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What Are You Reading? Podcast
Podcast featuring special guest Peeri will be discussing, The Outlander Series. February 22, 2021
4:00 PM |
Together We Read's Digital Book Pick

#TogetherWeRead, a digital book club connecting readers to the same ebook & audiobook at the same time with no waitlists or holds, begins Feb.10th! The featured title is ‘Love Lettering’ by Kate Clayborn. This title will be available February 10-24.
Listen to a podcast interview with the author:
Interview with the Author
Borrow the featured title & join the discussion: togetherweread.com/us
Listen to a podcast interview with the author:
Interview with the Author
Borrow the featured title & join the discussion: togetherweread.com/us
Hoopla Book Club
Each quarter, Hoopla will release a new spotlight selection title, discussion guide, author content and more! Hoopla will also curate additional recommended titles for diverse audiences.
Hoopla titles are always available- no holds, or waiting! Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a novel by Toshikazu Kawaguchi will be the featured book club title now through March 31, 2021.
Join the conversation- follow Hoopla on Twitter @HooplaDigital, #hooplabookclub and #discoverreadshare.
Hoopla titles are always available- no holds, or waiting! Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a novel by Toshikazu Kawaguchi will be the featured book club title now through March 31, 2021.
Join the conversation- follow Hoopla on Twitter @HooplaDigital, #hooplabookclub and #discoverreadshare.
Before the Coffee Gets Cold
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi Read by: Arina Ii Genre: Magical Realism Publisher: Hanover Square Release Year: 2020 Length: 208 pages / 6h 52m
What would you change if you could travel back in time? Down a small alleyway in the heart of Tokyo, there's an underground café that's been serving carefully brewed coffee for over a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers its customers something else besides coffee-the chance to travel back in time.
The rules, however, are far from simple: you must sit in one particular seat, and you can't venture outside the café, nor can you change the present. And, most important, you only have the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee-or risk getting stuck forever.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of traveling to another time: a heartbroken lover looking for closure, a nurse with a mysterious letter from her husband, a waitress hoping to say one last goodbye, and a mother whose child she may never get the chance to know.
Heartwarming, wistful, and delightfully quirky, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the intersecting lives of four women who come together in one extraordinary café, where the service may not be quick, but the opportunities are endless.
Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi Read by: Arina Ii Genre: Magical Realism Publisher: Hanover Square Release Year: 2020 Length: 208 pages / 6h 52m
What would you change if you could travel back in time? Down a small alleyway in the heart of Tokyo, there's an underground café that's been serving carefully brewed coffee for over a hundred years. Local legend says that this shop offers its customers something else besides coffee-the chance to travel back in time.
The rules, however, are far from simple: you must sit in one particular seat, and you can't venture outside the café, nor can you change the present. And, most important, you only have the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee-or risk getting stuck forever.
Over the course of one summer, four customers visit the café in the hopes of traveling to another time: a heartbroken lover looking for closure, a nurse with a mysterious letter from her husband, a waitress hoping to say one last goodbye, and a mother whose child she may never get the chance to know.
Heartwarming, wistful, and delightfully quirky, Before the Coffee Gets Cold explores the intersecting lives of four women who come together in one extraordinary café, where the service may not be quick, but the opportunities are endless.
"Kawaguchi’s tender look at the beauty of passing things, adapted from one of his plays, makes for an affecting, deeply immersive journey into the desire to hold onto the past. This wondrous tale will move readers."
— Publishers Weekly |
"Kawaguchi’s characters all have a role to play, and the way they interact with each other, between the staff and the patrons, creates an environment where the reader, too, can feel welcomed and optimistic."
— The Chicago Review of Books |
Loved Before the Coffee Gets Cold? Then try these next recommended reads.
Past Hoopla Book Club Titles and Resources

The Fixed Stars Author: Molly Wizenberg Read by: Erin Mallon Genre: Memoir Publisher: Abrams Release Year: 2020 Length: 256 pages / 6h 22m
From a bestselling memoirist, a thoughtful and provocative story of changing identity, complex sexuality, and enduring family relationships.
At age 36, while serving on a jury, author Molly Wizenberg found herself drawn to a female attorney she hardly knew. Married to a man for nearly a decade and mother to a toddler, Wizenberg tried to return to her life as she knew it, but something inside her had changed irredeemably. Instead, she would discover that the trajectory of our lives is rarely as smooth or as logical as we'd like to believe.
Like many of us, Wizenberg had long understood sexual orientation as a stable part of ourselves: we're "born this way." Suddenly she realized that her story was more complicated. Who was she, she wondered, if something at her very core could change so radically? The Fixed Stars is a taut, electrifying memoir exploring timely and timeless questions about desire, identity, and the limits and possibilities of family. In honest and searing prose, Wizenberg forges a new path: through the murk of separation and divorce, coming out to family and friends, learning to co-parent a young child, and realizing a new vision of love. The result is a frank and moving story about letting go of rigid definitions and ideals that no longer fit, and learning instead who we really are.
From a bestselling memoirist, a thoughtful and provocative story of changing identity, complex sexuality, and enduring family relationships.
At age 36, while serving on a jury, author Molly Wizenberg found herself drawn to a female attorney she hardly knew. Married to a man for nearly a decade and mother to a toddler, Wizenberg tried to return to her life as she knew it, but something inside her had changed irredeemably. Instead, she would discover that the trajectory of our lives is rarely as smooth or as logical as we'd like to believe.
Like many of us, Wizenberg had long understood sexual orientation as a stable part of ourselves: we're "born this way." Suddenly she realized that her story was more complicated. Who was she, she wondered, if something at her very core could change so radically? The Fixed Stars is a taut, electrifying memoir exploring timely and timeless questions about desire, identity, and the limits and possibilities of family. In honest and searing prose, Wizenberg forges a new path: through the murk of separation and divorce, coming out to family and friends, learning to co-parent a young child, and realizing a new vision of love. The result is a frank and moving story about letting go of rigid definitions and ideals that no longer fit, and learning instead who we really are.

The Bear
Author: Andrew Krivak Read by: Eric Jason Martin Genre: Fiction, Dystopian & Literary Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press Release Year: 2020 Length: 224 pages / 4 hours
In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.
A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature's dominion.
Author: Andrew Krivak Read by: Eric Jason Martin Genre: Fiction, Dystopian & Literary Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press Release Year: 2020 Length: 224 pages / 4 hours
In an Edenic future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They possess a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb. The father teaches the girl how to fish and hunt, the secrets of the seasons and the stars. He is preparing her for an adulthood in harmony with nature, for they are the last of humankind. But when the girl finds herself alone in an unknown landscape, it is a bear that will lead her back home through a vast wilderness that offers the greatest lessons of all, if she can only learn to listen.
A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature's dominion.
"[A] tender apocalyptic fable . . . endowed with such fullness of meaning that you have to assign this short, touching book its own category: the post-apocalypse utopia."
— Wall Street Journal |
"Refreshing. . . . A simple story written with an unflinching but compassionate voice, Krivak’s tale should be thoughtfully savored while it slowly winds its way into your moral conscience."
— Kyle Evans | Springfield-Greene County Library |
A Letter from Hoopla Book Club: "Why We Love The Bear"
Libraries Transform Book Pick
ALA, American Library Association Libraries Transform Book Pick is a digital reading program that connects readers nationwide by offering free access to the same ebook through public libraries.Through the OverDrive or Libby online service, patrons will have access to the the chosen book with no hold or wait times. This title is also always available on Hoopla. Follow the Libraries Transform Book Pick on Facebook and Twitter and join in the discussion on social media using the hashtag #LTBookPick.