Popular Book Club Picks

Ordinary Grace is a mystery and coming-of-age novel written by William Kent Krueger. Published in 2013, the novel is narrated from the perspective of Frank Drum. Like many of Krueger’s other works, including Iron Lake and the rest of the Cork O’Connor series, Ordinary Grace is set in Minnesota. The plot centers on a series of deaths that strike the fictional town of New Bremen in 1961, and the book is a bildungsroman for both Frank and... Read Ordinary Grace Summary

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline recounts the stories of two extraordinary women: Vivian, a 91 year-old wealthy retiree, and 17 year-old Molly, a troubled orphan living in foster-care. On the surface, these women would seem to have nothing in common; however, as they get to know each other’s stories, they come to understand the many ways in which they share life experiences and emotional truths. They become unlikely, but true, friends.Operating primarily as a... Read Orphan Train Summary

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Our Souls at Night is Colorado author Kent Haruf’s last novel, and it was published in 2015, after his death. Like much of Haruf’s other writing, this novel is set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado. The novel begins with 70-year-old Addie Moore making a proposition to her neighbor Louis Waters that they sleep together—literally, not sexually—in order to combat the loneliness that they often feel, especially at night. They have both lost their... Read Our Souls At Night Summary

Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference (2007) is the second book by former New York Times journalist Warren St. John. It follows one season with the Fugees, a soccer team for refugee boys in Clarkston, Georgia. Weaving personal stories with local and international histories, St. John demonstrates The Value of Organized Sports for Young People and the systemic injustices preventing refugees from equal participation in... Read Outcasts United Summary

Out Stealing Horses, by Norwegian author Per Petterson, was first published in 2003; the English-language translation by Anne Born was published in 2005. Told in the first person, the novel follows Trond Sander’s meditations on key events in his life and his acceptance of his advancing age and future death. Set in a remote forested area of eastern Norway, the novel moves back and forth in time between its present-tense setting in 1999 and Trond’s... Read Out Stealing Horses Summary

Pachinko, written by Min Jin Lee (Free Food for Millionaires) and published in 2017, is the story of five generations of a Korean family living in both Korea and then later Japan from 1910 to 1989. Pachinko was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2017. In Book 1, “Gohyang/Hometown 1910-1933,” the opening setting is the village of Yeongdo, Korea. The reader is introduced to the first generation of the family, the... Read Pachinko Summary

Peace Like a River is author Leif Enger’s debut novel. A work of literary fiction marketed for adult audiences but accessible to younger readers, Peace Like a River shares elements from Christian fiction, historical fiction, and coming-of-age literature. The book was named one of the Year’s Best Books by Time Magazine and the LA Times. It won the Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction in 2002, as well as an Independent... Read Peace Like a River Summary

Geraldine Brooks’s People of the Book (2008) is a historical fiction novel about a book conservator named Dr. Hanna Heath and her intensive research on the history of the famous Sarajevo Haggadah. The book is an imagined history following the real clues found in the manuscript, and the novel jumps back and forth between Hanna’s findings and historical events that brought the book to its current home in the National Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia.  Brooks... Read People of the Book Summary

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Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption is a 2009 memoir written by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. The coauthors share a unique relationship. When she was 22, Jennifer mistakenly identified Ronald as the man who raped her in her apartment. He was wrongfully convicted and spent 11 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA testing. Together, they tell their story, which explores themes of Victimization, Guilt, and Shame; The Unreliability of Eyewitness... Read Picking Cotton Summary

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Kent Haruf's Plainsong was published in 1999 and addresses such powerful themes as community, acceptance and loneliness, as well as the effects of isolation on the individual. The novel focuses on several storylines and takes place in the high plains of eastern Colorado. The characters face daunting trials and tribulations, and many of their paths cross with one another.Other works by this author include Our Souls At Night, Benediction, and Eventide.In Holt, Colorado, Tom Guthrie... Read Plainsong Summary

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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books is a memoir by Iranian American author Azar Nafisi, first released to widespread critical and popular acclaim in 2003. The memoir recalls Nafisi’s experiences living and teaching in Iran after the 1979 revolution that created the Islamic Republic of Iran, until her eventual exile in the United States in 1997. At the center of the memoir is Nafisi’s account of a secret book club she hosted during... Read Reading Lolita in Tehran Summary

Rebecca, a bestselling novel by famed English writer Daphne du Maurier, was published in 1938, and has never gone out of print. The winner of the National Book Award for favorite novel of 1938, Rebecca has been adapted numerous times, including Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film version, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and a 1997 television miniseries. It was most recently adapted for a Netflix film in 2020 by the same name. Rebecca... Read Rebecca Summary

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Remarkable Creatures (2009), a novel by Tracy Chevalier, is historical fiction that explores the unlikely friendship between Mary Anning, a working-class woman with a passion for fossil hunting, and Elizabeth Philpot, an unmarried middle-class woman. The novel is set against the backdrop of the rigid societal conventions of 19th-century England. When Mary uncovers a prehistoric fossil on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, her discovery ignites enthusiasm in the scientific community and threatens her village’s deeply... Read Remarkable Creatures Summary