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Book Club in a Bag
The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library provides the books and all the information needed to have a great book discussion.
Each Book Club In A Bag kit contains ten copies of the selected book, a large print edition (if available), an audio book (if available), a reading guide and an information / contents sheet.
The titles include a mix of fiction and nonfiction, covering a broad range of genres and topics. To view the current list, please see below.
The bags are checked out for 6 weeks and can be returned to any Buffalo and Erie County Public Library location. Renewals are not allowed. You can have two bags per library card at any time.
Kits are available on a first come, first served basis and cannot be reserved for a particular date. To ensure that you receive a kit in a timely manner, please indicate three title choices. You will receive a confirmation email or phone call within two business days of your request. It may take up to one week for delivery to the pick-up library. To reserve a kit, click here.
To suggest a title for Book Club In A Bag, click here.
Book Club Kits
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Dai Sijie
This novella tracks the lives of two teens, childhood friends who have been sent to a small Chinese village for "re-education" during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Sons of doctors and dentists, their days are now spent hauling buckets of excrement up the mountainside and mining coal. But the boys-Luo and the unnamed narrator-get a
reprieve when the villagers discover their talents as storytellers, and on one of their trips into town, Lou meets the seamstress of the title and falls in love.
Bel Canto
Ann Patchett
Terrorists seize an international group of hostages at an embassy party, and as the months go by, the lines between captive and captor blur.
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison
An eleven-year-old African American girl prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be beautiful and accepted.
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak
Death narrates this World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood. The child arrives having just stolen her first book and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to teach her to read and to lull her to sleep when she is awakened by nightmares about her younger brother’s death.
Bridge to Terabithia
Katherine Paterson
Jess and Leslie create an imaginary, secret kingdom in the woods called Terabithia that can be reached only by swinging across a creek bed on a rope. But one morning a tragic accident befalls Leslie as she ventures alone to Terabithia, and Jess's life is changed forever.
City of Light
Lauren Belfer
The headmistress of an exclusive girl’s school in turn-of-the-century Buffalo tries to unravel a secret against the backdrop of politics, hydroelectric power and the Pan American Exposition.
The Color of Water
James McBride
An unforgettable memoir of a black man’s search to uncover his white mother’s roots and his own identity.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Mark Haddon
Christopher Boone, the autistic 15-year-old narrator of this novel, relaxes by groaning and doing math problems in his head, eats red-but not yellow or brown-foods and screams when he is touched. When his neighbor's poodle is killed and Christopher is falsely accused of the crime, he decides that he will take a page from Sherlock Holmes (one of his favorite characters) and track down the killer. As the mystery leads him to the secrets of his parents' broken marriage and then into an odyssey to find his place in the world, he must fall back on deductive logic to navigate the emotional complexities of a social world that remains a closed book to him.
Devil in the White City
Erik Larson
Historical narrative of the people and events that shaped the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, including the seductive serial killer who lured its tourists to their deaths.
The Emperor of Ocean Park
Stephen L. Carter
After the funeral of his powerful father, Talcott Garland, an African American law professor at an Ivy League university, is left to unravel the meaning of a cryptic note and carry out "the arrangements" his father left behind. Talcott soon finds himself in an investigation that entangles him with a number of questionable Washington, D.C., denizens, including attorneys and government officials, law professors, the FBI, shady underworld figures, chess masters, and friends and family. The closer he comes to unraveling his father's dark secrets, the more dangerous things become.
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
Joseph Ellis
Founding Brothers takes a look at post-revolutionary war America by closely exploring the events and controversies from the nation’s early years. Ellis does this by unflinchingly examining the politics and character of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison.
Galileo’s Daughter
Dava Sobel
In Galileo's Daughter, Dava Sobel tells the story of the famous scientist and his illegitimate daughter, Sister Maria Celeste. Sobel bases her book on 124 surviving letters to the scientist from the nun, whom Galileo described as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and tenderly attached to me." Their loving correspondence revealed much about their world: the agonies of the bubonic plague, and the hardships of monastic life.
Gentlemen and Players
Joanne Harris
Harboring dark ties to St. Oswald's past, a young teacher has arrived with one terrible goal: to destroy the school. A veteran teacher faces a formidable opponent - a master player with a bitter grudge and a strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final move, a secret game with very real, very deadly consequences.
The Glass Castle
Jeanette Walls
The second child of a scholarly, alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family’s nomadic upbringing from the Arizona desert to Las Vegas, and an Appalachian mining town.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood
A look at a future dystopian society where women are no longer allowed to read and are valued only for reproduction.
