Memoirs & Coffee Book Discussion Group to Meet

The next meeting of Bernardsville Library’s book discussion group, Memoirs and Coffee, will be held at 10:30 am on Tuesday, March 23 in the library’s Community Room. Pat Kennedy-Grant, Readers’ Services Coordinator for the library, will lead the discussion of The Occupied Garden: A Family Memoir of War-Torn Holland (2009) by sisters Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski. [The authors will not be present.]

The book is about the experiences and struggle to survive of the two sisters’ grandparents who were living in Holland when the Nazis invaded in 1940. Den Hartog and Kasaboski began piecing the story together after their grandparents died, combing through Dutch archives, family lore, and a neighbor’s wartime diary. The reviewer for the Montreal Gazette said of the book: “Moving and lyrical . . . If this book were less carefully crafted and not as well written, it would be mere family history. Instead, it’s also the history of a country—and of the people who lived in it during a terrible time.”

There is no charge to attend the book discussion, and no sign-up is needed. For further information, call the library at 908-766-0118.