PLEASE NOTE: This Book Club is for adults and high school students only. If you are a middle school student looking to join a SJCPLS Book Club, please visit our Teen page for Youth Book Clubs and other great activities for middle schoolers:  SJCPLS Teen Events

The Ponte Vedra Beach Branch Library’s Book Lovers Book Club meets twice a month in 2022 – in person on Friday morning and via Zoom on Wednesday evening – so everyone can join in, even if you work or go to school! All adults and high school teens are invited to participate. If you can’t join us in person, please visit this link to RSVP for our Zoom Book Lovers Book Club meeting this month:  Book Lovers Book Club in-person meeting

The August selection our Book Club will be reading is The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb. Print copies of The Violin Conspiracy, while they last, are available at the Adult Reference Desk at the Ponte Vedra Beach Branch Library for checkout. You can also request a copy of this selection in our catalog:  The Violin Conspiracy. If you need assistance requesting this selection, please stop by the Adult Reference Desk or call our Library at (904) 827-6950. This selection is also available as an e-book and as an e-audiobook in our database, Overdrive, which is also available as a free app called Libby for all Android and Apple devices. We can’t wait to discuss this book with you!

Book Synopsis  “From The Violin Conspiracy:  Growing up Black in rural North Carolina, Ray McMillian’s life is already mapped out. If he’s lucky, he’ll get a job at the hospital cafeteria. If he’s extra lucky, he’ll earn more than minimum wage. But Ray has a gift and a dream — he’s determined to become a world-class professional violinist, and nothing will stand in his way. Not his mother, who wants him to stop making such a racket; not the fact that he can’t afford a violin suitable to his talents; not even the racism inherent in the world of classical music. When he discovers that his great-great-grandfather’s beat-up old fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, all his dreams suddenly seem within reach. Together, Ray and his violin take the world by storm. But on the eve of the renowned and cutthroat Tchaikovsky Competition — the Olympics of classical music — the violin is stolen, a ransom note for five million dollars left in its place. Ray will have to piece together the clues to recover his treasured Strad…before it’s too late. With the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray’s great-great-grandfather asserting that the instrument is rightfully theirs, and with his family staking their own claim, Ray doesn’t know who he can trust — or whether he will ever see his beloved violin again.” (taken from Reading Group Guides)

Thank you to the Friends of the Ponte Vedra Beach Branch Library for sponsoring our branch library’s Book Lovers Book Club!