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Book Club Kits
Thinking about starting a book club? We can help!
Types of Kits We Offer
- Book Club Kits
Six copies of the title in hardback or paperback. - Book Club Kits+
The title comes in a variety of formats. It may include a large print version, an audiobook version, or a DVD if the book has been made into a movie.
Every kit includes a reader’s guide, discussion questions and an author spotlight. This document can be found on our website as a PDF.
It’s easy to search for a Book Club Kit. Go to our online catalog and type in “book club kit.”
Additional Information
Book club kits check out for six weeks at a time. A kit may be renewed if there are no holds on it.
Book club kits cannot be guaranteed for specific dates. We recommend having a second or third choice of title in case you cannot check out your first choice at the time you desire.
If a kit is returned with missed or damaged items, the library will charge the library card holder the price of the item plus a $5.00 processing fee. Replacement fees are as follows:
- Book - depends upon format
- Reader’s guide - $10.00
- Tote bag - $15.00
- Entire kit - $125.00 to $175.00, depending on the contents of the kit
Book Club Kit Titles
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six. Her father builds a perfect miniature of their Paris neighbourhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. But when the Nazis invade, father and daughter flee with a dangerous secret.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Atonement by Ian McEwan
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge. By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Big Fish by Daniel Wallace
In his prime, Edward Bloom was an extraordinary man. He could outrun anybody. He never missed a day of school. He saved lives and tamed giants. Animals loved him, people loved him, and women loved him. He knew more jokes than any man alive. At least that‘s what he told his son, William. But now Edward Bloom is dying, and William wants desperately to know the truth about his elusive father’s this indefatigable teller of tall tales before it’s too late.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Commonwealth is the story of two broken families and the paths their lives take over the course of 40 years, through love and marriage, death and divorce, and a dark secret from childhood that lies underneath it all.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Dead Wake by Erik Larson
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its 10th month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. The Lusitania, however, was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds” -- the fastest liner in service -- and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack.
Germany was determined to change the rules of warfare, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small -- hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more -- converged to produce one of the greatest disasters of history.
Nonfiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
The book’s two most powerful figures, the great architect Daniel Burnham and the psychopathic killer, Henry H. Holmes, in many ways embody the opposing forces of the age. Burnham was responsible for building the White City, overcoming a series of crushing professional obstacles and personal tragedies to make the Fair the magical, awe-inspiring event that it was. He brought together some of the greatest architects of the day—Charles McKim, George Post, Richard Hunt, Frederick Law Olmsted, and others—convinced them of the importance of the Fair, and somehow got them to work together to achieve what many considered to be an impossible project in an astonishingly brief amount of time. Simultaneously, in the shadow of the White City, Henry H. Holmes set up his own World’s Fair Hotel to take advantage of naive young single women arriving in Chicago from surrounding small towns. Using his mesmerizing charm and an uncanny ability to fend off creditors and police, Holmes bent his victims to his will and committed a series of murders as cold-blooded as any in American history.
Nonfiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Euphoria by Lily King
Euphoria is the story of three young gifted anthropologists in 1933 caught in a passionate love triangle that threatens theirs bonds, their careers, and ultimately their lives. Set between World War I and II and inspired by events in the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is an enthralling story of passion, possession, exploration and sacrifice.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer
Meet nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who is an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, and correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. He is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow tells the story of a Russian aristocrat living under house arrest in a luxury hotel for more than thirty years. The novel immerses the reader in an elegantly drawn era with the story of Count Alexander Rostov. When, in 1922, he is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the count is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him a doorway into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
A remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette’s brilliant and charismatic father captured his children’s imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn’t want the responsibility of raising a family.
Nonfiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Here I Am by Jonathan Foer
Unfolding over four tumultuous weeks in present-day Washington, D.C., Here I Am is the story of a fracturing family in a moment of crisis. As Jacob and Julia Bloch and their three sons are forced to confront the distances between the lives they think they want and the lives they are living, a catastrophic earthquake sets in motion a quickly escalating conflict in the Middle East. At stake is the very meaning of home—and the fundamental question of how much aliveness one can bear
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Stretching from the tribal wars of Ghana to slavery and Civil War in America, from the coal mines in the north to the Great Migration to the streets of 20th century Harlem, Yaa Gyasi's has written a modern masterpiece, a novel that moves through histories and geographies and - with outstanding economy and force - captures the troubled spirit of our own nation.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
In the Darkroom by Susan Faludi
When feminist writer Susan Faludi learned that her seventy-six-year-old father -- long estranged and living in Hungary -- had undergone sex reassignment surgery, the revelation would launch her on an extraordinary inquiry into the meaning of identity in the modern world and in her own haunted family saga.
Nonfiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
In the Woods by Tana French
As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled sneakers, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
Inspiring and affecting, LaRose is a powerful exploration of loss, justice, and the reparation of the human heart, and an unforgettable, dazzling tour de force from one of America’s most distinguished literary masters.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
After President Lincoln's eleven-year-old son, Willie, dies, newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body. From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins a story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory - called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo - where a monumental struggle erupts over his young soul.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien
The much-anticipated new novel from the literary world's master of storytelling, Edna O'Brien. Vlad, a stranger from Eastern Europe masquerading as a healer, settles in a small Irish village where the locals fall under his spell. One woman, Fidelma McBride, becomes so enamored that she begs him for a child. This is a story about love, and the endless search for it. It is also a story about mankind's fascination with evil and how long and crooked the road towards home is.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Drawing on years of research, Horan weaves little-known facts into a compelling narrative, vividly portraying the conflicts and struggles of Mamah, a woman forced to choose between the roles of mother, wife, lover, and intellectual. Mamah’s is an unforgettable journey marked by choices that reshape her notions of love and responsibility, leading to this novel’s stunning conclusion.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
The Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
The elderly Claudia Hampton, a best-selling author of popular history; lies alone in a London hospital bed. Memories of her life still glow in her fading consciousness, but she imagines writing a history of the world. Instead, Moon Tiger is her own history, the life of a strong, independent woman, with its often contentious relations with family and friends. At its center -- forever frozen in time, the still point of her turning world -- is the cruelly truncated affair with Tom, a British tank commander whom Claudia knew as a reporter in Egypt during World War II.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community-and the things that ultimately haunt us most.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Book one in the New York Times bestselling Neapolitan quartet about two friends growing up in post-war Italy is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted family epic by Italy's most beloved and acclaimed writer, Elena Ferrante.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn't spoken for many years, comes to see her. Gentle gossip about people from Lucy's childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy's life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The circus arrives without warning. Behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF).
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Younger, bolder sister Isabelle lives in Paris while Viann lives a quiet and content life in the French countryside with her husband Antoine and their daughter. When World War II strikes and Antoine is sent off to fight, Viann and Isabelle's father sends Isabelle to help her older sister cope. The sisters find themselves facing frightening situations and responding in ways they never thought possible as bravery and resistance take different forms in each of their actions.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
Korea, 1911: While the country is caught in the throes of a brutal Japanese occupation, a matchmaker performs a small miracle. Hoonie, a disabled peasant with no marriage prospects, is wed to a 15-year-old girl named Yangjin. Against all odds, true love blossoms and they have a daughter named Sunja. Thus begins an expansive, multigenerational saga charting the fates of Sunja, her children, her grandchildren, and their fortunes as members of the much maligned class of Korean-Japanese “Zainichi.”
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Parable of the Sowers by Octavia Butler
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren's father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, war, and chronic shortages of water, gasoline, and more. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others. When fire destroys their compound, Lauren's family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is facing apocalypse. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
It is 1922 and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned and the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. In South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed, as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be for them.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Power by Naomi Alderman
In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: there's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power--they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks
Brooks takes on one of literature’s richest and most enigmatic figures: a man who shimmers between history and legend. Peeling away the myth to bring David to life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to murderous despot and into his remorseful and diminished dotage.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
Stoner by John Williams
Born the child of a poor farmer in Missouri, William Stoner is urged by his parents to study new agriculture techniques at the state university. Digging instead into the texts of Milton and Shakespeare, Stoner falls under the spell of the unexpected pleasures of English literature, and decides to make it his life. Stoner is the story of that life.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Following the Fall of Saigon, the protagonist is ordered by his communist handler to join the horde of refugees fleeing the country, eventually making his way to Southern California. As a spy and political ideologue, the protagonist must navigate the complexities and acute self-doubt of a double identity: colluding in South Vietnamese military plans while secretly undermining them, yielding at times to the temptations of American consumer culture while fighting to remain committed to his socialist ideals. The missions he is tasked with undertaking require him to confront not only his own sense of virtue and humanity, but all the existential crises attached to a life lived almost entirely in disguise.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter Hartright becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.
Fiction: See the Reader's Guide (PDF)