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Book club sets
Book club sets | ESL book club sets | Frequently asked questions
Book club sets
Fiction book club sets consist of 10 copies of a single title available for an extended loan period of six weeks. Each set comes with short review(s), an author biography and a list of questions to get your group started on discussion. The books and accompanying material are packaged in a canvas carrying bag.
Book club sets will be signed out to a single BPL library card holder who will be responsible for ensuring that:
- the set is returned on time
- all items are returned with the set
- all items in the set are returned in good condition
You may borrow a maximum of two sets at a time and renewals are not permitted. Book club sets may be reserved online via our library catalogue for pick up at any BPL branch. Sets can be returned to any BPL location. Want to know more? Read our FAQs below.
Book Club Set #17
This is a debut novel of astonishing wisdom and subtle humour from an award-winning young writer. It is a delightfully off-beat story that features an opinionated tortoise, Winnifred, and an IQ-challenged narrator who find themselves in the middle of a life-changing mystery.
Book Club Set #8
'Only' the concierge of a wealthy Parisian apartment building, Renee is passionate about culture and the arts. Several floors up, Paloma is determined to avoid the predictably bourgeois future laid out for her and plans to commit suicide on her thirteenth birthday. This funny, moving and wise novel was an international publishing sensation.
Book Club Set #14
Aristotle must postpone his dream of succeeding Plato at the Academy in Athens when he is forced to tutor Alexander, a prince of Macedon. Aristotle's resentment at his situation is soon overcome by the boy's intellectual potential and his capacity for surprise.
Book Club Set #12
Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the young family in the other car along with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara - against all habit and comfort - moves the three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house. We know what is good, but we don't do it. In Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, and then has to cope with the consequences: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. But she must question her own motives. Is she acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? Most shamefully, has she taken over simply because she wants the baby for her own? What do we owe in this life, and what do we deserve?
Book Club Set #5
Eithne Clay runs a dreary boarding house in London at the end of the First World War. Into her life comes Neville Turk, a lusty butcher with an eye for both the recently widowed Eithne and her real estate. In scenes that are both erotic and hysterically funny, Neville woos the deprived Eithne with fine cuts of lamb and beef and so repulses her adolescent son that he becomes a vegetarian.
This warm-hearted and entertaining story reveals that war can provide the opportunity for the venal to prosper, but success is not always assured.
Book Club Set #2
In 1787 Lieutenant Thomas Rooke officer and astronomer sets sail from Portsmouth with the First Fleet and its cargo of convicts destined for New South Wales. As the newcomers struggle to establish a settlement, Rooke comes to know the aboriginal people and forges a remarkable connection with one child which will change his life in ways he never imagined.
Book Club Set #3
A tragic victim of the exploitation of Africans in the hunt for petroleum, Little Bee’s life invades our fine and private world in one hideously violent moment. Her saviour is an Englishwoman, who tries to right the wrongs that pitch Little Bee into the dehumanizing British detention system for immigrants. A heart rending and occasionally funny tale that puts a human face on the global economy.
Book Club Set #4
Struggling with Alzheimer's, Marina recalls her work at the Hermitage Museum and the saving of its paintings during the Siege of Leningrad. 'An unforgettable tale of love, survival and the power of imagination'.
Book Club Set #9
Edward Feathers aka Filth (Failed in London Try Hong Kong), an international lawyer now retired to England, reminisces on his life after the death of his wife. Brilliantly constructed - going backwards and forwards in time, yet constantly working towards the secret at its core - 'Old Filth' is funny and heart-breaking.
Book Club Set #20
Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday. They live in a tiny, 11-foot-square soundproofed cell in a converted shed in the kidnapper's yard. The sociopath, whom Jack has dubbed Old Nick, visits at night, grudgingly doling out food and supplies. But Ma, as Jack calls her, proves to be resilient and resourceful--and attempts a nail-biting escape.
Book Club Set #15
Interweaves the stories of a baby girl in India, the American doctor who adopted her, and the Indian mother who gave her up in favor of a son, as two families--one in India, the other in the United States--are changed by the child that connects them.
Book Club Set #11
Roseanne McNulty, once one of the most beautiful and beguiling girls in County Sligo, Ireland, is now an elderly patient at Roscommon Regional Mental Hospital. As her hundredth year draws near, she decides to record the events of her life, hiding the manuscript beneath the floorboards. Meanwhile, the hospital is preparing to close and is evaluating its patients to determine whether they can return to society. Dr. Grene, Roseanne's caretaker, takes a special interest in her case. In his research, he discovers a document written by a local priest that tells a very different story of Roseanne's life than what she recalls. As doctor and patient attempt to understand each other, they begin to uncover long-buried secrets about themselves.
Book Club Set #13
In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives.
Book Club Set #7
Two young Ukrainians discover romance and adventure as they travel the United Kingdom with a group of migrant workers. As they move through the inglorious work places of England they also discover insecurity, hideous working conditions, isolation, sexual abuse, meagre wages and scams. A hard hitting story made palatable by its very funny, sometimes farcical moments.
Book Club Set #10
A phone call in the night, an unexpected diagnosis suddenly, life can change forever. Sandra, Colleen and Jude have been friends for nearly a lifetime. They share sexual secrets, decorating tips, counsel on marriage, even a hairdresser. Despite their differences and occasional snarls, the friendship only grows stronger over time, and their partners, Jack, Richard and Gus, go along with it, letting this union shape their lives. Now, with Sandra's crisis, everyone must find a way to endure the present and imagine the future.
