Staff Picks

Book Club Sets for Adults

Morgan R.
Thursday, July 17, 2025

Can't make it to one of our book group meetings? Gather your friends and neighbors and create your own using one of our book club sets. Each set contains 15 copies and a list of discussion questions. Check outs last for 56 days (8 weeks) to give your group a little extra time to read and discuss.

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State of the Heart [Book Club Set]

South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love. Volume 2

Published in 2015

South Carolina is a state of inspiration as well as recreation. Through its natural beauty, storied heritage, and curious character, the Palmetto State finds its way into the hearts and imaginations of every native, resident, and guest to set foot on its 32,000 square miles of soil. Continuing the format of the popular original, this second volume of State of the Heart: South Carolina Writers on the Places They Love celebrates and commemorates the connections that the accomplished contributors have found in the well-known and far-flung locations most dear to them. With companionable charm and storytellers? spirits, editor A?da Rogers and the thirty-six contributors invite you to amble across South Carolina with them for a chance to see the state as they have come to know it. -- -- Marjory Wentworth, South Carolina?s poet laureate, provides the foreword to this collection, which includes her poem “One River, One Boat.”

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Alam, Rumaan, author.

Published in 2020

Amanda and Clay head to a remote corner of Long Island expecting a vacation: a quiet reprieve from life in New York City, quality time with their teenage son and daughter, and a taste of the good life in the luxurious home they've rented for the week. The houseowners, Ruth and G. H., arrive in the middle of the night in a panic. They say a sudden blackout has swept the city: the TV and internet are down, and no cell phone service. Is the vacation home, isolated from civilization, a safe place for their families? And are they safe from one other? -- adapted from jacket

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A Long Petal of the Sea [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Allende, Isabel, author.

Published in 2021

"In the late 1930s, civil war gripped Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life irreversibly intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them wants, and together are sponsored by poet Pablo Neruda to embark on the SS Winnipeg along with 2,200 other refugees in search of a new life. As unlikely partners, they embrace exile and emigrate to Chile as the rest of Europe erupts in World War. Starting over on a new continent, their trials are just beginning. Over the course of their lives, they will face test after test. But they will also find joy as they wait patiently for a day when they are exiles no more, and will find friends in the most unlikely of places. Through it all, it is that hope of being reunited with their home that keeps them going. And in the end, they will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along" -- Provided by publisher.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings [Book Club Set]

Angelou, Maya.

Published in 2002

In this critically-acclaimed memoir, Maya Angelou chronicles the deeply personal struggles and events of her childhood in the Deep South. Here, she also shares the people and triumphs that have helped shape her writing career.

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The Handmaid's Tale [Book Club Set]

Atwood, Margaret, 1939-

Published in 1986

This look at the near future presents the story of Offred, a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, once the United States, an oppressive world where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only as long as they are viable for reproduction.

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The Paris Architect [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Cole, Teju, author.

Published in 2015

"Visiting Lagos after many years away, Teju Cole's unnamed narrator rediscovers his hometown as both a foreigner and a local. A young writer uncertain of what he wants to say, the man moves through tableaus of life in one of the most dynamic cities in the world: he hears the muezzin's call to prayer in the early morning light, and listens to John Coltrane during the late afternoon heat. He witnesses teenagers diligently perpetrating e-mail frauds from internet cafés, longs after a woman reading Michael Ondaatje on a public bus, and visits the impoverished National Museum. Along the way, he reconnects with old school friends and his family, who force him to ask himself profound questions of personal and national history. Over long, wandering days, the narrator compares present-day Lagos to the Lagos of his memory, and in doing so reveals changes that have taken place in himself."--From publisher description.

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The Irregulars [Book Club Set]

Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Conant, Jennet.

