Book Club in a Bag

By Karen Thompson Walker
A painstakingly researched debut imagines the coming-of-age story of young Julia, whose world is thrown into upheaval when it is discovered that the Earth's rotation has suddenly begun to slow, posing a catastrophic threat to all life.

By Anthony Doerr

A blind French girl on the run from the German occupation and a German orphan-turned-Resistance tracker struggle with respective beliefs after meeting on the Brittany coast.

By Mark Mills
Conrad Labarde, a reclusive fisherman, finds his life transformed when he pulls up the body of a beautiful young woman in his fishing nets, in a story set against the backdrop of a small Long Island fishing community in 1947.

By Stephanie Dray

A carefully researched tale based on thousands of original sources imagines the experiences of third American President's daughter Patsy, who while accompanying her father to Paris struggles with his past affair with a slave and falls in love with his protégé against a backdrop of a growing revolution.

By Tayari Jones

When her new husband is arrested and imprisoned for a crime she knows he did not commit, a rising artist takes comfort in a longtime friendship only to encounter unexpected challenges in resuming her life when her husband's sentence is suddenly overturned.

By Lauren Belfer

A tale inspired by historical events traces the experiences of two women, one European and one American, whose lives are transformed by a mysterious Johann Sebastian Bach choral masterpiece.

By Khaled Hosseini

Presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another, and how choices resonate through subsequent generations.

By Frank McCourt

The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.

By B.A. Shapiro

An artist whose reputation has been tarnished stumbles on a piece of art that disappeared twenty-five years ago and agrees to forge it for a gallery owner, until she realizes that the art she is forging may itself be a forgery.

By Chad Harbach
A baseball star at a small college near Lake Michigan launches a routine throw that goes disastrously off course and inadvertently changes the lives of five people, including the college president, a gay teammate and the president's daughter.

By Jan-Philipp Sendker

When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter has any idea where he might be—until they find a love letter he wrote many years before, to a Burmese woman who is unknown to them.

By Elizabeth Berg
Returning home for a family reunion, Laura Bartone and her brother, Steve, are stunned by their sister's allegations of shocking behavior on the part of their mother, and must come to terms with the truth and lies within their family.

By Lisa Halliday

Explores the imbalances that drive dramatic human relations, tracing the overlapping stories of a young American editor's relationship with a famous older writer during the early years of the Iraq War, and an Iraqi-American man who is detained by immigration officers in Heathrow.

By Melanie Benjamin

A story inspired by the marriage between Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh traces the romance between a handsome young aviator and a shy ambassador's daughter whose relationship is marked by wild international acclaim, history-making flights and the world-shocking abduction of their child.

By Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

Accepting the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, Prudencia Prim finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way, especially when she falls for her employer, a book-loving intellectual.

By Jess Walter

A novel that spans fifty years. The Italian housekeeper and his long-lost American starlet; the producer who once brought them together, and his assistant. A glittering world filled with unforgettable characters.

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Three generations of Indian women discover their greatest source of strength in one another--from a baker's daughter who dreams of an impossible education, to the daughter who confronts her independence in America, to the granddaughter who learns lessonsabout freedom and heartbreak 

By Lisa Wingate

Learning that her grandmother was a victim of the corrupt Tennessee Children's Home Society, attorney and aspiring politician Avery Stafford delves into her family's past and begins to wonder if some things are best kept secret.

By Katherine Boo

Profiles everyday life in the settlement of Annawadi as experienced by a Muslim teen, an ambitious rural mother, and a young scrap metal thief, illuminating how their efforts to build better lives are challenged by religious, caste, and economic tensions.

By Imbolo Mbue

An immigrant working class couple from Cameroon and the upper class American family for whom they work find their lives and marriages shaped by financial circumstances, infidelities, secrets, and the 2008 recession.

By Atul Gawande

A prominent surgeon argues against modern medical practices that extend life at the expense of quality of life.

By Ann Patchett

When terrorists seize hostages at an embassy party, an unlikely assortment of people is thrown together, including American opera star Roxanne Coss, and Mr. Hosokawa, a Japanese CEO and her biggest fan.

By Mark Sullivan

A teenage boy in 1940s Italy becomes part of an underground railroad that helps Jews escape through the Alps, but when he is recruited to be the personal driver for a powerful Third Reich commander, he begins to spy for the Allies.

By Jennifer Weiner

When a friend she has not spoken to since the fight that ended their friendship six years earlier asks her to be her maid of honor, Daphne Berg confronts the dynamics of friendship and forgiveness during the increasingly disastrous wedding.

By Sarah Dunant

Turning fifteen in Renaissance Florence, Alessandra Cecchi becomes intoxicated with the works of a young painter whom her father has brought to the city to decorate the family's Florentine palazzo, a situation that is complicated by her unwanted arranged marriage to an older man and a battle between the Medici family and the fundamentalist followers of Savonarola.

