Book Club Kits

Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, a Chinese boy enrolls in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation--also known as Babel.
When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide... Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Jason Fitger is a beleaguered professor of creative writing and literature at a small liberal arts college in the midwest. His life is a tale of woe, and the vehicle this droll and inventive novel uses to tell that tale is a series of hilarious letters of recommendation that Fitger is endlessly called upon by his students and colleagues to produce, each one of which is a small masterpiece of high dudgeon, low spirits, and passive-aggressive strategies.

How many lifetimes does it take to learn how to live? Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love . . .

The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she's an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie offers her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her people-pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it's a pretty sweet gig--until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down.

Once, a hero arose to save the world. He failed. Ever since, the world has been a wasteland of ash and mist controlled by the immortal emperor known as the Lord Ruler. But hope survives.
A new uprising is forming, one built around the ultimate caper, the cunning of a brilliant criminal mastermind, and the determination of an unlikely heroine: a street urchin who must learn to master the power of a Mistborn.

Korede's sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed with Ayoola's knife. Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, to move a body, and keeps Ayoola from posting pictures when she should be mourning her "missing" boyfriend. When Korede's crush asks for Ayoola's number, Korede must decide how far she's willing to protect her sister.

When climate change & economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from water shortage to masses of vagabonds. Lauren Olamina lives sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where vulnerability is a risk, Lauren must make her voice heard to protect her loved ones. But what begins as a fight for survival leads to something more.

Two best friends. Ten summer trips. Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. Every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together. Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven't spoken since. Poppy has convinced Alex to take one more vacation together. Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

From award-winning poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil comes a debut work of nonfiction--a collection of essays about the natural world, and the way its inhabitants can teach, support, and inspire us. This books in this kit have been graciously donated by Milkweed Books

You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson is a queer, political, and feminist collection guided by self-reflection. The poems range from close examination of the deeply personal to the vastness of the world, exploring the expansiveness of the human experience from love to illness, from space to climate change, and so much more in between.

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. A young Latin tutor falls in love with an eccentric young woman. Agnes, known for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a force in the life of her husband, when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect. All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six.

1995: Selin arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes she has never heard of, befriends her classmate, Svetlana, and begins corresponding with Ivan, a mathematics student. At the end of the school year, Selin heads to the Hungarian countryside, to teach English. Selin's summer in Europe does not resonate with the typical experiences of American college students. For Selin, this is a journey inside herself and with the growing knowledge that she is doomed to become a writer.

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion. The result is a science fiction novel of enormous scope and vision.