I’m so excited to begin this book club. I’m a self-proclaimed bibliophile – I’m obsessed with books. And, book clubs have this way of bringing my love of community and my love of books together.
We will be reading one fun book a month, then meeting either virtually or in-person to discuss. These events will be absolutely free.
I’m super excited to gather moms of the greater Wichita area together to chat, read, and become friends!
If you are interested, make sure you sign up here for all updates for meetings, discussion questions, and more.
Here is a list of the books we will be reading for the rest of the year. I have searched for them all over the greater Wichita area and have linked each book to the catalog pages of local Wichita bookstores and libraries.
**Books-a-holic won’t be listed as it is a resale store. Feel free to call our local Books-a-holic to ask if there is a copy of any of these books are available.
March 2021 – The Hating Game by KJ Dell’Antonia
For Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman, executive assistants to the CEOs of newly merged Bexley-Gamin Publishing, it’s hate-at-first-sight. So begins a series of daily passive-aggressive maneuvers, including the staring game, the mirror game, and the HR game, each played with the intensity of the Hunger Games. Their mutual antipathy grows when a new executive position opens at Bexley-Gamin, and both their bosses put their names up for the promotion. Then, the high-stakes games begin! After another 60-hour work week, Lucy logs off her computer and hops on the elevator to head home, as does Joshua. When Joshua hits the emergency button and stops the ride, Lucy is certain her nemesis is going to kill her. Instead, he plants a kiss on her, and Lucy begins to wonder if she really does hate Joshua after all, or if this is yet another game.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley Center Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – Online only
– Amazon
April 2021 – What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over—she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley City Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– August Public Library
– Goddard Public Library
– Park City Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Amazon
May 2021 – Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next queen. Then Cath meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the king and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship. Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley Center Public Library
– Andover Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– El Dorado Public Library
– Goddard Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Amazon
June 2021 – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley Center Public Library
– El Dorado Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Andover Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Goddard Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Amazon
July 2021 – The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell’Antonia
For a century two rival chicken shacks in Merinac, Kansas, have been vying to serve the best fried chicken in the state, and a feud between the two families has lasted as long. When Amanda falls in love with a man from the rival chicken shack, she scandalously changes sides and starts working for her family’s nemesis. Tired of being stuck in the middle, she recruits her Brooklyn-based sister to move back to Kansas and join her on reality TV show Food Wars to settle the feud. Yet when family secrets become public, the sisters must choose: will they fight with each other, or for their heritage?
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley Center Public Library
– Andover Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– El Dorado Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Amazon
August 2021 – Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor. On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Valley Center Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Amazon
September 2021 – The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
From Kristin Hannah, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone, comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras-the Great Depression. Texas, 1934. Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. One of the darkest periods of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl era, has arrived with a vengeance. In this uncertain and dangerous time, Elsa Martinelli-like so many of her neighbors-must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or go west, to California, in search of a better life. The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American Dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Andover Public Library
– Goddard Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– Park City Public Library
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – In-Person and Online
– Watermark Books and Café
– Amazon
October 2021 – Wicked Wichita by Joe Stumpe
Early Wichita earned a wicked reputation from newspapers across Kansas thanks to a bevy of madams and murderers, bootleggers and bank robbers, con men and crooked cops. Gambler and saloonkeeper “Rowdy Joe” Lowe was the toast of the town before shooting down his rival, “Red” Beard, and skipping town. Robber and cop killer “Clever Eddie” Adams spread a wave of terror until the police evened the score. Dixie Lee ran the city’s classiest brothel with little interference from authorities. Notorious quack “Professor” H. Samuels made a fortune selling worthless eye drops. And county attorney Willard Boone was chased out of town when he was caught with his hand in the bootlegger’s cookie jar. Local author Joe Stumpe tells the real stories of the city’s best-known and least-known criminals and misfits.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Andover Public Library
– Augusta Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – Online and In-Person
– Amazon
November 2021 – The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes
When Alice Wright agrees to marry handsome American Bennett Van Cleve and leave behind her stifling life in England for a new adventure in Kentucky, she’s soon disenchanted by her newlywed status and overbearing father-in-law, owner of the local coal mine. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books as part of Eleanor Roosevelt’s new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. The leader, and soon Alice’s greatest ally, is Margery, the smart-talking, self-sufficient daughter of a notorious local criminal, a woman who’s never asked a man’s permission for anything. Alice finds Margery as bracing and courageous as anyone she’s ever met, and comes to rely on her, especially as her marriage starts to fail. They will be joined by three diverse women and become known as the Horseback Librarians of Kentucky.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Derby Public Library
– Andover Public Libary
– Augusta Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– Rose Hill Public Library
– Goddard Public Library
– Park City Public Library
– El Dorado Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – Online and In-Person
December 2021 – Dumplin by Julie Murphy
Sixteen-year-old Willowdean wants to prove to everyone in her small Texas town that she is more than just a fat girl, so, while grappling with her feelings for a co-worker who is clearly attracted to her, Will and some other misfits prepare to compete in the beauty pageant her mother runs.
Available at:
– Wichita Public Library System
– Andover Public Library
– Derby Public Library
– Mulvane Public Library
– El Dorado Public Library
– Watermark Books and Café
– Barnes & Noble Bradley Fair – Online and In-Person
– Amazon