Voting Results –
New Book Club in a Bag Sets —
2024 Voting Results
The winners of the 2024 Book Club in a Bag voting are:
Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys
Adult Fiction—In 1941, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to Siberia, where her father is sentenced to death in a prison camp while she fights for her life, vowing to honor her family and the thousands like hers by burying her story in a jar on Lithuanian soil. Based on the author’s family, includes a historical note.
The boy on the wooden box : how the impossible became possible…on Schindler’s list, by Leon Leyson
Junior Nonfiction—Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow.
Ella Minnow Pea : a novel in letters, by Mark Dunn
Adult Fiction—Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop was named after Nevin Nollop, author of the immortal pangram, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Now Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the encroaching totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet as they fall from a memorial statue of Nevin Nollop. As the letters progressively drop from the statue they also disappear from the novel. The result is both a hilarious and moving story of one girl’s fight for freedom of expression, as well as a linguistic tour de force sure to delight word lovers everywhere.
A good girl’s guide to murder, by Holly Jackson
Young Adult Fiction—Everyone in Fairview knows the story of the pretty high school senior who was tragically murdered by her boyfriend before he killed himself. Five years later, a girl named Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town and decides to reexamine the closed case for a school project. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets…and her investigation might turn into obsession.
The midnight library, by Matt Haig
Adult Fiction—Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived, to see how things would be if you had made other choices. Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets? Up until now Nora Seed’s life has been full of misery. When she finds herself in the Midnight Library, she can now undo every decision she regrets. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be.
The night circus, by Erin Morgenstern
Adult Fiction—The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.
The only woman in the room, by Marie Benedict
Adult Fiction—Hedy Kiesler is lucky. Her beauty leads to a starring role in a controversial film and marriage to a powerful Austrian arms dealer, allowing her to evade Nazi persecution despite her Jewish heritage. But Hedy is also intelligent. At lavish Vienna dinner parties, she overhears the Third Reich’s plans. One night in 1937, desperate to escape her controlling husband and the rise of the Nazis, she disguises herself and flees her husband’s castle. She lands in Hollywood, where she becomes Hedy Lamarr, screen star. But Hedy is keeping a secret even more shocking than her Jewish heritage: she is a scientist. She has an idea that might help the country and that might ease her guilt for escaping alone — if anyone will listen to her. A powerful novel based on the incredible true story of the glamour icon and scientist whose groundbreaking invention revolutionized modern communication.
The prize winner of Defiance, Ohio : how my mother raised 10 kids on 25 words or less, by Terry Ryan
Adult Nonfiction—The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the “contest era” of the 1950s and 1960s. Evelyn’s winning ways defied the church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to raising her six sons and four daughters.
Tunnel 29 : the true story of an extraordinary escape beneath the Berlin Wall, by Helena Merriman
Adult Nonfiction— In a book based on the podcast series, a broadcast journalist tells the unbelievable true story of 22-year-old Joachim Rudolph, who, in 1961, set out to build an escape tunnel under the Berlin Wall and was faced with many obstacles before freeing 29 people.
When stars are scattered, by Victoria Jamieson
Junior Graphic Novel—Omar and his younger brother Hassan live in a refugee camp, and when an opportunity for Omar to get an education comes along, he must decide between going to school every day or caring for his nonverbal brother in this intimate and touching portrayal of family and daily life in a refugee camp.
Library patrons, if you would like to help us pick our 2025 book club sets, visit our nominations page in August or September 2024 to nominate titles for our ballot, then open our voting page in October to cast your votes.