Book Club Set #16
Introducing Flavia de Luce, an eleven-year-old with a penchant for poison that she nurtured to defend herself from her nasty older sisters. One day, while searching for ingredients, Flavia discovers a dead body in the cucumber patch.
Book Club Set #19
In 1799, the artificial island of Dejima lies in Nagasaki Harbor as Japan's outpost for the Dutch East Indies Company. There, Jacob de Zoet has come to make a fortune large enough to return to Holland and marry the woman he loves.
Book Club Set #6
Set between the 1930s, and the present, this novel is the story of Esme, a woman edited out of her family's history, and of the secrets that come to light when, sixty years later, she is released from care, and a young woman, Iris, discovers the great aunt she never knew she had.
Book Club Set #1
When her husband doesn’t come home on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary, Mary Gooch, who has never learned to be self-sufficient, sets out on a truly remarkable journey of self-discovery that takes her first to the big city and then to another country.
ESL book club sets
Develop your English reading skills by sharing books with others. These titles are popular stories adapted and abridged for the English language learner. ESL book club sets consist of 15 copies of a single title, packaged in a canvas carrying bag, and are available for an extended loan period of six weeks.
Book club sets will be signed out to a single BPL library card holder who will be responsible for ensuring that:
- the set is returned on time
- all items are returned with the set
- all items in the set are returned in good condition
You may borrow a maximum of two sets at a time and renewals are not permitted. Book club sets may be reserved online via our library catalogue for pick up at any BPL branch. Sets can be returned to any BPL location. Want to know more? Read our FAQs below.
ESL book club set
The seven short stories in this collection are from Oxford bookworms readers stage 1 and 2. Stage 1 stories are : “The Horse of Death” by Sait Faik retold by Jennifer Bassett, “The Little Hunters at the Lake” by Yalvac Ural retold by Jennifer Bassett, “Mr Harris and the Night Train” by Jennifer Bassett, “Sister Love” by John Escott, “Omega File 349: London, England” by Jennifer Bassett. Stage 2 stories are:” Tildy’s Moment” by O. Henry retold by Diane Mowat, “Andrew, Jan, the Parson and the Fox” by Thomas Hardy retold by Jennifer Bassett. The book club set also includes Bookworms Club Reading Circles Teacher’s Handbook and a folder with book club tips.
ESL book club set
The seven short stories in this collection are from Oxford bookworms readers Stage 2 and 3. Stories from stage 2 are : the “Christmas Presents” by O. Henry retold by Diane Mowat, “Netty Sargent and the House” by Thomas Hardy retold by Jennifer Bassett, “Too Old to Rock and Roll” by Jan Mark retold by Diane Mowat,”A Walk in Amnesia” by O. Henry retold by Diane Mowat, “The Five Orange Pips” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle retold by Clare West. Stories from stage 3 are : “The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe retold by Margaret Nandi, “Go Lovely Rose” by H.E. Bates retold by Rosemary Border. The book club set also includes Bookworms Club Reading Circles Teacher’s Handbook and a folder with book club tips.
ESL book club set
This biography of Mahatma Gandhi is an engaging high-interest, low vocabulary book with many photos and maps. It is part of the Grass Roots Press Activitist biographies series. Readability level grade 2.
ESL book club set
A great adventure story about the most dangerous whale in all literature. A young sailor tells the story of Captain Ahab and his men and their confrontation with Moby Dick, the great white whale. This book is Penguin reader Level 2 (elementary). Each book comes with two audio CDs.
ESL book club set
Precious Ramotswe is the only female private detective in Botswana, Africa. She is a very compassionate person and solves mysteries involving a missing husband, a missing finger and a missing child in a special way. This book is a Penguin reader Level 3 (pre-intermediate). Each book comes with two audio CDs.
Frequently asked questions
How many book club sets may be borrowed at a time?
You may have a maximum of two book club sets on your card at one time.
How do I find a book club set in the library catalogue?
In basic search, click the drop down menu and select series list (starts with…) and type in book club set. Choose the third item on the list, Book club set (Burnaby Public Library) to bring up the whole list. To find ESL book club sets, type in ESL book club set.
Can I place a hold on book club sets?
Yes, you can place a hold on a book club set via the online catalogue and have it sent to your preferred Burnaby Public Library location for pickup.
How long can I keep a book club set?
The loan period for a set is six weeks. Book club sets may not be renewed. A fine of $1 per day will be charged for an overdue set or the partial return of a set, to a maximum of $20.
Can a book club set be held for a specific meeting?
No. Due to the number of interested book clubs, we cannot take advance bookings for these sets. Sets are available on a first-come, first-served basis only.
Can book club sets be returned in a book drop?
No. Book club sets must be returned to the check-in desk at any Burnaby Public Library location during open hours. Sets cannot be returned through the book drop or to another public library system. Overdue fines are $1 per day per set, to a maximum of $20.
Can individual book club members return their own books to the library?
No. The representative who borrows the set is responsible for returning a complete book club set.
What if a book is lost?
A $15 replacement cost for a lost or damaged book will be charged to the responsible patron’s card. A $10 replacement charge will be added to the library card for loss or damage to the canvas bag. $150 (plus a $7 processing fee) will be charged for the loss or damage of the entire set.
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