Book Club Guide

hornsby.nsw.gov.au/bookclub

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Have you got the readers? We have the books!

Whether you are already part of a book club or starting your own group, Hornsby Library book club kits make it easy. Each kit contains 10 copies of the same book and a set of reading notes.

Ranging from new releases to classics, our titles include fiction and non-fiction, with something to suit every reader.

eLibrary

Like to read or listen to books on your mobile device?

Wherever possible, our book club titles are available in Hornsby's eLibrary. Check the catalogue to see if your book is available to download. libby

Set up some book club ground rules

Tips for a great book club

Choose a leaderit helps keep discussions focused and on track

Be flexible in your expectations

Find the right balance of literary discussion and socialising for your group

Have clear guidelines for discussion

Be gracious! There is never just one way to experience a book

Embrace meeting new peopleit makes life interesting

Most importantly enjoy the experience and have fun!

LEGEND

K#

Book club kit number

award winner

Australian author

Literary prize winner

TV/film adaptation

New Arrivals

Fiction

K265 YELLOWFACE

R. F. Kuang

326 pages

Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena's a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena's death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena's justfinished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena's novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song--complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn't this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That's what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can't get away from Athena's shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June's (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

Fiction

K266 MY BRILLIANT SISTER

Amy Brown

272 pages

Stella Miles Franklin’s autobiographical novel My Brilliant Career launched one of the most famous names in Australian letters Funny, bold, often biting about its characters, the novel and its young author had a lot in common Miles went on to live a large, fiercely independent and bohemian life of travel, art and freedom.

Not so her beloved sister Linda Quiet, contained, conventional, Linda was an inversion of Stella A family peacemaker who married the man Stella would not, bore a son and died of pneumonia at 25

In this reflective, witty and revealing novel, Amy Brown rescues Linda, setting her in counterpoint with Stella, and with the lives of two contemporary women: Ida, a writer whose writing life is on hold as she teaches and raises her young daughter; and Stella, a singer-songwriter who has sacrificed everything for a career, now forcibly put on hold Binding the two is the novella that Linda might have written to her sister Stella – a brilliant alternative vision of My Brilliant Career

Fiction

K267 EDENGLASSIE

Melissa Lucashenko

320 pages

When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice

Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Grannie Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives.

In this brilliant epic, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland's colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future.

Fiction

K268 SMALL THINGS LIKE THESE

Claire Keegan

83 pages - Novella award winner

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces into his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a people controlled by the Church.

Fiction

K269 REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES

Shelby Van Pelt

368 pages

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late

Fiction

K270 LOLA IN THE MIRROR

Trent Dalton

512 pages

A girl and her mother have been on the run for sixteen years, from police and the monster they left in their kitchen with a knife in his throat They've found themselves a home inside a van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the edge of the Brisbane River. The girl has no name because names are dangerous when you're on the run But the girl has a dream A vision of a life as an artist of international acclaim A life outside the grip of the Brisbane underworld drug queen 'Lady' Flora Box. A life of love with the boy who's waiting for her on the bridge that stretches across a flooding, deadly river A life beyond the bullet that has her name on it. And now that the storm clouds are rising, there's only one person who can help make her dreams come true. That person is Lola and she carries all the answers. But to find Lola, the girl with no name must first do one of the hardest things we can ever do She must look in the mirror

Biography

K271 FLINDERS

Grantlee Kieza

496 pages

In 1810, Matthew Flinders made his final voyage home to his beloved wife, Ann, his body ravaged by the deprivations of years of imprisonment by the French. Four years later, at the age of just 40, he would be dead - a premature, tragic end to one of the world's greatest maritime adventurers who circumnavigated and mapped the famed Great Southern Land, and whose naming of the vast continent would become its modern title: Australia.

This sweeping biography tells the story of the fearless, sharp-eyed, handsome Flinders and how he became one of the world's most intrepid explorers. It's a story of a great love for the sea, for connection and of friendship - accompanied by his Aboriginal interpreter and guide, Kuringgai man Bungaree, and his beloved rescue cat, Trim, Flinders explored the furthest reaches and rugged coastlines of Australia. It's also a story of technical brilliance - Flinders' meticulous charts gave us the first complete maps of our continent, which are so accurate they are still used today.

Barbara Kingslover Fiction

K272 DEMON COPPERHEAD

560 pages award winner

Demon Copperhead is a once-in-a-generation novel that breaks and mends your heart in the way only the best fiction can.

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

Fiction

K273 WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THE LIBRARY

Michiko Aoyama

256 pages

So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi

But she is no ordinary librarian.

