Shoot the Moon
Billie Letts, 2004
Grand Central Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446401142

Summary
A tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years.

In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared that he, too, had been killed, although his body was never found.

Nearly thirty years later, Nicky Jack mysteriously returns to DeClare, shocking the town and stirring up long-buried memories. But what he discovers about the night he vanished is more astonishing than he or anyone could have imagine. Piece by piece, what emerges is a story of dashed hopes, desperate love, and a secret that still cries out for justice...and redemption. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1937
• Where—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Southeast Missouri State University
• Awards—Percy Walker Award
• Currently—lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Billie Letts is the author of numerous highly acclaimed short stories and screenplay, and a former professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Her first novel, Where The Heart Is, won the Walker Percy Award, sold more than three million copies, and became a major motion picture. Her second novel, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, was named the first "Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma" selection. Her third novel, Shoot the Moon and her fourth novel, Made in the U.S.A. were both New York Times bestsellers. Billie Letts is a native Oklahoman, and currently lives in Tulsa. (From the publisher.)

More
Betts was married to professor-turned-actor Dennis Letts, from 1958 until his death from cancer in 2008. Dennis served as Billie's editor for her novels. Together they had three sons: Dana Letts; playwright and actor, Tracy Letts; jazz musician and composer, Shawn Letts. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Letts has shown once again her gift for capturing the personalities that inhabit Oklahoma's small towns-and some of the bigger cities as well.
Tulsa World

Letts has a way of grabbing her audience with a gentle but very firm hand on the neck....She has an overwhelming sense of optimism that overshadows any minor evil lurking around the corner.
Dayton Daily News

A Beverly Hills veterinarian goes south hoping to locate the mother who gave him up for adoption-but finds himself instead investigating a murder, a cover-up, and attempts on his own life. Evoking the closeness of small-town life in DeClare, Oklahoma (epitomized by Teeve's Place, a combined diner and pool hall owned and run by Teeve Narjo), bestselling Letts (Where the Heart Is, 1995, etc.) begins her third outing as handsome Dr. Mark Allbright arrives in town. Mark has just learned that he is adopted and that his mother was Gaylene Narjo, from DeClare, and he now wants to confront her and ask why she didn't want him. But Gaylene, he learns, when he introduces himself to Teeve, was murdered 30 years ago and her son Nicky Jack, then ten-months-old, disappeared and was never seen again. The murder was attributed to a well-regarded African-American, Joe Dawson, who allegedly killed himself in jail. DeClare is a politically correct mix of good guys (Native Americans, a gay lawyer, a crusading anti-Republican journalist) and bad guys (a sadistic white sheriff, O Boy Daniels, a gun-nut, bigoted teachers) that may look good but makes for a blindingly unshaded story. As Mark reads Gaylene's diary, he learns how she dreamed of becoming an artist and how, as a native Cherokee, she was angered by the bigotry she experienced at high school. He also learns that she was pregnant when she graduated, and no one knows who was responsible. With the help of Ivey, Teeve's single and pregnant daughter, and of lawyer Hal Duchamp, Mark begins his search for Gaylene's killer. Some of the locals, though, including O Boy Daniels and the radio station's Arthur McFadden, aren't happy about Mark's continuing presence. Still, even when someone tries to take him out, Mark is not deterred. Eventually, of course, his amateur sleuthing pays off-and he even finds someone to love. Perfect for the beach.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In her novels Billie Letts beautifully captures the personalities in Oklahoma's small towns. Do you think DeClare, Oklahoma could be "Any Town, USA" or is it uniquely a small town in the state of Oklahoma?

2. Key themes in this novel deal with the question of identity and self-knowledge. Mark Albright (Nicky Jack Harjo) doesn't know who he is. What does he learn about himself during the course of the story? Does he change in any fundamental way from the beginning to the end of the book?

3. Do you find the love relationship between Ivy and Mark/Nicky Jack believable? Why or why not?

4. We get to know Gaylene, posthumously, through what other people say about her and through her diaries. Are the two views of her similar or different? Why does she call herself "Spider Woman"?

5. What importance do you think race has in this novel: not much, some, or a great amount? What are some examples of racial discrimination faced by characters? Mark/Nicky Jack doesn't know he is part Cherokee. Is it important that he does know?

6. The book also raises some troubling issues faced by adopted children. What are they? Do you think an adopted child should be given his birth parents' identities? Why or why not?

7. Mark/Nicky Jack talks about having a careful plan for his life, and then fate dramatically changes that plan. He points out that Ivy has no plan at all, and she's drifting through life. What are the pros and cons of each character's approach to life? What is your own approach?

8. What do you make of the domino players? Why are they in the story? What do they contribute besides the title?

9. A frequent situation in the novels of Billie Letts is the dilemma faced by an unmarried pregnant woman about the child she carries. In this book, what choice does each of the unmarried pregnant women make with regard to her unborn child, and what are the consequences of that choice? Do you think each woman makes the best choice for her?

10. Because this is fiction, the author can create any ending she wishes for her characters. Do you agree with the fate she gives to each of the major characters? In particular, how do you feel about what happened to Carrie and her son Kippy? Are you convinced she would have taken his life along with her own?

11. Who would you say is the happiest or most "together" character or characters in this book? Why? Does "shooting the moon" make for happiness?

12. If there is someday a sequel about Mark/Nicky Jack and Ivy, what do you think might happen to them? Do you think their relationship will last?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Shopgirl
Steve Martin, 2000
Hyperion
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401308278

Summary
From the comic genius of Steve Martin comes a contemporary fable of life an love from the point of view of a shopgirl behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus.

Mirabelle, a semi-glamourous young woman who is making her way through the romantic jungles of Beverly Hills/Los Angeles, is an aspiring artist who prides herself on her clothing aesthetic. Unfortunately, she doesn't always have the best taste in men. When she meets a young Turk named Jeremy, whose idea of a great second date is a visit to the Laundromat, she sees him through a haze of prozac and other anti-depressants, and through the prism of her own poor self-esteem.

But then she meets Ray Porter and thinks he could be her Knight in Shining Armor. In fact, he does turn out to be a worldly, rich gentleman who is a kindly and even exciting lover, but he never really takes Mirabelle seriously. T

ogether, Mirabelle, Ray, Jeremy, and a few other suporting characters populate this insightful piece that is sometimes quirky, sometimes comic, and sometimes languid as a summer day. (From the publisher.)

The 2005 film, adapted from the novella, stars Steve Martin, Clare Danes, and Jason Schwartzman.

Author Bio
• Birth—August 14, 1945
• Where—Waco, Texas USA
• Raised—Orange County, California
• Education—B.A., University of California, L.A.
• Awards—2 Emmy Awards; 2 Grammy Awards;
   Life Time Achievement–American Comedy Awards
• Currently—lives in Beverly Hills, California

"If Woody Allen is the archetypal East Coast neurotic, Steve Martin is the ultimate West Coast wacko," Maureen Orth wrote for Newsweekin 1977. At the time, Martin was a star on the standup comedy circuit, known for his nose glasses, bunny ears and sudden attacks of "happy feet." More than 20 years later, the idea that the two are counterparts still seems apt: Like Woody Allen, Steve Martin has gone from comedy writer and performer to scriptwriter, director, playwright and book author. But while Woody Allen's transformation from angst-ridden intellectual into Bergman-inspired auteur was something fans might have anticipated, who would have guessed that the wild and crazy guy with the arrow through his head harbored a passion for philosophy, art and literature?

Early years
Growing up in Orange County, California, Martin worked afternoons, weekends and summers at Disneyland, where he learned to do magic tricks, make balloon animals and perform vaudeville routines. By the time he was 18, he was performing at Knott's Berry Farm while attending junior college. He was a bright but unenthusiastic student until a girlfriend (and her loan of Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge) inspired him to transfer to Long Beach State and major in philosophy. There, he delved into metaphysics, semantics and logic before concluding that he was meant for the arts. He transferred again, to the theater department at UCLA, and started performing comedy in local clubs. Truth in art, he later said, "can't be measured. You don't have to explain why, or justify anything. If it works, it works. As a performer, non sequiturs make sense, nonsense is real." (Aha -- there was a philosophical impulse behind those bunny ears.)

Career
After a string of successful T.V. comedy-writing gigs, Martin got back into performing, and a few years later, he was landing spots on "The Tonight Show" and guest-hosting "Saturday Night Live," where he performed his famous King Tut routine. His first album, Let's Get Small, won a Grammy and was the best-selling comedy album of 1977. His first book, Cruel Shoes, was a collection of comic vignettes with titles like "How to Fold Soup" and "The Vengeful Curtain Rod." And his starring role in The Jerk kicked off a highly successful film career that includes more than 20 hit movies, including Roxanne and L.A. Story, both of which Martin wrote and directed.

Early on, critics classed Steve Martin with comedians like Martin Mull and Chevy Chase—goofy white guys whose slapstick comedy had no overt political message, though it might have a postmodern touch of self-critique. But Martin kept scaling the heights of absurdity until he'd reached an altitude all his own. Beginning in 1994, he took two years off from movie acting to concentrate on his writing. The result was Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a surreal comedy about Picasso and Einstein that won critical and popular acclaim: "More laughs, more fun and more delight than anything currently on the New York stage," raved The New York Observer.

Though Martin went back to the movies, he also kept on writing, turning out several more plays and a series of ingeniously demented essays for The New Yorker and The New York Times, many of which are collected in book form in Pure Drivel. Then, in 2000, he surprised readers with his bestselling book Shopgirl, a tender, insightful novella about a Neiman Marcus clerk and her two suitors. These days, Martin is recognized as a "gorgeous writer capable of being at once melancholy and tart, achingly innocent and astonishingly ironic" (Elle). He's also been tapped to host ceremonies for the prestigious National Book Awards. It seems the man who once defined comedy as "acting stupid so other people can laugh" is in fact one of the smartest guys ever to emerge from L.A.

Extras
• As a stand-up comedian on "The Tonight Show", Martin was demoted to guest-host nights for a while because Johnny Carson didn't think his act — which could include reading from the phone book or telling jokes to four dogs onstage — was funny.

• After he became nationally famous as a comedian, Martin joked that his new wealth had allowed him to buy "some pretty good stuff. Got me a $300 pair of socks, got a fur sink ... let's see ... an electric dog-polisher, a gasoline-powered turtleneck sweater ... and of course I bought some dumb stuff, too." Actually, Martin is a serious art collector whose purchases include paintings and drawings by Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso and David Hockney.

• Martin's marriage to the actress Victoria Tennant ended in 1994. But it was his subsequent breakup with actress Anne Heche that really broke his heart, he hinted in an Esquire interview. "I spent about a year recovering, and searching out myself and asking why things happened the way they did. I wrote a play about it, Patter for the Floating Lady. Oh, I shouldn't have told you that. I should have said I made it up." (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Shopgirl, Martin's elegant, bleak, desolatingly sad first novella, is in every sense his most serious work to date.... Martin's humor has always been about people who do not realize they are absurd. In 'Shopgirl that sense of absurdity is larger and more encompassing—something closer to an existentialist idea of the absurd, of life as defined by a tragicomic absence of purpose.... The novella has an edge to it, and a deep, unassuageable loneliness. Steve Martin's most achieved work to date may well have the strange effect of making people glad not to be Steve Martin.
John Lanchanster - New York Times Book Review


His writing has sometimes been sweet, sometimes biting, occasionally intellectually boastful- but it has always been funny.
Wall Street Journal


Shopgirlreads as smoothly and pleasurably as the novels of the late W.M. Spackman, whose An Armful of Warm Girl easily won the prize 25 years ago for best title of a novel about foolish 50 year-old men.
Los Angeles Times


Steve Martin, who over the years has bravely transformed himself before the public eye from brilliant stand-up comedian to genial actor to writer... [has written] a hilarious but intense first novella...which is all about happiness and how to get there... One of the nicest things about this novel is the way it effortlessly bridges generations.
Vogue


Who'd have thought Martin, known (aside from his acting) for his smart, snarky New Yorker pieces, would pen a tender love story?...Martin's shift from public follies to private frailties registers as courageous and convincing.
Entertainment Weekly


Movie star Martin shone in the comic essays of last year's Pure Drivel, but can he write serious fiction? His debut novella gives fans a chance to find out. Shy, depressed, young, lonely and usually broke, Vermont-bred Mirabelle Butterfield sells gloves at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus (nobody ever buys); at night, she watches TV with her two cats. Martin's slight plot follows Mirabelle's search for  "at least romance and companionship" with middle-aged Ray Porter, a womanizing Seattle millionaire who may, or may not, have hidden redeeming qualities. Also in and out of Mirabelle's life are a handful of supporting characters, all of them lonely and alienated, too. There's her father, a dysfunctional Vietnam vet; the laconic, unambitious Jeremy; and Mirabelle's promiscuous, body-obsessed co-worker Lisa. Detractors may call Martin's plot predictable, his characters stereotypes. Admirers may answer that...these aren't stereotypes but modern archetypes, whose lives must be streamlined if they are to represent ours. Except for its love-hate relations with L.A., little about this book sounds much like Martin; its anxious, sometimes flat prose style can be affecting or disorienting, and belongs somewhere between Douglas Coupland and literary chroniclers of depression like Lydia Davis. Martin's first novel is finally neither a triumph nor a disaster: it's yet another of this intelligent performer's attempts to expand his range, and those who will buy it for the name on the cover could do a lot worse.
Publishers Weekly


The action moves quickly, yet the narrative takes its time to develop, which is a very skillful bit of writing business. Martin's literary fable of a novella is disarming, particularly for those who come to it expecting the biting, zany humor of Pure Drivel (1998), but it may mark a new direction in a noteworthy writer's career. —Bonnie Smothers
Booklist


Martin was wise to make the book little more than one hundred pages. His brevity saves Shopgirlfrom becoming tedious, and his deft styling and nice descriptions keep the story flowing along.... [like] a shallow hypnotic dream that pulls you through to the end without leaving you feeling ripped off for the few hours invested. It's a quick and harmless read that shows the potential of a writer who shouldn't be satisfied spooning out irony for the New Yorker set.
Steve Wilson - Book Magazine

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Shopgirl:

1. How would you describe Mirabelle? What is she like? At what stage is she in her life? How is her job, selling gloves—"things that nobody buys anymore"—suitably ironic for her?

2. What is Jeremy like? How would you describe him? Were you rooting for him (or not) as a potential boyfriend?

3. What draws Mirabella and Jeremy together if, as the narrator says, "at this stage of their lives, in true and total fact, they only thing they have in common is a Laundromat"?

4. Is Ray Porter a good man...or not? How would you describe him?

5. Ray is honest about what he wants—that "he can have [Mirabelle] without obligation." Ray believes that "they will both see the benefits they are receiving" from one another. Can a good relationship be built on such an understanding?

