Sam Pickett moves to the quite village of Willow Creek, Montana to escape his past. He discovers a community of outlandish characters that have their own tales of heartache and broken dreams to tell as well. Together they must begin to embrace life and live their lives to the fullest.

This violent, sexy novel is a seamless, convincing blend of fantasy and reality that can be read as feminist fiction, smoldering romance, rites-of-passage novel, or a piercing reflection on human nature. Vivian is tough yet vulnerable, a werewolf trying to fit into the suburbs, and falling in love with a human, but drawn ultimately into her true fate. Young Adult.

The narrator of The Book Thief, Death, tells the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany who discovers the power of words and books while she struggles to cope with the loss of her family and with the horrors around her.

A fukú curse has followed Oscar’s family for generations, all the way from the Dominican Republic to New Jersey. While Oscar, an “overweight ghetto nerd” living with his mother and sister, dreams of becoming a writer and falling in love, the fukú may ruin it all.

During the Klondike Gold Rush, a domesticated dog named Buck is kidnapped from his home and taken to the Yukon territory as a sled dog, where he must learn to adapt to harsh conditions and reawaken instincts for surviving in the wild. Young Adult.

Three unsolved cases fall into the lap of private eye Jackson Brody, an ex-cop who empathizes with his clients as he mourns the break up of his marriage and separation from his daughter.

Marion and Shiva Stone are twin brothers born of a secret union between a beautiful Indian nun and a brash British surgeon. Orphaned by their mother’s death and their father’s disappearance, bound together by a preternatural connection and a shared fascination with medicine, the twins come of age as Ethiopia hovers on the brink of revolution.

Fifteen-year-old Zits is out for revenge. An abused foster child whose father never claimed him, Zits attempts to take out his anger and pain on a group of innocent bystanders, but is catapulted into a series of time-traveling adventures instead.

When Liam Hegarty drowns, his nine siblings come together in Dublin, Ireland for the wake. One of those siblings must continue to keep a secret only she and Liam shared. Winner of the 2007 Man Booker Prize, The Gathering is a novel about family and memory, loss and love.

A teen’s out-of-control journey into drugs is recorded in her journal. Published anonymously, Go Ask Alice is now a classic, and under scrutiny for its authenticity. Young Adult.

It is 1946 and British author Juliet Ashton is looking to distance herself from her war-time, “look on the bright side” alter ego Izzy Bickerstaff. When a farmer on the island of Guernsey writes to Juliet, the story of Guernsey life under German occupation and the mystery of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society begin to unfold, sending Juliet on a journey in search of her next book.

Set in 1918, a 16-year-old orphan named Hattie Brooks sets off for Montana to build a new life and take over a homestead left to her by her uncle. Winner of the 2006 Montana Book Award, selected as a 2007 Newberry Honor Book, and chosen for the 2008 One Book Montana title. Young Adult.

Having rejected the restrictions of reservation life, Oglala Sioux Charging Elk joins Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, journeying from South Dakota to Marseille France in the late 1800’s. When the show leaves him behind in a hospital after a serious injury, Charging Elk must try to make his way in a foreign land with no common language or culture to assist him. Should he hold on to his past, or adapt to life in a new land?

Stockett’s debut novel features the interwoven narratives of three Mississippi women in 1962: one, a young, white aspiring writer investigating the disappearance of her family’s black maid, the other two, black maids struggling with hardships at work and home. All three will be forced to make a decision that will change their lives and community forever.

In this twist on the traditional Dracula story, a young girl discovers a mysterious book from her father’s past. The book holds clues connecting the disappearance of a professor with Dracula, but before the girl’s father can explain, he too vanishes.

Ford's debut novel follows Chinese-American Henry Lee in mid-1980s Seattle. After learning that the belongings of Japanese Americans interned during WWII have been discovered in the basement of a hotel, he retraces the experiences of his youth and his first love, Keiko Okabe, who was interned with her family during the war.

Internationally acclaimed Chilean author Isabel Allende’s first novel follows the saga of the Truebas family in an unnamed South American country. The viewpoint shifts between the proud patriarch, mystical matriarch, the daughter who has a forbidden love affair, and the child born from that affair.

Rachman's debut novel follows the private lives of reporters, editors, and executives of an international English language newspaper based in Rome as they struggle to keep it—and themselves—afloat. At turns funny and sad, each chapter could stand alone as a short story.

