Events and Programs

2008 Book Club Café Featured Betsy Carter

Nearly 200 people joined us for the 11th annual Book Club Café featuring Betsy Carter, author of Swim to Me: A Novel on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. If you weren't one of them, you can still enjoy the Book Club Café Participants Favorite Books of the Year list!

SWIM TO ME is an entertaining, incandescent, and heartwarming story about a young woman who becomes the star attraction in the “City of Live Mermaids.”

When Delores Walker steps off the bus in Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida, she is determined to become one of the famous mermaids at the fabled roadside attraction on the beautiful Gulf Coast. A resourceful, young woman from an unhappy family, Delores finds herself in a world of outcasts and underdogs, all with great aspirations. Eager to reinvent herself, Delores also changes the fate of the people in her life and of the seedy Weeki Wachee.

With the new Walt Disney World Resort opening only miles north in Orlando, Weeki Wachee has a hard time turning a profit with their underwater theatrical performances. However, once everyone’s luck changes the reader is treated to a magical novel of family, of chasing dreams, and of finding your way. And in the end, there is the discovery that anyone can be family you can count on—even those you started out with.

Carter conjures up a time in America when anything was possible, especially in the Sunshine State. SWIM TO ME is a perfect summer novel and one that will have you believing in the impossible—even mermaids from the Bronx.

Betsy Carter is the author of The Orange Blossom Special, and her memoir, Nothing to Fall Back On, was a national bestseller. She currently writes for O: The Oprah Magazine, New York, Good Housekeeping, and Hallmark magazine, among others; formerly served as an editor at Esquire, Newsweek, Harper’s Bazaar, and New York Woman; and was founding editor-in-chief of AARP's My Generation magazine. She lives in New York City.

Previous Café Authors:

2008 - Betsy Carter, author of Swim to Me: a Novel
2007 - Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants
2006 - Sara Rath, author of Star Lake Saloon and Housekeeping Cottages
2005 - Dean Bakopoulos, author of Please Don't Come Back from the Moon
2004 - Elizabeth Berg
2003 - Deborah Blum, author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection
2002 - Patty Loew, author of Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal
2001 - Margaret Drabble - afternoon appearance
2001 - Jane Hamilton - evening appearance
2000 - Bob Kann, author of Celebrating 125 Years of Madison Public Library
1999 - Margaret George
1998 - Jacquelyn Mitchard

All proceeds from the Book Club Café directly benefit Madison Public Library. We appreciate your support!