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Upcoming Book Group Meetings

La Selva Beach Branch Library
 (10:30 AM-12:00 PM)
Location: La Selva Beach
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Virtual Location
 (7:00 PM-8:30 PM)
Location: Virtual Library
Room: Online
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Virtual Location
 (10:30 AM-11:30 AM)
Location: Virtual Library
Room: Online
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Garfield Park Branch Library
 (10:30 AM-12:00 PM)
Location: Garfield Park
Room: Garfield Park Branch Library, 705 Woodrow Ave, Santa Cruz, 95060
La Selva Beach Branch Library
 (10:30 AM-12:00 PM)
Location: La Selva Beach
Register Now!

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)

We found results for your search "author"

Browse Book Kits

Authors - S

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
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.

The Catcher in the Rye

by J.D. Salinger

In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen-year-old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City.

The Bookseller of Kabul

by Asne Seierstad

Capturing the harsh realities of life in modern-day Afghanistan and plight of Afghan women, the Norwegian journalist provides a portrait of a committed Muslim man, a bookseller, and his family living in post-Taliban Kabul, Afghanistan.

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.

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.

And the band played on

by Randy Shilts

An examination of the AIDS crisis critiques the federal government for its inaction, health authorities for their greed, and scientists for their desire for prestige in the face of the AIDS pandemic, in a twentieth anniversary edition of the acclaimed exposé.

The Weight of Water

by Anita Shreve

A double narrative set on and around an island off the coast of New Hampshire. A vacationing woman investigates the house and environs where a murder took place more than 100 years ago.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

by Dai Sijie

Two boys are sent to the countryside to be re-educated in this fable set during China's Cultural Revolution. They discover hope through forbidden western literature, but find hope can be cruel and corrupting.

Old age is another country: a traveler's guide

by Page Smith

Smith tells us how to grow old with dignity, humor, and active participation in life during the sometimes puzzling retirement years.

White Teeth

by Zadie Smith

Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

by Betty Smith

Armed with her idealism and determination, young Francie Nolan struggles to escape from the poverty of life in a Brooklyn tenement during the early 1900s.

I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

In a classic English story, Cassandra Mortmain chronicles in her diary what happens to her eccentric family when a young American man inherits the local estate. The bittersweet love story that ensues is far more complicated than she ever imagines.

The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

Moving his young bride to an isolated lighthouse home on Australia's Janus Rock where the couple suffers miscarriages and a stillbirth, Tom allows his wife to claim an infant that has washed up on the shore, a decision with devastating consequences.

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

The biblical account of Cain and Abel is echoed in the history of two generations of the Trask family in California.

The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Depicts the hardships and suffering endured by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

Red Letter Days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

When two brave women flee from the Communist Red Scare, they soon discover that no future is free from the past. Amid the glitz and glamour of 1950s New York, Phoebe Adler pursues her dream of screenwriting. A dream that turns into a living nightmare when she is blacklisted--caught in the Red Menace that is shattering the lives of suspected Communists. Desperate to work, she escapes to London, determined to keep her dream alive and clear her good name. There, Phoebe befriends fellow American exile Hannah Wolfson, who has defied the odds to build a career as a successful television producer in England. Hannah is a woman who has it all, and is now gambling everything in a very dangerous game--the game of hiring blacklisted writers. Neither woman suspects that danger still looms...and their fight is only just beginning.

Red letter days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

When two brave women flee from the Communist Red Scare, they soon discover that no future is free from the past.

Olive Kitteridge

by Elizabeth Strout

The world of Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher in a small coastal town in Maine, is revealed in stories that explore her diverse roles in many lives, including a lounge singer haunted by a past love, her stoic husband, and her own resentful son.

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