Book Club in a Bag

American War by Omar El Akkad

An audacious and powerful debut novel: a second American Civil War, a devastating plague, and one family caught deep in the middle--a story that asks what might happen if America were to turn its most devastating policies and deadly weapons upon itself.

After the death of their father, siblings, Danny and Maeve, are exiled from the house where they grew up by their stepmother and are thrust into poverty. A dark fairy tale about two smart people who cannot overcome their past.

A breathtaking story of five extraordinary packhorse librarians and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond.

A desperate family seeks a new beginning in the near-isolated wilderness of Alaska only to find that their unpredictable environment is less threatening than the erratic behavior found in human nature.

Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

An enchanting love story, masterfully told, about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.

A political thriller/murder mystery about a former female prosecutor set on finding her close friend's killer despite being haunted by postpartum problems that manifest as a cruel voice in her head.

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar

This powerful and lyrical debut novel tells the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and an adventurous mapmaker’s apprentice—coming of age in perilous times.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever...A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived.

The Nine by Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg

Both a coming-of-age novel and a portrait of an evolving mother-son relationship, The Nine is the story of a young man who chooses to expose a corrupt world operating under its own set of rules―even if it means jeopardizing his mother’s hopes and dreams.

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

As an Indian wedding gathers a family back together, parents Rafiq and Layla must reckon with the choices their children have made. An astonishingly tender-hearted novel of identity and belonging, and a resonant portrait of what it means to be an American family today.

*NEW* The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself.

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. But one night she shoots her husband five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Her silence propels her into notoriety and into the care of Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist obsessed with uncovering her motivations.

Rear Window meets Get Out in this gripping thriller in which the gentrification of a Brooklyn neighborhood takes on a sinister new meaning…

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

A beautiful and eye-opening graphic memoir about American identity, interracial families, and the realities that divide us told through conversations.

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro

A memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealogy test: an exploration of the urgent ethical questions surrounding fertility treatments and DNA testing, and a profound inquiry of paternity, identity, and love.

Kendi weaves together an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science, bringing it all together with an engaging personal narrative of his own awakening to antiracism.

A rich, historical narrative that documents the young women who toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium, and the astonishing legacy they left behind.

With every passing day, and every record-breaking hurricane, it grows clearer that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways.

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi (*2021 Reading Across Rhode Island selection)

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas–and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.