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Location: Garfield Park
Room: Garfield Park Branch Library, 705 Woodrow Ave, Santa Cruz, 95060
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Location: La Selva Beach
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 (1:00 PM-2:30 PM)
Location: Aptos
Room: Dorosin Memorial Conference Room
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 (2:00 PM-3:15 PM)
Location: Live Oak
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Book Discussion Kits

The Kits

To help your book discussion group, we've gathered a collection of popular paperback titles and sorted them into kits. Each bag contains eight paperback copies of the selected title and a list of suggested discussion questions. The loan period is normally two months, but a maximum of three months can be given upon request at check out. You can borrow three kits at one time and they aren't renewable.

If a Book is Lost

If your group loses a copy of the book, we just ask that you replace it with another paperback copy of the book, new or second hand, that is clean and readable.

Book Discussion Kit

Book Kits (Search Results)

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Browse Book Kits

Titles - M

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
MaddAddam

by Margaret Atwood

In this final volume of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of the population. Toby is part of a small band of survivors, along with the Children of Crake: the gentle, bioengineered quasi-human species who will inherit this new earth. As Toby explains their origins to the curious Crakers, her tales cohere into a luminous oral history that sets down humanity's past--and points toward its future. Blending action, humor, romance, and an imagination at once dazzlingly inventive and grounded in a recognizable world, MaddAddam is vintage Atwood--a moving and dramatic conclusion to her epic work of speculative fiction.

A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

A feel-good story in the spirit of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Fredrik Backman's novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others.

Margot

by Jillian Cantor

In this excellent re-imagining of Anne Frank's sister's experience in post-war America, Margie Franklin, a.k.a. Margot Frank - a young woman working as a secretary at a Jewish law firm in Philadelphia, finds her carefully constructed life falling apart when her sister, Anne Frank, becomes a global icon.

The marriage portrait

by Maggie O'Farrell

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell is a historical fiction novel about Lucrezia de' Medici, the third daughter of the grand duke of 16th century Florence, who is forced to marry the Duke of Ferrara at age 15. The novel explores themes such as marriage at a young age, abuse and control, and the dark personality of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara.

The Martian

by Andy Weir

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills--and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit--he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Mary Coin

by Marisa Marisa Silver

An extraordinarily compassionate and wise novel, Mary Coin imagines the life of Dorothea Lange's iconic "Migrant Mother." What emerges, in Silver's nuanced, resonant telling, is a poignant exploration of a single life that touches many others, and a powerful, moving portrait of America during the Great Depression.

Melissa come back

by Patrice Keet

"Is that our Melissa?" Patrice cries when she recognizes the woman at the speaker's podium. It is their Melissa-the foster child Patrice and her husband, Bob, haven't seen since she ran away from their comfortable home at the age of eleven. Now, she's a thirty-year-old woman at a fundraising dinner, describing her journey through foster care, teenage pregnancy, abuse, and the loss of her own children to the social services system. In an instant, two decades of buried shame and guilt come roaring back to Patrice: If only she hadn't failed Melissa as a foster mother. When they are finally reunited after twenty years, Melissa and her pre-teen daughters are facing eviction, presenting Patrice and Bob with the opportunity to make Melissa part of their family once again.

Mexican gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic is a 2020 feminist Gothic novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia that follows Noemí Taboada, a young socialite who travels to El Triunfo in 1950s Mexico to rescue her cousin, Catalina. The novel is set in a mansion called High Place, which represents the family's decline, and is filled with ghosts and other haunted elements.

Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

Seven-year-old Rachel is forcibly removed from her family's 1890s Honolulu home when she contracts leprosy and is placed in a settlement, where she loses a series of new friends before new medical discoveries enable her to reenter the world.

Monk of Mokha

by Dave Eggers

Mokhtar Alkhanshali is twenty-four and working as a doorman when he discovers the astonishing history of coffee and Yemen's central place in it. He leaves San Francisco and travels deep into his ancestral homeland to tour terraced farms high in the country's rugged mountains and meet beleagured but determined farmers. But when war engulfs the country and Saudi bombs rain down, Mokhtar has to find a way out of Yemen without sacrificing his dreams or abandoning his people.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things

by Alice Hoffman

The daughter of a curiosities museum's front man pursues an impassioned love affair with a Russian immigrant photographer, who after fleeing his Lower East Side Orthodox community, has captured poignant images of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

Musicophilia

by Oliver Sacks

In this book, Oliver Sacks explores the power music wields over us; a power that sometimes we control and at other times don't. He explores, in his inimitable fashion, how it can provide access to otherwise unreachable emotional states, how it can revivify neurological avenues that have been frozen, evoke memories of earlier, lost events or states or bring those with neurological disorders back to a time when the world was much richer.

My Life in France

by Julia Child

A memoir begun just months before Child's death describes the legendary food expert's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence and her journey from a young woman from Pasadena who cannot cook or speak any French to the publication of her legendary Mastering cookbooks and her winning the hearts of America as "The French Chef."

My name is Lucy Barton

by Elizabeth Strout

"My Name Is Lucy Barton" is the story of a writer reckoning with the legacy of a scarred family life and slowly coming to terms with the costs and the rewards of her art.

Resources for Your Book Group

BookBrowse Book Club Resources

BookBrowse offers a wealth of resources for book clubs, including: Top 10 Book Club Recommendations, advice, reading guides, online book discussions, book club interviews - and much, much more. Free for patrons - just login with your library card!

Additional Resources

  • Amazon.com

    Amazon.com's recommendations for book discussion groups. Browsable by category.

  • SCPL Books & Reading Resources

    Links to online resources that will help you find new books, lists of award winners, and author information.

How to Start

  • Book Club How-to's

    Everything you need to start and run a successful and fun book club. -- Advice from Book Browse