Book Club Kits by Title

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
A humorous, gritty, autobiographical novel of a budding cartoonist, who leaves his troubled school on a Spokane Indian reservation to attend an all-white town school. Book Discussion Questions from Sherman Alexie

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
Kingsolver and her family eat only local food for a year, including home-raised turkeys and chickens and garden grown and canned veggies. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Art of Fielding : a novel by Chad Harbach
Hank Skirmshander looks to be a rising baseball star, but his talents take a serious dive while playing for Westish College. His one errant throw impacts the lives of five people in unexpected ways. Book Discussion Questions from Book Browse

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
An honest and controversial memoir of a Chinese-American mother who parents her two high achieving daughters in a strict, authoritarian way. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Ruby Lennox gives an account of family life above a petshop in England, revealing the lives of the women in her family, from her great-grandmother's affair with a French photographer to her mother's unfulfilled dreams of Hollywood glamour. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Blood, Bones and Butter: the Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
A memoir of the owner and chef of Prune, a famous NYC restaurant. Hamilton writes 'the whole truth' of her life and work, including her happy young childhood, the petty crime and drug abuse of her teen years, her grueling early restaurant jobs, unconventional marriage and success as a restauranteur and chef. Book Discussion Questions from Random House

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Narrated by Death, this novel for adults and teens tells the story of Liesl Memeinger, a German girl living through the Holocaust who finds strength and wisdom in the books she steals. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Bossypants by Tina Fey
A comic memoir by the former Saturday Night Live writer, actress and star of the sitcom “30 Rock”. Book Discussion Questions from Lit Lovers

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Death row prisoner seeks atonement through donation of his heart to his victim's sister. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Color of Water by James McBride
This memoir combines accounts of McBride’s childhood in a mixed-race family and his mother’s life history, and is a powerful portrait of growing up, a meditation on race and identity, and a poignant hymn from a son to his mother. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert
The author of Eat, Pray, Love examines her decision to marry and broadens her book to include interviews with married people from a variety of cultures as well as Western research on marriage. Book Discussion Questions from MPL and Penguin Press

Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting by Michael Perry
Funny, humble and pensive—Michael’s life is changing as he’s pulled in different directions all at once. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
An autistic teen narrates this story of his adventure trying to solve a mystery surrounding the discovery of the murdered corpse of his neighbor’s pet poodle. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James
In this sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, set six years after Elizabeth and Darcy’s marriage, the domestic tranquility of their estate at Pemberley is disrupted when a visitor is found murdered in the woods. Book Discussion Questions from Lit Lovers

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Two events focused attention on Chicago in 1893: the World’s Fair with it’s hundreds of newly built structures (all white), and the investigation into the crimes of Dr. Henry Holmes, reputedly the first American serial killer. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

A Discovery of Witches by Harkness Deborah
In this mix of history, mythology and magic Diana Bishop, a young scholar and descendant of witches, discovers a long lost manuscript on alchemy in the Bodleian Library, summoning a fantastical underworld which she explores with vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont. Book Discussion Questions from Penguin

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
In this collection of humorous essays, David Sedaris discusseschildhood, family and relationships, revealing that "normal" is truly arelative term. Book Discussion Questions From Madison Public Library

Driftless by David Rhodes
Narrated with humor, suspense, and empathy, a diverse cast of characters in small town in Wisconsin get entangled in family secrets, legal battles with a corrupt milk cooperative, gambling, dogfighting, and a miracle cure, amongst other things. Book Discussion Questions from ICB

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
A memoir of a year-long journey of soul searching and self discovery through the sensual delight in Italy; meditation in India; and love in Indonesia. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Educating Esme by Esme Codell
Your first year teaching at a poor urban school can really be tough. Esme, however, has energy, wit, big ideas and a touch of cynicism. Written in diary form, we read about her successes and failures as a teacher as she experiences them over the course of a year. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario
A Honduran young man rides the tops of trains through Mexico to the U.S. to reunite with his mother as chronicled by Pulitzer Prize winning author Nazario. From his family’s life of poverty in Honduras to life-risking attempts to cross the border to political realities in Mexico and the U.S., this highly engaging work is sure to challenge some of our beliefs about immigration. Chosen as UW's 2011 Go Big Read selection. Book Discussion Questions from MPL & UW Madison

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The personal dynamics and moral compromises of a married Midwestern couple, their son Joey, and their rock star friend Richard Katz are explored against a backdrop of contemporary American issues including ecological degradation and war profiteering. Book Discussion Questions from Reading Group Guides

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
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. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
The final installment of the Millennium Trilogy. Here Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist are joined by a couple of secondary female characters that are strong and appealing, and this third book returns to earlier story threads to tie up loose ends. Book Discussion Questions from Reading Group Guides

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
The second novel in Larsson's Millennium Triology. This time computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, who is evolving as a character as the series progresses, takes center stage in a plot involving sex trafficking in Sweden. Book Discussion Questions from Reading Group Guides

