Book discussion kits are available at the Smith Library.
Included in the kits: 8 regular and 2 large print books of the same title and discussion questions to lead the group.
One member of your book discussion group borrows the kit for the entire group and is responsible for all the materials. Kits check out for 6 weeks and the bag and its entire contents must be returned to the library at the same time.
Please visit or contact the Smith Library for questions regarding the kits and their availability.
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Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor Jillian Cantor revisits the glittering Jazz Age world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, retelling this timeless American classic from the women’s perspective. Beautiful Little Fools is a quintessential tale of money and power, marriage and friendship, love and desire, and ultimately the murder of a man tormented by the past and driven by a destructive longing that can never be fulfilled. Source: GoodReads |
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A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future. Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. Source: Simon and Schuster |
The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott The Secrets We Kept combines a legendary literary love story–the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago’s heroine, Lara–with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk. Source: Penguin Random House |
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The Midnight Library By Matt Haig Matt Haig’s unique novel The Midnight Library ponders the infinite possibilities of life. It is about a young woman named Nora Seed, who lives a monotonous, ordinary life and feels unwanted and unaccomplished. One night, her despair reaches a peak and she commits suicide.
Source: Publisher’s Weekly
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American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins American Dirt tells the story of Lydia Quixano Pérez, a middle-class Mexican bookseller who flees Acapulco with 8-year-old son, Luca, after a drug cartel violently attacks a quinceañera she’s attending, killing her journalist husband who earlier had profiled the cartel leader, Javier. Source: Buzzfeed News |
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Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars: same year at Yale, same debut year in publishing. But Athena’s a literary darling, and June didn’t even get a paperback release. When June sees an opportunity to reinvent one of Athena’s works as her own a crazy ride ensues pushing the publishing world, social media platforms and personal self worth to the limits. Source: Barnes & Nobel |
Olivia McAfee, a professional beekeeper and single mother, fled Boston to try to give her son, Asher, a better life in small-town New Hampshire. Things go well for their first 12 years in Adams. Then he meets Lily Campanello, a new girl who, like his mother, has fled a troubled past. Things get very serious quickly; then, one afternoon, Asher finds Lily dead at the bottom of her basement stairs. Source: Kirkus Reviews |
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The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien When the Nazis march into Paris, Odile stands to lose everything she holds dear, including her beloved Library. Together with her fellow librarians, Odile joins the Resistance with the best weapons she has: books. But when the war finally ends, instead of freedom, Odile tastes the bitter sting of unspeakable betrayal. Source: Simon and Schuster |
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation. Source: Pan Macmillan |
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Set in a small Kentucky town in Depression-era America, the novel details the lives of five women who become traveling librarians, delivering books to the people of Kentucky. The story follows Alice Wright, a British woman, who moves after marrying the Kentucky native Bennett Van Cleve. Source: The Crimson |
The Dutch House By Ann Pratchett Set over the course of five decades, The Dutch House is a dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past. Despite every outward sign of success, Danny and Maeve are only truly comfortable when they’re together. Source: annpratchett.com |
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In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family’s orchard in Northern Michigan. There, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters begin to examine their own lives as well as their connection to their mother. Source: The Bibliofile |
Educated is a memoir by the American author Tara Westover. Westover recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon family in order to go to college, and emphasizes the importance of education in enlarging her world. Source: Wikipedia |
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The New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history’s deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story. In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kiev (now known as Kyiv), wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son–but Hitler’s invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path… Source: The Bibliofile |
In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves. Source: The Bibliofile |
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Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman! It’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. But, like science, life is unpredictable and when Elizabeth Zott gets the opportunity to host America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six her unusual approach to the kitchen has people questioning her motives as she encourages viewers to change the status quo. Source: Barnes & Noble |
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him. So, it’s a relief when his skill on the basketball court earns him a scholarship to college, far away from his childhood home. He soon meets Julia, a spirited and ambitious young woman who surprises William with her appreciation of his quiet steadiness. With Julia comes her family; she is inseparable from her three younger sisters. But, then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing Julia’s family connection which changes their lives for generations. Source: GoodReads |
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Twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath takes on a huge life change in 1965. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she impulsively joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path. As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is overwhelmed by the chaos and destruction of war, as well as the unexpected trauma of coming home to a changed and politically divided America. Source: kristinhannah.com |
One afternoon in November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda comes home from school to find her house eerily quiet. Her mother is missing. Nothing else is out of place. There is no sign of struggle. Her mom’s pocketbook remains in the front hall, in its usual spot. So, begins a mystery that will span a lifetime. What happened to Jane Larkin? Could it had been her criminal defense attorney husband? How will Jane’s three children survive the fallout? Source: GoodReads |
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Two time periods, same difficulties. In 1581, Emilia Bassano—like most young women of her day—is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress, she has access to all theater in England, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different four hundred years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Source: jodipicoult.com |
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The Women by Kristin Hannah