A judge attempting peaceful retirement in a Himalayan village must share his home with his newly orphaned granddaughter. Their cook is concerned for his son, an illegal alien living in New York City and all three must brace themselves as political unrest takes over the region

Sent to the United States by their father to search for their missing brother, two Englishmen journey to Fort Benton and enlist the help of a half Blackfoot, half Scot guide named Jerry Potts to take them into the wilderness where their brother was last seen. An epic tale of adventure and redemption, The Last Crossing was the 2007 One Book Montana selection.

Hard-boiled, Montana detective C.W. Sughrue is killing time working in a topless bar. When he is hired to find an author, he stumbles upon the trail of a missing girl and sets off on a journey across the American West.

At 16, Princess Juana of Castile is sent away from Spain by her parents, Queen Isabel and King Ferdinand, to marry Philip of Flanders and increase the family’s favor with the Hapsburg Empire. Years later, Juana must return to Spain amidst tragedy and turmoil as the next in line for the Spanish crown.

In August 1974, a tightrope walker successfully walks between the Twin Towers and the seemingly disparate lives of stunned observers become entwined in a portrait of New York City and the people who live there.

Marcus, seventeen, uses his computer hacking skills and gaming knowledge to thwart the Department of Homeland Security after being detained and interrogated for days after a terrorist attack. Young Adult.

A sufferer of chronic insomnia, Bostonian Julian West enlists the help of a hypnotist to help him get some rest. However, West awakes to find that he is no longer in the Boston of 1887, but that of the year 2000. Bellamy’s novel became the second American novel to sell over a million copies.

Inspired by the courtship of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s own parents, Love in the Time of Cholera follows Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza from the moment Florentino first declares his love for Fermina, through her marriage to another man, until the day, fifty years later, that Florentino can declare his love for Fermina again.

Often compared to Henry David Thoreau for her writing on the natural world, Annie Dillard's novel, The Maytrees, traces decades of love and longing on the tip of Cape Cod.

This fictional account of two very different families details the consequences of a father’s secret decision to give up one of his newborn twins, a daughter—named Phoebe—who is born with Down Syndrome. Despite her father’s fears, Phoebe, raised by the sympathetic and supportive Caroline, grows into a healthy young woman; meanwhile Phoebe’s twin brother, Paul, grows up under the care of the twins’ biological parents.

Anna was conceived as a genetic match for her older sister in order to help in her sister’s fight against leukemia. After years of blood transfusions and surgeries, Anna decides to stand up for her own interests, taking action that could tear her family apart.

In this modern day Western, Llewelyn Moss discovers several dead men, heroin and over $2 million in cash while on a hunting trip. Moss decides to take the money and soon he’s in danger and on the run.

Nearing her sixtieth year, Marie Sharp decides to begin a diary. She is perfectly content remembering the excitement of her youth and doesn’t need exotic vacations or book clubs to pass the time. However, a new grandchild and the reawakening of an old romance may mean the excitement is far from over.

When Swedish immigrant Alexandra Bergson’s father dies, she inherits their Nebraska homestead and must change the land from wild prairie to working farm as she comes of age. Cather’s classic first novel is a story of a new people on a new land.

In a modern variation on E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, Smith investigates questions of politics and culture in her book, On Beauty. Liberal Rembrandt scholar Howard Belsey’s oldest son falls in love with the daughter of an extreme right-wing family and the two families are forced to reconsider what they really believe as they wage a political and personal war.

McEwan’s 11th novel begins in 1962 on the wedding night of Florence, a musician, and her new husband Edward. As both fight to suppress their fears about the wedding night in an age of innocence prior to the sexual revolution, a misunderstanding leads to disastrous consequences.

Mary Boleyn is sent to the court of Henry VIII at the age of fourteen help her ambitious family. Mary is successful and attracts the attention of the king. When the king’s favor begins to be bestowed on her sister Anne, Mary must choose whether or not to step aside.

Forster’s acclaimed 1924 novel explores the complexities of British colonialism in India. New to India, Miss Adela and Mrs. Moore set out to explore some caves with an Indian physician – Dr. Aziz. An ambiguous event in the caves sets off a legal battle turning British against Indian and calling the meaning of allegiance and friendship into question.

As rare-book expert Hanna Heath works on the conservation of the Sarajevo Haggadah, a fifteenth-century Hebrew manuscript, she discovers tiny artifacts within the manuscript’s binding that unlock a thrilling history of the book’s mysterious past. Inspired by a true story.

Set in 1920s Horse Prairie, MT, a boy is initiated into the secrets of ranch life and finds the link between tragedy and desire.

