Book Discussion Kits

Contemporary Fiction Kits

The Kits: All adult titles, with summaries | All adult titles, by author | All adult titles, by title | All youth titles, by title | New Adult Titles | New Youth Titles | Information about the Kits

Kits by Genre or Age: Contemporary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Memoir/Autobiography | Mystery | Nonfiction | Grades 4-5 | Grades 6-9

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Abu-Jaber, Diana. Crescent.
An Iraqi-American is the chef at a small Los Angeles café, where Arab-Americans come to feel at home. A folkloric family story is interwoven with this contemporary tale of love, food and home. Book Discussion Questions from W. W. Norton.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun.
The story of the Biafran War (1967-1970) along with family, love, racial, ethnic and class conflicts in Nigeria is told from the perspectives of a 13-year old houseboy, the daughter of a wealthy, well-connected Igbo family, and a British ex-patriot. Book Discussion Questions from BookBrowse.

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus.
When she visits her liberated and loving aunt, life dramatically changes for a 15-year old Nigerian girl who has grown up in sheltered privilege with a wealthy father who is politically courageous but religiously fanatic. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Albom’s first novel introduces Eddie, an amusement park maintenance worker, who up until his death finds his own life mostly insignificant. In a fable-like style he is shown otherwise via five people he meets in heaven. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Albom, Mitch. For One More Day.
Albom explores the idea of having one more day to relive with someone you love in this novel. Here, alcoholic ex-baseball star Chick encounters his dead mother after his attempted suicide. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupChoices.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
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.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
Interwoven stories of four Latina sisters chronicling their assimilation into the United States and their visits back to the Dominican Republic. Book Discussion Questions from Tacoma PL.

Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil.
Intertwined stories of four people devastated by the war in Afghanistan: a British doctor mourning the loss of his Afghan wife and daughter; a former CIA officer; the sister of a missing Russian soldier; and an orphan raised into a Taliban madrassa. Book Discussion Questions from Barnes and Noble.

Bakopoulos, Dean. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon.
In suburban Detroit the lives of teenage sons are dramatically altered after the fathers in their neighborhood disappear. Book Discussion Questions from Marshall Cook, UW.

Berg, Elizabeth. Home Safe.
In this work of fiction, a popular and prolific novelist faces the death of her husband, writer's block, and conflict with her daughter. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Berg, Elizabeth. Open House.
Samantha’s husband leaves her with her 11-year-old son, and after a spending spree with her ex’s money, she gets a temp job and takes in boarders, but mostly learns how to make her own happiness. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Bohjalian, Chris. The Double Bind.
A literary thriller with a tricky, intriguing premise and a fictional backdrop from The Great Gatsby begins with the attempted rape and murder of a young woman bicyclist on a rural Vermont road and involves the mysterious past of a homeless man. Book Discussion Questions from the author.

Bohjalian, Chris. Water Witches.
Vermont environmentalists seeking to preserve a mountainous wildlife habitat confront developers of a ski resort promising new jobs. Book Discussion Questions from Simon and Schuster.

Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
In an intricate, alternate reality noir detective novel set Alaska where 2 million displaced Jews settled after World War II. Book Discussion Questions from HarperCollins.

De los Santos, Marisa. Belong to Me.

The intertwined stories of three women in suburban Philadelphia: newly arrived Cornelia searching for a new life; judgmental, perfectionist Piper struggling with her best friend's cancer; and elusive, free-spirited Lake. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

De los Santos, Marisa. Love Walked In.

A young single woman falls in love with a seeming prince charming, then ends up more committed to his delightful daughter than he. Book Discussion Questions from Penguin.

Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
Sweet ghetto nerd Oscar dreams of being a famous writer… and of falling in love. He may not get either wish, due to a curse that’s dominated his Dominican family for generations. A Pulitzer Prize winner. Book Discussion Questions from Penguin.

Divakaruni, Chitra Bannerjee. Sister of My Heart.
Two cousins in Calcutta grow up together as sisters despite their differences. Told in each of their alternating voices, we learn of family secrets, jealousies and their arranged marriages. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.
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.

Edwards, Kim. The Secrets of a Fire King.
This collection of stories spans generations and continents, covering people living on the edges of society, including a fire eater, a juggler, an Asian war bride living in upstate New York, and a trapeze artist. Book Discussion Questions from KET TV.

Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex.
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.

Fowler, Karen Joy. The Jane Austen Book Club.
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.

Glass, Julia. Three Junes.
A rich, layered family saga triptych that spreads over Greece, Scotland, New York City and Long Island during three summers. The family patriarch and his son are the focus of this 2002 National Book Award winner. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season.
Fifth-grader Eliza Naumann surprises everyone when she wins her school’s spelling bee. Her father becomes obsessed with her potential and spends hours coaching her, while the rest of the family falls apart. Book Discussion Guide from Random House.

Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars.
A Japanese-American fisherman's 1954 murder trial is the backdrop of this Pacific Northwest story that chronicles a doomed relationship between a white boy and a Japanese girl, a racially-charged land dispute, and the wartime internment of San Piedro's Japanese residents. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
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.

Haddon, Mark. A Spot of Bother.
In this darkly comic novel, the family patriarch mistakenly believes he is dying of cancer (it’s really eczema) while his wife and grown children swirl around him getting ready for a wedding. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Hamilton, Jane. When Madeline Was Young.
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.

Harris, Joanne. Chocolat.
A mysterious stranger and her daughter arrive in a small village in France and open confectioner’s shop just as Lent is beginning. The chocolate here is magic, perhaps, with the power to undo and to redeem. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Haruf, Kent. Eventide.
Lives intertwine in this novel about the residents of rural Colorado. Single mother Victoria heads off for college, a young boy carries the load at home, and a social worker aids a troubled family. This sequel to Plainsong is both sad and hopeful. Book Discussion Guide from Random House.

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong.
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.

Hoeg, Peter. Smilla's Sense of Snow.
When a six-year-old boy falls to his death from the top of his Copenhagen apartment building, his death is pronounced accidental. His neighbor, Smilla Jasperson, becomes an amateur sleuth and embarks on her own investigation of the murder, leading her to a corrupt Danish company. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Through three decades of turmoil in Afghanistan, two wives of the same man become the closest of friends, and the reader gets a view into difficult lives they live. Book Discussion Questions from Penguin Putnam.

Kallos, Stephanie. Broken for You.
A septuagenarian invites a young woman to live in her mansion while both heal from their troubled pasts. Book Discussion Questions from Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Kennedy, Pagan. Confessions of a Memory Eater.
A time travel drug allows a middle-aged man to revisit his past, with mixed results. This novel is more social commentary than science fiction. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees.
Young, independent Taylor heads west from Kentucky to Tucson, seeking a life change. She gets one, in the form of motherhood: an abandoned baby at a truck stop and becomes her own child. Life as a twosome in Tucson quickly broadens to include friends and neighbors. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer.
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.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Interpreter of Maladies.
Nine short stories set in India and the United States which find Indians and Indian-Americans adapting to new circumstances and relationships, as well as different cultures. Book Discussion Guide from Houghton Mifflin.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake.
Gogol is an American with Bengali parents and a deep dislike of his name. As he moves away from home (and in with various girlfriends), he also distances himself from his former identity. Book Discussion Guide from Houghton Mifflin.

Landvik, Lorna. Welcome to the Great Mysterious.
A Broadway actress returns home to small town Minnesota to care for her Down's syndrome nephew. This larger-than-life woman learns how far she's drifted from her core values, but with trademark Landvik humor. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi.
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. The hilarous and soulful 2002 winner of the Booker Prize. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

McCarthy, Cormac. The Road.
A post-apocalyptic journey of a father and a son through a ravaged landscape. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

McEwan, Ian. Saturday.
Although Henry Perowne is content with his personal life, he remains disturbed by the state of the world since the 9/11 attacks. When he drives through Central London and encounters a throng of anti-war protestors, a confrontation changes his life. Book Discussion Guide from Random House.

Miller, Sue. The Senator's Wife.
Intersecting stories of two next door neighbors: Delia, married to Tom Naughton, a philanderer and former senator; and Meri, recently married to an academic and struggling with her new role, pregnancy, and parenthood. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas.
Six different story arcs, ranging from the 19th century to post-apocalyptic, are tied together to tell a story of how the past is rewritten by those that come after.

Moriarty, Laura. The Center of Everything.
Evelyn, the daughter of a warm, loving, but immature and impetuous single mother in precarious financial circumstances, faces the trials of adolescence. Book Discussion Questions from Hyperion.

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler's Wife.
Claire and Henry are married. They met when Claire was a teenager, when married-to-Claire Henry traveled back in time to meet her. This is not a science fiction story, however. Rather, it is an unconventional romance with an elaborate structure.