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
A maid in the house of the artist Vermeer inspires the painter to do a portrait of her wearing his wife's pearl earring, causing a scandal that changes the young woman's life. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson
Lisbeth Salander, a pierced and tattooed genius hacker, and Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist, investigate the disappearance and perhaps murder of Harriet Vanger, young scion of one one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. Book Discussion Questions from Bookbrowse

The Girls from Ames by Jeffrey Zaslow
The true story of a 40-year friendship among 11 childhood friends through college, careers, marriage, motherhood, divorce, illness, and the mysterious death of one. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
Walls recalls growing up in a dysfunctional yet creative family with a brilliant, charismatic father, who was destructive and dishonest when he drank, and a free-spirited artist mother, who hated domesticity and the responsibility of raising a family. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
This circuitous and suspenseful novel is set in 1960s India against a background of political unrest and social taboos deals with a family shattered by tragedy. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann and Annie Barrows Shaffer
A novel in letters about the WWII German occupation of Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands between France and England. An often sweet and funny book, with tinges of sadness. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Two Pulitzer Prize winning authors issue a call to arms against the oppression of women in the developing world. The book highlights individuals working to effect change -- covering topics such as sex slavery, maternal mortality, and gender-based violence. Book Discussion Questions from Book Browse

Handle With Care by Jodi Picoult
A daughter born with a severe bone disease is the central focus of the family, to the detriment of her older sister and her parents’ marriage. When her mother pursues a suit against her obstetrician best friend, the family implodes. Book Discussion Questions from Barnes and Noble

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In 1960s Jackson, Mississippi aspiring author Skeeter, who is white, gains the trust of some of the town's black maids and departs from her newspaper advice column assignment to secretly write a book from their point of view about being 'the help.' Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
A gothic ghost story and tale of sibling rivalry begins with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat bordering on historic Highgate Cemetery to the twin daughters of her long estranged twin sister in Chicago. Book Discussion Questions from Regal Literary

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
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. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of Collins’ violent trilogy, stands in for her sister in the Hunger Games, where teenagers must fight each other to the death for the entertainment of people living in a darkly envisioned near-future US. Book Discussion Questions from Reading Group Guides

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American cancer patient, wife and mother, and of her cells, known as HeLa cells. HeLa cells are used daily in labs worldwide, yet Lacks' family was unaware of their use until more than 20 years after her death. Book Discussion Questions from MPL and UW

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Winner of the Booker Prize, this novel has two story threads: a granddaughter in the Himalayan foothills fall in love with her tutor, and an immigrant from the same place tries to make it in NYC. Book Discussion Questions from BookBrowse

The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
A group of six (including one man) meet monthly to discuss Jane Austen's novels. As the reader listens in on their discussions we hear not just about the books, but their lives and loves as well. Book Discussion Guide from Penguin Putnam

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Harrison William Shephard, whose father is American and mother is Mexican, lives in Mexico in the 1930s with Diego Rivera, his wife Frida Kahlo, and their houseguest Leon Trotsky. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan
The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is traced through the personal histories of two who occupied the same house at separate times: Dalia, a woman whose family of Bulgarian Jews immigrated to Israel in 1948, and Bashir, a man whose family was driven out of Palestine. Book Discussion Questions from BloomsburyUSA

Let's Pretend This Never Happened : (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson
Jenny Lawson’s first and funny novel following the immense popularity of her blog “The Bloggess”. Topics range from anxiety disorder to a zombie apocalypse, as described or imagined in Lawson’s quirky voice. Book Discussion Questions from Penguin

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
An Indian boy, Piscine Patel (aka ‘Pi’) and his zookeeping family are emigrating to Canada. While on a container ship enroute to their new life, an accident at sea leaves Pi and a tiger in a lifeboat floating on the Pacific Ocean. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
A lighthouse keeper and his wife, who live on a remote island off Western Australia, are desperate to have children. When they find a baby miraculously washed up on shore, they adopt her-- a decision that leads to ethical dilemmas for everyone involved. Book Discussion Questions from Simon & Schuster

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
A love triangle between Brown University students Madeleine, an English major writing her senior thesis; Leonard, a brilliant student with bipolar disorder; and Mitchell, a religious studies major, is the backdrop for this novel set in the 1980s. Book Discussion Questions ReadingGroupGuides

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
A story of how the actions taken by a father, done with good intentions, can lead to the destruction of his family. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
A young girl discovers she's actually a hermaphrodite in her teen years. This is a story of her family's history beginning with their escape from Greece as well as her own experiences growing up in Detroit in the 1960's. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
This is the first in a series of gentle mysteries. Precious Ramotswe operates in Botswana, running an agency where the solving of the ‘mystery’ is often secondary to the exploration of family, customs and alternate methods of justice. Book Discussion Guide from Random House

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
This ‘novel in stories,’ set in small town Maine, centers on Olive Kitteridge, a difficult-to-like retired teacher and her friends and acquaintances. Together they reveal their follies, foibles, difficulties and capacity for change. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
Hadley Richardson’s marriage to Ernest Hemingway, then a young reporter, took her from small-town St. Louis to the glamour of Paris in the 1920’s. Based on letters, biographies, and memoirs, this is a fictional account of their marriage, told from Hadley's point of view. Book Discussion Questions from Random House

Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Set in a small town in the plains of Colorado, this novel tells the interrelated stories of eight characters whose lives undergo radical change during the course of one year. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry
EMT and former nurse Perry moves back to his hometown - New Auburn, WI - after years away. His stories about his emergency calls are compelling and his ruminations on small town life unique. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
Summer in a corner of southern Appalachia serves as the setting for the adventures and struggles of three free-spirited women, who have intimate ties to the natural world. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: a Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss
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. Book Discussion Questions from MPL & UW

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
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. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Run by Ann Patchett
Adoption, race, class, and family are explored in this novel about three brothers and their widowed father. Book Discussion Questions from LitLovers

The Scent of God by Beryl Bissell
A former nun recounts her cloistered life as well as her romance with a priest 25 years her senior that culminated in marriage. Joys and sorrows follow as she has two children, yet loses her husband to cancer and one daughter to murder. Book Discussion Questions from the author

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Small-town Georgia in 1964 is the setting for this novel of beekeeping, civil rights, and a girl's yearning for her deceased mother. Despite the difficult subjects, this novel is sad but warm and, ultimately, uplifting. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Sing You Home by Picoult Jodi
A music therapist whose marriage falls apart after a miscarriage subsequently finds love with another woman and wants to start a family with her new partner. At the same time, her ex-husband, a recovering alcoholic, joins an anti-gay church. Book Discussion Questions Simon & Schuster

The Soloist by Steve Lopez
Journalist Lopez befriends a schizophrenic former Juilliard student playing a battered violin beside a shopping cart of belongings in L.A. Chosen by Porchlight as their Madison Cares community read. The full title is The Soloist: a Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music. Book Discussion Questions from Porchlight

South of Broad by Pat Conroy
A diverse group of high school seniors in Charleston, S.C. are close friends in 1969 and reunite 20 years later. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
In chapters that alternate between the history of the Hmong and a highly personal story of a young Hmong girl who is severly ill with seizures, we learn about Hmong culture and the dramatic clash between it and American medicine in the early 1990s. The full title is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Deep in the Amazon, a medical researcher making incredible discoveries is keeping them secret from the company funding her work. When the first colleague dispatched to get answers goes missing, another is sent, and readers follow along on a perilous journey full of ethical quandaries. Book Discussion Questions from LitLovers

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Biography of the creative entrepreneur and head of Apple, Inc. who was a complex, driven, perfectionist as well as a bully. Isaacson was granted extensive access to Jobs himself as well as his family, friends, colleagues, and competitors. Book Discussion Questions from Simon and Schuster

Still Life by Louise Penny
This traditional mystery begins with the finding of the body of Jane Neal, a retired school teacher and talented amateur artist in the woods near a small Quebec village, the apparent victim of a tragic hunting accident. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

A Stolen Life by Dugard Jaycee
Kidnapped and held captive for 18 years by a man and woman in their backyard, Dugard shares the details of her life in captivity, the birth of her children while there, and how she was finally discovered and freed. Book Discussion Questions from Reading Group Guides

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
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. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
During a 1993 mountain-climbing venture, author Greg Mortenson is aided by rural Pakistani villagers, then promises to help build a school there. Over the next decade, this initial promise results in his building fifty-five schools in the region. The full title is Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations-- One School at a Time.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry
The author chronicles a year spent restoring an old pickup, gardening, and falling in love. This memoir is filled with eccentric characters, keen observation, and humorous storytelling. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

Unbroken: a World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
Louis Zamperini, a champion runner in the 1930s, joined the U.S. Army Air Force in 1941. As a bombardier in World War II, he crash-landed in the Pacific, surviving forty-seven days on a raft and two years of abuse in Japanese POW camps. His post-war life was a happy and productive one, a relief to the reader that Hillenbrand recounts in the final quarter of the book. Book Discussion Questions from Laura Hillenbrand

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
90+ year-old Jacob Jankowski reminisces in a nursing home about his days caring for animals in a travelling circus during the Great Depression. Book Discussion Guide from OneBookTwoVillages

When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton
After his young wife suffers brain damage and is left with the mind of a 6-year old, Aaron Maciver quietly divorces her and marries her nurse, and the two raise her as their child along with their daughter and son in this chronicle of an unusual family. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Sedaris returns with comic essays employing keen observation, absurdity and hilarity to explore everyday life from smoking to family dysfunction and death. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
A ‘fantasy’ nonfiction book by a science writer that explores what would happen to the earth’s flora and fauna, as well as our built environment, if suddenly all humans disappeared. Book Discussion Questions from MPL

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris
Set on an Indian reservation in Montana, this saga of three generations of Indian women is told from each of their viewpoints and depicts the hardships they encounter both on and off the reservation. Book Discussion Questions from MPL