Book Group Best Bets
Looking for good books for discussion? These recently released novels from a variety of genres are sure to spark lively discussion in your book group! Annotations from NoveList, unless otherwise noted. (Created October 2024)
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The Reformatory
A novel set in Jim Crow Florida follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he's sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.
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James
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Twain's original novel remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.
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Availability: Available
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Motherthing
A darkly funny domestic horror novel about a woman who must take drastic measures to save her husband and herself from the vengeful ghost of her mother-in-law.
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Availability: Available
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All Fours
Ditching her California life for the open road, a restless, semi-famous artist leaves her husband, child and career and reinvents herself in a motel room, embarking on a journey of self-discovery and what it means to be alive and free.
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Availability: Available
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Blue Sisters
The Blue sisters have always been exceptional - and different. Avery, a strait-laced lawyer living in London, is the eldest daughter, though she's hiding a secret that could undo her life forever. Bonnie was a boxer but, following a devastating defeat, she's been working as a bouncer. And Lucky, the youngest, is a model in Paris whose hard-partying ways are finally catching up with her. Then there was Nicky, the fourth sister, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie and Lucky reeling. When the three of them must reunite in New York to stop the sale of their childhood home, they find that it's only by returning to each other that they can navigate their grief, addiction and heartbreak.
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Availability: All copies in use
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Someone Like Us
With his marriage on the verge of collapse, journalist Mamush returns to his close-knit immigrant Ethiopian community in Washington, DC, where a death in the family leads him on an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions he'd been told never to ask.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The God of the Woods
Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.
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Availability: All copies in use
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Sandwich
For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds. With Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, this year promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.
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Allow Me to Introduce Myself
After growing up with her life being chronicled and monetized by her entrepreneurial step-mother, Anuri escapes as a young adult but vows to fight the cycle of abuse and save her younger sister from a similar fate.
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Availability: Available
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The Road to the Country
In 1960s Nigeria, Kunle, when his younger brother disappears as the country explodes in civil war, sets out on an impossible rescue mission, which becomes a journey of atonement that will see him forced to fight a war he hardly understands while navigating the prophecies of a local Seer.
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Availability: Available
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