Published in 2009

Prior to the U.S. entering WWII, a small coterie of British spies in Washington, D.C., was formed. They called themselves the Baker Street Irregulars after the band of street urchins who were the eyes and ears of Sherlock Holmes in some Arthur Conan Doyle stories. This group constituted the very beginning of what would become M16, the British version of the CIA, and they helped support the fledgling American intelligence service, known at the time as the OSS. Among them were writers Raold Dahl, Ian Fleming, and the flamboyant Canadian industrialist turned professional saboteur William Stephenson, known by the code name Intrepid, upon whom Fleming would later base his fictional M16 agent James Bond. Richly detailed and carefully researched, Conant's narrative uses never-before-seen wartime letters, diaries and interviews to create a fascinating, lively account of deceit, double dealing and moral ambiguity - all in the name of victory.

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My Reading Life [Book Club Set]

Conroy, Pat.

Published in 2010

Bestselling author Pat Conroy acknowledges the books that have shaped him and celebrates the profound effect reading has had on his life.

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Dominicana [Book Club Set]

Cruz, Angie, author.

Published in 2019

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Redwood Court [Book Club Set]

Dameron, DéLana R. A., author.

Published in 2024

""Mika, you sit at our feet all these hours and days, hearing us tell our tales. You have all these stories inside you: all the stories everyone in our family knows and all the stories everyone in our family tells. You write 'em in your books and show everyone who we are." So begins DéLana R.A. Dameron's stunning novel-in-stories, Redwood Court. The baby of the family, Mika Mosby spends much of her time in the care of loved ones, listening to their stories and secrets, witnessing their struggles. Growing up on Redwood Court, the cul-de-sac in the working-class suburb of Columbia, South Carolina where her grandparents live, Mika learns important, sometimes difficult lessons from the people who raise her: Her exhausted parents, who work long hours at multiple jobs while still making sure their kids experience the adventure of family vacations; her older sister, who, in a house filled with Motown would rather listen to Alanis Morrisette, and can't wait to taste real independence; her retired grandparents, children of Jim Crow, who realized their own vision of success when they bought their house on Redwood Court in the 1960s, imagining it filled with future generations; and the many neighbors on the Court who hold tight to the community they've built, committed to fostering joy and love in an America so insistent on seeing Black people stumble and fall"-- Provided by publisher.

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The Stone Necklace [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Damron, Carla.

Published in 2016

Clawing chest pains and a fiery car crash take one life and change the destiny of four others. The Stone Necklace braids together the stories of a grieving widow, a struggling nurse, a young mother, and a troubled homeless man, reminding us of the empowering and surprising ways our lives touch one another and how, together, we can recover from even the greatest of losses. -- The Stone Necklace includes a foreword from novelist Patti Callahan Henry.

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The Unknown Errors of Our Lives [Book Club Set]

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee, 1956-

Published in 2002

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All the Light We Cannot See [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Doerr, Anthony, 1973-

Published in 2014

"From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work"-- Provided by publisher.

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Washington Black [Book Club Set]

Edugyan, Esi, author.

Published in 2019

"Eleven-year-old George Washington Black - or Wash - a field slave on a Barbados sugar plantation, is intially terrified when he is chosen to be the manservant of his master's brother. To his surprise, however, the eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist. Soon Wash is intiated into a world where two people, separated by an impossible divide, can begin to see each other as human. But when a man is killed and a bounty is placed on Wash's head, they must abandon everything and flee. Spanning the Caribbean to the frozen Far North, London to Morocco, Washington Black is a story of self-invention and betrayal, of love and redemption, and of a world destroyed and made whole again." -- Provided by publisher.

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The Circle [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Eggers, Dave.

Published in 2013

"The Circle is the exhilarating new novel from Dave Eggers, best-selling author of A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award. When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world--even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge"-- Provided by publisher.

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The Death of Vivek Oji [Book Club Set]

Emezi, Akwaeke, author.

Published in 2020

"A tender, potent, and compulsively readable novel of a Nigerian-Indian family and the deeply held secret that tests their traditions and bonds"-- Provided by publisher.

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Freshwater [Book Club Set]

Emezi, Akwaeke, author.

