Events Calendar

Come enjoy a sale of gently used and donated books, CDs, audiobooks, and higher priced specialty books during the Wisconsin Book Festival from October 17-20! All proceeds go to support Madison Public Library.

Prices include: 

• $2 Hardcover
• $1 Paperback
• $1 Children's hardcover and Children's DVDs
• $2 Feature DVDs
• $1 CDS and Audiobooks on CD
• $.50 Children's paperbacks
• Higher priced treasures

The sale will take place on the first floor of Central Library outside of the Friends of the Madison Public Library Book Store! Friends can accept cash, check or credit cards. 

About the Friends Bookstore: 

The bookstore is volunteer-run and open at the same hours as Central Library. Thanks to the proceeds from the bookstore and Friends’ membership dues, the Friends of Madison Public Library (at Central Library) have funded the following: a $100,000 pledge to the Central Library, the Library's Beyond the Page Program, a portion of the Library's Summer Reading Program (WE READ), audiobook collection sponsorship, the New York Times and Wisconsin State Journal subscriptions, and a portion of the Naturalist-in-Residence program. Learn more about the Friends or become a member by visiting their website at friendsmpl.com.

65+ author events over four days in and around the Central Library. See a full schedule at https://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org

Join us for a mystery book group discussion of "Small Mercies" by Dennis Lehane. Books are available at the library. New members always welcome!

"In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessy is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of “Southie,” the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart.

One night Mary Pat’s teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn’t come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances.

The two events seem unconnected. But Mary Pat, propelled by a desperate search for her missing daughter, begins turning over stones best left untouched—asking questions that bother Marty Butler, chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don’t take kindly to any threat to their business.

Set against the hot, tumultuous months when the city’s desegregation of its public schools exploded in violence, Small Mercies is a superb thriller, a brutal depiction of criminality and power, and an unflinching portrait of the dark heart of American racism. It is a mesmerizing and wrenching work that only Dennis Lehane could write." -- Amazon.com