One Book
One Book Chelmsford is a community-wide reading program encouraging all residents to read a selected title and attend programming related to the book. The title is selected each Fall and the Library provides free copies to share. Related programs typically start early in the calendar year and often include a visit from the author. The library has been offering this program since 2007.
One Book 2023: Migrations, by Charlotte McConaghy
Franny Stone has always been the kind of woman who is able to love but unable to stay. Leaving behind everything but her research gear, she arrives in Greenland with a singular purpose: to follow the last Arctic terns in the world on what might be their final migration to Antarctica. Franny talks her way onto a fishing boat, and she and the crew set sail, traveling ever further from shore and safety. But as Franny’s history begins to unspool—a passionate love affair, an absent family, a devastating crime—it becomes clear that she is chasing more than just the birds. When Franny’s dark secrets catch up with her, how much is she willing to risk for one more chance at redemption?
Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy’s Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.
We have copies of the book available, and we’ll announce related events as soon as we finalize dates and times!
Stay tuned for information about the author visit, and join us for One Book events during April and May!
This year, the One Book programs are funded by:
Past One Book Selections
- 2022: On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong
- 2021: How to Be a Good Creature, by Sy Montgomery
- 2020: Kitchen Yarns, by Ann Hood and Relish by Lucy Knisley
- 2019: Counting Descent, by Clint Smith, and The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
- 2018: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – watch the video from the event
- 2017: Stronger, by Jeff Bauman
- 2016 “Keeping Chelmsford in Suspense!”: The Columbus affair by Steve Berry, The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan, and There was an Old Woman by Hallie Ephron
- 2015: The Sandcastle Girls, by Chris Bohjalian
- 2014: The Art Forger, by B. A. Shapiro
- 2013: Townie, by Andre Dubus III
- 2012: March, by Geraldine Brooks, and Confederates in the Attic, by Tony Horwitz
- 2011: Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
- 2010: Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane
- 2009: Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson
- 2008: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
- 2007: Empire Falls, by Richard Russo