Published in 2018

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities. Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves, now protective, now hedonistic, move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction. Narrated from the perspective of the various selves within Ada, and based in the author's realities, Freshwater explores the metaphysics of identity and mental health, plunging the reader into the mystery of being and self. Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

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My Brilliant Friend [Book Club Set]

Ferrante, Elena.

Published in 2012

A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, My Brilliant Friend is a rich, intense, and generous-hearted story about two friends, Elena and Lila. Ferrante's inimitable style lends itself perfectly to a meticulous portrait of these two women that is also the story of a nation and a touching meditation on the nature of friendship. The story begins in the 1950s, in a poor but vibrant neighborhood on the outskirts of Naples. Growing up on these tough streets the two girls learn to rely on each other ahead of anyone or anything else. As they grow, as their paths repeatedly diverge and converge, Elena and Lila remain best friends whose respective destinies are reflected and refracted in the other. They are likewise the embodiments of a nation undergoing momentous change. Through the lives of these two women, Ferrante tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it is transformed in ways that, in turn, also transform the relationship between her protagonists, the unforgettable Elena and Lila. Ferrante is the author of three previous works of critically acclaimed fiction: The Days of Abandonment, Troubling Love , and The Lost Daughter . With this novel, the first in a tetralogy, she proves herself to be one of Italy's great storytellers. She has given her readers a masterfully plotted page-turner, abundant and generous in its narrative details and characterizations, that is also a stylish work of literary fiction destined to delight her many fans and win new readers to her fiction. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Flournoy, Angela, author.

Published in 2015

"A powerful, timely debut, The Turner House marks a major new contribution to the story of the American family. The Turners have lived on Yarrow Street for over fifty years. Their house has seen thirteen children grown and gone--and some returned; it has seen the arrival of grandchildren, the fall of Detroit's East Side, and the loss of a father. The house still stands despite abandoned lots, an embattled city, and the inevitable shift outward to the suburbs. But now, as ailing matriarch Viola finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a tenth of its mortgage. The Turner children are called home to decide its fate and to reckon with how each of their pasts haunts--and shapes--their family's future. Already praised by Ayana Mathis as "utterly moving" and "un-putdownable," The Turner House brings us a colorful, complicated brood full of love and pride, sacrifice and unlikely inheritances. It's a striking examination of the price we pay for our dreams and futures, and the ways in which our families bring us home"-- Provided by publisher.

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What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know

Gladwell, Malcolm, 1963- author.

Published in 2019

In this thoughtful treatise spurred by the 2015 death of African-American academic Sandra Bland in jail after a traffic stop, New Yorker writer Gladwell (The Tipping Point) aims to figure out the strategies people use to assess strangers-to "analyze, critique them, figure out where they came from, figure out how to fix them," in other words: to understand how to balance trust and safety. He uses a variety of examples from history and recent headlines to illustrate that people size up the motivations, emotions, and trustworthiness of those they don't know both wrongly and with misplaced confidence.

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Groff, Lauren.

Published in 2012

The lyrical and haunting story of a great American dream--the progress of a utopian community and its lasting impact on a gifted young man.

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Herrera, Yuri, 1970- author.

Published in 2015

"Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there's no going back. Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the US carrying a pair of secret messages--one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld"--Publisher's description

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The Talented Mr. Ripley [Book Club Set]

Highsmith, Patricia, 1921-1995.

Published in 2008

Since his debut in 1955, Tom Ripley has evolved into the ultimate bad boy sociopath. Here, in the first Ripley novel, we are introduced to suave Tom Ripley, a young striver, newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan. A product of a broken home, branded a "sissy" by his dismissive Aunt Dottie, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley's fascination with Dickie's debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie's ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante. A dark reworking of Henry James's The Ambassadors, The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for murder and self-invention is chronicled in four subsequent Ripley novels.

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The Kiss Quotient [Book Club Set]

Hoang, Helen, author.

