Find your next great read and some lively conversation with the Ames Free Library Book Club! Copies of each selection are available at the Circulation Desk approximately one month before the meeting.

The Ames Free Library Book Club meets on the second Wednesday of every month at 1:30 P.M. We welcome all new members! Subscribe to the "AFL Book Club" e-newsletter to receive book club reminders and updates.

If you're unable to attend this meeting in person, we're happy to offer a hybrid meeting option! Contact the library at info@amesfreelibrary.org or 508-238-2000, ext. 3 and we will provide a Zoom link. Please note that we require at least 24 hours notice.

This month's selection is: Factory Girls by Michelle Gallen

"It's the summer of 1994, and all smart-mouthed Maeve Murray wants are good final exam results so she can earn her ticket out of the wee Northern Irish town she has grown up in during the Troubles. She hopes she will soon be in London studying journalism--away from her crowded home, the silence and sadness surrounding her sister's death, and most of all, away from the violence of her divided community.

As a first step, Maeve's taken a job in a shirt factory working alongside Protestants with her best friends. But getting the right exam results is only part of Maeve's problem--she's got to survive a tit-for-tat paramilitary campaign, iron 100 shirts an hour all day every day, and deal with the attentions of Handy Andy Strawbridge, her slick and untrustworthy English boss. Then, as the British loyalist marching season raises tensions among the Catholic and Protestant workforce, Maeve realizes something is going on behind the scenes at the factory. What seems to be a great opportunity to earn money turns out to be a crucible in which Maeve faces the test of a lifetime. Seeking justice for herself and her fellow workers may just be Maeve's one-way ticket out of town."