Book Club Café set for Monday, May 19
The Book Club Café is an annual Friends of Madison Public Library tradition - an event where book club members and other book lovers gather to celebrate reading and Madison's public libraries.
This year's celebration is extra special because it's the 25th Anniversary of the Book Club Café and the 150th Anniversary of Madison Public Library!
Event Details
- Date: Monday, May 19
- Time: 7-9pm. Doors open 6:45pm with general seating
- Featured Author: Christina Clancy for The Snowbirds
- Ticket Price: $25
We've scheduled the Book Club Café to take place alongside the 150th Anniversary celebrations happening in Madison's libraries in May, so be sure to attend all of the fun activities planned to promote literacy, discuss books, and support our local libraries.
Purchase a Ticket to the 2025 Event
Bestselling author Christina Clancy will headline the 25th Anniversary Book Club Café fundraiser hosted by the Friends of Madison Public Library on Monday, May 19 at Central Library. Clancy will discuss her third novel The Snowbirds, which was recently featured at the Wisconsin Book Festival and was named one of People’s Best New Books of February 2025.
Book Club Café attendees receive coffee, tea, etc., and copies of The Snowbirds will be available for purchase thanks to Mystery to Me Books. At the event, raffle tickets will be available and attendees can win mystery bags of new or almost-new books as prizes, with all proceeds going to benefit Madison Public Library.
One of the popular returning features of the Book Club Café is the complimentary Book Club Favorites booklet that each attendee receives. The booklet includes recommendations from local book club members and individuals on their favorite titles from the last year! You can submit your top titles now through Monday, May 5 for inclusion in this year's Book Club Favorites booklet.
Now in its 25th year, the Book Club Café is an opportunity for Dane County book club members and individual reading enthusiasts to show their support for the library system. The fundraiser will take place alongside other events happening in Madison Public Libraries throughout May to mark the 150th Anniversary of libraries in Madison.
Book Club Café tickets are $25 each, and pre-registration is required. The event takes place from 7-9pm. Registration is available online or in-person at library locations.
2024: Amy Pease
Amy Pease is an alumna of the University of Wisconsin and the Madison Writer’s Studio, and works as a nurse practitioner, where she is a nationally recognized HIV specialist. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two children. Amy's debut novel, Northwoods, was called "a riveting debut by a nurse practitioner with an insider's view of the opioid epidemic," by People magazine.
2023: Maggie Ginsberg
Maggie Ginsberg is the author of Still True, winner of the Wisconsin Library Association's 2023 WLA Literary Award for Fiction and the single honorable mention selection for the 2022 Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, among other honors. Maggie is now a senior editor at Madison Magazine, where she has worked full-time since 2020 after freelancing for city, regional and national magazines since 2006. She has published hundreds of articles throughout her career, earning numerous awards from the City Regional Magazine Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the Milwaukee Press Club. Follow her online via her website or on Instagram.
2019: Lucy Tan
Lucy Tan is the author of What We Were Promised, which was long listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a Best Book of 2018 by The Washington Post, Refinery 29, and Amazon. Lucy received her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was awarded the 2016 August Derleth Prize and currently serves as the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow. Her work is published or forthcoming in journals such as McSweeney’s, Asia Literary Review and Ploughshares.
2018: Chloe Benjamin
Chloe Benjamin is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Immortalists, a #1 Indie Next Pick, #1 Library Reads pick, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, Amazon Best Book of the Month, and an iBooks Favorite. Her first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was long listed for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages. Originally from San Francisco, CA, Chloe is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. She lives with her husband in Madison.
Follow online via her website, or @chloekbenjamin on Twitter and Instagram.