Published in 2018

"A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases--a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice--with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan--from foreplay to more-than-missionary position... Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel. Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic.."-- Provided by publisher.

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Minor Feelings

An Asian American Reckoning [Book Club Set]

Hong, Cathy Park, author.

Published in 2020

"Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country, a tenuous alliance of people with roots from South Asia to East Asia to the Pacific Islands, from tech millionaires to service industry laborers. How do we speak honestly about the Asian American condition--if such a thing exists? Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively confronts this thorny subject, blending memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America. Binding these essays together is Hong's theory of "minor feelings." As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these "minor feelings" occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality--when you believe the lies you're told about your own racial identity. With sly humor and a poet's searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and artmaking, and to family and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche--and of a writer's search to both uncover and speak the truth"-- Provided by publisher.

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Published in 2016

Jahren has built three laboratories in which she's studied trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. She tells about her childhood in rural Minnesota with an uncompromising mother and a father who encouraged hours of play in his classroom's labs; about how she found a sanctuary in science, and the disappointments, triumphs and exhilarating discoveries of scientific work. Yet at the core of this book is the story of a relationship Jahren forged with Bill, who becomes her lab partner and best friend. Their sometimes rogue adventures in science take them over the Atlantic to the ever-light skies of the North Pole and to tropical Hawaii, where she and her lab currently make their home.

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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows [Book Club Set]

Jaswal, Balli Kaur, author.

Published in 2017

After her father's death, Nikki, who has spent most of her life distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community, takes a job teaching a creative writing course in the heart of the Punjabi community.

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Second House from the Corner [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Johnson, Sadeqa, author.

Published in 2016

"Second House from the Corner centers on the story of Felicia Lyons, a stay-at-home mother of three drowning in the drudgeries of play dates, lost pacifiers and potty training who occasionally wonders what it would be like to escape the demands of motherhood. But when an unexpected phone call threatens to destroy her life, Felicia is forced to return to her childhood home where she must wrestle with an ex-lover and long buried secrets to save the family and home she loves despite the daily challenges"-- Provided by publisher.

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An American Marriage [Book Club Set]

Jones, Tayari, author.

Published in 2018

"Newlyweds Celestial and Roy, the living embodiment of the New South, are settling into the routine of their life together when Roy is sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. An insightful look into the lives of people who are bound and separated by forces beyond their control"-- Provided by publisher.

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Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? (and Other Concerns) [Book Club Set]

Kaling, Mindy.

Published in 2011

Kaling shares her observations, fears, and opinions about a wide-ranging list of the topics she thinks about the most. From her favorite types of guys to life in the "The Office" writers' room, her book is full of personal stories and laugh-out-loud philosophies.

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Bellewether [Book Club Set]

Kearsley, Susanna, 1966- author.

Published in 2018

It's late summer, war is raging, and families are torn apart by divided loyalties and deadly secrets. In this complex and dangerous time, a young French Canadian lieutenant is captured and billeted with a Long Island family, an unwilling and unwelcome guest. As he begins to pitch in with the never-ending household tasks and farm chores, Jean-Philippe de Sabran finds himself drawn to the daughter of the house. Slowly, Lydia Wilde comes to lean on Jean-Philippe, true soldier and gentleman, until their lives become inextricably intertwined. Legend has it that the forbidden love between Jean-Philippe and Lydia ended tragically, but centuries later, the clues they left behind slowly unveil the true story. Part history, part romance, and all kinds of magic, Susanna Kearsley's latest masterpiece will draw you in and never let you go, even long after you've closed the last page.

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Kuang, R. F. (Rebecca F.), author.

Published in 2019

When Rin aced the Keju--the test to find the most talented students in the Nikara Empire--it was a shock to everyone. That she got into Sinegard--the most elite military school in Nikan--was even more surprising. But surprises aren't always good. Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Fighting the prejudice of rival classmates, Rin discovers that she possesses a lethal, unearthly power - an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive - and that mastering these powers could mean more than just surviving school. For while the Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most people calmly go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away. -- Provided by publisher.

