Book Drives New York

Books, Conversation & Community

Welcome to the very first gathering of the Bed-Stuy Book Club. This is a community-centered book club for readers in and around Bed-Stuy who want thoughtful conversation, new connections, and a shared love of books. For our first meetup, we’re keeping it simple: come meet fellow readers, talk about books you’ve loved recently and help choose future reads. You do NOT need to read anything beforehand for this first event. Whether you’re an avid reader or trying to get back into reading regularly, you’re welcome here.

Manhattan Smutty Book Club - Ice Planet Barbarians

It's finally happening. We are reading **[Ice](https://www.romance.io/books/551ce3c65b270e0a4cbd35b7/ice-planet-barbarians-ruby-dixon)**[ ](https://www.romance.io/books/551ce3c65b270e0a4cbd35b7/ice-planet-barbarians-ruby-dixon)**[Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon](https://www.romance.io/books/551ce3c65b270e0a4cbd35b7/ice-planet-barbarians-ruby-dixon)!** This book has been discussed and passed over for ten years because the dark start of the book does not match the tone of the book or the series. **If you are triggered by trafficking, rape, suicide and forced abortion, then please skip the first 19 to 21 pages.** The rest of the book is powerful women and sexy aliens. Rumor has it the print version available at Target is edited to better match the tone of the series. It would be cool if someone could pick that book up so we can compare. Here's what the author says: *You'd think being abducted by aliens would be the worst thing that could happen to me. And you'd be wrong. Because now, the aliens are having ship trouble, and they've left their cargo of human women - including me - on an ice planet. And the only native inhabitant I've met? He's big, horned, blue, and really, really has a thing for me...* Please join us at Cornerstone Tavern, 961 2nd Ave, New York, NY (51st and 2nd) for great conversation, laughs, and friendship. Look for our signs, and listen for the laughter. We are often in the back of Cornerstone behind the curtain, which is actually a different restaurant called the Stags Head. We start at 7pm, but feel free to come early before happy hour ends at 7. People usually start to drift in by 6:30pm.

June 2026 Book Club: The Life Impossible

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk

NYC Romcom Book Club 💕 Elevator Pitch by Evelyn Leigh

At this meeting we will discuss the Elevator Pitch by Evelyn Leigh 😊

It’s No joke it’s April new book club book It Girl ..Allison Pataki

Okay so many of our members are 9-5 during weekdays and miss our mall walks in preparation for our outdoor activities for evening and weekends this spring So while we wait on Mother Nature Let’s exercise our mind. I’ve selected The book “It Girl” The story of the original Gibson girl the woman who captured the imagination of new yorkers while Becoming the face of beauty but the rise to the top was filled with heart ache ,pain determation and murder, encountering power hungry men , and the crime of the century . This book will lead to a future trip to learn more about the real life inspiration for this book Meetup time frame for book readers is April 1 st to end of may. But site won’t allow that to be posted. So please write finish date I. Your personal calendar

June Book Club!

“Heartwood” - Amity Gaige: Brunch and Book Chat

Book to be discussed: “Tramps Like Us” by Joe Westmoreland

"*Tramps Like Us* is a modern day Huckleberry Finn. It's an all-American story about the search for home, for a better life, feeling like a refugee in one's own country. It's about creating a family from a group of misfits. It tells what it was like to come of age in the era between gay liberation and the beginning of the AIDS crisis." — [goodreads.com](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/217388193-tramps-like-us?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_16) After the meeting, we head over to Julius' (one of the oldest operating gay bars in NYC) to chat about things other than books. Julius' is at 159 West 10th Street (on the corner of Waverly Place, about a block from the library). www.juliusbarny.com

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

WE ARE MEETING IN THE SECOND FLOOR OF BROOKFIELD PLACE NEAR THE TABLES BY "CLEAN MARKET" Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own. Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek: The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world. That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault. Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams…. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion. With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like. But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.

Join us at the Lammy Awards!

So Big by Edna Ferber

We've been talking about reading more classic literature, and somehow Edna Ferber came to mind. She wrote "ShowBoat" and "Saratoga Trunk" and so many important works of the early 20th century. "So Big" was the one that won the Pulitzer. It's both a little story and a big story, a family story and an American story. It's about an American woman raising her son on her own, and the American society they move in and that shapes them. And the lady can write! Ferber's Pulitzer and still a moving and powerful book.