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Upcoming Book Group Meetings

Virtual Location
 (10:30 AM-11:30 AM)
Location: Virtual Library
Room: Online
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Garfield Park Branch Library
 (10:30 AM-12:00 PM)
Location: Garfield Park
Room: Garfield Park Branch Library, 705 Woodrow Ave, Santa Cruz, 95060
La Selva Beach Branch Library
 (10:30 AM-12:00 PM)
Location: La Selva Beach
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Aptos Branch Library
 (1:00 PM-2:30 PM)
Location: Aptos
Room: Dorosin Memorial Conference Room
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Live Oak Branch Library
 (2:00 PM-3:15 PM)
Location: Live Oak
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Book Discussion Kits

The Kits

To help your book discussion group, we've gathered a collection of popular paperback titles and sorted them into kits. Each bag contains eight paperback copies of the selected title and a list of suggested discussion questions. The loan period is normally two months, but a maximum of three months can be given upon request at check out. You can borrow three kits at one time and they aren't renewable.

If a Book is Lost

If your group loses a copy of the book, we just ask that you replace it with another paperback copy of the book, new or second hand, that is clean and readable.

Book Discussion Kit

Book Kits (Search Results)

We found results for your search "author"

Browse Book Kits

Authors

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

Moving his young bride to an isolated lighthouse home on Australia's Janus Rock where the couple suffers miscarriages and a stillbirth, Tom allows his wife to claim an infant that has washed up on the shore, a decision with devastating consequences.

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck

The biblical account of Cain and Abel is echoed in the history of two generations of the Trask family in California.

The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Depicts the hardships and suffering endured by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

Red Letter Days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

When two brave women flee from the Communist Red Scare, they soon discover that no future is free from the past. Amid the glitz and glamour of 1950s New York, Phoebe Adler pursues her dream of screenwriting. A dream that turns into a living nightmare when she is blacklisted--caught in the Red Menace that is shattering the lives of suspected Communists. Desperate to work, she escapes to London, determined to keep her dream alive and clear her good name. There, Phoebe befriends fellow American exile Hannah Wolfson, who has defied the odds to build a career as a successful television producer in England. Hannah is a woman who has it all, and is now gambling everything in a very dangerous game--the game of hiring blacklisted writers. Neither woman suspects that danger still looms...and their fight is only just beginning.

Red letter days

by Sarah-Jane Stratford

When two brave women flee from the Communist Red Scare, they soon discover that no future is free from the past.

Olive Kitteridge

by Elizabeth Strout

The world of Olive Kitteridge, a retired school teacher in a small coastal town in Maine, is revealed in stories that explore her diverse roles in many lives, including a lounge singer haunted by a past love, her stoic husband, and her own resentful son.

My name is Lucy Barton

by Elizabeth Strout

"My Name Is Lucy Barton" is the story of a writer reckoning with the legacy of a scarred family life and slowly coming to terms with the costs and the rewards of her art.

Cane River

by Lalita Tademy

Follows four generations of African American women from slavery to the early twentieth century as they struggle for economic security and the future of their families along the Cane River in rural Louisiana.

The Bonesetter's Daughter

by Amy Tan

When Ruth Young comes across a stack of letters in Chinese calligraphy written by her ailing mother, she discovers the truth about her mother's life as the daughter of the famous bonesetter in the village of Xian Xin, China.

The Good Thief

by Hannah Tinti

Growing up in a New England orphanage unaware of his family and how he lost his left hand as an infant, twelve-year-old Ren is terrified of the future until a young man shows up claiming to be his long-lost brother.

Brooklyn

by Colm Toibin

Hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking, Colm Toibin's sixth novel, Brooklyn, is set in Brooklyn and Ireland in the early 1950s, when one young woman crosses the ocean to make a new life for herself.

The Odyssey

by Homer/ translated by Robert Fagles

The award-winning translator of Iliad and Oresteia introduces a new translation of Homer's age-old tale of the wanderings of Odysseus during his ten-year voyage back home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he overcomes both divine and natural forces.

Back When We Were Grownups

by Anne Tyler

In this deeply moving novel a woman of fifty-three tries to find out who she truly is, compared to who her world believes she is.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

Presents the story of a fearless young woman who became a dress-making entrepreneur in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, thus saving her family and bringing hope to the lives of dozens of women in her war-torn nation.

The Hummingbird's Daughter

by Luis Alberto Urrea

When sixteen-year-old Teresita, the illegitimate and beloved daughter of a powerful late-nineteenth-century rancher, arises from death possessing the power to heal, she is declared a saint and finds her family and faith tested by the impending Mexican civil war.

The house of broken angels

by Luis Urrea

The House of Broken Angels takes place in San Diego over the course of two days and spans seven decades of memories. It follows the de la Cruz family, particularly patriarch Big Angel and his siblings, as they attend their mother's funeral and Big Angel's final birthday party. As the two events unfold, the characters reflect on their family history, personal struggles, and philosophies on life.

The body keeps the score

by Bessel Van der Kolk

Bessel revisits his clinical experience and reconfirms the impact of PTSD on his patients.

Dear America : notes of an undocumented citizen

by Jose Antonio Vargas

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Vargas, who is Filipino, learned of his undocumented status at the age of 16, when he tried to get a driver's license. With a reporter's instinct for detail, he writes about the challenges of surviving as an outsider in America.

Cutting for Stone

by Abraham Verghese

Twin brothers born from a secret love affair between an Indian nun and a British surgeon in Addis Ababa, Marion and Shiva Stone come of age in an Ethiopia on the brink of revolution, where their love for the same woman drives them apart.

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

The lives of two sisters--Nettie, a missionary in Africa, and Celie, a southern woman married to a man she hates--are revealed in a series of letters exchanged over thirty years.

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Resources for Your Book Group

BookBrowse Book Club Resources

BookBrowse offers a wealth of resources for book clubs, including: Top 10 Book Club Recommendations, advice, reading guides, online book discussions, book club interviews - and much, much more. Free for patrons - just login with your library card!

Additional Resources

  • Amazon.com

    Amazon.com's recommendations for book discussion groups. Browsable by category.

  • SCPL Books & Reading Resources

    Links to online resources that will help you find new books, lists of award winners, and author information.

How to Start

  • Book Club How-to's

    Everything you need to start and run a successful and fun book club. -- Advice from Book Browse