Book Club Kits

What is the Book Club Kit Collection?

Contained in your book club kit bag are ten numbered copies of a single title and a book group leader’s notebook with information designed to stimulate discussion such as author interviews and biographical information, book reviews, and discussion questions.  Most of the sets have 10 copies.  A member of the book club checks out a set on one card.  Sets check out for a six-week period, with no renewals.

Please remember to return the kits on time with all the contents in the bag.  Other book groups may be waiting to check the kit out after your group is finished.  Should a member of your group lose a book, we ask that you replace it with another copy either new or gently used.

Contained in the group leader’s notebook are the following:

 Sign Out Sheet

Group leaders should use the forms provided to keep track of which books are checked out to group members.  Group members should sign out on the numbered line that corresponds to the number on the cover of their book.  When a book is returned, cross off the member’s name to help you keep track of who has returned their book and who still has theirs checked out.

Book Reviews

We have included a few book reviews and critical essays here voicing the opinions of professional reviewers towards the work.  Reviewers evaluate and recommend books and often make observations that help others read with understanding.

Author Information

An author’s purpose for writing may be to relate an incident from his or her own life, provide insight into human behaviors, or share a philosophy.  There author interviews, biographical information and, occasionally, obituaries are included to sharpen reader’s insights into the author’s purpose for writing and their working method.

Discussion Questions

Questions are provided to stimulate and guide discussion but please feel free to add questions and topics that made your discussion lively.  Additional relevant background information may also be included in this section.

We have Book Club Kits for the following titles:            

Waiting for snow in Havana:  confessions of a Cuban boy by Carlos Eire

Not Fade Away:  a short life well lived by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton

The Girls from Ames: a story of women and a forty-year friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow

Zorro by Isabel Allende

When Madeline Was Young  by Jane Hamilton

Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates

The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck

How the West Was Won by Louis L'Amour

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Wide Hips, Narrow Shoulders by Monte Lowrance
        Note:  Author is local and available for book talks.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Eat, Pray, Love: one woman's search for everything across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert 

Kreutzner Sonota by Leo Tolstoy

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

My Antonia by Willa Cather

Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

Pioneer Doctor: the story of a Woman's Work by Mari Grana

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Men to Match My Mountains by Irving Stone            

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros            

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage            

Reading Lolita in Tehran:  a memoir in books by Azar Nafisi            

The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck            

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty            

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard            

The Known World by Edward P. Jones            

Crimes Against Nature  by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

If you would like to borrow any of these Book Club Kit Bags, please contact your local Park County Public Library.