6. Mirabelle and Ray have The Conversation; afterwards both take away different versions—he believes Mirabelle understands his intent of seeing other women; she believes Ray "is bordering on falling in love with her." How does that difference in understanding occur? Has it ever happened to you?

7. What was your feeling when Mirabelle became involved with Ray? If she had asked your advice, what would you have said?

8. Does Mirabelle love Ray? Or does she love the idea of Ray—his wealth, his paternal protection?

9. How does Ray feel toward Mirabelle? Do his feelings ever change?

10. This is a classic love triangle: older man, younger woman, and younger man. Yet Martin presents something different. Can you put your finger on what it is?

11. When you first read the book, were you surprised or disappointed that it wasn't funnier? Were you expecting a humorous book from a former stand-up comic?

12. Follow-up to Question 10: Even though this isn't an uproariously funny book, there is still a good deal of humor. Find a few of your favorite lines and read them out loud.

13. Lisa is one of the funniest characters in the book. Do you find her so? Why does she set up the competition with Mirabelle?

14. Was Jeremy's transformation believable? Do your feelings about Jeremy change?

15. How does Martin paint the L.A. scene—the things people are looking for, aspiring to? In what way might the novella be described as a gentle satire?

16. Is the ending satisfying? Or were you hoping for another outcome?

17. Watch the movie. How do film and book compare? Which do you prefer?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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A Short History of Women: A Novel
Kate Walbert
Simon & Schuster
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416594994


Summary
National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert's A Short History of Women is a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, chronicling five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first.

The novel opens in England in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause. Her choice echoes in the stories of her descendants interwoven throughout: a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother's infamy by immigrating to America just after World War I to begin a career in science; a niece who chooses a conventional path—marriage, children, suburban domesticity—only to find herself disillusioned with her husband of fifty years and engaged in heartbreaking and futile antiwar protests; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of the times while getting drunk on a children's playdate in post-9/11 Manhattan. In a kaleidoscope of voices and with a richness of imagery, emotion, and wit, Walbert portrays the ways in which successive generations of women have responded to what the Victorians called "The Woman Question."

As she did in her critically acclaimed The Gardens of Kyoto and Our Kind, Walbert induces "a state in which the past seems to hang effortlessly amid the present" (New York Times).

A Short History of Women is her most ambitious novel, a thought-provoking and vividly original narrative that crisscrosses a century to reflect the tides of time and the ways in which the lives of our great-grandmothers resonate in our own. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1961
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—M.A., New York University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; O. Henry Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York and Stony Creek,
   Connecticut

Kate Walbert made her writing debut in 1998 with Where She Went, a collection of interlinked stories about the lives and travels of a mother and daughter. Marion moves frequently, a lifestyle that never permits her to form a stable identity. Her daughter Rebecca, by contrast, travels with the intent of "finding herself," but only becomes more and more rootless in the process. The New York Times named Where She Went a Notable Book of 1998 and said that it "contains many quick flashes of beauty...it goes far and takes us with it."

In 2001 she published The Gardens of Kyoto —a bittersweet story about the friendship between two cousins prior to World War II. The novel is based on her Pushcart Prize and O. Henry Award–winning story of the same name.

Walbert has published fiction and articles in the Paris Review, Double Take, New York Times, and numerous other publications. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. She teaches writing at Yale University and lives in New York City and Stony Creek, Connecticut. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Walbert's books have all dealt...with the lives of women, but this one is her most ambitious and as if to reflect the non-linear progress of feminism. Walbert also utilizes compression and flashback to sweep through time, her style reminiscent of a host of innovative writers from Virginia Woolf to Muriel Spark to Pat Barker…A Short History deals with complicated women living in complicated times, and if it is empathetic, it is also disturbing, as all moral conundrums are. It is a witty and assured testament to the women's movement and women writers, obscure and renowned.
Valerie Sayers - Washington Post

Nearly everything about Kate Walbert's new novel is wickedly smart…Walbert's primary concerns—unlike those of some of her characters—aren't political. Her writing wears both its intelligence and its ideology lightly. No manifesto, this is a gorgeously wrought and ultimately wrenching work of art.
Leah Hager Cohen - New York Times Book Review

With a sharp eye and deft touch, Walbert explores the ways women’s priorities and freedoms have evolved even as their yearnings have stayed remarkably constant. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist

Walbert—2004 National Book Award nominee for Our Kind—offers a beautiful and kaleidoscopic view of the 20th century through the eyes of several generations of women in the Townsend family. The story begins with Dorothy Townsend, a turn-of-the-century British suffragist who dies in a hunger strike. From Dorothy's death, Walbert travels back and forth across time and continents to chronicle other acts of self-assertion by Dorothy's female descendants. Dorothy's daughter, Evelyn, travels to America after WWI to make her name in the world of science-and escape from her mother's infamy. Decades later, her niece, also named Dorothy, has a late-life crisis and gets arrested in 2003 for taking photos of an off-limits military base in Delaware. Dorothy's daughters, meanwhile, struggle to find meaning in their modern bourgeois urban existences. The novel takes in historical events from the social upheaval of pre-WWI Britain to VJ day in New York City, a feminist conscious-raising in the '70s and the Internet age. The lives of these women reveal that although oppression of women has grown more subtle, Dorothy's self-sacrifice reverberates through generations. Walbert's look at the 20th century and the Townsend family is perfectly calibrated, intricately structured and gripping from page one.
Publishers Weekly

When 34-year-old British feminist Dorothy Townsend intentionally starves herself to death to win attention for women's suffrage, she leaves behind two children. It's 1914, and the pair is separated, never to reunite. Walbert's latest work—her previous novel, Our Kind, was a 2004 National Book Award finalist—imagines the impact of Townsend's suicide on four successive generations of Townsend women, all of them named Dorothy. Was the act a sign of desperation, a brilliant way to divert attention from an impending world war, or a selfish renunciation of maternal obligation? Walbert's intricately layered novel examines the past 100 years with subtlety and wit, simultaneously addressing the ways historical memory intrudes and recedes in individual lives. It's gripping, intense, and powerful. Walbert's language is elegant, her images resonant. Characters are recognizable but not clichéd and will stay with readers as wise, if also flawed and struggling, exemplars of political and intellectual engagement. Highly recommended for all contemporary fiction collections.
Eleanor J. Bador - Library Journal

Five generations of willful, restless women struggle to find an identity beyond that of wife and mother. Dorothy Trevor Townsend bequeathes one heck of a legacy when she dies at age 34 in 1914. The British suffragette starves herself to death as an act of civil disobedience, leaving behind two fatherless children and a married lover. Her act is doubly shocking, occurring as it does during the carnage of World War I. Dorothy's son Thomas ends up with family friends in California, becomes a musician and dies young of alcoholism. Daughter Evelyn endures wartime deprivations at boarding school before finding her way to America as well. She becomes a well-known chemistry professor at Barnard, eschewing traditional attachments and family life. Thomas's daughter, Dorothy Townsend Barrett, takes a different route, marrying and producing three children, only to realize in her 70s that she has always been miserable. So she protests the Iraq war, divorces her devoted husband Charles and starts a blog, to the horror of her responsible eldest daughter Caroline. With an empty nest and a divorce of her own, Caroline is stunned to recognize the role that fear has played in her life. Caroline's sister Liz, like the others, has talent and brains, but late motherhood and a busy, privileged life in Manhattan have made her question what it all means. When Liz was a child, she slipped into her mother's purse a verse she'd written that contained the line "I am a hollow bone." It resonates throughout the lives of all these women: "It's as if I echo, or rather, feel in myself an absence," says Dorothy Barrett. "I feel as if I've forgotten something, as if there's a question I forgot to answer." Walbert (Our Kind, 2004, etc.) is careful to give equal weight to their challenges through different eras. The male characters are not as fully fleshed out as they could be, but Charles' longing for the wife he never really had is quite moving. Daring and devastating: 20th-century history made personal.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
1. Throughout the novel, Walbert consistently reveals future events before they occur—from Father Fairfield's death to Dorothy Townsend (Barrett's) impending divorce. Why do you think she chooses to do this? How does this change the pacing of the story?

2. How is Evelyn's release of the canary symbolic of her own desires? (p.15) Why do you think she gets so angry when the bird refuses to leave on its own? How does she feel once it is gone? How does this parallel the actions that Evelyn eventually takes?

3. The novel opens with Evelyn Charlotte Townsend's mother starving herself for her cause, a death "brought on by modern ideas, pride, acertain vanity or rather, unreasonable expectations." (p. 76) How does her death spur on the next generation of this family? How do you think things would have been different if she had not died? Would Evelyn and subsequent Townsend generations have been as bold as they were? Why or why not?

4. Discuss how all the women in the novel struggle between their rebellious ideals and trying to lead a "normal" life. Do you believe Dorothy when she says that she "didn't sign on for this?" (p. 74)

5. How did you feel when Evelyn lied to Stephen Pope about her family? Why do you think she says "I'll start from nothing...I am now no one's daughter." (p. 90) Does she really reject her past or is she more like her mother than she wants to admit?

6. Each of the women in the novel at one point or another rejects the life they are leading. The most notable instance is Dorothy Townsend's (Barrett) radical change following her son's death. Discuss how each of the women, like Dorothy Townsend, "shed a skin." (p. 104)

7. Discuss the theme of loss in A Short History of Women. What are the major losses that each character experiences? How does this affect the women they are and the women they become?

8. Evie has a long standing relationship with Stephen Pope and has a love for him that she claims is "not what a woman's love should be or look like, absent, as it is, a family, a husband." (p. 173) Yet, they have a very solid and caring relationship. How does this compare to someone like Dorothy Townsend (Barrett) who has a husband she no longer loves?

9. How does Fran's question of "Did you ever ruin your life for a feeling?" (p. 191) reflect the struggles that each woman has experienced? What is Elizabeth's response to Fran's question? Do you think she believes her response? What do you think her response would be if asked the same question about her mother?

10. Which of Dorothy's descendants do you think best embodies her strength and will for the cause? Which do you think embodies it the least? Why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Short Life of Sparrows
Emm Cole, 2014
Self-published
430 pp.
AISN: B00NGR7NDQ


Summary
Beneath the light of a full moon, the Nightbloods and Seers are dancing. They are dancing as they await another Awakening, a dream that defines every witch's destiny. It doesn't matter that the coven is cheering and anticipating her turn into womanhood, because Calli doesn't want any of it.

She doesn't want to see the face of the hired hand Isaiah, nor does she desire the pursuits of a very determined Nightblood as she runs from a future with the Ordinary help. She knows that regardless of whether she taps into forbidden magic or not, an Awakening is rumored to hold ultimate power over the Seer who dreams it.

While the other Seers her age are given to their parties, their enchantments, and the lust of Nightblood suitors, Calli must choose how she'll endure the worst of her visions. There may be a way to survive her sleep, but she's not sure she can defeat the truth that will find her when she's wide awake.

Does real love even stand a chance against the darkest of magic?

Author Bio
Emm Cole is the author of the Dark Fantasy novel, The Short Life of Sparrows, as well as the Young Adult Fantasy series, Mermina. She lives with her husband and two spunky children. When she’s not writing, she is often highlighting favorite passages in books.

Her funky imagination tends to be equal parts whimsically pretty and morbidly sinister. Emm believes that every new story she writes should challenge the limits of her creativity further than the last one, and she plans to keep developing unique magical realms, one book at a time.

According to Emm, authors Laini Taylor, Maggie Stiefvater, and John Green are pen-wielding super heroes. Don’t share your Sour Patch Kids or Swedish Fish with her, because she’ll eat them all. Emm is a fan of everything supernatural and finds that drama in stories is always more entertaining than the real kind.

She also enjoys thought-provoking art and is an admitted TV series junkie who has The Vampire Diaries and Friday Night Lights memorized. If a pop culture reference wasn’t acknowledged on Gilmore Girls, she probably finds it irrelevant. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
(For more extensive reviews, see Amazon Customer Reviews.)

The message is profound. The prose enrapturing. And the journey...unforgettable.
Tiana Dalichov, Author of Poison


I'm a huge fan of building relationships, not wham-insta-love. The Short Life of Sparrows has meaningful relationships in spades. Not just between the love interests, but in the relationships of the secondary characters as well.
Sara Mack, author of The Guardian Trilogy

Discussion Questions
1. By the end, most of the characters have all in some way told a lie of their own that has led to some severe consequences. Which characters do you believe were justified in their secrets? Or do you think they were all wrong to hide their secrets from each other?

2. A lot of the secondary characters evolve from who we believe them to be in the first chapters. Who would you say is the most surprising during the course of the story? Why?

3. Do you think if Lil had chosen differently in the past that it would have changed anything for the better?

4. Which scene stands out to you most in The Short Life of Sparrows? And why?

5. Which relationship, romantic or not, did you feel most connected to?

6. Who was the most selfish of the bunch and why? The most selfless, and why?

7. Which character did you resonate with most? The least?
(Questions written and donated to LitLovers by Marie from Utah.)

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Shotgun Lovesongs 
Nickolas Butler, 2014
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250039828


Summary
Welcome to Little Wing.

It’s a place like hundreds of others, nothing special, really. But for four friends—all born and raised in this small Wisconsin town—it is home. And now they are men, coming into their own, or struggling to do so.

One of them never left, still working the family farm that has been tilled for generations. But others felt the need to move on, with varying degrees of success. One trades commodities, another took to the rodeo circuit, and one of them even hit it big as a rock star. And then there’s Beth, a woman who has meant something special in each of their lives.

Now all four are brought together for a wedding. Little Wing seems even smaller than before. While lifelong bonds are still strong, there are stresses—between the friends, between husbands and wives. There will be heartbreak, but there will also be hope, healing, even heroism as these memorable people learn the true meaning of adult friendship and love.

Seldom has the American heartland been so richly and accurately portrayed. Though the town may have changed, the one thing that hasn’t is the beauty of the Wisconsin farmland, the lure of which, in Nickolas Butler’s hands, emerges as a vibrant character in the story.

Shotgun Lovesongs is that rare work of fiction that evokes a specific time and place yet movingly describes the universal human condition. It is, in short, a truly remarkable book—a novel that once read will never be forgotten. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 2, 1979
• Raised—Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA
• Education—University of Wisconsin; Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Wisconsin


Nickolas Butler, author of several novels, is perhaps best known for Shotgun Lovesongs and, most recently, Little Faith. Butler was raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin. He is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Butler has worked as a meatpacker, a Burger King maintenance man, a liquor store clerk, a coffee roaster, an office manager, an author escort, an inn-keeper (twice), and several other odd vocations.

Aside from his novels, Butler's writings have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review Online, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere.

He lives on 16 acres of land in rural Wisconsin adjacent to a buffalo farm. He is married with two children.

