Book Club Kits

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of a person's life as it is, along with another book for the other life they could have lived if they had made a different choice at any point in their life. While everyone wonders how their lives might have been, what if someone had the chance to go to the library and see for themself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

A darkly enchanting reimagining of Gothic fantasy, in which a spirited young woman discovers the haunting secrets of a beautiful old mansion in 1950s Mexico.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past.

In his memoir, we are invited to walk through the life of the author, Jim Terry, as he struggles to find security and comfort in an often hostile environment. Between the Ho-Chunk community of his Native American family in Wisconsin and his schoolmates in the Chicago suburbs, he tries in vain to fit in and eventually turns to alcohol to provide an escape from increasing loneliness and alienation.

This epic novel spanning decades and crossing continents follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson gives us a masterful portrait of an unseen phenomenon in America as she explores, through an immersive, deeply researched narrative and stories about real people, how America today and throughout its history has been shaped by a hidden caste system, a rigid hierarchy of human rankings.

Antonia Vega has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves, but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words. Now she questions: How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves?

At the end of the Second World War, Cyril Conroy combines luck and a single canny investment to begin an enormous real estate empire, propelling his family from poverty to enormous wealth. His first order of business is to buy the Dutch House, a lavish estate in the suburbs outside of Philadelphia. Meant as a surprise for his wife, the house sets in motion the undoing of everyone he loves. Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House digs deeply into questions of inheritance, love and forgiveness, of how we want to see ourselves and of who we really are.

A lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart, both children of rookie NYPD cops and neighbors in the suburbs. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years.

A smart, thoughtful, and timely exploration of two sisters' lives from the 1950s to the present as they struggle to find their places--and be true to themselves--in a rapidly evolving world, Mrs. Everything is an ambitious, richly textured journey through history--and herstory--as these two sisters navigate a changing America over the course of their lives.

In bright, musical prose that reflects the energy of New York City, Cruz's Dominicana is a vital portrait of the immigrant experience and the timeless coming-of-age story of a young woman finding her voice in the world.

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world--where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

In this atmospheric thriller, the first female sheriff in rural Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, searches for a missing girl, battles local drug dealers, and seeks the truth about the death of her parents.
 

Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky. Based on a true story rooted in America's past, this is a richly rewarding novel of women's friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.

Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. As the girls take up their positions as baby divers, they know they are beginning a life of excitement and responsibility -- but also of danger.

A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of immersive reporting and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy.

Bestselling author and scholar Ibram X. Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas--from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities--that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves in this essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.

A Wisconsin family grapples with the power and limitations of faith when one of their own falls under the influence of a radical church. 

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James's Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.