Book Club Kits

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.

An entertaining, enlightening, and utterly original investigation into one of the most quietly influential forces in modern American life--the humble parking spot.

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. 

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.

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. 
 

After the death of her literary rival in a freak accident, author June Hayward steals her just-finished masterpiece, sending it to her agent as her own work, but as emerging evidence threatens her success, she discovers how far she'll go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

A gripping portrait of the tumultuous, consuming relationship between Leah, a graduate student at UW-Madison, and Charlie, a recovering heroin addict.

Set in 1960s California, this blockbuster debut is the hilarious, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is constantly derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home, only to find herself starring as the host of America's most beloved TV cooking show. 

Kiki Banjo has just made a huge mistake: she kissed Malakai Korede, the guy she just publicly denounced. They're soon embroiled in a fake relationship to try and salvage their reputations and save their futures.

Olivia McAfee left her husband and moved with her son, Asher, to a small town. When tragedy occurs and Asher becomes a suspect, Olivia must face whether he is revealing the same dark side as his father.

A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise--undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world--when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather's heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world.

The award-winning author brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

A modern love story about two childhood friends, Sam, raised by an actress mother in LA's Koreatown, and Sadie, from the wealthy Jewish enclave of Beverly Hills, who reunite as adults to create video games, finding an intimacy in digital worlds that eludes them in their real lives.

After John Neville, the man convicted of killing her best friend April ten years earlier, dies in prison, expectant mother Hannah Jones, after new evidence surfaces proving his innocence, reconnects with old friends to solve the mystery of April's death and realizes they all have something to hide--including a murder.

In 2027, August Helm is working as a biochemist at the University of Chicago. After he finds out about a liaison between the director of his lab and a much younger student, his position is eliminated. With his world in shambles, August goes to visit his parents in Wisconsin, where he reconnects with old friends, takes a job in a gated community, and falls madly in love with a woman whose revelations will change everything.

On the eve of her fortieth birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible... but if she could live it all again, is there anything that she would change if she could? When she wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, in her 16-year-old-body, she has the chance to find out. 

The story of two wealthy New Yorkers in the 1920s, and at what cost they have acquired their immense fortune, is at the center of Bonds, a fictional novel that exists in conversation with the narrative of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction in this novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception that spans over a century.

A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history.

A charmingly eccentric hotel maid discovers a guest murdered in his bed, turning her once orderly world upside down--and inspiring a motley crew of unexpected allies to band together to solve the mystery.