elusive school. There's no homework or exams. But if they don't conquer their fears by the end of the summer, they'll find out just how frightening failing can be.

Monday, February 6 / 6:30 p.m. The I Should Have Read That in School classics group will discuss Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (Vintage Classics, $7.95). Perhaps the most haunting and tormented love story ever written, Wuthering Heights is the tale of the troubled orphan Heathcliff and his doomed love for Catherine Earnshaw. Published in 1847, the year before Emily Bronte's death at the age of thirty, Wuthering Heights has proved to be one of the nineteenth century's most popular yet disturbing masterpieces. The windswept moors are the unforgettable setting of this tale of the love between the foundling Heathcliff and his wealthy benefactor's daughter, Catherine. Through Catherine's betrayal of Heathcliff and his bitter vengeance, their mythic passion haunts the next generation even after their deaths. Incorporating elements of many genres--from gothic novels and ghost stories to poetic allegory--and transcending them all, Wuthering Heights is a mystifying and powerful tour de force.

Thursday, February 9 / 6 p.m. Amiable Adult Readers Discussing Books Almost Always Read by Kids (Aardbaark) will discuss The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly (Square Fish, $7.99). Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger. As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century. Kelly deftly brings Callie and her family to life, capturing a year of growing up with unique sensitivity and a wry wit. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is a 2010 Newbery Honor Book and the winner of the 2010 Bank Street - Josette Frank Award.

Saturday, February 11 / 10 a.m. The Sherlock Holmes Book Club will discuss The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. by Henry Ledgard (Norton, $15.95). First discovered and then painstakingly edited and annotated by Nicholas Meyer, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution relates the astounding and previously unknown collaboration of Sigmund Freud with Sherlock Holmes, as recorded by Holmes's friend and chronicler, Dr. John H. Watson. In addition to its breathtaking account of their collaboration on a case of diabolic conspiracy in which the lives of millions hang in the balance, it reveals such matters as the real identity of the heinous professor Moriarty, the dark secret shared by Sherlock and his brother Mycroft Holmes, and the detective's true whereabouts during the Great Hiatus, when the world believed him to be dead.

Saturday, February 11 / 1 p.m. Dawn Marie will sign Diary of an Online Dating Junkie (WriteLife, $15.95). After more than 15 years of marriage, Dawn Marie's got a divorce, a daughter, and a dilemma. Diary of an Online Dating Junkie chronicles, in hilarious and heartwarming detail, the real life journey of a woman who finds herself looking for love online. The road is bumpy and filled with incredible highs, like a shiny new Porsche, and devastating lows, like an empty bank account and a rock hard bed in a tiny trailer. Dawn takes her experiences in stride and it doesn't take long for her to realize that finding true love might just be the most difficult test of her life.

Sunday, February 12 / 11 a.m. The book group Books and Bagels will discuss The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom (Touchstone, $16.00). Lavinia, a seven-year-old Irish orphan with no memory of her past, arrives on a tobacco plantation where she is put to work as an indentured servant. Placed with the slaves in the kitchen house under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her new adopted family, even though she is forever set apart from them by her white skin. As Lavinia is slowly accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles an opium addiction, she finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. When Lavinia marries the master's troubled son and takes on the role of mistress, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare and lives are put at risk. The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

Thursday, February 16 / 6:30 p.m. The As the Worm Turns Book Group will discuss Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences by Kitty Burns Florey (Harvest Books, $14.00) and Script & Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey (Melville House, $22.95). We will discuss both books. You may read either one or both. In Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog Florey explores sentence-diagramming, including what diagrams of famous writers' sentences reveal about them. Along the way Florey offers up her own commonsense approach to learning and using good grammar. When self-confessed "penmanship nut" Florey discovered that schools today forego handwriting drills in favor of teaching something called "keyboarding," it gave her pause. In Script and Scribble Florey tackles the importance of writing by hand and its place in our increasingly electronic society in this fascinating exploration of the history of handwriting. Weaving together the evolution of writing implements and scripts, pen-collecting societies, the golden age of American penmanship, the growth in popularity of handwriting analysis, and the many aficionados who still prefer scribbling on paper to tapping on keys, she asks the question: Is writing by hand really no longer necessary in today's busy world? Jackie Byers will facilitate the discussion. Space is limited, so please call to reserve your place.

Tuesday, February 21 / 6:30 p.m. The International Intrigue Book Group will discuss Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom (Silveroak, $14.95). After years spent infiltrating the Polish mafia, Piet Hoffman, a top-secret operative for the Swedish police, has become a key player in their attempt to take over amphetamine distribution inside Sweden's prisons. To stop them from succeeding, he goes undercover, posing as a prisoner inside the country's most notorious jail. But when a botched drug deal involving Hoffman results in the death of another cop, the murder investigation is assigned to the brilliant but haunted Detective Inspector Ewert Grens--a man who never gives up until he's cracked the case. Grens's determination to find the killer not only threatens to expose Hoffman's true identity, it may reveal even bigger crimes at the heart of the Swedish justice system. And there are players who will do anything to stop Grens from discovering the truth.