Novels
2014 - Shotgun Lovesongs
2015 - Beneath the Bonfire
2016 - The Hearts of Men
2019 - Little Faith

Book Reviews
The most lyrical parts of this big-hearted book are about how all the characters…are almost physically drawn to the town and one another…Mr. Butler makes his characters sufficiently different to create all sorts of memorable interactions when their paths cross…[in] this impressively original debut.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


The author romanticizes the landscape and the notion of community—as if such ideals were limited to small town, agrarian dreams. More seriously, his characters are too similar—all of them too lyrical and too insightful. Butler’s prose is often beautiful, and the narrative churns along well, but the book just isn’t convincing enough to get the reader to buy all the way in.
Publishers Weekly


Overall, though, this is a warm and absorbing depiction of male friendship.... [T]he sole female narrator, is as nuanced and believable a character as her male counterparts.  —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal


The hearty Midwest, which thrums and beats through tiny Little Wing, Wisconsin—an Anytown, USA, if there ever was one—assumes the whole soul of Butler’s fetching debut, if only to end up proving how unassuming it is.... Butler examines just what it means to be from a place—and if sharing that from-some-place is more a reason to stay in touch, or a reason not to. —Annie Bostrom
Booklist


(Starred review.) A debut novel that delves so deeply into the small-town heartland that readers will accept its flaws as part of its charm. "Write what you know" is the first dictum directed toward aspiring fiction writers, and there's no doubt that Butler knows his fictional Little Wing inside out.... Despite some soap-opera machinations and occasional literary overreach, the novel will strike a responsive chord.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Many of the characters in Shotgun Lovesongs regret specific moments in their life, moments that (perhaps) other people may not regret at all. Do you feel regret is a useful emotion? What do you regret? Which characters (and their regrets) do you identify with?

2. Late in the novel, Lee makes a particular observation about what he thinks America is. Do you feel that his perspective is at odds with your own notions of what America is? Or do you agree with him?

3. Many critics and early readers of Shotgun Lovesongs have remarked that it is a novel that explores adult male friendships. And yet, perhaps at the heart of the story is Beth (and she is given her own voice in the novel). How did you feel about Butler’s representation of women? Was it accurate?

4. Fame seems to be an important theme or consideration throughout Shotgun Lovesongs. Do you feel that the novel critiques fame? Celebrates fame? What do you think about the cult of personality in America? Do you care about celebrity? Read tabloids? Why?

5. Some critics have said that Shotgun Lovesongs is overly sentimental, even "precious"? Do you think this novel is sentimental? Is sentimentality something to be altogether avoided in fiction?

6. Beth and Leland share one night of romance. This incident happened when neither character was married or even dating someone. And yet, it is enough to unravel lifelong friendships. What do you think about this? Could you relate to characters and their reactions?

7. There is a kind of dichotomy in this novel between city and country. Has your own life been subject to the push-pull of living rural vs. living urban? What have you had to sacrifice to live where you live? Do you see it as a sacrifice?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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A Shower of Roses
Tom Milton, 2010
Nepperhan Press
177 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780982990414


Summary
Eva’s mission in life is to help people by doing little things for them, instead of performing great heroic acts. She is a pediatric nurse at a hospital in New York, and things are going well for her when she meets Marek, a Polish exile, and falls in love with him.

Marek ostensibly works for a large international bank, but that is a cover for his role as a CIA agent with the mission of fomenting a popular uprising against the communist government of Poland. At the request of the CIA the bank transfers him to London, where the story opens in April 1981, shortly after Poland announced that it would be unable to repay its foreign debt and the Solidarity movement emerged in the port of Gdańsk.

Eva had never dreamed of marrying a man like Marek, but she responds to his need for love, and she devotes her life to him. She is fully aware that his work is dangerous, and every time he goes to Poland she worries that he will be arrested by the secret police. Though he drags her into a world of political intrigue and tests her love by subjecting her to increasingly painful experiences, she keeps her promise to love him no matter what he does, until she confronts the truth about him—and about herself. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 3, 1949
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—Ph.D., Walden University, M.A. University
   of Iowa (Writers Workshop), B.A. Princeton University
• Currently—lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY


Tom Milton was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. After completing his undergraduate degree at Princeton he worked for the Wall Street Journal, and then he was invited to the Writers Workshop in Iowa City, where he completed a novel and a master’s degree. He then served in the U.S. Army, and upon his discharge he joined a major international bank in New York. For the next twenty years he worked overseas, initially as an economic/political analyst and finally as a senior executive. He later became involved in economic development projects. After retiring from his business career he joined the faculty of Mercy College, where he is a professor of international business. Five years ago he found a publisher for his novels, some of which are set in foreign cities where he lived (Buenos Aires, London, Madrid, and Santo Domingo). His novels are popular with reading groups because they deal with major issues, they have engaging characters, and they are good stories.

His first published novel, No Way to Peace, set in Argentina in the mid-1970s, is about the courage of five women during that country’s war of terror. His second novel, The Admiral’s Daughter, is about the conflict between a young woman and her father during the civil rights war in Mississippi in the early 1960s. His third novel, All the Flowers, set in New York in the late 1960s, is about a gifted young singer who gets involved in the antiwar movement because her twin brother joins the army to prove his manhood to his father. His fourth novel, Infamy, set in Madrid in 2007, is about the attempt of security agents to stop a terrorist attack on New York City that would use weapons of mass destruction. His next novel, A Shower of Roses, set in London in the early 1980s, is about a young nurse who is drawn by love into an intrigue of the Cold War. His next novel, Sara’s Laughter, set in Yonkers, NY in 1993, is about a woman in her mid-thirties who wants a child but is unable to get pregnant. And his latest novel, The Golden Door, is about a young Latina woman in Alabama whose future is threatened by a harsh anti-immigrant law that the state passed in 2011. (From the author.)

Book Reviews
“Do we have a purpose?” “Are we capable of unconditional love?” “What is God’s role in our lives?” These are the types of questions Tom Milton explores in his fifth novel A Shower of Roses. But perhaps Milton’s most pressing question is, “Can womankind save mankind (because he’s surely not going to save himself)?”

Set primarily in London in 1981, the story follows the life of Eva Ostrowski. Eva is the daughter of Polish parents who escaped the onslaught of the Germans and the Russians during World War II. She is married to a man named Marek whose name can be loosely translated as “a severe brand of Pole.” Marek, like Eva’s parents, is also a transplanted Pole who now works for the CIA. He often travels back and forth to Poland (disguised as a banker) in an effort to aid the Solidarity movement’s attempt to overthrow Poland’s communist government.

To fully develop Eva’s character, Milton intersperses the storyline with insightful passages about Eva’s past. Eva was raised in a tightly-knit Polish community in St. Paul, Minnesota. Catholicism and polka music were the two most important ingredients in the glue that held this community together. During her fifth-grade year, Eva’s favorite nun gave her a book called The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux. Through this book, Eva came to understand that in a world dominated and controlled by men, her greatest contribution would be myriad small acts of kindness and the spreading of happiness through unconditional love for others.

Eva’s marriage to Marek is the embodiment of the theory that opposites attract. He is an atheist. His sole mission in life is to effect the political balance of power on the world stage, and he is unconvinced anyone is capable of unreserved love. Eva is everything he is not, and it is through this relationship that Milton presents the reader with his theories regarding some of life’s most profound issues.

A Shower of Roses is provoking and engaging. The story takes its time developing the central theme of finding and defining one’s place in the grand scheme of things, but once it hits its stride, Roses is hard to put down. Eva’s struggles and insights take place in a world seemingly designed by Emmanuel Kant and Virginia Woolf, a world in which the desire for power and control at all costs meets the belief that unconditional love can save a soul from the “darkness of unending night.”

Can a price be placed on a human life? Is there a limit to the amount of love one can give? A Shower of Roses takes its audience to dark places in its search for answers to these questions, but by the end of the story, after encountering these issues for herself, Eva “knelt down and thanked God for revealing the truth to her.”
Chris Fisher - Foreword Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why was Eva attracted to the mission of helping people by doing little things for them?

2. Why did Eva respond to the discovery of her father’s infidelity the way she did?

3. What do Eva and Ramona have in common other than the fact that they are pediatric nurses at the same hospital?

4. What does Eva learn by sharing with Ramona her discovery about her father?

5. How does Eva’s experience with her father make her susceptible to Marek’s appeal in the Recovery Room?

6. What makes Eva believe that she can love Marek no matter what he does?

7. What do Eva and Juliana have in common other than the fact that their husbands are involved in international banking?

8. What important insights about herself does Eva gain from her conversations with Juliana?

9. In one conversation with Juliana, Eva talks about the Jungian concept of reconciling the past and the future. Why is Eva unable to do this?

10. What do Eva and Francis have in common other than the fact that they are both taking the same course at the University of London?

11. What important insights about her husband does Eva gain from her conversations with Francis?

12. Did Marek’s personal needs jeopardize his political mission?

13. Why does Eva trust Marek and believe everything he says?

14. Is Eva’s commitment to her mission compromised by her devotion to her husband?

15. While Marek is testing Eva’s love for him, is he also testing her faith in God?

16. Who do you think betrayed Marek?

17. Do you think what happens to Eva supports the notion that in spite of all the advice we get from other people, we can learn only from our own experience?
(Questions courtesy of author.)

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Shutter Island 
Dennis Lehane, 2003
HarperCollins
299 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061703256


Summary 
The year is 1954. U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule, have come to Shutter Island, home of Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Multiple-murderess Rachel Solando is loose somewhere on this barren island, despite having been kept in a locked cell under constant surveillance.

As a killer hurricane bears relentlessly down on them, a strange case takes on even darker, more sinister shades—with hints of radical experimentation, horrifying surgeries, and lethal countermoves made in the cause of a covert shadow war. No one is going to escape Shutter Island unscathed, because nothing at Ashecliffe Hospital is remotely what it seems. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 4, 1965
• Where—Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Eckerd College; M.F.A., Florida International University
• Awards—Shamus Award, Best First Novel; Anthony Award; Dilys Award
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts


Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.

Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. His novel Shutter Island was adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese in 2010. Lehane is a graduate of Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

Personal Life
Lehane was born and reared in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, and continues to live in the Boston area, which provides the setting for most of his books. He spent summers on Fieldston Beach in Marshfield. Lehane is the youngest of five children. His father was a foreman for Sears & Roebuck, and his mother worked in a Boston public school cafeteria. Both of his parents emigrated from Ireland. His brother, Gerry Lehane, who is two and a half years older than Dennis, is a veteran actor who trained at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence before heading to New York in 1990. Gerry is currently a member of the Invisible City Theatre Company.

He was previously married to Sheila Lawn, formerly an advocate for the elderly for the city of Boston but now working with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office as an Assistant District Attorney. Currently, he is married to Dr. Angela Bernardo, with whom he has one daughter.

He is a graduate of Boston College High School (a Boston Jesuit prep school), Eckerd College (where he found his passion for writing), and the graduate program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle.

Literary Career
His first book, A Drink Before the War, which introduced the recurring characters Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, won the 1995 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. The fourth book in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone, was adapted to a film of the same title in 2007; it was directed by Ben Affleck and starred Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as Kenzie and Gennaro. Reportedly, Lehane "has never wanted to write the screenplays for the films [based on his own books], because he says he has 'no desire to operate on my own child.'"

Lehane's Mystic River was made into a film in 2003; directed by Clint Eastwood, it starred Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon. The novel itself was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystère de la Critique.

Lehane's first play, Coronado, debuted in New York in December 2005. Coronado is based on his acclaimed short story "Until Gwen," which was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly and was selected for both The Best American Short Stories and The Best Mystery Short Stories of 2005.

Lehane described working on his historical novel, The Given Day, as "a five- or six-year project" with the novel beginning in 1918 and encompassing the 1919 Boston Police Strike and its aftermath. The novel was published in October, 2008.

On October 22, 2007 Paramount Pictures announced that they had optioned Shutter Island with Martin Scorsese attached as director. The Laeta Kalogridis-scripted adaptation has Leonardo DiCaprio playing U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, "who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island." Mark Ruffalo played opposite DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule. Shutter Island was released on February 19, 2010.

Teaching Career
Since becoming a literary success after the broad appeal of his Kenzie and Gennaro novels, as well as the success of Mystic River, Lehane has taught at several colleges. He taught fiction writing and serves as a member of the board of directors for a low-residency MFA program sponsored by Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He has also been involved with the Solstice Summer Writers' Conference at Boston's Pine Manor College and taught advanced fiction writing at Harvard University, where his classes quickly filled up.

In May 2005, Lehane was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Eckerd College and was appointed to Eckerd's Board of Trustees later that year. In Spring 2009, Lehane became a Joseph E. Connor Award recipient and honorary brother of Phi Alpha Tau professional fraternity at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Other brothers and Connor Award recipients include Robert Frost, Elia Kazan, Jack Lemmon, Red Skelton, Edward R. Murrow, Yul Brynner, and Walter Cronkite. Also in Spring 2009, Lehane presented the commencement speech at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts, and was awarded an honorary degree.