Packer, Ann. The Dive from Clausen's Pier.
A college-aged woman is faced with difficult decisions when her boyfriend dives off a pier and becomes a quadriplegic. Set in Madison, with many small details local readers will love. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Pamuk, Orhan. Snow.
After twelve years of political exile in Germany, Turkish poet Ka returns to Turkey, in part looking for his childhood friend, in part to report on a recent rash of suicides, and witnesses firsthand the clash between radical Islam and Western ideals. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto.
In the Vice President's house in an unnamed South American country, what begins as an elegant dinner party turns into a kidnapping that goes awry when the President the terrorists are intent on capturing misses the dinner. When the government refuses to give in to their demands, the hostage situation continues for a number of weeks during which a pleasant domesticity, enlivened by opera singing, begins to blur the lines between captive and captor. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

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

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

Picoult, Jodi. Handle With Care.
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.

Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper.
13-year-old Anna Fitzgerald has already donated blood, bone marrow, and stem cells to save her sister’s life, but when her family asks her to donate a kidney, Anna takes legal action to regain control of her body. Book Discussion Guide from Simon & Schuster.

Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes.
Picoult explores a small town high school shooting from various angles: the causes, effects, emotions, and moral issues involved. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Picoult, Jodi. The Tenth Circle.
Daniel Stone, growing up tormented and full of rage as the only boy in an Eskimo village, transforms himself into a mild-mannered, stay-at-home dad and graphic novelist until he learns of his daughter’s rape and wife’s affair. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Picoult, Jodi. Vanishing Acts.
Delia, now 28, lived happily as a child with her father, believing her mother died a long time ago. Turns out her father abducted her years ago due to her mother's out of control alcoholism. Now he's on trial. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Quindlen, Anna. Blessings.
Found in a box on the doorstep of the richest woman in town, a newborn baby brings the parallel worlds of 'upstairs' and 'downstairs' together. Book Discussion Questions from Random House.

Quindlen, Anna. Rise and Shine.
While her mic is accidentally on, morning talk show host Meghan calls a guest a vulgar name on national television. Her entire world changes, including her career and relationships with her husband, grown son and social worker sister. Book Discussion Guide from Random House.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things.
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.

Russo, Richard. Bridge of Sighs.
A slumping small town in upstate New York is the setting of this novel, chronicling three very different families over 50 years. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Salzman, Mark. The Soloist.
A child prodigy has lost his gift, and struggles to find connections as an adult. Book Discussion Questions from Pasadena, CA.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.
Marjane continues her graphic novel memoir. As a teen she leaves war torn Iran for Vienna where she tries dating and recreational drugs. Readjustment to a patriarchal, fundamentalist society follows, as she returns to her homeland. Book Discussion Questions from Random House.

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones.
A murdered young woman looks down from her life in heaven as her family copes with her death and the police search for her killer. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Senna, Danzy. Caucasia.
Birdie, the light-skinned daughter of a white mother and a black father narrates the story of her family that includes her older sister, Cole, who is darker than her sister. Activists during the Civil Rights movement of 1970's Boston, their parents divide the family along color lines when their marriage falls apart. Birdie flees with her mother, who believes the Feds are after her, and is made to act as a white Jewish girl while they are in the run. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale.
An aging author, after creating many varying life histories for herself over the years, summons a young biographer to write her story in this gothic tale combining mystery, ghost story and family drama. Book Discussion Questions from Bookbrowse.

Shields, Carol. Unless.

A daughter flees the family and begins sitting on a street corner in Toronto with a sign around her neck. Her mother confronts her own emotions and the place of women in society both through her daughter’s situation and her own struggles as a writer. Book Discussion Questions from LitLovers.

Shreve, Anita. Testimony.
A sex video made at a boarding school is at the center of this morality tale. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Smith, Zadie. On Beauty.
The work and family lives of two polar-opposite academics are explored in this humorous novel. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Stein, Garth. The Art of Racing in the Rain.
A tale of love, loyalty, child custody, death and betrayal with parallels to the sport of auto racing... narrated by a dog. Book Discussion Questions from HarperCollins.

Talarigo, Jeff. The Ginseng Hunter.
A subsistence farmer supplementing his living by hunting ginseng on the Chinese side of the Chinese-North Korean border befriends a North Korean prostitute and learns about the plight of the refugees around him. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Tyler, Anne. Digging to America.
A humorous exploration of personal relations and cultural clashes between two families. The traditional American Donaldsons and the Iranian-American Yazdans adopt Korean girls at the same time, with different plans and parenting styles. Book Discussion Questions from MPL.

Wood, Patricia. The Lottery.
Perry Crandall (IQ 76) narrates his life after the death of his Gran, who raised him after his parents abandoned him. When he wins a $12 million lottery, his avaricious family schemes to appropriate his prize. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

Wroblewski, David. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

Set in Northern Wisconsin, Edgar is the mute son of dog breeders Gar and Trudy. When tragedy strikes the family, Edgar pursues a unique and dangerous path. Book Discussion Questions from ReadingGroupGuides.

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