In this perennial classic, the spirited Elizabeth Bennett is one of five unmarried sisters. When a wealthy gentleman moves to the neighborhood and brings his even wealthier friend, Mr. Darcy, with him, a series of misconceptions drive a wedge between the Bennett sisters and their chance a marital bliss until Mr. Darcy can check is pride and Elizabeth can see past her prejudice.

This novel by Missoula author McNamer is a fictionalized account based on the true story of her uncle’s mysterious death after World War II. The novel follows the lives of three Montana men through glimpses of their childhood and lives during and after World War II. When one of the men is shot, the circumstances of his death will haunt the other two until late in life when the incident is brought to light again.

When Catherine Land responds to a 1907 Chicago newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife,” her intent is to kill the husband and become a wealthy widow. Ralph Truitt realizes he has been conned the moment Land walks through the door, but he marries her anyway, setting off a spiral of events that take Catherine and Ralph down a path neither expected.

Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving and ambitious father. A former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard cares about is his ability to keep all of his children safe.

Shortly before her family is arrested by the French police in Paris in 1942, ten year-old Sarah locks her brother in a cupboard. Sixty years later, a journalist attempts to discover what happened to Sarah and her family.

Neurosurgeon Henry Perowne is an ordinary man, content with his life and loving family. His Saturday begins with plans of squash games and family dinners, plans that are put aside when a confrontation at a post-9/11 anti-war protest changes his life forever.

When eleven Americans travel to Burma on an art expedition, they do not expect that a Christmas morning tour will leave them trapped in the jungle. Tan’s book is based on the real-life disappearance of American tourists in Myanmar.

In post-WWII Barcelona, a boy finds solace in a book called The Shadow of the Wind. He begins to search for the author’s other books and discovers that someone is destroying every single copy. This begins a journey to find out what happened to this mysterious author, uncovering a tale of murder, madness, and doomed love.

A circus rolls into Green Town, Illinois on a cold October evening and two boys discover that Halloween has come early this year. What price would you pay if someone could make your greatest wish come true?

Faulkner’s 1929 novel of the south contains the three separate narratives of Compson brothers, Benjy, Quentin, and Jason, following the  family’s steady decline and their obsession with their beautiful sister Caddy.

When Stargirl Caraway comes to Mica High Leo’s life is turned around. Leo falls in love with Stargirl’s unconventional behavior, as does everyone else, at first. Of course this all changes and Leo is forced to decide whether his friendship with Stargirl is more important than his need to fit into the group. Young Adult.

First-time author and neuroscientist Genova mines her years of professional experience in this fictional account of 50-year old Alice Howland’s sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The happily married, mother of three struggles to remain independent as she slowly loses touch with her sense of self in this realistic portrait.

Intended as a a set of five novels describing life under Nazi occupation in France, Suite Française consists of the two novels Jewish author Nemirovsky was able to write before being deported to Auschwitz. The novels remained hidden for sixty-four years before being rediscovered and published.

Published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises follows a group of American and English expatriates, members of the Lost Generation in the post-World War I era, on a journey from Paris to Pamplona for the July fiesta and bullfight.

Pretty, popular, and in love, high school freshman Trixie Stone has everything going for her until an act of violence turns her life upside down, changing her perceptions of herself and her father, whom she idolized, forever.

Published in 1937 and written over a time span of only seven weeks, Their Eyes Were Watching God follows Janie Mae Crawford over the course of three marriages in Florida as she searches for true love. Hurston's novel investigates black culture and celebrates Janie Mae’s ability to find her own voice as a black woman.

At 15, Mariam is forced to marry the brutal, 40-year-old Rasheed. When Rasheed later takes on a second wife the lives of the two women become intertwined as they struggle to survive Afghani life under Taliban rule. From the author of the bestselling novel, The Kite Runner.

A perennial favorite with readers young and old, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel follows Scout and Jem Finch along with their friend Dill as they learn about the issues of race, justice, cruelty and courage in a small Alabama town in the 1930s.

Tally Youngblood lives in a futuristic society that makes all its residents “pretty.” But Tally can’t get the operation unless she betrays her friend who escaped to the rustic country to live off the grid. In her pursuit, Tally discovers a dirty secret about the pretty operation, and those who perform it. Young Adult.

Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of eight short stories that investigate the relationships between expatriate Bengalis living in the United States and their more “Americanized” children. The stories explore the concept of identity and the meaning of family and culture.

