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Book Club Kits

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bookclub kit bags

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We've made it easier for you by collecting donated and withdrawn copies of discussible books and putting all the copies in a canvas bag.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.

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

Displaying 21 - 40 of 483

Birnam Wood

Cover of Birnam Wood
Eleanor
Catton
2023

An abandoned farm cut off from the Korowai Pass on New Zealand's South Island by a landslide is a thrilling opportunity for Birnam Wood, a guerilla gardening group that grows crops anywhere they can; however, American billionaire Robert Lemoine also has an interest in the remote land. After he buys it to begin construction on an end-times bunker and catches Mira, the group’s leader, trespassing on the property, he’s willing to make a deal with the group to share the space... but at what cost? And can they trust him?

The Bee Sting

Cover of The Bee Sting
Paul
Murray
2023

A portrait of postcrash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world that asks where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil--can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written--is there still time to find a happy ending?

Small Mercies

Cover of Small Mercies
Dennis
Lehane
2023

An Irish American teenage girl goes missing and a young Black Man is found dead in Boston in the summer of 1974. The two events seem unconnected. But the girl’s mother begins asking questions that bother the chieftain of the Irish mob, and the men who work for him, men who don't take kindly to any threat to their business.

All the Sinners Bleed

Cover of All the Sinners Bleed
S. A.
Cosby
2023

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus's election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus's deputies.

Hello Beautiful

Cover of Hello Beautiful
Ann
Napolitano
2023

William Waters, who grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him, finds his life changed when he meets spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano and her three sisters in his freshman year of college in this poignant and engrossing family story that pays homage to Louisa May Alcott's timeless classic, Little Women.
 

Tom Lake

Cover of Tom Lake
Ann
Patchett
2023

Recalling the past at her daughters' request, Lara tells the story of a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance, which causes her daughters to examine their own lives and reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Blackouts

Cover of Blackouts
Justin
Torres
2023

Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book--Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns--and its devastating history.
 

Spare

Cover of Spare
Prince Harry,
Duke of Sussex
2023

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow--and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling--and how their lives would play out from that point on. 

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Let Us Descend

Cover of Let Us Descend
Jesmyn
Ward
2023

In the years before the Civil War, Annis, sold south by the white enslaver who fathered her, struggles through the miles-long march, seeks comfort from memories of her mother and stories of her African warrior grandmother, opening herself to a world beyond this world.

The Covenant of Water

Cover of The Covenant of Water
Abraham
Verghese
2023

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, this epic of love, faith, and medicine is set in Kerala, on South India's Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning--and in Kerala, water is everywhere. 

A Council of Dolls

Cover of A Council of Dolls
Mona Susan
Power
2023

From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried.

Maame

Cover of Maame
Jessica
George
2023

Maddie, a young British Ghanaian woman and self-acknowledged late bloomer, navigates her twenties and finds her place in the world in this novel that explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.

Brush

Cover of Brush
Penn
Anderson
2023

A glittering new adaptation of an ancient folktale, Brush is the story of two strangers. Chris is a successful entrepreneur who gets his hands on a magic paintbrush. Jo is a woman with secrets who lives above her quaint store on Main Street. Their lives intersect during one transformative year, in a mysterious journey punctuated by delightful detours. (All copies of this title are in Large Print format.)

Hang the Moon

Cover of Hang the Moon
Jeannette
Walls
2023

Born at the turn of the 20th century into a life of comfort and privilege, Sallie Kincaid was later sent to live in poverty with her aunt after her involvement in an accident with her younger brother. After nine years away from her family, Sallie Kincaid returns to Virginia to find her place as a bold, sometimes reckless bootlegger. 
 

Help Us Build Our Kit Collection

You can help us build our Book Club Kits collection by donating copies of books your group has read. This will be a great way for area groups to share not just the titles of what they've read and enjoyed, but the books themselves.

Drop off copies of your book club books at any Madison Public Library location. Be sure to mention that they are for the Book Club Kits.

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Get an occasional email newsletter with the latest kits added to our popular Book Club Kit collection by signing up here.

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