Film Career
Lehane wrote and directed an independent film called Neighborhoods in the mid 1990s. He joined the writing staff of the HBO drama series The Wire in 2004. Lehane returned as a writer for the fourth season in 2006 Lehane and the writing staff won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony and the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Television Feature/Mini-Series Teleplay for their work on the fourth season. Lehane remained a writer for the fifth and final season in 2008. Lehane and the writing staff were nominated for the WGA Award award for Best Dramatic Series again at the February 2009 ceremony.He served as an executive producer for Shutter Island. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Bibliography
The Kenzie-Gennaro Novels
1994 - A Drink Before the War
1996 - Darkness, Take My Hand
1997 - Sacred
1998 - Gone, Baby, Gone
1999 - Prayers for Rain
2010 - Moonlight Mile

Joe Coughlin Novels
2008 - The Given Day
2012 - Live by Night
2015 - World Gone By

Stand-alones
2001 - Mystic River
2003 - Shutter Island
2006 - Coronado

Book Reviews 
Dennis Lehane takes a leap into unknown genre territory in Shutter Island. But whichever genre he's aiming for in this misguided effort—psychological suspense, cold war thriller or Grand Guignol melodrama—he misses it by a nautical mile.... The atmosphere is properly dark and moody, and so long as Teddy and Chuck stick to the manhunt and their investigation of Ashecliffe's creepy medical staff, they play their roles with muscle and grace.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times

To read Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island is to enter a nightmare of madness, violence and deception. To finish the novel—and it would be criminal even to hint at its ending—is to be disoriented, perhaps angered, and finally to reflect on the ability of a master storyteller to play havoc with our minds. If we could bring back Edgar Allan Poe and equip him with today's postmodern bag of tricks, he might give us a tale as unexpected and unsettling as Shutter Island.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post

Shutter Island is a tremendously satisfying thriller. The suspense is molasses-thick with a plot that will keep you guessing. Lehane doesn't miss a trick. It's a great, fun read, and then there's that ending. You're sure to talk about this one over lunch.
Tom Walker - Denver Post

It has the headlong suspense and whopper of a story you would expect in any well-made thriller.
Joseph Barbato - USA Today

(Audio version.) Boston-area novelist Lehane has written a terrific suspense novel, an impressive follow-up to 2001's Mystic River. Shutter Island is off Massachusetts's coast, an army facility turned hospital for the criminally insane. When a beautiful-and certifiably crazy-patient escapes, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner, Chuck Aule, are called in to investigate. Embroiled in uncertainties and mystery, the two soon learn there's much more at stake than simply finding one missing woman. Stechschulte gives a stirring performance. His portrayal of Daniels is convincing, and he reads the role with equal parts poignancy and toughness. Stechschulte is particularly adept at reading dialogue. For example, one stormy night at the hospital, Teddy and Chuck are playing cards with two of the hospital's workers. The quartet banters, calling each other's bluffs and having a grand old time, yet tones of racism underlie the conversation. Stechschulte handles the dialogue well, distinguishing between each voice and varying the pace between rapid back-and-forth and thoughtful, drawn out remarks.
Publishers Weekly

A pair of US Marshals are sent to an island-bound institution for the criminally insane to find an escaped murderer—in Lehane ’s lollapalooza of a corkscrew thriller. The Cold War is simmering and a hurricane approaching the Massachusetts coast when Edward Daniels and Charles Aule, his new partner, arrive at Ashecliffe Hospital in 1954, the morning after Rachel Solando, a housewife who drowned her three children, has gone AWOL. How did she get out of the third-floor room she’d been locked into two hours earlier without disturbing the door or windows or any of the three orderlies between her and the outdoors? Other false notes seem even more disturbing. Rachel has left behind a series of tantalizingly cryptic clues as to her fate. Chief of staff Dr. John Cawley, Rachel’s psychiatrist, refuses to share his notes on her, his personnel files, or the treatment files of Dr. Lester Sheehan, her group therapist, who left for his vacation on the ferry that brought Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule to the island. And the two marshals have brought baggage of their own: Teddy’s hunt for an arsonist he’s convinced is an Ashecliffe inmate and Chuck’s suspicion that the patients are being used as guinea pigs for some villainous new psychotropics. Inevitably, the hunters become the hunted, dissatisfied with reports that Rachel Solando has returned, determined to get to the bottom of the mind-altering experiments being carried out in the dread Lighthouse, separated from each other by natural and human assaults, and sought far more urgently by the ultra-secretive authorities than the woman they came to find. Will Cawley and company succeed in having them declared incompetent and preventing them from escaping? After an extraordinarily humane series of neo-noirs (Mystic River, 2001, etc.), Lehane has produced a brilliantly far-fetched page-turner that’s sure to be the most talked-about thriller of the year. 
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Shutter Island:

1. Both Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule arrive at Ashecliffe with different motives than their official one, which is to find a missing patient. What are their underlying reasons in coming the the asylum?

2 How would you describe the two men, Teddy in particular? What are his traits? What "baggage" do both men bring into the investigation? In other words, what are their background stories? And how do personal issues affect their professional work?

3. What traits in Chuck does Teddy find unsettling?

4. Water plays an important role in this mystery-thriller. Explore its various incarnations and how it affects Teddy's psyche, as well as the setting and mood of the novel. Start, perhaps, with young Teddy's experience on his father's fishing boat.

5. What were your reactions to the hospital's medical director, Dr. Joseph Cawley? In what way does he appear suspicious, even perhaps unethical? What is Cawley's method for treating mental patients, and how does it square with the prevailing treatment of the 1950's?

6. How does Lehane make use of Teddy's psychic state to create tension and uncertainty and to drive the plot?

7. Comment on the passages in which Teddy recalls his love for Dolores, his wife. How does he describe his feelings for her?

8. The story takes place in 1954, during the Cold War. Why might Lehane have used that time period in which to set a story about madness, scientific experimentation, and life-threatening weather? What are the symbolic implications of the setting?

9. The plot of Shutter Island is filled with cryptic clues, twists, turns, and complications. Looking back, at what point were you thrown off track? Was there any point when you began to fit pieces of the puzzle together? Or were you mystified from start to finish?

10. What was your experience reading this book? Was it difficult to put down? Were you on the edge of your seat? Does Shutter Island deliver—does it live up to its reputation as a mystery-thriller? . . . Or did you find the story predictable and/or manipulative?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Siege and Storm  (Grisha Trilogy, 2)
Leigh Bardugo, 2013
Henry Holt & Co.
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250044433


Summary
Darkness never dies.

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land, all while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. But she can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka.

But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her—or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

Seige and Storm is the second installment of the Grisha Trilogy. The first is Shadow and Bone (2012), and the third Ruin and Rising (2014). (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Jerusalem, Israel
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Hollywood, California, USA


Leigh Bardugo is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Shadow and Bone (2012) and Siege and Storm (2013). Ruin and Rising (2014) is the third installment in her Grisha Trilogy. Leigh was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, and graduated from Yale University. She has worked in advertising, journalism, and most recently, makeup and special effects. These days, she’s lives and writes in Hollywood where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band. (From the author's website .)

Book Reviews
After narrowly escaping the Darkling at the end of Shadow and Bone, Alina and Mal are still on the run.... World-building and character development are top-notch, and relationships and motives are complex; Alina hungers for more power just as much as the Darkling does.... An action-packed, heartbreaking ending (Gr 8 & up). —Leigh Collazo, Ed Willkie Middle School, Fort Worth, TX
School Library Journal


Darkness is not easy to escape, even as the “Sun Summoner.” Alina finds herself trapped in a web of forbidden magic as she tries to start a new life in unfamiliar territory. Even with Mal by her side, the tempestuous Darkling’s game is putting a wedge between them....she cannot seem to trust anything as she did (Ages 12 & up). —Lisette Baez
Children's Literature


This second installment...takes off where Book 1, Shadow And Bone (Henry Holt/Macmillan, 2012/VOYA August 2012), left off: Mal and Alina escaped the King's palace and are fleeing another Grisha.... This action-packed, suspenseful grand tale of war, adventure and love, with a maritime setting, colorful battles, and female warriors, will appeal to a broad readership and is an enticing prelude to the anticipated Book 3. —Christina Miller
VOYA


Bardugo populates her fully realized world with appealing three-dimensional characters and an involving plot that keeps a steady pace. But she doesn’t skimp on the introspective moments that will bond readers to the main characters and have them tapping their feet impatiently for the concluding volume.... The buzz will be big (Grades 7-12). —Cindy Welch
Booklist


The Grisha Trilogy turns from bildungsroman to political thriller in its second installment.... Bardugo's sophomore effort smooths out many of the rookie wrinkles that marred Shadow and Bone...keeping readers immersed in the plot. Characters are rich and complex.... Scheming and action carry readers at a breathless pace to an end that may surprise them. (13 & up ).
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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The Siege Winter 
Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman, 2015
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062282569


Summary
A powerful historical novel by the late Ariana Franklin and her daughter Samantha Norman, The Siege Winter is a tour de force mystery and murder, adventure and intrigue, a battle for a crown, told by two courageous young women whose fates are intertwined in twelfth century England’s devastating civil war.

1141. England is engulfed in war as King Stephen and his cousin, the Empress Matilda, vie for the crown. In this dangerous world, not even Emma, an eleven-year-old peasant, is safe. A depraved monk obsessed with redheads kidnaps the ginger-haired girl from her village and leaves her for dead. When an archer for hire named Gwyl finds her, she has no memory of her previous life.

Unable to abandon her, Gwyl takes the girl with him, dressing her as a boy, giving her a new name—Penda—and teaching her to use a bow. But Gwyn knows that the man who hurt Penda roams free, and that a scrap of evidence she possesses could be very valuable.

Gwyl and Penda make their way to Kenilworth, a small but strategically important fortress that belongs to fifteen-year-old Maud. Newly wedded to a boorish and much older husband after her father’s death, the fierce and determined young chatelaine tempts fate and Stephen’s murderous wrath when she gives shelter to the empress.

Aided by a garrison of mercenaries, including Gwyl and his odd red-headed apprentice, Maud will stave off Stephen’s siege for a long, brutal winter that will bring a host of visitors to Kenilworth—kings, soldiers...and a sinister monk with deadly business to finish. (From the publisher.)

Author Bios

Diana Norman (aka Ariana Franklin)
• Birth—August 25, 1933
• Where—London, England, UK
• Death—January 27, 2011
• Where—London, England  
• Awards—British Crime Writers' Assn. Historical Dagger Award


Diana Norman was a British author and journalist. She is well known for her historical crime fiction, written under the pen name Ariana Franklin.

Personal
Norman was born Mary Diana Narracott. She lived in London until World War II when her family moved her to Devon to escape the blitz. Her father wrote for the (London) Times, and although she lacked formal education—she left school at 15—she followed in his journalistic footsteps. At 17 she returned to London to work for a local newspaper in the East End.

At 20 Norman was hired by the Daily Herald, becoming the youngest reporter on Fleet Street. She covered royal visits, war exercises with the Royal Marines (she wore camouflage), and an occasional murder.

In 1957 she married a fellow journalist, Barry Norman, now a well-known media personality and film critic for the BBC. The couple raised two daughters. Their marriage is the subject of a 2013 memoir published by Barry, See You in the Morning.

Writing
After becoming a mother Norman gave up journalism and devoted herself full-time to writing, first medieval history and later historical fiction. Her first book, nonfiction, came out in 1963: The Stately Ghosts of England. Two more nonfiction works followed—Road from Singapore (1970) and Terrible Beauty: Life of Constance Markievicz, 1868–1927 (1987).

In 1980 Nornam turned to historical novels, still writing under her own name, Diana Norman. Her first novel, Fitzempress' Law, set in Henry II's reign, came out in 1980, and she followed it with 10 more.

In 2006, with City of Shadows, she began writing under the name Ariana Franklin, eventually publishing seven Franklin books, three of which featured the fictional medieval pathologist, Adelia Aguilar. Mistress of the Art of Death, published in 2007, won the British Crime Writers' Association Historical Dagger Award for the year's best historical crime novel. Her final work, The Siege Winter, a stand alone, was written with her daughter Samantha Norman; it was published posthumously in 2015.

Norman died in 2011 after a long illness from vasculitis, a rare autoimmune disease. (Adapted from The Guardian obituary and from Wikipedia. Both sources accessed 3/23/2015.)

Samanatha Norman
• Birth—December 28, 1962
• Where—Datchworth, Hertfordshire, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in London, England


Samantha Norman began working life in publishing as a junior editor in children's books before moving in to freelance journalism. She became variously a boxing correspondent, feature writer, travel writer, theatre critic, film critic and showbusiness columnist for most national newspapers and magazines before falling in to television where she worked as a presenter for many years. Nowadays, as well as writing, she is an interviewer for Celebrity Productions, specifically their Audience With ... series.

She completed The Siege Winter, a historical thriller written by her mother Diana Norman, aka Ariana Franklin. The book was published in 2015, four years after her mother's death in January, 2011 (see above). According to an interview with Bookish, Norman credited her mother for teaching her how to write:

Shortly after leaving university, I found myself in a rather dull office job with the ambition—although, alas, not the opportunity—to become a journalist. As in all times of crisis, I went home to mum—a trained journalist herself—who sat down with me and patiently taught me how to research a subject, conduct an interview, and craft a story. Under her tutelage I went on to have the most wonderful career traveling the world and visiting extraordinary places to interview remarkable people.

(Author bio adapted from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Readers will note Franklin’s hand in the storytelling and see the freshness Norman brings to the tale, filled with fascinating characters who drive the plot as much as the tempestuous backdrop. With its bit of intrigue, historical setting and lovely characters, readers will be captivated by this compelling tale.
Historical Novels Review


(Starred review.) Norman ably fills the hole in historical fiction left by the death of her late mother, Franklin by bringing the author's final manuscript to fruition with aplomb.... Norman and Franklin excel at showing how the war impacts everyone in this richly researched, female-driven historical mystery.  —Liza Oldham, Beverly, MA
Library Journal


Franklin and Norman draw a tale of intrigue and violence from the Anarchy, the 12th-century struggle over the right to rule England between Stephen of Blois and Empress Matilda.... [A] thoroughly captivating tale.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?

4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?

5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they  plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.

6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?

7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Signature of All Things 
Elizabeth Gilbert, 2013
Penguin Group USA
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143125846


Summary
A glorious, sweeping novel of desire, ambition, and the thirst for knowledge...

In The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction, inserting her inimitable voice into an enthralling story of love, adventure and discovery. Spanning much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the novel follows the fortunes of the extraordinary Whittaker family as led by the enterprising Henry Whittaker—a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia.

Born in 1800, Henry’s brilliant daughter, Alma (who inherits both her father’s money and his mind), ultimately becomes a botanist of considerable gifts herself. As Alma’s research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction—into the realm of the spiritual, the divine, and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose a utopian artist—but what unites this unlikely couple is a desperate need to understand the workings of this world and the mechanisms behind all life.

Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, The Signature of All Things soars across the globe—from London to Peru to Philadelphia to Tahiti to Amsterdam, and beyond. Along the way, the story is peopled with unforgettable characters: missionaries, abolitionists, adventurers, astronomers, sea captains, geniuses, and the quite mad.

But most memorable of all, it is the story of Alma Whittaker, born in the Age of Enlightenment, but living well into the Industrial Revolution. Alma bears witness to that extraordinary moment in human history when all the old assumptions about science, religion, commerce, and class were exploding into dangerous new ideas. Written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time, Gilbert’s wise, deep, and spellbinding tale is certain to capture the hearts and minds of readers. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 18, 1969
• Raised—Litchfield, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., New York University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize
• Currently—Frenchtown, New Jersey


Elizabeth M. Gilbert is an American author, essayist, short story writer, biographer, novelist and memoirist. She is best known for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which spent 200 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was also made into a film by the same name in 2010.

Gilbert was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother a nurse. Along with her only sister, novelist Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Gilbert grew up on a small family Christmas tree farm in Litchfield, Connecticut. The family lived in the country with no neighbors, and they didn’t own a TV or even a record player. Consequently, they all read a great deal, and Gilbert and her sister entertained themselves by writing little books and plays.

Gilbert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from New York University in 1991, after which she worked as a cook, a waitress, and a magazine employee. She wrote of her experience as a cook on a dude ranch in short stories, and also briefly in her book The Last American Man (2002).

Journalism
Esquire published Gilbert's short story "Pilgrims" in 1993, under the headline, "The Debut of an American Writer." She was the first unpublished short story writer to debut in Esquire since Norman Mailer. This led to steady—and well paying—work as a journalist for a variety of national magazines, including SPIN, GQ, New York Times Magazine, Allure, Real Simple, and Travel + Leisure.

