Reviewed by Matthew Smith

The thing I most enjoy about being at the library is that I get so many opportunities to talk to people about books. Every reader comes to a story with their unique personality and a different set of experiences and I find that everyone has something unique and interesting to share about a book they’ve read or an audiobook they have listened to. 

This is a big reason why I manage our community reading list for the Homer Public Library, the Lit Lineup. For the first time this year, the library is organizing a book Trivia Night based on eight books from the 2026 Lit Lineup that will take place on Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. at Alice’s Champagne Palace. I am eager for this opportunity to celebrate reading, to celebrate stories and to celebrate the people who enjoy them.

The eight books that will be included in the trivia night are “A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck” by Sophie Elmhirst, “Black Woods Blue Sky” by Eowyn Ivey, “Buckeye” by Patrick Ryan, “The Correspondent” by Virginia Evans, “The Emperor of Gladness” by Ocean Vuong, “Everything is Tuberculosis” by John Green, “The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by John U. Bacon and “My Friends” by Fredrik Backman.

This event is still more than three months away, so there is plenty of time to read some or all of these books. Our list includes both well-regarded fiction and non-fiction books. I personally enjoyed “The Correspondent” and “Black Woods Blue Sky,” and I have “The Gales of November” and “The Emperor of Gladness” waiting on my bedside table to be read next. A group of four of us are preparing the questions for the event and are planning the evening.

Team sizes can be anywhere from 1 to 8 people, and participants will answer trivia questions in six rounds. Participants do not have to have read all of the books. A few book clubs in town have already expressed interest in the trivia contest and are reading the books on our list. While there is a competitive element to trivia, our hope is that this will be a fun event to celebrate great stories with people who care about books and reading, so if you’ve only read one of the books or even none of the books, we hope you’ll join us for a lively evening of questions, answers and a little bit of entertainment.

The library has multiple copies of almost all the books on our list, and there are also e-book and e-audio copies of these titles on the Alaska Digital Library. The FHL/HPL Book Club just had a great discussion about “The Gales of November” as their June reading selection. If you are looking for a great group of people to talk about books with, you can join them every fourth Tuesday of the month at 4:30 p.m. in the library meeting room of the Homer Public Library. Either way, I hope to see you at the end of October at Alice’s Champagne Palace for Lit Lineup Trivia.

The Lit Lineup Trivia books and the rest of the Lit Lineup books, as well as approximately 40,000 other items, are available for check-out from the library Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday between 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. or on Tuesday and Thursday between 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Tune in next Sunday morning at this same time for Reading Between the Lines right here on KBBI AM 890, Homer and 88.1 FM Seward.

Happy reading.

Reading Between the Lines is a co-production of KBBI AM 890 and volunteers with the Friends of the Homer Public Library, and airs on KBBI every Sunday at 9:45 a.m. These reviews are reprinted with permission from KBBI and the Friends of the Homer Public Library. Program recordings can be found on the Friends of the Homer Library website.