Sensing exactly what someone is searching for in life, she provides just the book recommendation to help them find it

We meet five visitors to the library, each at a different crossroads:

- The restless retail assistant eager to pick up new skills

- The mother faced with a demotion at work after maternity leave

- The conscientious accountant who yearns to open an antique store

- The gifted young manga artist in search of motivation

- The recently retired salaryman on a quest for newfound purpose

Can she help them find what they are looking for?

Fiction

K274 FUNNY STORY

Emily Henry

384 pages

Set over one sizzling summer comes a shimmering, joyful new novel about the happily-ever-after that wasn't and the exes determined to make the best of it from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Happy Place and Book Lovers

Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story. How they met, fell in love, and moved back to his hometown to begin their life together Too bad it turned out to be more of a prequel to Peter's actual love story with his childhood best friend, Petra

So that's how Daphne's next chapter starts- stranded in a too-small town, propositioning Petra's heartbroken ex to move in. As roommates of course. A temporary solution until she gets a new job literally anywhere else. Miles is the exact opposite to Daphne, and it's mostly just unbearably awkward until one drunken night. A tenuous friendship formed, Miles convinces her to give this idyllic town one last summer - he'll show her why he loves it and if they happen to post deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together, so be it

Fiction

K275 TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW, AND TOMORROW

Gabrielle Zevin

416 pages

From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green He calls her name For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom

These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Fiction

K276 AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

Agathe Christie

256 pages

1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. Ten strangers are invited to Soldier Island, an isolated rock near the Devon coast Cut off from the mainland, with their generous hosts Mr and Mrs U N Owen mysteriously absent, they are each accused of a terrible crime When one of the party dies suddenly they realise they may be harbouring a murderer among their number.

The 10 strangers include a reckless playboy, a troubled Harley Street doctor, a formidable judge, an uncouth detective, an unscrupulous mercenary, a God-fearing spinster, two restless servants, a highly decorated general and an anxious secretary One by one they are picked off Who will survive? And who is the killer? Copies of an ominous nursery rhyme hang in each room, the murders mimicking the awful fates of its ‘Ten Little Soldier Boys’

K277 EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

Benjamin Stevenson

375 pages award winner

I was dreading the Cunningham family reunion even before the first murder. Before the storm stranded us at the mountain resort, snow and bodies piling up. The thing is, us Cunninghams don’t really get along. We’ve only got one thing in common: we’ve all killed someone.

My brother My step-sister My wife My father My mother My sister-in-law My uncle My stepfather My aunt Me.

Fiction

K278 PIRANESI

Susanna Clarke

272 pages award winner

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders- the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other At other times he brings tributes of food to the Dead But mostly, he is alone Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims?

Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous

Non-fiction

K279 THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED

John Green

304 pages

A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planetfrom the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale. Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.

Fiction

K280 TOM LAKE

Ann Patchett

320 pages

In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

Fiction

K281 SHARK HEART

Emily Habeck

416 pages

For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last.

A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He's turning into a great white shark, and has less than a year left to live as a human. At first, Wren resists her husband's fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis fully transforms?

But as Lewis changes, day by day, Wren begins to make peace with the inevitable. After all, this isn't the first time she's lost a loved one.

An extraordinary novel of love, loss, hope and happiness, Shark Heart explores the shapes that love takes, in all its many forms, and asks us to ask ourselves: what makes us human?

Fiction

K282 PRIMA FACIE

Suzie Miller

352 pages

Tessa is a thoroughbred. A young, brilliant barrister from a working-class background now at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. The law is a game and she is its most talented player.

One sickening night, though, Tessa finds herself in a position countless women - one in three - have been in before her. And she's faced with a gut-wrenching, life-changing decision. Will she take the stand to testify about her rape, with the full awareness that the system has not been built to protect her?

Drawn from the internationally acclaimed play, Prima Facie is a propulsive, raw look at the price victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. With breakneck prose and a devastating emotional intensity, this is a novel for our times, by one of Australia's most impressive writers.

Fiction

K283 WATER

John Boyne

176 pages - Novella

The first thing Vanessa Carvin does when she arrives on the island is change her name. To the locals, she is Willow Hale, a solitary outsider escaping Dublin to live a hermetic existence in a small cottage, not a notorious woman on the run from her past.

But scandals follow like hunting dogs And she has some questions of her own to answer If her ex-husband is really the monster everyone says he is, then how complicit was she in his crimes?

Escaping her old life might seem like a good idea but the choices she has made throughout her marriage have consequences. Here, on the island, Vanessa must reflect on what she did - and did not do Only then can she discover whether she is worthy of finding peace at all

Biography

K284 QUESTION 7

Robert Flanagan

288 pages

By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this genredefying daisy chain of events reaches fission when Flanagan as a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river not knowing if he is to live or to die

At once a love song to his island home and to his parents, this hypnotic melding of dream, history, literature, place and memory is about how reality is never made by realists and how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves