Novel Suspects: A True Crime Book Club
Calling all true crime enthusiasts! Join our new adult book club, where we will read and discuss a mix of fiction and nonfiction titles, all focused on a wide array of true crime subjects-- heists, fraud, kidnapping, mob stories, cults, and yes, murder. This adult book club meets every first Thursday of the month at 6:30 PM. Click here to download the current schedule.
Brown Bag Book Club
Bring your lunch and join us for a mystery book club held over the lunch hour! This book club meets every second Friday of the month at 12:00 PM and reads popular mystery/ thriller/ suspense titles. Click here to download the current schedule.
Never Ending Stories
With a never ending selection of great fiction, this group reads popular titles and meets to discuss every third Wednesday of the month at 7:00 PM. Click here to download the current schedule.
As the Pages Turn
ATPT book club meets the fourth Monday of the month at 1:00 PM to discuss our most recent read. This book club often reads historical fiction based on a central formidable event, which always leads to a substantial and enjoyable discussion. Click here to download the current schedule.
Upcoming Book Club Meetings
Bring your lunch and join us for a mystery book club held over the lunch hour! Copies of the next book are available at the circulation desk one month prior.
This month we will be discussing I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai.
This is a VIRTUAL event, available for viewing through our virtual author talks site. The program will be available live at the time listed here, and it will also be recorded and uploaded for later viewing.
Disclaimer(s)
This program is brought to you by the generous support of the Friends of the New Berlin Public Library.
With a never ending selection of great fiction, this group reads popular titles and meets to discuss every third Wednesday of the month at 7:00 PM. Meeting format and space varies with weather and ongoing procedures at the library.
This month's book is The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot by Marianne Cronin.
This book club meets the fourth Monday of the month at 1:00 PM to discuss our most recent read. Copies of the book are available at the circulation desk a month in advance. All are welcome!
This month's book: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Book Club Kits
Book club kits make it easy for you to host your own book club! We compile all the books and discussion questions; all you need to do is check out the kit and distribute it to your book club members!
Book Club Kit FAQs
Book club kits were created so you can easily host a book club from anywhere, without the hassle of tracking down multiple copies of a book! We hope to maintain a collection of popular and classic titles perfect for group discussion. Looking for a title we don’t have? Fill out the form at the bottom of this page to suggest it for purchase!
Each kit has 7-10 copies of a book, a discussion guide, author information, and a book sign-out sheet for your club members. All of this is packed in a handy New Berlin Public Library canvas tote.
Use our catalog to search “book club kit.” Then, filter the Owning Library to New Berlin Public Library and the Format to Kit. You can also take a look at the Browse Book Club Kits section below and see a list of all our titles!
You can put a kit on hold just like other library items; you will just need a library card from Bridges Library System to do so. You may postpone your hold until a future date, if you’d like. We recommend activating the hold 7-10 days before you need to pick up the item.
Please note: On the date your hold is activated, the kit will be set aside by a library staff member to be picked up by you at the circulation desk. If the kit is still checked out by another patron, it will be set aside for you when it is returned and checked in. You will get your regular hold notification when it is ready for pick up. If you have concerns about your pickup date or need assistance suspending your hold, please call the Reference Desk at 262-754-1815.
Kits can be checked out for 6 weeks. They may also be renewed if no one is waiting.
The book club kit will be checked out to a single library patron’s card. The copies of the book are numbered, and the patron checking out is encouraged to use the included sign-out sheet to keep track of who in the club has each book.
Complete kits should be returned to the circulation desk. Individual book club members should return their books to the club leader, who will then return the complete book club kit to the circulation desk. Please do not return book copies individually.
Browse Book Club Kits
All of our book club kits are listed below! When you hover over a book cover, you'll see what is included in that kit along with a synopsis of the book. When you click on a cover, you'll be taken directly to our catalog where you can place a hold on that kit!
Click on the "View All" button below the book river to browse all the kits at once and filter them by genre.
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Truth and Other Lies (book club kit)
This kit contains 12 books, author information, and discussion questions.
WINNER, 2022 NATIONAL INDIE EXCELLENCE JUROR'S GRAND PRIZE
WINNER, 2022 AMERICAN WRITING AWARDS BEST DEBUT FICTION
WINNER 2022 FOREWARD REVIEW INDIES GOLD MEDAL ADULT FICTION
The Devil Wears Prada meets All the President's Men
Megan Barnes' life is in free fall. After losing both her job as a reporter and her boyfriend in the same day, she retreats to Chicago and moves in with Helen, her over-protective mother. Before long, the two are clashing over everything from pro-choice to #MeToo, not to mention Helen's run for U.S. Congress, which puts Megan's career on hold until after the election.
Desperate to reboot her life, Megan gets her chance when an altercation at a campus rally brings her face-to-face with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jocelyn Jones, who offers her a job on her PR team. Before long, Megan is pulled into the heady world of fame and glamour her charismatic new mentor represents.
Until an anonymous tweet brings it all crashing down. To salvage Jocelyn's reputation, Megan must locate the online troll and expose the lies. But when the trail leads to blackmail, and circles back to her own mother, Megan realizes if she pulls any harder on this thread, what should have been the scoop of her career could unravel into a tabloid nightmare.
Readers who love Jodi Picoult's topical plot twists and Liane Moriarty's character-driven novels will devour this fast-paced tale of three women whose lives converge as one fights a devastating accusation, another campaigns for a contested seat in Congress, and one, the young reporter with ties to both, navigates the tricky line between secrets and lies.
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My Friends (book club kit)
This kit contains 12 books, author information, and discussion questions.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025: Goodreads • USA TODAY • Marie Claire • BookPage • Literary Lifestyle • Book Riot • Sunset Magazine • Totally Booked with Zibby Owens
#1 New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a complete stranger’s life twenty-five years later.
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art. -
That Librarian (book club kit)
This kit contains 9 books, 1 large print book, author information, and discussion questions.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Amanda Jones started getting death threats, all for standing up for our right to read . . . but she's not stopped fighting against book bans, or stopped advocating for access to diverse stories.”-Oprah Winfrey, in a speech at the 2023 National Book Awards
Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars.
One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing.
Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and "Christian." But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a fight: she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance.
Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.
"As an author whose novels have been banned . . . I have been waiting for a book like this one.”-Jodi Picoult
"A fantastic book."-Ann Patchett
“Thank you [Amanda Jones] for fighting back . . . People like you are TRUE heroes. TRUE treasures.”-Jason Reynolds -
Broken Country (book club kit)
This kit contains 10 books, author information, and discussion questions.
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK | A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is an unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives…but it’s also a masterfully crafted mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page. Seriously, that ending?! I did not see it coming.” —Reese Witherspoon
“Stirring and mysterious…fires directly at the human heart and hits the mark.” —Delia Owens, New York Times bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing
A love triangle unearths dangerous, deadly secrets from the past in this thrilling tale perfect for fans of The Paper Palace and Where the Crawdads Sing.
“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”
Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.
As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.
A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love. -
The Queens of Crime (book club kit)
This kit contains 10 books, author information, and discussion questions.
INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER AND INDIE BESTSELLER!
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Mystery of Mrs. Christie—a thrilling story of the five greatest women writers of the Golden Age of Mystery and their bid to solve a real-life murder.
London, 1930. The five greatest women crime writers have banded together to form a secret society with a single goal: to show they are no longer willing to be treated as second class citizens by their male counterparts in the legendary Detection Club. Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham and Baroness Emma Orczy. They call themselves the Queens of Crime. Their plan? Solve an actual murder, that of a young woman found strangled in a park in France who may have connections leading to the highest levels of the British establishment.
May Daniels, a young English nurse on an excursion to France with her friend, seemed to vanish into thin air as they prepared to board a ferry home. Months later, her body is found in the nearby woods. The murder has all the hallmarks of a locked room mystery for which these authors are famous: how did her killer manage to sneak her body out of a crowded train station without anyone noticing? If, as the police believe, the cause of death is manual strangulation, why is there is an extraordinary amount of blood at the crime scene? What is the meaning of a heartbreaking secret letter seeming to implicate an unnamed paramour? Determined to solve the highly publicized murder, the Queens of Crime embark on their own investigation, discovering they’re stronger together. But soon the killer targets Dorothy Sayers herself, threatening to expose a dark secret in her past that she would do anything to keep hidden.
Inspired by a true story in Sayers’ own life, New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict brings to life the lengths to which five talented women writers will go to be taken seriously in the male-dominated world of letters as they unpuzzle a mystery torn from the pages of their own novels. -
We Solve Murders (large print book club kit)
This kit contains 11 large print books, author information, and discussion questions.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
“Madcap fun, with an entertaining new cast of characters and Osman’s trademark wit. Delightful!” —Shari Lapena
From the #1 bestselling author of The Thursday Murder Club Series
A brand new mystery. An iconic new detective duo. And a thrilling new murder to solve . . .
Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He still does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him at home. His days of adventure are over. Adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s job now.
Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. Working in private security, every day is dangerous. She’s currently on a remote island protecting mega-bestselling author Rosie D’Antonio, until a dead body and a bag of money mean trouble in paradise. So she sends an SOS to the only person she trusts . . .
As a thrilling race around the world begins, can Amy and Steve outrun and outsmart a killer?
Solving murders. It’s a family business. -
Memory Piece (large print book club kit)
This kit contains 10 large print books, author information, and discussion questions.
NAMED ONE OF TIME'S MUST-READ BOOKS OF 2024
ONE OF NPR’s BEST READS OF 2024
A VOGUE BEST BOOK OF 2024
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE READS OF SUMMER 2024
"Adventurous. . .gritty and refreshingly girl-centric. . . lingers in the imagination." –The New York Times
“Ko…draws characters with such deftness that they feel wholly alive." –The Washington Post
"It belongs to an American literary tradition that includes Dana Spiotta, George Saunders, and their patron saint, Don DeLillo." –The Atlantic
The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life?
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised. -
The Vanishing Half (book club kit)
This kit contains 11 books, author information, and discussion questions.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • NPR • PEOPLE • TIME MAGAZINE • VANITY FAIR • GLAMOUR
New York Times Readers Pick: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST
“Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal
“A story of absolute, universal timelessness . . . For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it’s piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly
From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.
As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise. -
All This Could Be Different (book club kit)
This kit contains 10 books, author information, and discussion questions.
2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST
ONE OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES' TOP 5 FICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF TIME AND SLATE'S TOP 10 BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, Vogue, Vulture, BuzzFeed, Harper's Bazaar, and more
“One of the buzziest, most human novels of the year…breathless, dizzying, and completely beautiful.” —Vogue
“Dazzling and wholly original...[written] with such mordant wit, insight, and specificity, it feels like watching a new literary star being born in real time.” —Entertainment Weekly
From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself—a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America
Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She’s moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women—soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.
But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It’s then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.
A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant’s journey to make her home in the world. -
American Dirt (book club kit)
This kit contains 10 books, author information, and discussion questions.
"También de este lado hay sueños." On this side, too, there are dreams. Lydia Quixano Perez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. Even though she knows they'll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with four books he would like to buy--two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia's husband's tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia--trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier's reach doesn't extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? American Dirt will leave readers utterly changed when they finish reading it. A page-turner filled with poignancy, drama, and humanity on every page, it is a literary achievement."--