Her 1997 GQ article, "The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon", a memoir of Gilbert's time as a bartender at the very first Coyote Ugly table dancing bar located in the East Village section of New York City, was the basis for the feature film Coyote Ugly (2000). She adapted her 1998 GQ article, "The Last American Man: Eustace Conway is Not Like Any Man You've Ever Met," into a biography of the modern naturalist, The Last American Man, which received a nomination for the National Book Award in non-fiction. "The Ghost," a profile of Hank Williams III published by GQ in 2000, was included in Best American Magazine Writing 2001.

Early books
Gilbert's first book Pilgrims (1997), a collection of short stories, received the Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. This was followed by her novel Stern Men (2000), selected as a New York Times "Notable Book." In 2002 she published The Last American Man (2002), a biography of Eustace Conway, a modern woodsman and naturalist, which was nominated for National Book Award.

Eat, Pray, Love
In 2006, Gilbert published Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Viking), a chronicle of her year of "spiritual and personal exploration" spent traveling abroad. She financed her world travel for the book with a $200,000 publisher's advance.

The memoir was on the New York Times Best Seller List of non-fiction in the spring of 2006, and in October 2008, after 88 weeks, the book was still on the list at number 2. Gilbert appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2007, and has reappeared on the show to further discuss the book and her philosophy, and to discuss the film. She was named by Time as among the 100 most influential people in the world. The film version was released in 2010 with Julia Roberts starring as Gilbert.

After EPL
Gilbert's fifth book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, was released in 2010. The book is somewhat of a sequel to Eat, Pray, Love in that it takes up Gilbert's life story where her bestseller left off. Committed also reveals Gilbert's decision to marry Felipe, the Brazilian man she met in Indonesia as recounted in the final section of EPL. The book is an examination of the institution of marriage from several historical and modern perspectives—including those of people, particularly women, reluctant to marry. In the book, Gilbert also includes perspectives on same-sex marriage and compares this to interracial marriage prior to the 1970s. Gilbert and Felipe are still married and operate a story called Two Buttons.

In 2012, she republished At Home on the Range, a 1947 cookbook written by her great-grandmother, the food columnist Margaret Yardley Potter. Apply

Gilbert returned to fiction in 2013 with The Signature of All Things, a sprawling 19th-century style novel following the life of a young female botonist. The book brings together that century's fascination with botany, botanical drawing, spiritual inquiry, exploration, and evolution. Kirkus Reviews called it "a brilliant exercise of intellect and imagination," and Booklist a "must read."

Literary influences
In an interview, Gilbert mentioned The Wizard of Oz with nostalgia, adding, "I am a writer today because I learned to love reading as a child—and mostly on account of the Oz books..." She is especially vocal about the importance of Charles Dickens to her, mentioning his stylistic influence on her writing in many interviews. She lists Marcus Aurelius' Meditations as her favorite book on philosophy. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/16/2013.)

Book Reviews
The most ambitious and purely imaginative work in Gilbert’s 20-year career: a deeply researched and vividly rendered historical novel about a 19th century female botanist.
Wall Street Journal
 

Gilbert has mulled, from the confines of her desk, the correlations of nature, the principle that connects a grain of sand to a galaxy, to create a character who does the same—who makes the study of existence her life’s purpose.  And in doing so, she has written the novel of a lifetime.
Oprah Magazine


After 13 years as a memoirist, Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) has returned to fiction, and clearly she’s reveling in all its pleasures and possibilities. The Signature of All Things is a big, old-fashioned story that spans continents and a century.... The story begins with Henry Whittaker, at first poor...but in the end the richest man in Philadelphia. In more detail, the story follows Henry’s daughter, Alma....a prodigy.... [T]here is much pleasure in this unhurried, sympathetic, intelligent novel by an author confident in her material and her form.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [D]igressing at will into areas ranging from botany to spiritualism to illustration, [Gilbert] tells the rich, highly satisfying story of scholar Alma Whittaker.... Gilbert, in supreme command of her material, effortlessly invokes the questing spirit of the nineteenth century, when amateur explorers, naturalists, and enthusiasts were making major contributions to progress. Beautifully written and imbued with a reverence for science and for learning, this is a must-read.  —Joanne Wilkinson
Booklist


Gilbert's sweeping saga of Henry Whittaker and his daughter Alma offers an allegory for the great, rampant heart of the 19th century.... The dense, descriptive writing seems lifted from pages written two centuries past, yet it's laced with spare ironical touches and elegant phrasing.... Multiple narrative threads weave seamlessly into a saga reminiscent of T. C. Boyle's Water Music, with Alma following Ambrose to Tahiti and then returning alone to prosper at Hortus Botanicus, thinking herself "the most fortunate woman who ever lived." A brilliant exercise of intellect and imagination.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The Signature of All Things takes as its first focus not the book’s heroine, Alma Whittaker, but her rough-and-tumble father, Henry. Why do you think Elizabeth Gilbert made this choice in her narration, and why are the first fifty pages essential to the rest of the novel?

2. Alma Whittaker grows up in the richest family in Philadelphia. In what ways does her father’s fortune set her free? In what ways is it a prison?

3. How does Alma resemble her father? In what crucial ways do they differ?

4. What role is played in the novel by the Whittakers’ servant Hanneke de Groot? In what ways is her perspective essential to the story?

5. Alma postulates that there exist a variety of times, ranging from Human Time to Divine Time, with Geological Time and Moss Time as points in between (pp. 170-71). How might these different notions of time help to relate the world of science to the world of miracles? Is the miracle of creation just a natural process that took a very long time?

 6.Gilbert plays with perspective, not only as it relates to time, but also as it relates to space. During the course of the novel, Alma must adapt to dealing with microscopic space as well as global space. At one point, when she plays the part of a comet in a tableau of the solar system, she even becomes figuratively a part of outer space. How do Gilbert’s manipulations of space enrich the experience of reading the novel?

7. Instead of representing Prudence’s abolitionist husband, Arthur Dixon, as an unambiguous hero, Gilbert presents him as a somewhat cracked fanatic, who impoverishes and even endangers his family in the name of an idea. What do you think of Gilbert’s decision to place the cause of abolitionism, which modern thinkers usually find almost impossible to criticize, in the hands of an asocial, self-denying oddball?

8. One of the more unsettling themes of The Signature of All Things is Alma’s habitual masturbation. How does her autoeroticism fit into the rest of the novel, and is the book strengthened or weakened by its presence?

9. Alma’s decision to devote her life to studying mosses is compared to a “religious conversion” (p. 163). In The Signature of All Things, science and religion often intertwine. Are they ever finally reconciled? If so, how? If not, why not?

 10. Alma’s husband, Ambrose Pike, offers her a marriage filled with deep respect, spiritual love, intellectual adventure-and positively no sex. Should she have been contented with this arrangement?

11. On pages 319-20, Alma takes “an honest accounting” of her life thus far. At this point in her life, is she a success or a failure? What are the arguments on either side of the question? What are your own criteria for a life well lived?

12. As Alma sails toward Tahiti, the whaler that carries her is nearly sunk by a storm. She feels that this brush with violent death was “the happiest experience of her life” (p. 336). Why might she think this, and what does it tell us about her character?

 13. Ambrose’s spirituality eventually destroys him, whereas that of the Reverend Welles, the Tahitian missionary, enables him to cope with isolation and professional failure. What is the difference between the two men’s spiritual understandings? Why is one vision destructive and the other saving?

14. Alma claims at the end of the novel, “I have never felt a need to invent a world beyond this world. . . . All I ever wanted to know was this world” (p. 497). How has this limitation to her curiosity helped her? Has it harmed her?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Silence of the Girls
Pat Barker, 2018
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385544214


Summary
From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a monumental new masterpiece, set in the midst of literature's most famous war. Pat Barker turns her attention to the timeless legend of The Iliad, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.

The ancient city of Troy has withstood a decade under siege of the powerful Greek army, who continue to wage bloody war over a stolen woman—Helen.

In the Greek camp, another woman watches and waits for the war's outcome: Briseis. She was queen of one of Troy's neighboring kingdoms, until Achilles, Greece's greatest warrior, sacked her city and murdered her husband and brothers.

Briseis becomes Achilles's concubine, a prize of battle, and must adjust quickly in order to survive a radically different life, as one of the many conquered women who serve the Greek army.

When Agamemnon, the brutal political leader of the Greek forces, demands Briseis for himself, she finds herself caught between the two most powerful of the Greeks. Achilles refuses to fight in protest, and the Greeks begin to lose ground to their Trojan opponents.

Keenly observant and cooly unflinching about the daily horrors of war, Briseis finds herself in an unprecedented position to observe the two men driving the Greek forces in what will become their final confrontation, deciding the fate, not only of Briseis's people, but also of the ancient world at large.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women living behind the scenes in this war--the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead--all of them erased by history. With breathtaking historical detail and luminous prose, Pat Barker brings the teeming world of the Greek camp to vivid life.

She offers nuanced, complex portraits of characters and stories familiar from mythology, which, seen from Briseis's perspective, are rife with newfound revelations. Barker's latest builds on her decades-long study of war and its impact on individual lives--and it is nothing short of magnificent. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 8, 1943
• Where—Thornaby-on-Tees, Yorkshire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., London School of Economics
• Awards—Man Booker Prize
• Currently—lives in Durham, England


Patricia Mary W. Barker, CBE is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named her Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels."

Personal life
Barker was born to a working-class family in Thornaby-on-Tees in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England. Her mother Moyra died in 2000, and her father's identity is unknown. According to The (London) Times, Moyra became pregnant "after a drunken night out while in the Wrens." In a social climate where illegitimacy was regarded with shame, she told people that the resulting child was her sister, rather than her daughter.

Mother and daughter lived with Barker's grandmother Alice until her mother married and moved out when Barker was seven. Barker chose to stay with her grandmother because of their bond and because, as she told The Guardian in 2003, "my stepfather didn't warm to me, nor me to him."

Her grandparents ran a fish and chip shop which failed, and the family was, she told The Times in 2007, "poor as church mice; we were living on National Assistance." At the age of eleven, Barker won a place at grammar school, attending King James Grammar School in Knaresborough and Grangefield Grammar School in Stockton-on-Tees.

Barker, who says she has always been an avid reader, studied international history at the London School of Economics from 1962-65 After graduating in 1965, she returned home to nurse her grandmother, who died in 1971.

In a pub, in 1969, Barker was introduced to David Barker, a zoology professor and neurologist 20 years her senior. He left his marriage to live with her, they had two children together, and were married in 1978 following his divorce. Barker was widowed when David died in January 2009. Their daughter Anna Barker Ralph is now a novelist.

Early work
Barker began to write fiction in her mid-20s. Although her first three novels were never published, in 1982, after 10 years of rejections, she finally found a publisher for Union Street. The book is an interlinked set of stories detailing the life of working-class women—stories that publishers told her they found "bleak and depressing."

On author Angela Carter's recommendation, Barker sent the manuscript to feminist publisher Virago, who accepted it. Upon its release, the New Statesman hailed Union Street as a "long overdue working class masterpiece," and the New York Times Book Review called it "first-rate, punchy and raunchy. The book remained one of Virago's top sellers for years and was later adapted as the Hollywood film Stanley and Iris, starring Robert De Niro and Jane Fonda.

Regeneration Trilogy
After publishing five novels, Barker turned her attention to the First World War, which she had always wanted to write about. In 1991 she published the first in her war trilogy: Regeneration, followed by The Eye in the Door (1993), and The Ghost Road (1995).

The books are an unusual blend of history and fiction, and Barker draws extensively on the writings of First World War poets and W.H.R. Rivers, an army doctor who worked with traumatized soldiers. The main characters are based on historical figures, with the exception of Billy Prior, whom Barker invented as both a parallel and a contrast to British soldier-poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.

The books, which came to be called the "Regeneration Trilogy," were extremely well received by critics, and in 1995 the final book, The Ghost Road, won the Booker Prize.

Awards and recognition
In 1983, Barker won the Fawcett Society prize for fiction for Union Street. In 1993 she won the Guardian Fiction Prize for The Eye in the Door, and in 1995 she won the Booker Prize for The Ghost Road. In May 1997, Barker was awarded an honorary degree by the Open University as Doctor of the University, and in 2000, she was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/7/2018.)

Book Reviews
I began to lose faith on the first page of the novel when Briseis describes the retreat of the Lyrnessus women and children, hastening from their homes to seek refuge in the citadel: "…to be walking down the street in broad daylight felt like a holiday." The jarring inauthenticity of this sentence is sadly characteristic of the novel as a whole.… Unfortunately, Barker’s voices are dissonant and unpersuasive. The girls, alas, remain silenced.
Geraldine Brooks - New York Times Book Review


An impressive feat of literary revisionism that should be on the Man Booker longlist.… Why isn’t [it]?… [T]his latest work is an impressive feat of literary revisionism that reminds us that there are as many ways to tell a story as there are people involved.… [T]his is a story about the very real cost of wars waged by men: "the brutal reality of conquest and slavery." In seeing a legend differently, Barker also makes us re-think history.
Independent (UK)
 

In The Silence of the Girls, [Barker] now gives a voice to the voiceless.… It is not generally known that the omission of Pat Barker’s Regeneration from the 1991 Booker shortlist by the all-male panel of judges was the trigger for the foundation of the Orange (now Women’s) Prize. Barker’s omission from this year’s Booker longlist is a decision equally lamentable, for The Silence of the Girls is a book that will be read in generations to come.
Amanda Craig -  Daily Telegraph (UK)


Its magnificent final section can’t help but make you reflect on the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, the women throughout history who have been told by men to forget their trauma.… You feel you are in the hands of a writer at the height of her powers, her only priority to enlarge the story.
Evening Standard (UK)


Amid the recent slew of rewritings of the great Greek myths and classics, Barker’s stands out for its force of purpose and earthy compassion.… Barker puts a searing twist on The Iliad to show us what the worst fate can be.
Times (UK)


Despite its strong narrative line and transportive scenes of ancient life, however, this novel lacks the lyrical cadences and magical intensity of Madeline Miller’s Circe…. Yet this remains a suspenseful and moving illumination of women’s fates in wartime.
Publishers Weekly


[B]rilliant, beautifully written…. Both lyrical and brutal, Barker's novel is not to savor delicately but rather to be devoured in great bloody gulps. A must read! —Jane Henriksen Baird, formerly at Anchorage P.L., AK
Library Journal


[C]ompelling…. Briseis is flawlessly drawn as Barker wisely avoids the pitfall so many authors stumble into headlong, namely, giving her an anachronistic modern feminist viewpoint…. Barker makes it all convincing and very powerful. Recommended on the highest order.”
Booklist


Barker writes 47 brisk chapters of smooth sentences; her dialogue, as usual, hums with intelligence. [But] the… prose is awkwardly thick with Briticisms…. A depiction of Achilles' endless grief for Patroclus becomes itself nearly endless.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Briseis’ attitude toward Achilles changes throughout the course of the novel. Did you always find yourself agreeing with her opinion of him? Why or why not?

