Welcome to Book Bar's official Literary Fiction & Classics Book Club. This month's selected book is The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (book description is located at the bottom of this listing).

So come out, grab a drink at our beverage bar, and join us for a lively book discussion! When you purchase this book club pick from us, your support will help us be here for a long time and put on more events! Purchasing options are below:

In Store: Stop by our location at 50 N. Railroad St. in Palmyra, PA!

Shipped: To purchase from Bookshop and get it delivered straight to your door, order from the following link: https://bookshop.org/a/98905/9781912714957 (If you purchase here, we will receive a percentage of this sale).

Ebook: Bookshop now offers Ebooks for indie booksellers. Find it here: https://bookshop.org/a/98905/9781443420860 (we will receive a percentage of this sale).

Audiobook: You can purchase audiobooks from us on Libro.fm. This audiobook can be easily found on our May 2025 Book Club Picks playlist here: https://libro.fm/playlists/9148?bookstore=bookbarus (we will receive a percentage of this sale).

We look forward to seeing you!

Book Description:

In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled "A Story of a Man of Character," The Mayor of Casterbridge, Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard, is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.