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being [Book Club Set]

Kundera, Milan, author.

Published in 2009

Interweaves story and dream, past and present, and philosophy and poetry in a sardonic and erotic tale of two couples--Tomas and Teresa, and Sabina and her Swiss lover, Gerhart.

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Crazy Rich Asians [Book Club Set]

Kwan, Kevin.

Published in 2013

Envisioning a summer vacation in the humble Singapore home of a boy she hopes to marry, Chinese American Rachel Chu is unexpectedly introduced to a rich and scheming clan that strongly opposes their son's relationship with an American girl.

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Confessions of a Domestic Failure [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Laditan, Bunmi, author.

Published in 2017

There are good moms and bad moms, and then there are hot-mess moms. Introducing Ashley Keller, career girl turned stay-at-home mom who's trying to navigate the world of Pinterest-perfect, Facebook-fantastic, and Instagram-impressive mommies but failing miserably. When Ashley gets the opportunity to participate in the 'Motherhood Better' bootcamp run by the mommy-blog-empire maven she idolizes, she jumps at the chance to become the perfect mom she's always wanted to be. But will she fly high or flop?

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The Namesake [Book Club Set]

Lahiri, Jhumpa.

Published in 2003

The Namesake takes the Ganguli family from their tradition-bound life in Calcutta through their fraught transformation into Americans. On the heels of their arranged wedding, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli settle together in Cambridge, Massachusetts. An engineer by training, Ashoke adapts far less warily than his wife, who resists all things American and pines for her family. When their son is born, the task of naming him betrays the vexed results of bringing old ways to the new world. Named for a Russian writer by his Indian parents in memory of a catastrophe years before, Gogol Ganguli knows only that he suffers the burden of his heritage as well as his odd, antic name. Lahiri brings great empathy to Gogol as he stumbles along the first-generation path, strewn with conflicting loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs. With penetrating insight, she reveals not only the defining power of the names and expectations bestowed upon us by our parents, but also the means by which we slowly, sometimes painfully, come to define ourselves. The New York Times has praised Lahiri as "a writer of uncommon elegance and poise." The Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity.

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Lee, Min Jin, author.

Published in 2017

"A new tour de force from the bestselling author of Free Food for Millionaires, for readers of The Kite Runner and Cutting for Stone. 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. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity"-- Provided by publisher.

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Ghettoside [Book Club Set]

A True Story of Murder in America

Leovy, Jill.

Published in 2015

A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a relentless detective, and the great plague of homicide in America On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift. Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential, but mostly ignored, American murder--a "ghettoside" killing, one young black man slaying another--and a brilliant and driven cadre of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs. Ghettoside is a fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in our cities--and how the epidemic of killings might yet be stopped. Praise for Ghettoside " Ghettoside is fantastic. It does what the best narrative nonfiction does: It transcends its subject by taking one person's journey and making it all our journeys. That's what makes this not just a gritty, heart-wrenching, and telling book, but an important one. From the patrol cop to the president, everyone needs to read this book." --Michael Connelly "Jill Leovy writes with exceptional sharpness and tautness, and her pages glow and glitter with the found poetry of the street. This book will take an honored place on the shelf that includes David Simon's classic Homicide and Michelle Alexander's explosive study of mass incarceration, The New Jim Crow ." --Martin Amis "A gripping and powerful account of urban homicide investigation in the United States." --Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize--winning author of Devil in the Grove "Unmissable . . . I'm astonished by Jill Leovy's forthcoming Ghettoside . Police and race in America are examined with forensic skill and furious, exceptional prose. Lucid, revelatory, superbly written, incredibly timely. A book of the year." --Chris Cleave, author of Little Bee " Ghettoside is a brilliant taxonomic investigation into the American violence epidemic disguised as a highly entertaining true crime book." --Matt Taibbi, author of The Divide "A thoroughly engrossing true-life policier full of vivid and sympathetic characters, but also the bravest book about race and crime I've ever read." --Dan Baum, author of Nine Lives "What an amazing book--a totally gripping piece of reporting." --Paul French, author of Midnight in Peking "Absorbing . . . Readers may come for Leovy's detective story; they will stay for her lucid social critique." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) From the Hardcover edition.

