Popular Book Club Picks

Same Kind of Different as Me (2006) is a memoir written by Denver Moore and Ron Hall, with the assistance of Lynn Vincent. Employing a first-person point of view that switches between Moore and Hall in its chapters, the book tells the radically-different life stories of the two men—Moore spent most of his adult years being homeless or in prison, while Hall was a high-end art dealer—and how they were brought together thanks to Hall’s... Read Same Kind Of Different As Me Summary

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Sarah’s Key is a novel told from multiple perspectives and points in time. At the outset of the novel, there are two narratives occurring: one in 1942, and the other in 2002. In 1942, Sarah’s family is taken, along with a host of other Jewish families, in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup by the French police. Before they leave their home, Sarah hides her little brother, Michel, in a secret cupboard in the house. She grabs... Read Sarah’s Key Summary

Saturday is a novel by Ian McEwan, first published in 2005 by Jonathan Cape. Ian McEwan is an acclaimed British author who has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. In Saturday, McEwan delves into the inner life of a single individual, Henry Perowne, a successful neurosurgeon living in London. The novel takes place over the course of a single day, February 15, 2003, against the... Read Saturday Summary

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Secret Daughter (2010) is the debut novel of Canadian-Indian author Shilpi Somaya Gowda. Spanning twenty years, it follows two families who are mysteriously connected by an adopted daughter. A New York Times Bestseller, the novel has been translated into more than thirty languages and has sold more than a million copies. Godwa formed the idea for Secret Daughter while volunteering at an Indian orphanage as an undergraduate. Secret Daughter received much critical praise for its... Read Secret Daughter Summary

Secrets of a Charmed Life is a historical fiction novel written by Susan Meissner and published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Random House, in 2015. The book follows two sisters in wartime England, Emmeline and Julia Downtree, who are separated from each other during the Blitz. The book also follows an interview between American Oxford student Kendra Van Zant and Blitz survivor and artist Isabel MacFarland. The novel explores the themes of... Read Secrets of a Charmed Life Summary

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Shanghai Girls (May 2009) is a New York Times bestselling historical novel by Lisa See. It is the first of a two-book series that concludes with Dreams of Joy (2011). The author’s paternal great-grandfather emigrated from China, and many of See’s books examine the Chinese immigrant experience in America. Other titles that cover similar subject matter are Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007), China Dolls (2014), The Tea Girl of... Read Shanghai Girls Summary

Silver Sparrow, written by Tayari Jones and published in 2011, is a family drama set in 1980s Atlanta. The novel was a Women’s National Book Association 2011 Great Group Read and was chosen as one of the top 10 books of the year by Library Journal. Other works by this author include Leaving Atlanta and An American Marriage. Plot Summary Silver Sparrow revolves around Dana Lynn Yarboro and Chaurisse Witherspoon, who are half-sisters, although only Dana knows... Read Silver Sparrow Summary

Sing, Unburied, Sing is author Jesmyn Ward’s third novel, and her second (following 2011’s Salvage the Bones) to win the National Book Award for Fiction. Published in 2017, Sing, Unburied, Sing touches on many of the same issues Ward’s other novels do, including the racial and class divisions of the contemporary American South; the novel takes place against the backdrop of events like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, as well as societal trends like... Read Sing, Unburied, Sing Summary

In the novel Sister of My Heart, the Indian-born American author and poet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni explores issues of family, womanhood, and diasporic experience, constantly affirming and exploring the redemptive power of storytelling. Divakaruni’s first collection of stories, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles Award, and a Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Her novel The Mistress of Spices was released as a film of the same name in 2005. Sister of My Heart was made into a television series... Read Sister of My Heart Summary

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Skipping Christmas is a 2001 satirical novella by John Grisham. It tells the story of Luther and Nora Krank, a married couple whose adult daughter, Blair, moves to Peru a month before Christmas. Facing their first Christmas without their daughter, and disillusioned by the holiday’s excesses, they decide to forego Christmas that year and go on a cruise instead. However, their decision brings them into conflict with their friends and neighbors, who expect them to... Read Skipping Christmas Summary

Small Great Things, Jodi Picoult’s 2016 novel, takes its title from a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” The book takes its major section titles from the stages of childbirth, beginning with “Stage One: Early Labor” (1). This short opening section takes place in 1976, with Ruth Jefferson narrating an incident from her childhood in which she and her... Read Small Great Things Summary

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a frame tale, a story within a story, as told by an eighty-year-old Chinese woman, reflecting on her life and preparing for her death. In the first and last chapter, the narrator Lily reveals that she is dictating the story to Peony, the wife of her grandson, as a form of confession to her friend Snow Flower who is now in the afterworld. Lily was born to a... Read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Summary