2. What is most striking about the difference between how Achilles presents himself privately and publicly? In what ways do the two personas merge toward the end of the novel?

3. How did reading The Silence of the Girls impact your understanding of The Illiad? What did this book add to the story of the Trojan War as a whole?

4. There are many visceral and devastating depictions of war and its aftermath in The Silence of the Girls. Which moment struck you as the most heartbreaking or poignant?

5. Honor, both familial and for your city, is a strong theme of The Illiad. How does this theme apply to The Silence of the Girls?

6. Throughout the course of the novel, we see Briseis through many traumatic experiences, including her fall from Queen to concubine. Were you ever surprised by her reactions to these experiences? How would you have reacted to these experiences?

7. The Silence of the Girls is a retelling of The Illiad from one of the minor character’s point of view. If Pat Barker were to write another retelling, whose point of view would you be most interested in reading? How, for instance, might Paris, Helen’s lover, tell his tale?

8. If The Silence of the Girls were written from the point of view of a male minor character, how would that change the story?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Silent Patient 
Alex Michaelides, 2019
Celadon Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250301697 


Summary
Promising to be the debut novel of the season The Silent Patient is a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive.

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect.

A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas.

One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety.

The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 4, 1977
• Where—Cyprus
• Education—M.A., Cambridge University; M.A., American Film Institute
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK


Alex Michaelides was born in Cyprus to a Greek-Cypriot father and English mother. He has a MA in English Literature from Cambridge University and a MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient (2019) is his first novel.

Michaelides was a screenwriter before turning to novels. He wrote The Devil You Know (2013) starring Rosamund Pike and co-wrote The Con is On (2018), with Uma Thurman, Tim Roth, Parker Posey, and Sofia Vergara. Michaelides lives in London. (From the publisher and Amazon.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review) [S]uperb…. This edgy, intricately plotted psychological thriller establishes Michaelides as a major player in the field.
Publishers Weekly


Clever plotting, red herrings, and multiple twists ensure most readers will be surprised by the ending of this debut thriller…. Dark, edgy, and compulsively readable.— Kiera Parrott
Library Journal


Unputdownable, emotionally chilling, and intense, with a twist that will make even the most seasoned suspense reader break out in a cold sweat
Booklist


While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud. Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE SILENT PATIENT ... then take off on your own:

1. How would you describe Alicia Berenson and the life she has lead up to the time she kills her husband? What was your initial sense of why Alicia refused to speak?

2. Alicia's self-portrait is entitled Alcestis, based an ancient Greek Eurpidean tragedy, which in turn is based upon Greek mythology. Do a bit of research into the myth to find out what Alicia might have been saying about herself in her portrait. What, in other words, does the painting reveal about the painter?

3. Follow-up to Question 2: The author once took a post-grad course in psychotherapy and subsequently spent a couple of years working part-time in a psychiatric unit like the Grove. What does Michaelides mean when, in 2018, he said in an interview with the Bookseller…

I saw how the world of psychotherapy might be the perfect modern setting to reimagine [Alcestis'] story and explore its themes of death, guilt and silence.

4. Follow-up to Questions 2 and 3: Do you begin to see Alicia as a mythic character, a parallel to Alcestis? If so, in what way?

5. The author has created his own challenge: he must gradually reveal Alice to readers (and to Theo) without allowing her to tell her own story. How does Michaelides use Alicia's physical appearance and artwork to reveal her character?

6. What do think of Theo, initially, as he begins to work with Alice? What do you come to understand about him, and his motivation, as the book unfolds? In what way does your view of Theo change?

7. Were you shocked by the big reveal at the end? Or did you see it coming?

8. The Silent Patient is called a psychological thriller, but the reviewer of Crime by the Book blog considers it an in depth character study in which both characters' identities take precedence over the actual crime. In what genre would you place the book—character study or plot-based thriller? (It's presumably "both," but let's say you have to choose one or the other.)

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Silent Sister 
Diane Chamberlain, 2014
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250010711


Summary
In The Silent Sister, Riley MacPherson has spent her entire life believing that her older sister Lisa committed suicide as a teenager.

Now, over twenty years later, her father has passed away and she's in New Bern, North Carolina, cleaning out his house when she finds evidence to the contrary.  Lisa is alive. Alive and living under a new identity. But why exactly was she on the run all those years ago, and what secrets are being kept now?

s Riley works to uncover the truth, her discoveries will put into question everything she thought she knew about her family. Riley must decide what the past means for her present, and what she will do with her newfound reality, in this engrossing mystery from international bestselling author Diane Chamberlain. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Diego State University
• Awards—RITA Award
• Currently—lives in North Carolina


Diane Chamberlain is the bestselling American author of some 30 novels, primarily surrounding family relationships, love, and forgiveness. Her works have been published in 20 languages. Her best-known books include The Silent Sister (2014), Necessary Lies (2013), and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (2006).

In her own words:
I was an insatiable reader as a child, and that fact, combined with a vivid imagination, inspired me to write. I penned a few truly terrible "novellas" at age twelve, then put fiction aside for many years as I pursued my education.

I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and spent my summers at the Jersey Shore, two settings that have found their way into my novels.

In high school, my favorite authors were the unlikely combination of Victoria Holt and Sinclair Lewis. I loved Holt's flair for romantic suspense and Lewis's character studies as well as his exploration of social values, and both those authors influenced the writer I am today.

I attended Glassboro State College in New Jersey as a special education major before moving to San Diego, where I received both my bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from San Diego State University. After graduating, I worked in a couple of youth counseling agencies and then focused on medical social work, which I adored. I worked at Sharp Hospital in San Diego and Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. I reluctantly closed my practice in 1992 when I realized that I could no longer split my time between two careers and be effective at both of them.

It was while I was working in San Diego that I started writing. I'd had a story in my mind since I was a young adolescent about a group of people living together at the Jersey Shore. While waiting for a doctor's appointment one day, I pulled out a pen and pad began putting that story on paper. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I took a class in fiction writing, but for the most part, I "learned by doing." That story, Private Relations, took me four years to complete. I sold it in 1986, but it wasn't published until 1989 (three very long years!), when it earned me the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel. Except for a brief stint writing for daytime TV (One Life to Live) and a few miscellaneous articles for newspapers and magazines, I've focused my efforts on book-length fiction and am currently working on my nineteenth novel.

My stories are often filled with mystery and suspense, and–I hope–they also tug at the emotions. Relationships – between men and women, parents and children, sisters and brothers – are always the primary focus of my books. I can't think of anything more fascinating than the way people struggle with life's trials and tribulations, both together and alone.

In the mid-nineties, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a challenging disease to live with. Although my RA is under good control with medication and I can usually type for many hours a day, I sometimes rely on voice recognition technology to get words on paper. I’m very grateful to the inventor of that software! I lived in Northern Virginia until the summer of 2005, when I moved to North Carolina, the state that inspired so many of my stories and where I live with my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca. I have three grown stepdaughters, three sons-in-law, three grandbabies, and two shelties named Keeper and Jet.

For me, the real joy of writing is having the opportunity to touch readers with my words. I hope that my stories move you in some way and give you hours of enjoyable reading. (With permission from the author's website. Retrieved 6/6/2014.)

Book Reviews
[T]he readers of this tale will be surprised and shocked by the unveiling of a truth that they will never guess up front. Chamberlain has written an excellent novel with well-thought-out plotlines that never lose the suspense lover’s interest for one solitary second.
Suspense Magazine


Chamberlain’s powerful story is a page-turner to the very end. A must for all mystery lovers and those who like reading about family struggles.
Library Journal


The Silent Sister is a powerful and thrilling novel. This tautly paced and emotionally driven novel will engross Chamberlain’s many fans as well as those who read Sandra Brown and Carla Buckley.
Booklist


After her father's sudden death, a daughter discovers disturbing facts about a sister presumed dead more than two decades earlier.... Although the plot is not exactly watertight, the revelations are parceled out so skillfully that disbelief remains suspended until the satisfying if not entirely plausible close. A compulsively readable melodrama.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. How did the false story of Lisa’s suicide influence the path Riley took in her career? How did discovering the truth change her approach?

2. On page 87, Danny tells Riley, "It’s not my mind that’s sick…It’s my soul." What does he mean by this?

3. "Her violin had gotten her through some terrible times and now, during the loneliest, scariest time of her life, she didn’t have the one thing that could calm her." Do you have something you turn to during times of hardship in a similar way?

4. How did you react to Danny’s vehement desire to see Lisa arrested? Did your  understanding or reaction change as the story unfolded?

5. On page 318, Celia says, "justice comes in many forms." What does she mean by this? Do you agree?

6. While Riley is looking for the truth about her family she isn’t always sure that she will reach out to Lisa if she is able to find her. What do you see as the turning point in her search when she makes a firm decision to contact Lisa?

7. Throughout the novel both Jeannie Lyons and Verniece Kyle lie to Riley, though with vastly different motives. Did you suspect that they were hiding something? If so, what was it that made you suspicious? What secrets did you think they were keeping, and were you surprised by the truths that Jeannie and Verniece eventually revealed?

8. In what ways do both Riley and Lisa attempt to maintain a sense of connection to family  that they have lost?

9. Both Danny and Riley express complex emotions over both the loss of Lisa and then later  the discovery that she is alive and maintaining a new identity. What conflicting emotions does Riley feel? Why? How do they compare or contrast to Danny’s feelings and the way he expresses them?

10. How did you react to Riley’s decision to move to Seattle and maintain the lie about her and Jade’s history?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Silent Wife 
A.S.A Harrison, 2013
Penguin Group USA
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143123231


Summary
A chilling psychological thriller about a marriage, a way of life, and how far one woman will go to keep what is rightfully hers
 
Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event.

He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept.

Expertly plotted and reminiscent of Gone Girl and These Things Hidden, The Silent Wife ensnares the reader from page one and does not let go. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1948
• Raised—North York, Ontario, Canada
• Died—April 14, 2013
• Where—Toronto, Ontario
• Education—Ontario College of Art


Susan Harrison was a writer and psychtherapist, who wrote under the name A.S.A. Harrison. Her previous books include Orgasms (1974), Revelations (with Margaret Dragu, 1987), and Zodicat Speaks (1996). The Silent Wife is her debut novel, and she was at work on a new psychological thriller when she died in 2013. Harrison was married to the visual artist John Massey and lived in Toronto. (From the publisher.)

Her fascinating life is beautifully described in the Toronto Globe and Mail obituary.

Book Reviews
[A] smart, nuanced portrait of a dying marriage.... Accepting the peccadillos of her adulterous husband is one thing, but when Todd takes his infidelity to the next level and tells [Jodi] that he’s leaving her, the existence she’s clung to so dearly is destroyed.... Harrison...breathes life into Adlerian psychology, and weaves theory into a heart-pounding thriller that will keep you up at night.
Publishers Weekly


Jodi has led a quietly ordered and opulent life with her partner, Todd, for the past 20 years. She considers herself to be a flexible and understanding better half... Told in the alternating voices of Jodi and Todd, Harrison's novel is the story of what happens when the life we've worked so hard to achieve is exposed as an illusion.... [C]oolly detached and heartbreakingly accurate. —Caitlin Bronner, St. Joseph's Coll. Lib., Brooklyn, NY
Library Journal


Harrison, who in real life is also a psychotherapist, writes a neat atmospheric tale that examines life from both characters' points of view but sometimes works a bit too hard to cram extraneous detail into the story, particularly when it comes to psychotherapy and Jodi's present clients.... Harrison pens a good, basic story stretched thin by unnecessary and distracting detail.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these broad talking points to help get a discussion started for The Silent Wife:

1. Describe Jodi and Todd—separately and together as a couple. How would you define the quality of their 20-year relationship? Why has Jodi looked the other way with Todd's occasional affairs? What does it say about her expectations for the relationship...and what does it say about Todd and his expectations?

2. Then there is Natasha—what do you make of her? Why is Jodi's reaction so powerful to this particular dalliance of Todd?

3. To what degree does Harrison's use of psychology elucidate the mental state of her characters? Did you find the author's information on psychotherapy helpful...interesting...overdone...distracting?

4. Harrison's novel switches back and forth between Jodi's and Todd's points of view. Why might the author have used this technique? What does it add to the story? Or would you have preferred a single point of view?

5. What was your emotional reaction to The Silent Wife? Would you call it a page-turner...and, if so, how does Harrison ratchet up the suspense?

6. If you've read Gone Girl, how does the Silent Wife compare with Gillian Flynn's book?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Silk  
Alessandro Baricco, 1997 (trans. by Ann Goldstein, 2007)
Random House
144 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307277978


Summary
This startling, sensual, hypnotically compelling novel tells a story of adventure, sexual enthrallment, and a love so powerful that it unhinges a man's life.

The year is 1861. Hervé Joncour is a French merchant of silkworms, who combs the known world for their gemlike eggs.

Then circumstances compel him to travel farther, beyond the edge of the known, to a country legendary for the quality of its silk and its hostility to foreigners: Japan.

There Joncour meets a woman. They do not touch; they do not even speak. And he cannot read the note she sends him until he has returned to his own country. But in the moment he does, Joncour is possessed. (From the publisher.)

The 2007 film of the same name stars Michael Pitt and Keira Knightly. 

Author Bio 
• Birth—January 25, 1958
• Where—Turin, Italy
• Education—studied philosophy and piano
• Awards—Prix Medicis Etranger, 1995 (French literary prize
   awarded to a non French author); Viareggio and Palazzo al
   Bosco—both prestigious Italian literary awards.
• Currently—lives in Turin, Italy

Alessandro Baricco was born in Turin in 1958.  He is the author of two previous novels, Castelli di rabbia, which won the Prix Médicis in France and the Selezione Campiello prize in Italy, and Ocean-Sea, which won the Viareggio and Palazzo del Bosco prizes.  He has also written essays in the field of musicology.  Silk became an immediate bestseller in Italy and has been translated into twenty-seven languages. (From Barnes & Noble.)

More
Alessandro Baricco is a popular Italian writer, director, and performer, whose novels have been translated into a wide number of languages.

After receiving degrees in philosophy (under Gianni Vattimo) and piano, he published essays on music criticism: "Il genio in fuga" (1988) on Gioachino Rossini, and "L'anima di Hegel e le mucche del Wisconsin" ("Hegel's Soul and the Cows of Wisconsin", 1992) on the relation between music and modernity. He subsequently worked as musical critic for La Repubblica and La Stampa, and hosted talk shows on Rai Tre.

