The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple for the June book selection.

 Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.



Where’d You Go, Bernadette is told from the point of view of a daughter trying to find her missing mother. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story from Bee’s perspective? What light does it shed on the bond between Bernadette and Bee?

What are your thoughts on Bernadette’s character? Has she become unhinged or has she always been a little crazy? What, if anything, do you think sent her over the edge? Have you ever had a moment in your own life that utterly changed you, or made you call into question your own sanity?

Bernadette often behaves as if she is an outsider. Do you think she is? If so, do you think her feelings of being an outsider are self-imposed, or is she truly different from the other members of her community? Do you ever feel like an outsider?

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is, at its core, a story about a woman who disappears, both literally and figuratively. Were you able to relate to the book? How and why? Do you feel Bernadette’s disappearance was unique, or do all women, in a sense, disappear into motherhood and marriage?

Let us know what you think of Where'd You Go, Bernadette!

The Kilbourn Public Library Book Club is reading The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer for the May book selection.  This dazzling, panoramic novel is about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships. 


The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable.  Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed.  In The Interestings,  Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. 


Think about how talent is presented in the book.  In your opinion, is it something you are born with or something you work hard to achieve? 


Jealousy is referred to in the book as being "I want what you have," whereas envy is "I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can't have it."  Who is jealous in this book?  Who is envious?  Can jealousy become envy?  How is envy tied up in issues like talent and money?


Single parents, lost parents, and absent parents play a role in this novel.  In what ways do the families the characters were born into shape their futures?  Ash and Goodman are the only characters to come from an intact nuclear family that is able to provide for all their needs.  Do you think this is necessarily a good thing for Goodman?  What about Ash?


The shift from the seventies to the eighties to the current moment is an important one depicted in the book.  What do you think Meg Wolitzer is trying to say about art and how art is sold?  Was the art of the seventies as pure as it seemed to the creators?  The Wunderlichs remain true to an even earlier version of what art should be.  What are the positives of that vision?   What are its limits?


Let us know what you think of The Interestings.