The House of the Spirits
Isabel Allende
On the day that the priest accused her of being possessed by the devil and that her Uncle Marcos's body was delivered to her house accompanied by a puppy, Clara del Valle began keeping a journal. Fifty years later, her husband Esteban and her granddaughter Alba refer to these journals as they piece together the story of their family.
I
Into Thin Air
Jon Krakauer
A first-hand account of the catastrophic expedition up Mt. Everest in 1996. Despite the expertise of the climbing group’s leaders, by the end of summit day eight, people were dead. Krakauer’s story of ill-fated adventure also recalls the triumphs and perils of other Everest trips throughout history.
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
This is the story of the friendship between a wealthy boy the son of his father’s servant, both of whom are caught up in the tragic final days of Afghanistan’s monarchy and the brutality of the Taliban’s rule.
The Last Town on Earth
Thomas Mullen
A small, isolated logging community enacts the drastic measure of quarantine to protect itself from the deadly influenza epidemic of 1918. The town is changed forever when a WWI soldier attempts to enter the community and the sequence of events that follow.
The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett
Detective Sam Spade becomes embroiled with a mysterious client, avenges the death of his partner, and chases a priceless treasure, in this classic American private-eye novel.
Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer
James L. Swanson
For 12 days, assisted by family and some women smitten by his legendary physical beauty, John Wilkes Booth relied on smarts, stealth and luck to elude detectives, military officers and local police after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.
Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history in which genetics meets medical incompetence meets history. At the center of the story is the odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope.
Mistress of the Art of Death
Ariana Franklin
With the horrific killing of a Christian boy in England, Plantagenet King Henry II implores the King of Sicily to dispatch his best master of a frightful new science (12th Century forensics or the "art of death"), to solve the crime. A mistress arrives instead.....
Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
An American passenger is murdered on board the fabled Orient Express. Hercule Poirot determines that the corpse was a renowned child kidnapper/killer, and begins to wonder about connections between the other passengers and the victim. A misplaced button, overheard conversations, a monogrammed handkerchief, and an elusive figure clad in a scarlet kimono all become clues in this variation on the theme of the English house-party.
My Sister’s Keeper
Jodi Picoult
Kate Fitzgerald has a rare form of leukemia. Her sister, Anna, was conceived to provide a donor match for procedures that become increasingly invasive. At 13, Anna hires a lawyer so that she can sue her parents for the right to make her own decisions about how her body is used when a kidney transplant is planned. The book explores the moral and ethical dilemmas surrounding genetic planning, and the prospect of creating babies for health purposes.
The Other Boleyn Girl
Phillipa Gregory
Historically based tale of Mary Boleyn, who was mistress of Henry VIII before her sister Anne insinuated herself into the King’s good graces.
A Painted House
John Grisham
It’s harvest time on an Arkansas cotton farm, and this book chronicles two months in the life of seven-year-old Luke Chandler who, before the season is over will have seen his first naked girl, peeked through a window at a loud and painful childbirth and witnessed two murders.
Plot Against America
Philip Roth
An alternate history as lived by young Philip, a Jewish boy in Newark, New Jersey. Hero and isolationist Charles Lindbergh has defeated FDR to become president in 1940. As Lindbergh’s increasingly pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic policies take hold, Philip recounts the confusion, fear and courage that play out in his family and his country.
The Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver
Told through the voices of the wife and four daughters of a Baptist missionary in the Belgian Congo, this story chronicles the transformation of their lives over the course of 30 years.
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen
Austen’s classic story of the romance between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett despite 18th Century societal prejudice and their personal pride.
The Red Tent
Anita Diamant
Dinah, a minor character among women of the Old Testament, learns endurance and humanity through the female ritual practices of the time.
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Lisa See
Set in 19th century China, this is the story of the friendship between Snow Flower and Lily. The two girls share the agony of foot binding at age 7, and later the joys and sorrows of arranged marriages and motherhood – until a heartbreaking misunderstanding drastically changes their relationship.
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Bill Bryson
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America. Bill Bryson introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears.
Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
Ninety-three year old Jacob Jankowski recalls life as a young veterinarian with a Depression-era traveling circus. Love, murder, and an elephant named Rosie await the reader in this profoundly moving tale.
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Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
Geraldine Brooks
In 1666, a young woman comes of age during an extraordinary year of love and death.