Baricco debuted as a novelist with Castelli di rabbia (translated as Lands of Glass) in 1991. In 1993 he co-founded a creative writing school in Turin, naming it Scuola Holden after J. D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield. The Scuola Holden hosts a variety of courses on narrative techniques including screenwriting, journalism, videogames, novels and short stories. In the following years his fame grew enormously throughout Europe, with his works topping the Italian and French best-seller lists. Larger recognition followed the adaptation of his theatrical monologue "Novecento" into the movie The Legend of 1900, directed by Academy Award-winning director Giuseppe Tornatore.

He has also worked with the French band Air, releasing "City Reading", a mix of the band's music with Baricco's reading of his novel City. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews 
Silk has the brilliant colors...and the enchantment of a miniature.... Vividly erotic.
Newsday

A riveting, lyrical love story, an accomplished historical fiction, a compact, condensed...epic about human hearts in crisis.
Alan Cheuse - All Things Considered (National Public Radio)

A heart-breaking love story.... A stylistic tour de force [and] a literary gem of bewitching power.
The Sunday Times

A book with language to savor.... It seems as guileless as a folk tale but propels a reader with real force.
Denver Post

In 1861, after plague has destroyed the silkworms in the Middle East and Africa, French merchant Herve Joncour travels to Japan, a country of which little is known to the French, in search of healthier, better silk. Flouting a Japanese law against exporting silkworms, Joncour leaves his loving wife for what will be the first of many four-month journeys through Europe, Russia and Siberia to Japan, where he befriends a wealthy Japanese trader and falls in love with his beautiful young mistress. With each trip, Joncour's expectations of closer contact with the young woman escalate, as does the danger of his journey. Joncour finally receives a letter from the concubine, which he must take for translation to a Japanese woman living in a neighboring French village The letter encourages Joncour to travel to Japan one last time; what he finds there will change his life forever. Baricco, winner of the Prix Medicis and other awards for his two previous novels, uses the precise, formal language of the 19th-century realists to evoke exotic settings, vivid characters and historical details. Written in 65 spare chapters (some less than a page long, some evolving into verse), Barrico's fairy tale of East and West weaves a fine, tight fabric of recurrent phrases and motifs, a novel as delicate and strong as its subject.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Silk:

1. Explore the underlying symbolism of the silkworms and metamorphosis—opening of the eggs, feeding, cocooning, and spinning 1,000 yards of thread.

2. The narrator describes Joncour as a man who witnesses his life rather than lives it. What is meant by that? How will that change during the story? Or will it?

3. Silk ponders the sorrow of finding love in far off places and the difficulty of keeping desire alive in marriage. Talk about how this conflict gets played out in the novella—and in our own lives.

4. The book explores the difference between imaginary life and life lived day-to-day. Which is more real to Joncour?

5. Why does Joncour build the garden? What compensation does it offer him? What might the garden suggest about the larger role of art in our lives?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Silkworm  (Cormoran Strike Series, 2)
Robert Galbraith / J.K. Rowling, 2014
Little, Bown and Company
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316206891


Summary
When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike.

At first, Mrs. Quine thinks her husband has just gone off by himself for a few days, as he has done before, and asks Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, he discovers that Quine has just completed a manuscript revealing poisonous secrets about almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives--meaning that there are lots of influential people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, Strike and Robin, his determined young assistant, embark on a race against time to understand the motivations of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any they've encountered before.

A compulsively readable novel in the highly acclaimed Cormoran Strike series, The Silkworm has unforgettable twists at every turn. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Aka—Robert Galbraith
• Birth—July 31, 1965
• Where—Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England, UK
• Education—Exeter University
• Awards—3 Nestle Smarties Awards; British Book Award- Children's Book of the Year; British Book Awards- Author of the Year; British Book Awards- Book of the Year.
• Currently—lives in Perthshire, Scotland and London, England.


Joanne "Jo" Rowling, better known under the pen name J. K. Rowling, as well as the mystery writer Robert Galbraith, is a British author known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, the idea for which was conceived while on a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990. The Potter books have gained worldwide attention, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies, and been the basis for a popular series of films.

Rowling is perhaps equally famous for her "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on welfare to multi-millionaire status within five years. As of March 2010, when its latest world billionaires list was published, Forbes estimated Rowling's net worth to be $1 billion. The 2008 Sunday Times Rich List estimated Rowling's fortune at £560 million ($798 million), ranking her as the twelfth richest woman in Great Britain. Forbes ranked Rowling as the forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007, and Time magazine named her as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom.

She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and the Children's High Level Group.

Early years
Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling and Anne Rowling (nee Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16.1 km) northeast of Bristol. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce. (The school's headmaster has been suggested as the inspiration for Harry Potter's Albus Dumbledore).

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would read to her sister. "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called "Rabbit." He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." When she was a young teenager, her great aunt gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.

She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother, Anne, had worked as a technician in the Science Department. Rowling has said of her adolescence, "Hermione [A bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books. "Ron Weasley [Harry Potter's best friend] isn't a living portrait of Sean, but he really is very Sean-ish."

Rowling read for a BA in French and Classics at the University of Exeter. After a year of study in Paris, Rowling moved to London to work as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International.

In 1990, while she was on a four-hour-delayed train trip from Manchester to London, the idea for a story of a young boy attending a school of wizardry "came fully formed" into her mind. When she had reached her Clapham Junction flat, she began to write immediately. In December of that same year, Rowling’s mother died, after a ten-year battle with multiple sclerosis, a death that heavily affected her writing: she introduced much more detail about Harry's loss in the first book, because she knew about how it felt.

Rowling then moved to Porto, Portugal to teach English as a foreign language. While there she married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992. Their child, Jessica Isabel Rowling Arantes (named after Jessica Mitford), was born in 1993 in Portugal. The couple separated in November 1993. In December 1993, Rowling and her daughter moved to be near her sister in Edinburgh, Scotland. During this period Rowling was diagnosed with clinical depression, which brought her the idea of Dementors, soul-sucking creatures introduced in the third book.

After Jessica's birth and the separation from her husband, Rowling had left her teaching job in Portugal. In order to teach in Scotland she would need a postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE), requiring a full-time, year-long course of study. She began this course in August 1995, after completing her first novel while having survived on state welfare support.

She wrote in many cafes, especially Nicolson's Cafe, whenever she could get Jessica to fall asleep. As she stated on the American TV program A&E Biography, one of the reasons she wrote in cafes was not because her flat had no heat, but because taking her baby out for a walk was the best way to make her fall asleep.

Harry Potter books
In 1995, Rowling finished her manuscript for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. The book was submitted to twelve publishing houses, all of which rejected the manuscript. A year later she was finally given the green light (and a £1500 advance) by Bloomsbury, a small British publishing house in London, England. The decision to publish Rowling's book apparently owes much to Alice Newton, the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury’s chairman, who was given the first chapter to review by her father and immediately demanded the next.

Although Bloomsbury agreed to publish the book, her editor Barry Cunningham says that he advised Rowling to get a day job, since she had little chance of making money in children’s books. Soon after, in 1997, Rowling received an £8000 grant from the Scottish Arts Council to enable her to continue writing. The following spring, an auction was held in the United States for the rights to publish the novel, and was won by Scholastic Inc., for $105,000. Rowling has said she “nearly died” when she heard the news.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher’s Stone with an initial print-run of 1000 copies, five hundred of which were distributed to libraries. Today, such copies are valued between £16,000 and £25,000. Five months later, the book won its first award, a Nestle Smarties Book Prize. In February, the novel won the prestigious British Book Award for Children’s Book of the Year, and later, the Children’s Book Award. Its sequel, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was published in July, 1998.

In December 1999, the third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, won the Smarties Prize, making Rowling the first person to win the award three times running. She later withdrew the fourth Harry Potter novel from contention to allow other books a fair chance. In January 2000, Prisoner of Azkaban won the inaugural Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year award, though it lost the Book of the Year prize to Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf.

The fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was released simultaneously in the UK and the US on 8 July 2000, and broke sales records in both countries. Some 372,775 copies of the book were sold in its first day in the UK, almost equalling the number Prisoner of Azkaban sold during its first year. In the US, the book sold three million copies in its first 48 hours, smashing all literary sales records. Rowling admitted that she had had a moment of crisis while writing the novel; "Halfway through writing Four, I realised there was a serious fault with the plot....I've had some of my blackest moments with this book..... One chapter I rewrote 13 times, though no-one who has read it can spot which one or know the pain it caused me." Rowling was named author of the year in the 2000 British Book Awards.

A wait of three years occurred between the release of Goblet of Fire and the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This gap led to press speculation that Rowling had developed writer's block, speculations she fervently denied. Rowling later admitted that writing the book was a chore. "I think Phoenix could have been shorter", she told Lev Grossman, "I knew that, and I ran out of time and energy toward the end."

The sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was released on 16 July 2005. It too broke all sales records, selling nine million copies in its first 24 hours of release. While writing, she told a fan online, "Book six has been planned for years, but before I started writing seriously I spend two months re-visiting the plan and making absolutely sure I knew what I was doing." She noted on her website that the opening chapter of book six, which features a conversation between the Minister of Magic and the British Prime Minister, had been intended as the first chapter first for Philosopher's Stone, then Chamber of Secrets then Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2006, Half-Blood Prince received the Book of the Year prize at the British Book Awards.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released in July, 2007, (0:00 BST) and broke its predecessor's record as the fastest-selling book of all time. It sold 11 million copies in the first day of release in the United Kingdom and United States. She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the entire series. During a year period when Rowling was completing the last book, she allowed herself to be filmed for a documentary which aired in Britain on ITV on 30 December 2007. It was entitled J K Rowling... A Year In The Life and showed her returning to her old Edinburgh tenement flat where she lived, and completed the first Harry Potter book. Re-visiting the flat for the first time reduced her to tears, saying it was "really where I turned my life around completely."

Harry Potter is now a global brand worth an estimated £7 billion ($15 billion), and the last four Harry Potter books have consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history. The series, totalling 4,195 pages, has been translated, in whole or in part, into 65 languages.

The Harry Potter books have also gained recognition for sparking an interest in reading among the young at a time when children were thought to be abandoning books for computers and television, although the series' overall impact on children's reading habits has been questioned.

Life after Harry Potter
Forbes has named Rowling as the first person to become a U.S.-dollar billionaire by writing books, the second-richest female entertainer and the 1,062nd richest person in the world. When first listed as a billionaire by Forbes in 2004, Rowling disputed the calculations and said she had plenty of money, but was not a billionaire. In addition, the 2008 Sunday Times Rich List named Rowling the 144th richest person in Britain. In 2001, Rowling purchased a luxurious nineteenth-century estate house, Killiechassie House, on the banks of the River Tay, near Aberfeldy, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. Rowling also owns a home in Merchiston, Edinburgh, and a £4.5 million ($9 million) Georgian house in Kensington, West London, (on a street with 24-hour security).

On 26 December 2001, Rowling married Neil Michael Murray (born 30 June 1971), an anaesthetist, in a private ceremony at her Aberfeldy home. Their son was born in 2003 and a daughter in 2005.

In the UK, Rowling has received honorary degrees from St Andrews University, the University of Edinburgh, Napier University, the University of Exeter and the University of Aberdeen; and in the US, from Harvard. She has been awarded the Légion d'honneur by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. (During the Elysée Palace ceremony, she revealed that her maternal French grandfather had also received the Légion d'honneur for his bravery during World War I.) According to Matt Latimer, a former White House administrator for President George W. Bush, Rowling was turned down for the Presidential Medal of Freedom because administration officials believed that the Harry Potter series promoted witchcraft.

Subsequent writing
Rowling has stated that she plans to continue writing, preferably under a pseudonym. In 2012, however, under her own name, she published her first novels for adults, The Casual Vacancy. Although she "thinks it's unlikely" that she will write another Harry Potter, an "encyclopedia" of wizarding along with unpublished notes may be published sometime in the future.

Using the pen name "Robert Galbraith," Rowling published The Cuckoo's Calling in 2013. It reached the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list within weeks. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
[Rowling's] appealing detective hero Cormoran Strike is back, and so is his resourceful sidekick, Robin Ellacott, a gumshoe team that's on its way to becoming as celebrated for its mystery-solving skills as Nick and Nora Charles of Thin Man fame, and Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander.… What keeps the suspense percolating along is Ms. Rowling's instinctive sense of storytelling and her ability to make the reader sympathize with Strike and Robin, two middle-class strivers plugging along in a status and increasingly money-conscious London.… The result is an entertaining novel in which the most compelling characters are not the killer or the victim, but the detectives charged with solving the crime.
New York Times - Michiko Kakutani


[E]ndlessly entertaining.… Strike himself may at first appear to be something we have seen too often—a brooding, damaged detective …but there is an optimism to him that is refreshing and endearing.… Strike also shares a trait with many great fictional detectives: He is darn good company.… The Silkworm is a very well-written, wonderfully entertaining take on the traditional British crime novel.… Robert Galbraith may proudly join the ranks of English, Scottish and Irish crime writers such as Tana French, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, John Connolly, Kate Atkinson and Peter Robinson…to put any author on that list is very high praise.
New York Times Book Review - Harlan Coben


[The Silkworm is a] swift-paced, suspenseful mystery.… Robert Galbraith has announced himself a fresh voice in mystery fiction: part hard-boiled, part satiric, part poignant, and part romantic.
Tom Nolan - Wall Street Journal


The Silkworm is fast-paced and entertaining.… Strike is heroic without intending to be and has a great back story. He's the illegitimate son of a rock star whose half-siblings grew up in privilege.… And he's brooding, but not annoyingly so. Strike has all kinds of potential. It'd be a crime not to keep up with him.
Sherryl Connelly - New York Daily News


Why is "likable" the first word that comes to mind upon finishing The Silkworm? Surely, that has something to do with Rowling's palpable pleasure in her newly chosen genre (the jig may be up with her Robert Galbraith pseudonym, but the bloom is still on her homicidal rose) and even more to do with her detective hero, who, at the risk of offending, is the second husband of every author's dreams.
Louis Bayard - Washington Post


Bring on the next one, please.… Galbraith writes with wit and affection for detective-novel tradition (it's impossible not to see her central duo as a modern-day Nick and Nora, minus the marriage), and races us through a twisty plot so smoothly that you won't notice as the hours tick by.
Moira MacDonald - Seattle Times


The last line of The Silkworm, which will lift the hearts of readers who have come to love its deeply sympathetic characters, offers the prospect of more of that joy both for her and for us.
Charles Finch - USA Today


The story is enthralling, not only for its twists and turns, but for the fun of the teamwork.… [It's] a cast of characters who you'll want to meet again and again.
Ashley Ross - Time


A compulsively entertaining yarn.
Thom Geier - Entertainment Weekly


Robert Galbraith… has written a second absorbing whodunit starring detective Corcmoran Strike to follow last year's stealth hit, The Cuckoo's Calling.… Astutely observed, well-paced.… The Silkworm thoroughly engages as a crime novel.
Sue Corbett - People


(Starred review) J.K. Rowling, under her Galbraith pseudonym, again demonstrates her adroitness at crafting a classic fair-play whodunit in a contemporary setting, peopled with fully realized primary and secondary characters.
Publishers Weekly


As we all know, Galbraith's first Cormoran Strike novel won great reviews but not great sales until it was revealed that Galbraith was actually J.K. Rowling. Wouldn't you know a famous novelist is at the heart of this second Strike outing.
Library Journal


(Starred review) [P]lunges readers into the dark side of book publishing.… Stay tuned for the next installment in this highly acclaimed and fast-moving series. —Connie Rockman
Booklist


(Starred review) Cormoran Strike, Rowling’s hard-living private eye, isn’t as close to the edge as he was in his first appearance. His success …has brought him more clients than he can handle.… Rowling proves once again that she’s a master of plotting.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for THE SILKWORM … then take off on your own:

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Silver Linings Playbook
Matthew Quick, 2008
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374532284


Summary
For Pat Peoples, despair is not an option.