At ninety, or perhaps ninety-three, Jacob Jankowski drifts in and out of memories of the circus where he served as a veterinarian, fell in love with a married woman and bonded with an elephant named Rosie.

Set in London, this novel follows three generations of the families of two World War II veterans, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. White Teeth touches on issues of friendship, class, family, ethnicity, identity and questions the difference between choice and fate.

The classic story of Anne Frank recounts the thoughts, fears, and dreams of a teenage Jewish girl during World War II, while she hides from the Nazis in an attic with her family. The diary is both deeply personal and profoundly universal.

Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer, provides an entertaining look at the process of “thin-slicing,” or the way in which we make split second decisions.

Larson’s account of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893 focuses on the fair’s ambitious architect, Daniel H. Burnham, and Henry H. Holmes, the serial killer who used the fair ensnare his many victims.

Son of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, Obama chronicles his travels from New York to Kansas to Hawaii and finally to Kenya on a journey to discover his roots and understand what it means to be a black American.

In the aftermath of a painful divorce, Gilbert sets out on a year of travel, spending four months in three countries with the goal of exploring pleasure and devotion, while discovering herself along the way.

On June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in a North Butte Mining Company shaft in Butte, Montana. It would become the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history.

“Every restaurant is a theater,” writes Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl in a memoir chronicling her experience as restaurant critic for The New York Times. As restaurants began rolling out the red carpet whenever she walked in the door, Reichl took to donning disguises and assuming new personalities in order to accurately capture a restaurant’s experience – an experience quite different from that of the critics.

Follow National Public Radio correspondent Eric Weiner on a journey around the world to discover not only what makes people happy, but where people proclaim to be the happiest. Will Weiner, a self-proclaimed grump, find the “key” to happiness?

As an adult, Walls hid her past from everyone she knew for over two decades. In this memoir, she recalls growing up in a nonconformist family that traveled like nomads in the Southwest, moved to a rotting shack in rural West Virginia, and continually forced the four Walls children to be completely self-sufficient.

In this memoir, Rodriguez discusses his coming of age as a Mexican-American and the experience of being a “minority student,” from the day he entered school knowing only 50 words of English, through the completion of his M.A. at Columbia University.

The first of Angelou’s six-volume memoirs, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings chronicles Maya’s childhood from a terrible experience that left her mute for five years through her coming of age, work as the first black female street car conductor in San Francisco, struggle for civil rights and up to the birth of her son.

Henrietta Lacks was a poor Southerner who died of cancer and was buried in an unmarked grave, yet a sample of her cells would become a cornerstone of scientific research. Skloot’s decade-long investigation into the origin of the “HeLa” cells uncovers the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we are made of.

Hirsi Ali’s memoir describes her childhood and coming of age in a strict Muslim family in Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya. She survives civil war, female mutilation, and an arranged marriage before escaping to the Netherlands, where she earns a degree in political science. Her outspoken work on a reform of Islam has put her life in danger and brought her into the spotlight of today’s political arena.

Filled with humor, folktales, and keen observations, Mark Twain’s early non-fiction account of the steamboat era on the Mississippi would later become an inspiration for his novel Huckleberry Finn.

At the age of 12, civil war in Sierra Leone separates hip-hop loving Beah from his family and forces him into the government army, where he becomes addicted to drugs and capable of murder. Eventually Beah is brought to a UNICEF rehabilitation center, but the war catches up with him there and he flees to the United States.

At the age of 13, Hoffman emigrated with her parents from Poland to Canada. Hoffman describes the immigrant experience and the trials of living in a foreign culture.

When Joseph Needham, Cambridge scientist and freethinking intellectual, fell in love with a Chinese student, he began a lifelong love affair with both the girl and her country. Journeying to the farthest reaches of China during WWII, he unlocked the mysteries of how this empire discovered printing, explosives, suspension bridges, and even toilet paper before the rest of the world.

Dubbed “Garrison Keillor’s evil twin” in a Publisher’s Weekly review, Sedaris brings together a collection of hilarious and sometimes poignant essays about his unconventional and unusual family, experience as a performance artist, move to Paris, attempts to learn the French language, and much more.

Journalist Charles J. Shields drew upon over 600 interviews plus correspondence and the personal papers of Truman Capote to write this inside look at the life of Harper Lee. This is the first biography ever written about the elusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1948 Julia Child set sail for France with her diplomat husband, embarking on a life long love affair with food that turned her into one of the most famous names in the cooking world. Lively, humorous, and filled with delectable descriptions of food.

