Welcome to Book Club in a Bag!
This program is designed to help patrons more successfully execute their book clubs. We provide book club kits. Each kit includes ten copies of a book, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and a sign-out sheet to facilitate lending.
How It Works:
- Browse the list of titles below.
- Call the library or e-mail bookclub@4cls.org to check availability and reserve a kit.
- Visit the library to check out the kit (kits circulate for four weeks)
- Distribute books to your club
- Have a great discussion
- Collect books from your club
- Return the kit to the library
It is the borrower’s responsibility to return each kit with all of its books. If a book goes missing, the borrower may substitute a new copy or pay the replacement cost.
To reserve a specific kit contact Your Home Public Library by phone or send an e-mail to bookclub@4cls.org.
Kits circulate for four weeks. To suggest a title for inclusion in the program, send an e-mail to bookclub@4cls.org.
| The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain | The classic from an American Master. The adventures and pranks of a mischievous boy growing up in a 19th-century Mississippi River town as he plays hooky on an island, witnesses a crime, hunts for pirate’s treasure, and becomes lost in a cave. Find Out More |
| The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein | Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television and by listening closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver. Find Out More |
| City of Thieves, by David Benioff | During the siege of Leningrad, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt to find the impossible. Find Out More |
| Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer | Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center attacks, searches the five boroughs of New York City for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind. Find Out More |
| The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary An Shaffer and Annie Barrows | In 1946, writer Juliet Ashton finds inspiration for her next book in her correspondence with a native of Guernsey, who tells her about the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a book club born as an alibi during German occupation. Find Out More |
| Home Repair, by Liz Rosenberg | A poignant, lovely, funny, and ultimately uplifting story of love, family, and survival, Liz Rosenberg’s Home Repair is an unforgettable introduction to a lyrical, wise, and wonderfully vibrant new literary voice. Find Out More |
| Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford | When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at a Seattle hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment. Find Out More |
| The Kitchen Boy, by Robert Alexander | Presents a novel based on the 1918 Bolshevik revolutionary murder of Czar Nicholas II and the rest of the Russian royal family as told from the perspective of the event’s only surviving witness, a young kitchen boy. Find Out More |
| Life of Pi, by Yann Martel | Possessing encyclopedia-like intelligence, unusual zookeeper’s son Pi Patel sets sail for America, but when the ship sinks, he escapes on a life boat and is lost at sea with a dwindling number of animals until only he and a hungry Bengal tiger remain. Find Out More |
| Little Bee, by Chris Cleave | Presents a tale of a precarious friendship between an illegal Nigerian refugee and a recent widow from suburban London, a story told from the alternating and disparate perspectives of both women. Find Out More |
| Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs | After a family tragedy, Jacob feels compelled to explore an abandoned orphanage on an island off the coast of Wales, discovering disturbing facts about the children who were kept there. Find Out More |
| Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro | A reunion with two childhood friends–Ruth and Tommy–draws Kath and her companions on a nostalgic odyssey into the supposedly idyllic years of their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the serene English countryside, and a dramatic confrontation with the truth about their childhoods and about their lives in the present. Find Out More |
| Room, by Emma Donoghue | A 5-year-old narrates a story about his life growing up in a single room where his mother aims to protect him from the man who has held her prisoner for seven years since she was a teenager. Find Out More |
| The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Berry | Roseanne McNulty, once one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland, is now an elderly patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. As her hundredth year draws near, she decides to record the events of her life, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards. Meanwhile, the hospital is preparing to close and is evaluating its patients to determine whether they can return to society. Dr. Grene, Roseanne’s caretaker, takes a special interest in her case. In his research, he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne’s life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves. Find Out More |
| State of Wonder, by Ann Pratchett | A researcher at a pharmaceutical company, Marina Singh journeys into the heart of the Amazonian delta to check on a field team that has been silent for two years–a dangerous assignment that forces Marina to confront the ghosts of her past. Find Out More |
| The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht | Struggling to understand why her beloved grandfather left his family to die alone in a field hospital far from home, a young doctor in a war-torn Balkan country takes over her grandfather’s search for a mythical ageless vagabond while referring to a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.”. Find Out More |
This program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, which is administered by the Chenango County Council of the Arts, with support from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the NYS Legislature. Additional funding provided by the Hoyt Foundation.
