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 We've made it easier for you by collecting donated and withdrawn copies of discussible books and putting all the copies in a canvas bag.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
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.
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.
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.
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.
A Mercy
The personal costs of slavery are explored in this novel of 4 abandoned women together on a farm in upstate New York.
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.
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.
