Book Club Kits

A teenage boy struggling with schizophrenia in this deeply powerful and personal novel from one of today's most admired writers for teens.

The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts--and shapes--their family's future.

This novel tells the story of two French sisters, one married with children, and the other a rebellious teenager, who struggle to survive the many hardships and abuses of German occupation during World War II, each finding her own path to resistance.

Rachel, whose life has spiraled into depression and alcoholism, becomes intrigued by a couple she dubs Jess and Jason who she spots from her commuter train every day.  One day as she is passing their home, she sees Jess kissing a man who is not her husband.  Shortly after, Jess disappears entirely.  Told from the intersecting perspectives of Rachel, Jess and Anna, Jess’s neighbor, an intriguing thriller unfolds.  But who is telling the truth?

In this prize-winning novel of the Vietnam War, a double-agent, half-French and half-Vietnamese, leaves his homeland and comes to America after the Fall of Saigon. While building a new life in California, he continues to report back to his Communist supervisors.

Lotto and Mathilde’s marriage seems charmed, beginning with a whirlwind romance and withstanding years of poor idealism to yield financial and artistic success.  But every story has two sides, and Groff masterfully portrays a complex marriage, first from Lotto’s perspective and then a very different version from Mathilde’s point of view.

One doctor's passionate and profound memoir of his experience grappling with race, bias, and the unique health problems of black Americans.

In this National Book Award-winning memoir, journalist Coates recounts his experience growing up black and offers penetrating insight into the state of race relations in America today. 

An earlier written sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird set in the 1950s, Go Set a Watchman casts the beloved characters of Scout and Atticus in a new light, and poses the question of how far we have really come in the battle against discrimination. 

A childhood Halloween prank with horrible consequences comes back to haunt a man and his family in this Madison-set thriller.  

British naturalist Macdonald undertakes the training of a goshawk as a means of working through the grief at the sudden loss her father, himself a falconer.   

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need. One of his first clients was Walter McMillian, a man on death row for a murder he didn’t commit. Here Stevenson details the legal journey to McMillian’s release as well as those of others he’s helped in his now thirty year career.

Opening up a vintage clothing shop in Madison has always been Violet’s dream, but making it a success is entirely different challenge.  Teenager April is trying to recover from a broken engagement and the looming birth of her child.  Amithi struggles with the betrayal of her husband and tension with her tradition-averse daughter.  These different women connect over vintage cloth and learn to face down the upheavals of their lives to emerge stronger together. 

While modern medicine has developed breathtaking advances in the pursuit to extend life, the ability of doctors treat the realities of aging and dying often runs counter to the best interests of the patient.  Surgeon Gawande examines the limitations of medicine at the end of life, and speaks with those in the profession who are turning ‘a good death’ into a quality life to the very end. 

This is a graphic memoir by a New Yorker cartoonist, both hilarious and horrifying,  in which she uses cartoons, hand-written text, and photographs to recount the story of her parents' last years and to explore  her difficult relationship with them.

Left for dead after an accident, astronaut Mark Watley is stranded on the surface of Mars.  Left with only enough food and supplies for a few months, Watley has to rely on his wits and ingenuity to survive.

Sarah Grimke, a well-to-do daughter of antebellum Charleston receives a ten-year old slave girl, Hetty ‘Handful’ Grimke, on her eleventh birthday.  Both women know they are meant to do more in the wider world, and yearn to escape the respective paths of life they were born to.  Over the course of their thirty-five year relationship, their destinies overlap and intertwine through slavery, freedom and the complexities of love, against the backdrop of the abolition and early women’s movements.   

Inspired by events in the life of anthropologist, Margaret Mead, this is the fictional story of a love triangle among three anthropologists working in New Guinea, who display three completely different approaches to studying other cultures.

Ove has always lived his life according to strict principles, earning him the status of lead curmudgeon in his neighborhood.  But when life threatens to overwhelm even the firmly stoic Ove, a comedic cast of characters comes to the rescue—and proves that help can come from the most surprising of sources. 

This novel tells the story of five friends who grew up together in the fictional small town of Little Wing, Wisconsin: a famous musician, a wealthy commodities trader, a former rodeo star, and a married couple who stayed in the community as farmers.