06/19/2026
Join us for our next Books on Main read!
Books on Main is our daytime book club designed to help readers explore a variety of genres, guided by Library staff.
Next month we will meet on July 16 to discuss TAfter Annie by Anna Quindlen.
Books are available at the front desk while supplies last! Additional copies are available for checkout at BPL and on the Libby app but may have a waiting list, so place your hold now!
Books are provided by the Arkansas State Library and the Friends of the Bentonville Library.
Find more about BPL service for readers at BentonvilleLibrary.org/BPLforReaders (linked in bio).
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About the book:
When Annie Brown dies suddenly, her husband, her children, and her closest friend are left to find a way forward without the woman who has been the lynchpin of all their lives. Bill is overwhelmed without his beloved wife, and Annemarie wrestles with the bad habits her best friend had helped her overcome. And Ali, the eldest of Annie's children, has to grow up overnight, to care for her younger brothers and even her father and to puzzle out for herself many of the mysteries of adult life.
Over the course of the next year what saves them all is Annie, ever-present in their minds, loving but not sentimental, caring but nobody's fool, a voice in their heads that is funny and sharp and remarkably clear. The power she has given to those who loved her is the power to go on without her. The lesson they learn is that no one beloved is ever truly gone.
Written in Quindlen's emotionally resonant voice and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is about hope, and about the unexpected power of adversity to change us in profound and indelible ways.
