Book Club Kits

After her father's death, Nikki, a modern young Punjabi woman, takes a job teaching creative writing. The Sikh widows who show up expect an English literacy course. But Nikki never expected what she would learn from them. This lively, sexy, and thought-provoking debut novel is about community, friendship, and women's lives at all ages.

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.

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.
 

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.
 

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.

When Miss Norma was diagnosed with uterine cancer, she was advised to undergo surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. But instead of confining herself to a hospital bed for what could be her last stay, Miss Norma--newly widowed after nearly seven decades of marriage--told her doctor, "I'm ninety years old. I'm hitting the road." And so Miss Norma took off on an unforgettable around-the-country journey in a thirty-six-foot motorhome with her retired son Tim, his wife Ramie, and their dog Ringo. This book was the 2018 Fond du Lac Reads selection. 

Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. 

A workaholic with a too-good-to-be-true romance can't stop thinking about her first love in this unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.

The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime story of one man's coming-of-age, set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that followed.

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel's doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
 

The author of this memoir was a neurosurgeon who was diagnosed with lung cancer in his mid-thirties. Writing in his last months of life, he talks about his childhood and college studies, explains why he decided to become a doctor, and describes his experiences with his illness. 

When Joel, whose then-7-year-old brother was kidnapped in a Stockholm subway station in 1970, suddenly goes missing, his wife reaches out to an old friend for help. Danny Katz, a brilliant computer programmer and recovering heroin addict, as well as a divorced father of two young girls, begins to dig behind the digital veil in search of Joel, even though the investigation quickly interferes with his duties as a parent.

The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.

As Lucy Barton recovers from an operation, her mother comes to visit her and the two reflect on Lucy’s life in small town Amgash, Illinois.  Yet under their conversation is a tension that hints at deeper aspects to Lucy’s life. 

An illuminating debut memoir of a woman in science; a moving portrait of a longtime friendship; and a stunningly fresh look at plants that will forever change how you see the natural world.

A kiss at a christening party leads to the dissolution of marriages and the creation of a new blended family, the repercussions of which are traced through fifty years.  

In the summer of 1944, most of the men have been shipped off to war, and Door County’s cherry harvest is threatened.  Faced with the possibility of losing their livelihood, the Christiansen family lobbies to use Germans housed at a nearby POW camp for labor.  But when friendships are sparked between enemies and former servicemen begin coming home with an intense hatred of Germany, the prospects for trouble are inevitable.  

An earlier written sequel of To Kill a Mockingbird set in the 1950s, Go Set a Watchman casts the beloved characters of Scout and Atticus in a new light, and poses the question of how far we have really come in the battle against discrimination.