Book Club Kits

Radioactive is an an innovative type of book: a graphic biography that adeptly combines the author’s vibrant cyanotype prints with a narrative story of Marie and Pierre Curie and their discovery of radioactivity and its applications in the last century. Weaving her own narrative and images together with historical documents, photographs, and artwork, Redniss has created a reading and viewing experience that uniquely blends art and science. Chosen as the 2012-13 UW-Madison Go Big Read selection.

Civil rights advocate and legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that a new permanent under-class has been created by the war on drugs and the denial of equal access to employment, housing, public benefits and education to ex-prisoners.

In this humorous love story a proper, retired British army officer and a shopkeeper of Pakistani heritage begin a romance despite family problems and cultural barriers.

Interwoven stories of three American women at the start of World War II: a single 40-year old postmistress in a small town on Cape Cod,  a newlywed new to the town, and a reporter in London working under Edward R. Morrow.

The deftly wry, deeply romantic story of Davie Jones -- an "ugly duckling" from small-town Mississippi with a voice like Tina Turner, who escapes to Los Angeles to try to make it big, and risks losing her soul along the way to finding her fairy tale ending.

A suburban mother raising three teenage children and running a landscaping business has an ordinary life with ordinary problems until the family is engulfed in a violent tragedy.

Between World War I and 1970, six million black Americans left the South for the East Coast, West Coast, or Midwest. This non-fiction book tells the story of  this “Great Migration” by focusing on the lives of three of the people who made the move.

Jacob Hunt, a teen with Asperger’s syndrome, becomes a suspect in a terrible murder which shines the spotlight on his family.  This medical courtroom drama deals with issues of what it means to be different, how autism affects the family, and how the legal system can fail people who cannot communicate well.

A woman of intelligence, cunning and ambition intent on consolidating and maximizing her power emerges against the romanticized, melodramatic vixen portrayed in Western history in this thoroughly researched biography of Cleopatra.

Bill Bryson relates the history of a household by touring his own home, a Church of England rectory built in the nineteenth century, and relating stories of everyday objects and how they transformed the way people lived.

Funny, humble and pensive—Michael’s life is changing as he’s pulled in different directions all at once.

In this pre- and post-9/11 novel Tassie, a student at thinly veiled UW-Madison, hires on as a nanny for the owner of a pricey French restaurant who adopts a mixed-race child.

A chronicle of the author's year long quest to find happiness through testing ideas from age old wisdom, popular culture, and current scientific research.

Cape Cod is the home of memories good and bad for Jack Griffin. When he returns there post-divorce for his daughter’s wedding, comedy and pathos join forces to create a memorable event.

A chance discovery of items left behind by Japanese-Americans forced into internment camps during World War II causes Henry Lee, a Chinese-American and recent widower, to reflect on his first romance with Keiko, which ended when her family was evacuated.

A fictionalized biography of the author's  grandmother, Lily Casey Smith,  who was a mustang breaker, school teacher, bootlegger, poker player, racehorse rider, bush pilot, ranch wife and mother.

A gothic tale set in 1907 Wisconsin told from two viewpoints: Ralph Truitt, a wealthy businessman who advertises for a wife for practical reasons, and Catherine Land, a beauty hungry for riches, posing as a dowdy daughter of a missionary.

Escaping from civil war and genocide in his home country of Burundi, Deogratias, a young medical student, comes to New York city with $200. Despite  facing many obstacles, Deo becomes an Ivy League student and eventually goes back to Burundi to found a public health clinic.