JMRL blog

“With my pencil, I wrote myself into being.” Central Library’s Brown Baggers had a lively discussion of Percival Everett’s award-winning 2024 novel “James” on February 12th.  (Everett appeared in Charlottesville at The Paramount to talk about “James” as part of the 2024 Virginia Festival of the Book.) A modern retelling of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of […]

Books on Tap met Feb. 5th to discuss “Master Slave Husband Wife: an Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom” by Ilyon Woo.  A 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner for biography, the book tells of the journey of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who disguise themselves as master and slave in 1848 to travel from Macon,Georgia to […]

Each year, kids across Virginia vote for their favorite nominee to win the Virginia Readers’ Choice (VRC) Award. This year, JMRL is focusing on the Primary category featuring ten new picture books! View the titles in JMRL’s Find It Catalog or in Libby. From these lists, you can click on each book to see its […]

Central Library’s Brown Baggers book group met on Thursday, January 15th to discuss “The Women”  by Kristin Hannah.  This selection of historical fiction covers the experience of a young nurse who signs up to serve in the US Army Nurses Corp during the Vietnam War, and also the treatment and trauma she experienced once she […]

JMRL invites individuals, community organizations and businesses to participate in the 8th annual How-To Festival on Saturday, May 2nd from 10am-1pm inside and outside Central Library. Share your knowledge/skills/services and promote your business, organization or cause. The How-To Festival is a drop-in library takeover event with short presentations and demos on a variety of topics. […]

Be sure to join JMRL in hosting bestselling author Sadeqa JohnsonFriday, 3/20 @ 6pm at theJefferson School African American Heritage Center Also available as a livestream on Youtube About Same Page Community Read: Each year, JMRL invites all book lovers to participate in the Same Page Community Read throughout March, providing residents with the opportunity […]

Jefferson-Madison Regional Library is joining Jumpstart in celebrating BIG this year! Jumpstart’s Read for the Record is turning 20, continuing its mission of uniting millions of adults and children to read the same book on the same day, highlighting the critical importance of early literacy. On February 26, 2026, JMRL will join in by hosting […]

Central Library’s Brown Baggers held their annual holiday potluck and selection meeting on December 18th, 2025.  This group has been meeting since 2008 and the annual meeting in December is when the titles are chosen for June-May of the next year.  Each attendee is invited to suggest up to 3 titles for the group to […]

On Saturday, February 7, 2026, JMRL will celebrate Take Your Child to the Library Day. Now in its 15th year, this annual event is a wonderful opportunity for kids and their families to enjoy the library and learn about all of the free resources public libraries provide to the community. JMRL helps families build solid […]

Books on Tap met on Jan. 8th at Random Row to discuss The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb. Although a very difficult and emotional read, the novel was well received by the group and garnered votes of 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 (1 being the worst) to 5. Most readers could […]

For November 20th, the Central Library Brown Baggers read and discussed “I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings” published in 1969  by Maya Angelou.  This title is the first of seven titles in her autobiographical series so a good place to start!  For most of our readers, it was their first time reading Angelou. The […]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Dylan Padilla, pr@jmrl.org, David Plunkett, director@jmrl.org Sadeqa Johnson’s The House of Eve selected as JMRL’s 2026 Same Page Community Read Programs and events planned for March in partnership with Virginia Festival of the Book CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Dec. 19, 2025 – JMRL and Virginia Humanities are pleased to announce that Sadeqa Johnson’s The […]

Patrons checked out over 1,900,000 items this year. That’s That’s more than 5,000 items per day, all year long. No paywalls, no algorithms; just your library doing what it does best! This year, JMRLCelebrates 650,000 + Library Visitors 105,000 + Program Attendees 222,000 + Holds Placed This year, Patronssigned up for over 9,600 new library […]

On November 6, Books on Tap met to discuss The House in the Cerulean Sea  by T.J. Klune. Klune is an American author whose books feature LGBTQIA+ characters. He won a Lambda Award in 2014 for Into This River I Drown. He started writing at the age of 8 and was influenced by Stephen King, […]