This memoir details the author’s experience growing up as an Indian in both Indian and non-Indian communities. Writing in a style that draws heavily on traditional Indian stories and story-telling techniques for effect, Momaday explores what it means to identify himself as a part of an Indian community in today’s world.

In this bestseller, Michael Pollan poses the question: What should we have for dinner? The result is an investigation of industrial and organic food chains in the United States and an exploration of the impact of our food choices.

This graphic novel is Satrapi’s memoir about growing up during the Islamic Revolution. The novel follows Satrapi from age 10 to age 14, documenting everyday life in Tehran and her family’s personal struggles.

When rules at the University of Tehran became too restrictive, English professor Azar Nafisi decides to hold secret classes on Western literature for seven women in her home.

In a witty, journalistic style, Quammen chronicles twenty-one years of Darwin’s life, from the day Darwin returned from his Beagle voyage to the day he unleashed his theory of evolution upon the world. The authorinvestigates why it took Darwin twenty-one years to publish his theory.

Mortenson’s sequel to Three Cups of Tea begins where the earlier narrative ended, following Mortenson on his continued dramatic and often dangerous effort to establish ties, build schools, and promotes peace in remote, politically and geographically unstable regions.

A beautifully written true story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder that follows the incredible journey of a medical student who escapes civil war in Burundi to arrive in New York with no English or contacts, but goes on to graduate from Columbia University and devote his life to healing.

In this book, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Goodwin investigates Abraham Lincoln and the leading members of his cabinet, providing fresh insights into the famed president’s personality and politics.

"Long before it legally served me, the bar saved me.” In this memoir chronicling his coming of age and path to self discovery, Moehringer recounts his search for a father figure, his experiences with heartache and disillusionment, and the bar that was his refuge through it all.

Ivan Doig’s memoir about growing up in rural Montana was a finalist for the National Book Award and was chosen as the 2006 One Book Montana selection by the Montana Center for the Book and the Montana Humanities Council.

Greg Mortenson, former mountain-climbing bum, founds an organization to build schools in Central Asia after being nursed back to health by Pakistani villagers.

Perry, author and volunteer firefighter in the small town of New Auburn, WI, began the year with two goals: growing his own food and fixing up his 1951 International Harvester pickup truck. Along the way, he experiences mishaps and missteps, observes the humor in every day small town life, and ends up falling in love.

When Tony Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic) realizes he has no idea what happened between Columbus’s 1492 voyage and the founding of Jamestown in 1607, he sets off on an adventure to retrace sites of first contact. An interesting mix of history and travelogue.

The author of Into the Wild and Into Thin Air investigates the tragic story of Pat Tillman, the NFL star who turned down a multimillion-dollar contract to join the army after 9/11.  Tillman was killed by friendly fire in 2004 and made into a poster child of heroism as part of a government cover-up that Krakauer brings to light in this page-turner.

John Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath chronicles the American flight from the great dust bowl of the 1930s, but what happened to the people who stayed behind? Egan traveled the Dust Bowl region, collecting oral histories to discover why people chose to stay and what happened to those that did.

In this memoir, Didion reflects on her 40 year marriage and describes on how she survived the year after her husband of died of a heart attack while their daughter was in a coma.

In The Zookeeper’s Wife, best-selling author Diane Ackerman uncovers the remarkable true story of Polish zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who hid hundreds of Jews and Polish resisters in their Warsaw zoo during World War II.

What is a Book Chat Bag?

A Book Chat Bag is a canvas bag filled with at least 10 copies of one title and a discussion guide with book reviews, author information, discussion questions and additional tips and resources for book groups.

How do I reserve a Book Chat Bag?

Choose a title from our list of available Book Chat Bags. Stop in at the MPL Reference Desk, call (406)721-2665, or send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to reserve your title. We will need your name, phone number, desired title, pick up date, return date, and number of copies. Book Chat Bags must be picked up and returned directly to the Reference Desk and can only be checked out to one person in the group. Not a member of MPL? Contact us to have a Book Chat Bag sent to your home library.

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Our Book Chat Bags are often booked months in advance and so we are not always able to extend your time on a Book Chat Bag reservation, but we are happy to accommodate your group whenever possible. Contact the Reference Desk at (406)721-2665 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to inquire about Book Chat Bag renewals.

How can my book discussion group help?

Your can share your reading interests with other local book groups and help the library build its Book Chat Bag collection by donating paperback copies of books your book group has read.  Please mention that your donation is for the Book Chat Bag collection when you drop the books off at the library.

Book Chat Bags are sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Tamarack Library Federation.