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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.

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Titles

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
The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down

by Anne Fadiman

A tragic tale of cultural differences chronicles the fight over the proper care of an epilectic Hmong child between a California medical center and her tradition-minded Laotian refugee family.

State of Wonder

by Ann Patchett

A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh must step out of her comfort zone when she is sent into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years--a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past.

Station eleven

by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven is a post-apocalyptic novel that examines human survival, art, and memory, highlighting that "survival is insufficient" and that connection, culture, and creativity are essential facets of a meaningful life.

Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years--as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues--Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. Isaacson's portrait touched millions of readers. At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering. Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. He himself spoke candidly about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues offer an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

Still Life With Bread Crumbs

by Anna Quindlen

Abandoning her expensive world to move to a small country cabin, a once world-famous photographer bonds with a local man and begins to see the world around her in new, deeper dimensions while evaluating second chances at love, career and self-understanding.

The Stone Diaries

by Carol Shields

In this Pulitzer Prize winning book, Daisy Goodwill attempts to understand her place in the world as she nears the end of her life. She narrates her own biography, from her birth in Manitoba in 1905 when she loses her mother to childbirth, through her college years, her marriages and her work as a newspaper columnist.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

A. J. Fikry's life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

by Alan Bradley

Eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is propelled into a mystery when a man is murdered on the grounds of her family's decaying English mansion and Flavia's father becomes the main suspect.

The tattooist of Auschwitz

by Heather Morris

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew, is forcibly transported to the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners. Imprisoned for over two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism--but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home

by Carol Rifka Brunt

Her world upended by the death of a beloved artist uncle who was the only person who understood her, fourteen-year-old June is mailed a teapot by her uncle's grieving friend, with whom June forges a poignant relationship.

The Tenderness of Wolves

by Stef Penney

When her teenage son disappears in the aftermath of a brutal murder, a determined mother sets out from her snow-covered nineteenth-century settlement to find him, an effort that is hampered by vigilante groups and the harrowing forces of nature.

There There

by Tommy Orange

Tommy Orange's shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to each other in ways they may not yet realize. There is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and working to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, who is pulling his life back together after his uncle's death, has come to work at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil has come to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, utterly contemporary and always unforgettable.

Things in nature merely grow

by Yiyun Li

Yiyun Li reflects on her life after both of her teenage sons died by suicide, years apart. Rather than presenting grief as a process that leads toward healing, closure, or meaning, Li deliberately resists many of the conventions of memoir and bereavement writing.

The Thirteenth Tale

by Diane Setterfield

Having spent sixty years creating a series of alternate identities for herself, enigmatic Vida Winter pens a painful letter to young Margaret Lea when the latter begs her to disclose the truth about her secretive birth.

Thousand Pieces of Gold

by Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Lalu Nathoy's father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his "thousand pieces of gold," yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly, as Lalu is later called, is sold to a brothel, sold again to a slave merchant bound for America, auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and offered as a prize in a poker game. This biographical novel is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for independence and dignity in the American West.

Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson

A portrait of the Edwardian era recounts two parallel stories--the case of Dr. Hawley Crippen, who murdered his wife and fled to America, and Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of wireless communication--as the new technology is used to capture a killer.

Tilt

by Emma Pattee

The story is a profound exploration of motherhood, personal identity, and the impact of climate change. It follows Annie, a pregnant woman in her final weeks, as she navigates the aftermath of a massive earthquake in Portland, Oregon.

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

The novel is centered around Lara Nelson, who, during the Covid-19 pandemic, recounts her youthful romance with a famous actor to her daughters while sheltering at their Michigan cherry farm.

Tortilla Curtain

by T.C. Boyle

The lives of two very different couples--wealthy Los Angeles liberals Delaney and Kyra Mossbacher, and Candido and America Rincon, a pair of Mexican illegals--suddenly collide, in a story that unfolds from the shifting viewpoints of the various characters.

TransAtlantic

by Colum McCann

A tale spanning 150 years and two continents reimagines the peace efforts of democracy champion Frederick Douglass, Senator George Mitchell and World War I airmen John Alcock and Teddy Brown through the experiences of four generations of women from a matriarchal clan.

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Resources for Your Book Group

BookBrowse Book Club Resources

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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

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