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Number One Chinese Restaurant [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Miller, Madeline.

Published in 2012

Patroclus, an awkward young prince, follows Achilles into war, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they have learned, everything they hold dear. And that, before he is ready, he will be forced to surrender his friend to the hands of Fate. Set during the Trojan War.

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Devil in a Blue Dress [Book Club Set]

Mosley, Walter.

Published in 1990

Los Angeles, 1948: Easy Rawlins is a black war veteran just fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend's bar, wondering how he'll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Money, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.

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Speak, Memory [Book Club Set]

An Autobiography Revisited

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977, author.

Published in 1989

This book, first published in 1951 as Conclusive evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, examines Nabokov's life and times while offering incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The gift, The real life of Sebastian Knight, and The defense.

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The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. [Book Club Set]

Nahai, Gina Barkhordar, author.

Published in 2014

The Soleymans, an Iranian Jewish family, are tormented for decades by Raphael's Son, a crafty and unscrupulous financier who has futilely claimed to be an heir to the family's fortune. Forty years later in contemporary Los Angeles, Raphael's Son has nearly achieved his goal--until he suddenly disappears, presumed by many to have been murdered.

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Everything I Never Told You [Book Club Set]

Ng, Celeste.

Published in 2014

"Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet. So begins the story of this exquisite debut novel, about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee; their middle daughter, a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue-in Marilyn's case that her daughter become a doctor rather than a homemaker, in James's case that Lydia be popular at school, a girl with a busy social life and the center of every party. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together tumbles into chaos, forcing them to confront the long-kept secrets that have been slowly pulling them apart. James, consumed by guilt, sets out on a reckless path that may destroy his marriage. Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to find a responsible party, no matter what the cost. Lydia's older brother, Nathan, is certain that the neighborhood bad boy Jack is somehow involved. But it's the youngest of the family-Hannah-who observes far more than anyone realizes and who may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened. A profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, exploring the divisions between cultures and the rifts within a family, and uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another"-- Provided by publisher.

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The Mountains Sing

A Novel [Book Club Set]

Nguyễn, Phan Quế Mai, 1973- author.

Published in 2020

"The multigenerational tale of the Trà̂n family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trà̂n Diệu Lan, who was born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that will tear not just her beloved country but her family apart"-- Provided by publisher.

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The Sympathizer [Book Club Set]

Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971- author, interviewee.

Published in 2016

The story of a South Vietnamese captain -- a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America -- who returns to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause.

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The Things They Carried [Book Club Set]

A Work of Fiction

O'Brien, Tim, 1946-

Published in 2009

This work depicts the heroic young men of Alpha Company as they carry the emotional weight of their lives to war in Vietnam in a patchwork account of a modern journey into the heart of darkness. They battle the enemy (or maybe more the idea of the enemy), and occasionally each other. In their relationships we see their isolation and loneliness, their rage and fear. They miss their families, their girlfriends and buddies; they miss the lives they left back home. Yet they find sympathy and kindness for strangers (the old man who leads them unscathed through the mine field, the girl who grieves while she dances), and love for each other, because in Vietnam they are the only family they have.

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Welcome to Lagos [Book Club Set]

Onuzo, Chibundu, author.

Published in 2018

"When the army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows it is time to desert his post. As he travels toward Lagos with Yemi, his junior officer, and into the heart of a political scandel involving Nigeria's education minister, Chike becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a different kind of life. Among them are Fineboy, a fighter with a rebel group, desperate to pursue his dream of becoming a radio DJ; Isoken, a sixteen-year-old girl whose father is thought to have been killed by rebels; and the beautiful Oma, escaping a wealthy, abusive husband. Welcome to Lagos is a high-spirited novel about aspirations and escape, innocence and corruption. Full of humor and heart, it offers a provocative portrait of contemporary Nigeria that marks the arrival in the United States of an extraordinary young writer."--Jacket.