By Malcolm Gladwell
Explores the process by which people make decisions, explaining how the difference between good and bad decision making is directly related to the details on which people focus, and offers advice on how to improve decision making skills.

By Alice Hoffman
The revelation of a long-hidden dark secret about Ethan Ford's true identity and his past threatens to turn a small Massachusetts town upside down as the devastating truth shatters Monroe's small-town peace and tests the bonds between family and friends.

By Cristina Henriquez

Moving from Mexico to the United States when their daughter suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras confront cultural barriers, their daughter’s difficult recovery, and her developing relationship with a Panamanian boy.

By Kim Michele Richardson

A last-of-her-kind outcast and member of the Pack Horse Library Project braves the hardships of Kentucky's Great Depression and hostile community discrimination to bring the near-magical perspectives of books to her neighbors.

By Asne Seierstad

The Norwegian journalist provides a portrait of a committed Muslim man and his family living in post-Taliban Kabul, Afghanistan.

By Anita Diamant

Recounting the story of her life to her granddaughter, octogenarian Addie describes how she was raised in early-twentieth-century America by Jewish immigrant parents in a teeming multicultural neighborhood.

By Daniel James Brown

Traces the story of an American rowing team from the University of Washington that defeated elite rivals at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics, sharing the experiences of their enigmatic coach, a visionary boat builder, and a homeless teen rower.

By Junot Díaz
Living with an old-world mother and rebellious sister, an urban New Jersey misfit dreams of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien and believes that a long-standing family curse is thwarting his efforts to find love and happiness.

By Geraldine Brooks

Forging a deep friendship with a Wampanoag chieftain's son on the Great Harbor settlement where her minister father is working to convert the tribe, Bethia follows his subsequent ivy league education and efforts to bridge cultures among the colonial elite.

By Michael Ondaatje

Boarding a 1950s ship and sequestered to an out-of-sight dining table with other marginalized children, an 11-year-old boy shares rollicking adventures while traveling to various world regions, learning about jazz, women, and a shackled prisoner along the way.

By Jodi Picoult

Her life shattered by a devastating act of violence, June Nealon is forced to make a pivotal choice that involves her twelve-year-old daughter and a salvation-seeking criminal.

By Laura Moriarty
Accompanying a future famous actress from her Wichita home to New York, chaperone Cora Carlisle shares a life-changing five-week period with her ambitious teenage charge during which she discovers the promise of the twentieth century and her own purpose in life.

By Ian McEwan

A highly respected London judge hides her decision to separate from a husband who wants an open marriage, a loss that challenges her beliefs throughout a case involving parents whose faith forbids a life-saving transfusion for their son.

By Sahar Delijani
A tale set in post-revolutionary Iran follows the experiences of Neda, Omid, Sheida and other individuals from three generations of families whose political activists loved ones were murdered during the violent purges inside Tehran’s prisons.

By Colleen Oakley

A 28-year-old recluse with a unique allergy to physical contact with other people is forced to reenter the world after her mother's death, finding friendship with a 10-year-old troubled boy and love with his adoptive father.

By James McBride

A young African-American man describes growing up in an all-black Brooklyn housing project, one of twelve children of a white mother and black father, and discusses his mother's contributions to his life and coming to terms with his confusion over his own identity.

By Ann Patchett

A five–decade saga tracing the impact of an act of infidelity on the parents and children of two Southern California families traces their shared summers in Virginia and the disillusionment that shapes their lasting bond.

By Camille Aubray

Pablo Picasso is at a momentous crossroads in his personal and professional life—and for him, art and women are always entwined. The spirited Ondine, chafing under her family’s authority and nursing a broken heart, is just beginning to discover her own talents and appetites. Her encounter with Picasso will continue to affect her life for many decades onward, as the great artist and the talented young chef each pursue their own passions and destiny.

By Wallace Stegner

Two young couples, Sid and Charity and Larry and Sally, from different backgrounds – East and West, rich and poor – befriend each other in 1937 Madison, Wisconsin.

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.

By William Andrews

Torn away from her family by the Japanese military in 1943 and forced to be "comfort women" for the Imperial Army, Jae-hee and her sister suffer terribly before being separated at the end of the war, leaving Jae-hee to keep her shameful secret alone while trying to rebuild her life.

By Erik Larson

A chronicle of the sinking of the Lusitania discusses the factors that led to the tragedy and the contributions of such figures as Woodrow Wilson, bookseller Charles Lauriat, and architect Theodate Pope Riddle.

By Ann Napolitano

A 12-year-old lone survivor of a plane crash investigates the stories of his less-fortunate fellow passengers before making a profound discovery about his life purpose in the face of transcendent losses.

By William Landay

His happy life and long-time respectability as a suburban Massachusetts assistant district attorney shattered when his 14-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student, Andy Barber faces a wrenching decision about family loyalty when the facts increasingly suggest that the boy is guilty.

By Erik Larson

Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson’s spellbinding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men-the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World’s Fair, striving to secure America’s place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death.  Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.