Literary

Family secrets are an intriguing part of literature in both fiction and nonfiction. Unearthing them is often painful, and keeping them hidden is often even worse -- according to the selections of local book clubs in October. Werewolves were also on the prowl during this month we share with Halloween.

The turn of seasons leads borough book clubs in some different directions as summer arrives. Some like to do lighter page-turners while others turn to comptemplating crime, class and society. If you want to witness what goes on in a courtroom, or how people make it out of the ghetto, here are some recent picks -- winsome or weighty.

The rain, the wind, fog and lightning do not deter them. Snug in their raincoats, brandishing umbrellas, and weighed down with sacks and cartons of books, the Highland Park community pours into the library on a recent Tuesday morning.

Of course the first step was to explore through attics and dive into basements, packing cartons of books: the telltale evidence of mystery book clubs; the college chums that changed your life; troubled assets from Borders and Waldenbooks; gently-loved hand-me-downs from the children . . .  they all go into the mix and magic comes out.

April can be the cruelest month, especially if it keeps snowing. Hopefully by the time you read this, the tulips are twirling in a balmy breeze.

The borough's bookclubs are poking back up into reality, too; with a thinly veiled memoir by a Nobel laureate who married both his aunt and his first cousin -- not at the same time! -- and two full-on non-fictions that are stranger than the material in most novels.

Linger in the season of love with an affair! You don't even have to be unfaithful to your spouse or significant other.

Just pick up a novel, one by a literary giant, and then converse about it with your bookclub. You're safe as an armchair detetective: no fuss, no stress, no lawyer bills. Just all the lust you can handle between the sheets (of paper).

On a bitterly cold dark night last week, Dr. Deborah Kaple spoke to a full room at the Highland Park Public Library about a place much colder and much darker than any of the audience members could ever imagine: the Gulag, the Soviet Union's infamous system of prison camps.

Highland Park's various book clubs are taking on some of the big stuff: race, religion, politics; and also reading authors that simply want to offer a means of escape to the great wide open. Two November authors created their own universes to ask some big questions, while others painted a picture of domestic hell.

Three foreign born writers take on the challenge of New York City, its intoxicating promise as well as the punches it doles out to the novice and the native alike.

The evening began with snakes and ended with birds, when the Cool Women Poets arrived to perform at the Highland Park Public Library. The performance group, centered in Princeton, has roots that grow as close as Highland Park and as far as Portland, Oregon.