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There There [Book Club Set]

Orange, Tommy, 1982- author.

Published in 2018

"Not since Sherman Alexie's The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine has such a powerful and urgent Native American voice exploded onto the landscape of contemporary fiction. Tommy Orange's There There introduces a brilliant new author at the start of a major career. "We all came to the powwow for different reasons. The messy, dangling threads of our lives got pulled into a braid--tied to the back of everything we'd been doing all along to get us here. There will be death and playing dead, there will be screams and unbearable silences, forever-silences, and a kind of time-travel, at the moment the gunshots start, when we look around and see ourselves as we are, in our regalia, and something in our blood will recoil then boil hot enough to burn through time and place and memory. We'll go back to where we came from, when we were people running from bullets at the end of that old world. The tragedy of it all will be unspeakable, that we've been fighting for decades to be recognized as a present-tense people, modern and relevant, only to die in the grass wearing feathers." Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxedrene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Frank has come to find his true father. Bobby Big Medicine has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions--intentions that will destroy the lives of everyone in his path. Fierce, angry, funny, groundbreaking--Tommy Orange's first novel is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. There There is a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. A glorious, unforgettable debut"-- Provided by publisher.

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The Thursday Murder Club [Book Club Set]

Osman, Richard, 1970- author.

Published in 2021

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. There's Red Ron, the infamous former socialist firebrand, still causing trouble; gentle Joyce, widowed, pining for another resident, but surely not as innocent as she seems; Ibrahim, a former therapist who understands the darker side of human nature; and Elizabeth? Well, no one is quite sure who she really is, but she's definitely not a woman to underestimate. When a local developer is found dead, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. The friends might be septuagenarians, but they are cleverer than most. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before its too late?

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In the Heart of the Sea [Book Club Set]

The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Philbrick, Nathaniel.

Published in 2000

From the author of the forthcoming book, Valiant Ambition , the riveting and critically acclaimed bestseller, soon to be a major motion picture starring Chris Hemsworth on December 11, 2015, directed by Ron Howard Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson will star in a new film based on this National Book Award?winning account of the true events behind Moby Dick . In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea ?and now, its epic adaptation for the screen?will forever place the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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Smith, Betty, 1896-1972.

Published in 2006

Young Francie Nolan, having inherited both her father's romantic and her mother's practical nature, struggles to survive and thrive growing up in the slums of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century.

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On Agate Hill [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Smith, Lee, 1944-

Published in 2006

On Agate Hill is set in North Carolina in the years from 1872 to1927, and also in the present. The novel evokes the South in Reconstruction from an honest female perspective. It is the exuberantly romantic and episodic story of Molly Petree, an open-hearted and headstrong young Southern woman. The novel is framed with the letters and notes of a contemporary woman who seems almost a reincarnation of Molly herself.

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An Unkindness of Ghosts [Book Club Set]

Solomon, Rivers, author.

Published in 2017

"Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vessel organized much like the antebellum South. For generations, Matilda has ferried the last of humanity to a mythical Promised Land. On its way, the ship's leaders have imposed harsh moral restrictions and deep indignities on dark-skinned sharecroppers like Aster. Embroiled in a grudge with a brutal overseer, Aster learns there may be a way to improve her lot--if she's willing to sow the seeds of civil war"--Page 4 of cover.

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Snow Crash [Book Club Set]

Stephenson, Neal.