Monday, February 27 / 2 p.m. The World War II History Book Group will discuss The Hornet's Sting: The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum by Mark Ryan (Skyhorse, $24.95). Based on hundreds of hours of interviews, Ryan describes how Tommy made an incredible escape from Denmark in a battered old Hornet Moth aircraft - which he had to refuel in mid-air by climbing out on the wing. Later, he escaped from Denmark again - by walking across a treacherous frozen sea on which two of his companions died. Tommy brought over precious intelligence about the Nazi radar installations in Denmark and their atom bomb - his reward was to be imprisoned in Brixton as a suspected double agent and threatened with execution. He cheated the hangman - but it is only with the publication of this enthralling book that Sneum can be celebrated as, in the words of Professor R.V. Jones, Churchill's chief of scientific intelligence, one of the true heroes of World War II.

Saturday, March 3 / 10 a.m. The U.S. Presidents group reads and discusses concise biographies of past presidents, their leadership abilities and how well their reputations have withstood the test of time. The biography for March is Thomas Jefferson by Joyce Appleby (Times Books, $22.00). Few presidents have embodied the American spirit as fully as Thomas Jefferson. He was the originator of so many of the founding principles of American democracy. Politically, he shuffled off the centralized authority of the Federalists, working toward a more diffuse and minimalist leadership. He introduced the bills separating church and state and mandating free public education. He departed from the strict etiquette of his European counterparts, appearing at state dinners in casual attire and dispensing with hierarchical seating arrangements. Jefferson initiated the Lewis and Clark expedition and seized on the the crucial moment when Napoleon decided to sell the Louisiana Territory, thus extending the national development. In this compelling examination, distinguished historian Joyce Appleby captures the richness of Jefferson's character and accomplishments.

Saturday, March 3 / 3 p.m. The Golden Sowers group will discuss Jake Ransom and the Skull King’s Shadow by James Ransom (HarperCollins, $7.99). When a mysterious envelope arrives for Jake Ransom, he and his older sister, Kady, are plunged into a gripping chain of events. An artifact found by their parents--on the expedition from which they never returned--leads Jake and Kady to a strange world inhabited by a peculiar mix of long-lost civilizations, a world that may hold the key to their parents' disappearance. And as Jake struggles to find a way home, it becomes obvious that what the Skull King wants most is Jake and Kady--dead or alive.

Monday, March 5 / 6:30 p.m. The I Should Have Read That in School classics group will discuss The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (Mariner, $12.00). Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum. Written for own children, The Hobbit is one of literature's most enduring and well-loved novels.

Wednesday, March 7 / Noon - 1 p.m. What Are You Reading? book chat. Join us to chat about favorite reads, books that changed our lives, or the book we just couldn’t put down. No need to make reservations--just come and enjoy a little conversation about books. Carol Lynch will facilitate the discussion.

Thursday, March 8 / 6 p.m. Amiable Adult Readers Discussing Books Almost Always Read by Kids (Aardbaark) will discuss Born Blue by Han Nolan (Harcourt, $6.95). Leshaya is a survivor. Rescued from the brink of death, this child of a heroin addict has seen it all: revolving foster homes, physical abuse, an unwanted pregnancy. Now, as her tumultuous childhood is coming to an end, she is determined to make a life for herself by doing the only thing that makes her feel whole . . . singing. Nolan pulls no punches in this hard-hitting story of a girl at the bottom who dreams of nothing but the top.

Sunday, March 11 / 11 a.m. The book group Books and Bagels will discuss Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Harper, $15.95). Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening--until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds, and people from different continents become compatriots. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion . . . and cannot be stopped.

Thursday, March 15 / 6:30 p.m. The As the Worm Turns Book Group will discuss How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr (Little Brown, $17.99). Jill MacSweeny just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she's been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends--everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she's somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one. Mandy Kalinowski understands what it's like to grow up unwanted--to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she's sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It's harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too? As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy--or as difficult--as it seems. Ellen Scott will facilitate the discussion. Space is limited, so please call to reserve your place.

Monday, March 26 / 2 p.m. The World War II History Book Group will discuss Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene (Harper, $13.99). During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains en route to their ultimate destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen. Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen--staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers--was open from five a.m. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended. In this eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed through, Bob Greene tells a classic American story of a grateful country honoring its brave and dedicated sons.