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 We've made it easier for you by collecting donated and withdrawn copies of discussible books and putting all the copies in a canvas bag.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 New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Civil rights advocate and legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that a new permanent under-class has been created by the war on drugs and the denial of equal access to employment, housing, public benefits and education to ex-prisoners.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
In this humorous love story a proper, retired British army officer and a shopkeeper of Pakistani heritage begin a romance despite family problems and cultural barriers.
The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration
Between World War I and 1970, six million black Americans left the South for the East Coast, West Coast, or Midwest. This non-fiction book tells the story of this “Great Migration” by focusing on the lives of three of the people who made the move.
Mink River
This stream-of-consciousness novel tells the story, part realistic and part fantastic, of a quirky little town on the Oregon coast, and the lives of its inhabitants, including Salish Indians, Irish immigrants, and a crow who talks.
House Rules : a novel
Jacob Hunt, a teen with Asperger’s syndrome, becomes a suspect in a terrible murder which shines the spotlight on his family. This medical courtroom drama deals with issues of what it means to be different, how autism affects the family, and how the legal system can fail people who cannot communicate well.
Cleopatra
A woman of intelligence, cunning and ambition intent on consolidating and maximizing her power emerges against the romanticized, melodramatic vixen portrayed in Western history in this thoroughly researched biography of Cleopatra.
At Home: A Short History of a Private Life
Bill Bryson relates the history of a household by touring his own home, a Church of England rectory built in the nineteenth century, and relating stories of everyday objects and how they transformed the way people lived.
Ape House
In this novel of drama and satire, the bombing of the Great Ape Language Lab and the subsequent removal of their bonobo apes to a new life on reality TV brings together married reporter John Thigpen and primate-loving scientist Isabel Duncan.
The Postmistress
Interwoven stories of three American women at the start of World War II: a single 40-year old postmistress in a small town on Cape Cod, a newlywed new to the town, and a reporter in London working under Edward R. Morrow.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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. Chosen as the 2010-2011 UW-Madison Go Big Read selection.
Every Last One
A suburban mother raising three teenage children and running a landscaping business has an ordinary life with ordinary problems until the family is engulfed in a violent tragedy.
Let the Great World Spin
New York City in the early 1970s is portrayed in this set of connected stories including a street priest, a judge, heroin addicts, mothers of sons killed in Vietnam, and a man who walks on a cable between the World Trade Center towers in August, 1974.
Brooklyn
In 1950s Ireland, when Ellis Lacey is unable to find a job in her home country, she leaves reluctantly for Brooklyn, NY. After a period of isolation she begins to find happiness, yet when a tragedy takes her back to Ireland the limitations of her old life conflict with her newfound possibilities in America.
That Old Cape Magic
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.
A Gate at the Stairs
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.
The Help
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.'
Zeitoun
The story of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath is told through the experiences of Zeitoun, a Syrian-American and Muslim who stays in New Orleans to watch over his home and business. He helps rescue his neighbors, but is later arrested and imprisoned.
The Happiness Project: or, the Way I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right...
A chronicle of the author's year long quest to find happiness through testing ideas from age old wisdom, popular culture, and current scientific research.
Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel
A fictionalized biography of the author's grandmother, Lily Casey Smith, who was a mustang breaker, school teacher, bootlegger, poker player, racehorse rider, bush pilot, ranch wife and mother.
The Strength in What Remains
Escaping from civil war and genocide in his home country of Burundi, Deogratias, a young medical student, comes to New York city with $200. Despite facing many obstacles, Deo becomes an Ivy League student and eventually goes back to Burundi to found a public health clinic.
Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting
Funny, humble and pensive—Michael’s life is changing as he’s pulled in different directions all at once.
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
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.
The Lacuna
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.
Cutting for Stone
A Reliable Wife
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.
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.
A Mercy
The personal costs of slavery are explored in this novel of 4 abandoned women together on a farm in upstate New York.
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.
Olive Kitteridge
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.
Dewey: the Small Town Library Cat
A cat found in the book return at a small town Iowa library became a library resident and enchanted customers for nearly 20 years with his winsome personality.
Change of Heart
Death row prisoner seeks atonement through donation of his heart to his victim's sister.
The Soloist
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.
Driftless
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.
Echoes from the Dead
In this debut novel, a runaway bestseller in Sweden, a mother, drawn by a mysterious clue back to the island where her 6-year-old son Jens disappeared 20 years ago, is determined to find out what really happened that gray September day. In the process, she finds a shocking connection to Öland's most notorious murder case: the killing spree of a wealthy young man who fled the island and died years before Jens was even born.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
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.
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.
Run
Adoption, race, class, and family are explored in this novel about three brothers and their widowed father.