Published in 2008

A part-time hacker, information-scrounge, and delivery boy for Uncle Enzo's Cosa Nostra Pizzerias, and full-time Metaverse (virtual reality) samurai named Hiro Protagonist (one of the best names since Billy Pilgrim!), is slowly drawn into a mystery involving a virus program called Snow Crash, which is claiming not only the computers but the minds of hackers the world over, including Hiro's best friend. Who is behind all this, and what it has to do with Sumerian mythology and the hard-wiring of the human language centers is what Hiro must find out, while at the same time he attempts to prevent the further spread of the Snow Crash virus. Along the way he falls in with a skateboard punk named Y.T., who is more instrumental to the story than might first be suggested, and who is the novel's most intriguing character, if only because her investigations are almost more revealing than Hiro's are -- in fact, Hiro comes off as a bit of a cypher compared to her.

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Just Mercy [Book Club Set]

A Story of Justice and Redemption

Stevenson, Bryan, author.

Published in 2014

-- Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn?t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship?and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. ? -- ?Nicholas Kristof, -- Just Mercy -- Just Mercy ? “This is a book of great power and courage. It is inspiring and suspenseful?a revelation.” -- Just Mercy From the Hardcover edition.

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Waterland [Book Club Set]

Swift, Graham, 1949-

Published in 1992

A history teacher besieged by a personal crisis and the "phasing out" of his teaching job abandons his lessons to relate tales of Fenland and his family.

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The Joy Luck Club [Book Club Set]

Tan, Amy.

Published in 1989

After being drawn together by the shadows of their past, four women start meeting every week in San Francisco to engage in hobbies they all enjoy. After one of the four members dies, her daughter takes her place to fulfill her mother's dying wish. After the revelation of a secret, the women are forced to think back to their pasts and remember the sometimes painful events of their lives.

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The Daughter of Time [Book Club Set]

Tey, Josephine, 1896 or 1897-1952.

Published in 1995

A hospitalized English policeman reconstructs historical evidence concerning Richard III's role in the murder of Edward IV's two sons.

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Walker, Adrian J. (Suspense fiction writer), author.

Published in 2017

Edgar Hill is thirty-five, overweight, an underperforming husband and reluctant father. After a catastrophic asteroid strike, Edgar and his family find refuge in an Edinburgh army barracks. Returning from a salvage run, Edgar finds his family gone, taken to the south coast for evacuation by an international task force. Edgar must race across the 550 miles of wasteland to find the people he loves before he loses them forever.

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Wehle, Kim, author.

Published in 2019

An insightful, urgent, and perennially relevant handbook that lays out in common sense language how the United States Constitution works, and how its protections are eroding before our eyes'essential reading for anyone who wants to understand and parse the constantly breaking news about the backbone of American government. The Constitution is the most significant document in America. But do you fully understand what this valuable document means to you? In How to Read the Constitution--and Why, legal expert and educator Kimberly Wehle spells out in clear, simple, and common sense terms what is in the Constitution, and most importantly, what it means. In compelling terms and including text from the United States Constitution, she describes how the Constitution's protections are eroding'not only in express terms but by virtue of the many legal and social norms that no longer shore up its legitimacy'and why every American needs to heed to this 'red flag' moment in our democracy. This invaluable'and timely'resource includes the Constitution in its entirety and covers nearly every significant aspect of the text, from the powers of the President and how the three branches of government are designed to hold each other accountable, to what it means to have individual rights'including free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to an abortion. Finally, the book explains why it has never been more important than now for all Americans to know how our Constitution works'and why, if we don't step in to protect it now, we could lose its protections forever.How to Read the Constitution--and Why is essential reading for anyone who cares about maintaining an accountable government and the individual freedoms that the Constitution enshrines for everyone in America'regardless of political party.

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The Nickel Boys

A Novel [Book Club Set]

Whitehead, Colson, 1969- author.

Published in 2019

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Yu, Charles, 1976- author.

Published in 2020

"From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play."-- Provided by publisher.

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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry [Book Club Set]

A Novel

Zevin, Gabrielle.

Published in 2014

When his most prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, is stolen, bookstore owner A. J. Fikry begins isolating himself from his friends, family and associates before receiving a mysterious package that compels him to remake his life.

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Morgan R.

Collections Strategist