We know how difficult it is to choose a book for your next book group meeting, and to find enough copies for all the members of your group. We've made it easier for you by collecting donated and withdrawn copies of discussible books and putting all the copies in a canvas bag. We've included discussion questions and information about each author in a folder for each collection.
There are at least 8 copies of the book in each kit. At this time we have over 400 kits for you to choose from.
Printable lists of titles are also available, without cover art, sorted by title and by author.
How can we get a kit?
Call us at 608-266-6300 and we will help you check out a kit. The kit will be checked out on the library card of the person picking them up. The person checking out the kit may choose a due date for the kit, up to 3 months from the day they pick it up. Due to high demand, please take only one or two kits at a time. Kits can be shipped to any library in Madison as well as any public library in the South Central Library System.
What if a book is lost?
If your group happens to lose a book, we ask that you replace it with another copy of the book, new or second hand, that is clean and readable.
Search our collection of kits
The Witch Elm
Toby is a happy-go-lucky charmer until a night out with friends takes a turn that will change his life - he surprises two burglars who beat him and leave him for dead. Struggling to recover from his injuries, he takes refuge at his family's ancestral home to care for his dying uncle Hugo. Then a skull is found in the trunk of an elm tree in the garden - and as detectives close in, Toby is forced to face the possibility that his past may not be what he has always believed.
The Wedding Date
A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in a fun and flirty debut novel.
Decolonizing Wealth
With great compassion--because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing, understanding that healing cannot occur unless everyone is part of the process-- Villanueva diagnoses the fatal flaws in financial institutions, unflinchingly drilling down to the core of colonialism and White supremacy. Integrating traditional indigenous wisdom with savvy financial experience, this book explains how money can be used to facilitate relationships, to help us thrive, and to bring things back into balance.
Settlin': Stories of Madison's Early African American Families
Lifelong Madison resident Muriel Simms presents a brief history of African American settlement in Madison and a collection of oral histories from twenty-five African Americans whose families arrived, survived, and thrived here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
This kit was added to the collection with support from the Madison Public Library Foundation.
Clock Dance
Willa Drake can count on one hand the defining moments of her life. In 1967, she is a schoolgirl coping with her mother's sudden disappearance. In 1977, she is a college coed considering a marriage proposal. In 1997, she is a young widow trying to piece her life back together. And in 2017, she yearns to be a grandmother, yet the prospect is dimming. So, when Willa receives a phone call from a stranger, telling her that her son's ex-girlfriend has been shot, she drops everything and flies across the country to Baltimore.
So You Want to Talk About Race
In this hard-hitting but user-friendly examination of race in America, Ijeoma Oluo guides readers of all races through subjects ranging from intersectionality and affirmative action to "model minorities" in an attempt to make the seemingly impossible possible: honest conversations about race and racism, and how they infect almost every aspect of American life.
The Immortalists
If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? In 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, four teenage siblings visit a fortune-teller who is reputed to be able to predict the date of a person’s death; this bestselling novel by Madison author Chloe Benjamin follows them across the country and through next five decades.
Lincoln in the Bardo
On February 22, 1862, two days after his death, Willie Lincoln was laid to rest in a marble crypt in a Georgetown cemetery. That very night, shattered by grief, Abraham Lincoln arrives at the cemetery under cover of darkness and visits the crypt, alone, to spend time with his son's body. The bold, imaginative first novel from critically acclaimed author Saunders.
The Power
A rich Nigerian boy; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family. When a vital new force takes root and flourishes, their lives converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls and women now have immense physical power-- they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And everything changes ...
Unshakeable Confidence: The Freedom to be Our Authentic Selves: Mindfulness for Women
This warm and practical book by Madison area author, psychotherapist, and mindfulness teacher Mare Chapman, M.A., based on Chapman’s ‘Mindfulness for Women’ course, guides the reader through an intimate journey, showing how women form disempowering beliefs that cause them to lose themselves in relationships, and how to regain connection with their true selves through mindfulness.
This kit was added to the collection with support from the Madison Public Library Foundation.
Little Fires Everywhere
This story of a community and a family, whose attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby dramatically divides the town, explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.
Manhattan Beach
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Egan turns to historical fiction, telling the story of Anna Kerrigan, who grows up during the Great Depression to eventually become the first female diver at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, while also unraveling the mysteries of her father’s disappearance and caring for her mother and disabled sister.
Every Love Story is Beautiful But Ours is Hood
From birth, the Savage brothers were taught by their father, Deuce, that life is like a sandwich; any way you flip it, the bread comes first. They were taught to get money, not fall in love, so they left a wreckage of broken hearts on their road to getting money. Yet, now, as mature men, they realize that you’re not rich until you have something that money can’t buy. And money certainly cannot buy the women that have stolen these brothers’ hard and stubborn hearts.
Before We Were Yours
Based on one of America's most notorious real-life scandals in which the director of a Memphis adoption organization kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country, Wingate's wrenching and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though our paths can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
Fire Road: The Napalm Girl's Journey Through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace
Kim Phúc, informally known as “the Napalm Girl,” was immortalized as a badly burned child running from a bombing in one of the most horrifying, iconic images of the Vietnam war. Yet despite the physical and emotional pain she suffered, this memoir details how she found faith, forgiveness, and peace.
Sing, Unburied, Sing
An intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle, Sing, Unburied, Sing journeys through Mississippi's past and present, examining the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power--and limitations--of family bonds.
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Bestselling author Grann presents a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history, the early twentieth-century murders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.
Chemistry
A luminous coming-of-age novel about a young female scientist who must recalibrate her life when her academic career goes off track. She's tormented by her failed research--and reminded of her delays by her peers, her advisor, and most of all by her Chinese parents, who have always expected nothing short of excellence. But there's another, nonscientific question looming: the marriage proposal from her devoted boyfriend.
Mrs. Fletcher
A coming-of-age novel about the sexual awakening of a middle-aged woman, Mrs. Fletcher is a provocative, witty look at contemporary sexual politics and timeless moral dilemmas - a moving and funny examination of sexuality, identity, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they’re no longer sure who they are and where they belong.
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes
A portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come, written by two-time Pulitzer-Prize finalist and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Egan. Chosen as the 2018-2019 UW-Madison Go Big Read selection.