Recently released from a neural health facility and still recovering from a traumatic event that has been blocked from his memory, Pat is sure that he can find a silver lining in even the most challenging situation. He also believes that his life is a movie produced by God, and that if he can get himself in tip-top shape physically and emotionally, he will reunited with the love of his life, his estranged wife, Nikki.

Keeping Pat on the road to recovery is an unconventional therapist named Cliff Patel, whose obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles rivals Pat’s. Along the way, Pat tries to understand why his family seems to be hiding something from him, why Kenny G’s “Songbird” is one of the few things that makes him want to hit something, and why his new friend Tiffany thinks she can lure Pat away from Nikki. Tragically widowed and clinically depressed, Tiffany challenges Pat’s view of the world, raising poignant questions about hope and love. (From the publisher.)

The book became a 2012 film starring Bradley Cooper, Robert Di Nero, Jennifer Lawrence, and Chris Tucker.

Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1972
• Raised—Oaklyn, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., LaSalle University; M.F.A, Goddard College
• Currently—lives in Holden, Massachusetts


Matthew Quick is an American author of young adult and fiction novels. His debut novel, The Silver Linings Playbook, was adapted into a movie, starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, with Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver, and Chris Tucker.

His other novels include Sorta Like a Rockstar (2010), Boy21 (2012), Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (2013) and The Good Luck for Right Now (2014). Quick was finalist for a 2009 PEN/Hemingway Award, and his work has been translated into several languages.

Quick grew up in Oaklyn, New Jersey. He has a degree in English literature from La Salle University and an MFA from Goddard College. He left his job as a tenured English teacher in Haddonfield, New Jersey, to write his first novel while living in Collingswood, New Jersey. He now lives in Holden, Massachusetts with his wife, novelist Alicia Bessette. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 02/17/2014.)

Book Reviews
[C]ompelling and fascinating ... a tour de force.... From the beer-soaked Bacchanalian tailgating to the black holes of despair into which Iggles fans plunge themselves after a defeat, Quick is dead-on.
Bill Lyon - Philadelphia Inquirer


[C]harming debut novel...it is hard not to be moved by the fate of a man who, despite many ordeals, tries to believe in hope and fidelity, not to mention getting through another day with his sanity intact.
Stephen Barbara - Wall Street Journal


It's a charmingly nerve-wracking combination...The book is cinematic, but the writing still shimmers. This nimble, funny read is spiked with enough perception to allow the reader to enjoy Pat's blindly hopeful philosophy without irony.
Barrie Hardymon - NPR


Quick fills the pages with so much absurd wit and true feeling that it's impossible not to cheer for his unlikely hero.
Allison Lynn - People


Pat Peoples, the endearing narrator of this touching and funny debut, is down on his luck. The former high school history teacher has just been released from a mental institution and placed in the care of his mother. Not one to be discouraged, Pat believes he has only been on the inside for a few months—rather than four years—and plans on reconciling with his estranged wife. Refusing to accept that their apart time is actually a permanent separation, Pat spends his days and nights feverishly trying to become the man she had always desired. Our hapless hero makes a friend in Tiffany, the mentally unstable, widowed sister-in-law of his best friend, Ronnie. Each day as Pat heads out for his 10-mile run, Tiffany silently trails him, refusing to be shaken off by the object of her affection. The odd pair try to navigate a timid friendship, but as Pat is unable to discern friend from foe and reality from deranged optimism, every day proves to be a cringe-worthy adventure. Pat is as sweet as a puppy, and his offbeat story has all the markings of a crowd-pleaser.
Publishers Weekly


[I]mmensely likable debut novel.... Pat [Peoples] has returned home to live with his parents in a New Jersey suburb following a stay in a Baltimore mental institution, whence he was committed after reacting irrationally to a breakup with his beloved wife Nikki.... Deftly timed surprises stimulate crucial revelations, and the full truth of both Pat's sufferings and his own egregious contributions to them expand the novel's basically simple comic-domestic texture into something far more disturbing, complex and, eventually, quite moving. If the novel were 50 or so pages shorter, it might have been terrific.... Still, its judicious blending of pop-culture experience with richly persuasive characterizations...make the book a winner.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. How does the book redefine happy endings? What makes Pat so determined to believe that every cloud has a silver lining?

2. As Pat heals from his brain injuries and trauma, in what ways is he sometimes more mentally stable than his family and friends? Is his optimism—combined with his belief that God is a filmmaker—a sign of his sanity? How was your reading affected by the fact that the “bad place” was a neural health facility rather than a psychiatric hospital?

3. Discuss the relationships Pat and Jake have with their father, Patrick Senior. What does their father teach them about being a man? Why is it so hard for him to show emotion?

4. How does Cliff use the Eagles’ playbook to teach Pat about the real world? How do the Eagles bring unity to Pat’s family? What makes Hank Baskett the ideal rookie to serve as Pat’s inspiration?

5. In “A Hive Full of Green Bees,” what does Pat discover about himself during the violent incident with the Giants fan (Steve)? How did you feel about Jake while he was taunting Steve?

6. What keeps Pat’s obsession with Nikki alive? What does Cliff ultimately help him understand about the nature of love and attraction?

7. Tiffany and Pat’s mother, Jeanie, have different approaches to his recovery. Tiffany believes that direct confrontation is best; Jeanie wants to protect Pat from anything that might upset him, including his brother’s marriage to Caitlin. Which approach is better?

8. How did your impressions of Nikki and Tiffany shift throughout the novel?

9. Did Dance Away Depression have any healing effect on Pat? What did Tiffany want him to hear when she chose “Total Eclipse of the Heart” as their song?

10. What role does Danny play, along with Aunt Jasmine, in rescuing Pat emotionally on Christmas Day? When have you had a similar encounter with a friend who appeared at exactly the right moment?

11. How did you react when Pat finally remembers why Kenny G pushes him over the edge? What does his trauma have in common with Tiffany’s?

12. Discuss Pat’s take on literature, particularly The Scarlet Letter, The Bell Jar, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Catcher in the Rye. How does his approach to literature change as his worldview changes? What would it be like to have Pat as a member of your book club?

13. In “An Acceptable Form of Coping,” Cliff and Pat disagree about whether sad books should be required reading for students. Pat says that such books teach kids to be pessimistic. Cliff says, "Life is hard, Pat, and children have to be told how hard life can be...so they will be sympathetic to others.” What’s your opinion? What books were you drawn to when you were younger?

14. Discuss the book’s closing scene. How has The Silver Linings Playbook inspired you in your life?

15. Watch the movie or play favorite scenes from it. How does the film compare to the book? Were the actors the ones you would have chosen?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Silver Star
Jeannette Walls, 2013
Scribner
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 97814516615457


Summary
The Silver Star, Jeannette Walls has written a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about an intrepid girl who challenges the injustice of the adult world—a triumph of imagination and storytelling.

It is 1970 in a small town in California. “Bean” Holladay is twelve and her sister, Liz, is fifteen when their artistic mother, Charlotte, a woman who “found something wrong with every place she ever lived,” takes off to find herself, leaving her girls enough money to last a month or two. When Bean returns from school one day and sees a police car outside the house, she and Liz decide to take the bus to Virginia, where their Uncle Tinsley lives in the decaying mansion that’s been in Charlotte’s family for generations.

An impetuous optimist, Bean soon discovers who her father was, and hears many stories about why their mother left Virginia in the first place. Because money is tight, Liz and Bean start babysitting and doing office work for Jerry Maddox, foreman of the mill in town—a big man who bullies his workers, his tenants, his children, and his wife. Bean adores her whip-smart older sister—inventor of word games, reader of Edgar Allan Poe, nonconformist. But when school starts in the fall, it’s Bean who easily adjusts and makes friends, and Liz who becomes increasingly withdrawn. And then something happens to Liz.

Jeannette Walls, supremely alert to abuse of adult power, has written a deeply moving novel about triumph over adversity and about people who find a way to love each other and the world, despite its flaws and injustices. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 21, 1960
• Where—Phoenix, Arizona, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York City and Long Island

For two decades, Jeannette Walls hid her roots. A regular contributor to MSNBC.com, she lives in New York and Long Island and is married to the writer John Taylor. (From the publisher.)

More
Her own words:

When I sat down to write The Glass Castle, there was no doubt in my mind that once the truth about me was out I would lose all my friends and my job. So far, the reaction has been the opposite. I'm just stunned. I think I've shortchanged people and their capacity for compassion. The whole experience has changed my outlook on the world. My brother and I are closer. My sister Lori and I have discussed things we'd never before talked about. I'm back in touch with people I knew in West Virginia whom I hadn't spoken to since I left. My mother wants to correct something in the book: She wants everyone to know that she's an excellent driver.

When I was growing up, I always loved animals. But it was a part of myself that I'd let go dormant as an adult. Writing The Glass Castle, I was reminded of how important animals had always been to me, and that love was reawakened. Not long ago, I rescued two racing greyhounds, Emma and Leopold, and I'm irrationally devoted to them.

When asked in a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview which book influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith [is the book that influenced me the most].... It had a powerful effect on my view of the world and first made me realize how much of an emotional wallop — and comfort — a book could deliver. I read it when I was 11 or 12 and was stunned that a character created 50 years earlier seemed so similar to me. She loved her father even though he was a hopeless drunk, she lived in a rough neighborhood but found beauty in it, and she was determined to make something of her life.

If [I] had a book club, [we] would it be reading...Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. I find books that have a moral and spiritual center, that speak to what is really important and lasting, hugely appealing.

Books are my very favorite gift to give. If you give a book to someone and they really respond to it, you feel you've actually changed their life in some way. I recently gave my father-in-law both volumes of William Manchester's biography of Churchill — and we had long, animated conversations about him and history and the psychology and greatness. If a book really moves me, I'll sometimes buy several copies for friends and give them out even if there's no occasion. I bought The Lovely Bones for four or five people. If someone's not much of a reader, I try to find a book that speaks to one of their passions. Whenever I'm reading a book I enjoy, I always develop a mental list of the people I want to share it with. I love it when people reciprocate; when they call me up and tell me they're reading a great book and can't wait for me to read it. That's how I heard about Gilead.

I write on a 19th-century oak table, in front of a window overlooking a wisteria-covered arbor.... [W]hen I wrote The Glass Castle, I wrote it entirely on the weekends, getting to my desk by 7:30 or 8:00 a.m. and continuing until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. I wrote the first draft in about six weeks—but then I spent three or four years rewriting it. My husband, John Taylor, who is also a writer, observed all this approvingly and quoted John Fowles, who said that a book should be like a child: conceived in passion and reared with care.
I've been a journalist for almost 20 years and wrote one nonfiction book about the history of the tabloid press. But writing The Glass Castle was an entirely different experience. I was writing about myself and about intensely personal—and potentially embarrassing—experiences. Over the last 25 years, I wrote several versions of this memoir—sometimes pounding out 220 pages in a single weekend—but I always threw out the pages. Once I tried to fictionalize it, but that didn't work either. It took me this long to figure out how to tell the story. (From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview.)

Book Reviews
Readers of Walls’s bestselling memoir The Glass Castle may find this new novel too familiar to be entirely satisfying. When 12-year-old Bean Holladay and her 15-year-old sister, Liz, are abandoned by their narcissistic, unstable mother, Charlotte, they make their way to Byler, Va., Charlotte’s hometown, in search of an uncle they barely know.... When Bean reads To Kill a Mockingbird in school, she seems like a long-lost cousin to Scout, and to the young Walls herself. The other characters are too often thinly conceived, but she makes for a strong and spunky protagonist.
Publishers Weekly


Memoirist Walls...turns to out-and-out fiction in this story about two young sisters who leave behind their life on the road for the small Virginia town their mother escaped years before.... [Their uncle] Tinsley gives the girls the security they have missed. .... Walls turns what could have been another sentimental girl-on-the-run-finds-home cliché into a fresh consideration of both adolescence and the South on the cusp of major social change.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. It takes a certain amount of courage for two young girls to make their way cross country without their mother. Why are Liz and Bean able to take on such a journey?

2. Discuss Bean and Liz’s mother. What do her disappearances say about her ability to raise her children? Do you feel any sympathy for her and her need to leave Byler in the first place, and then leave it again to go to New York? Consider her fake boyfriend, her Hotel Madison breakdown, but also her quick return to Byler upon hearing of Liz and Bean’s trouble.

3. At the Byler Independence Day parade, Bean says, “Mom…had been telling us for years about everything wrong with America—the war, the pollution, the discrimination, the violence—but here were all these people, including Uncle Clarence, showing real pride in the flag and the country. Who was right?” (pg 86). This idea of opposing cultural viewpoints comes up numerous times during the girls’ stay in Virginia. How do Liz and Bean’s views differ from the more provincial townsfolk of Byler? Do the sisters stop seeing eye to eye? Is there a “right” way to look at things, or is much of opinion and belief based on context?

4. Can we trust Bean’s assessment of Jerry Maddox? Is there some truth to Maddox’s later accusation that Liz and Bean are wont to make up fantasies in a big game of “What’s Their Story?”

5. A number of adults advise Bean against seeing a lawyer after Maddox assaults Liz. What does this say about the adults of Byler? Are there ever grounds to let injustice stand? Would Liz and Bean have been better off forgetting the ordeal, or were they right to challenge Maddox’s abuse of power?

6. Discuss the Wyatt family and their involvement in the Holladays’ lives. What do Aunt Al, cousins Joe and Ruth, and Uncle Clarence offer Bean that she might not otherwise have? Consider especially Bean and Joe’s tire outing, as well as Clarence’s handling of Maddox’s demands at the house.

7. After Bean’s English class reads To Kill a Mockingbird, she notes, “For all of Miss Jarvis’s singing its praises as great literature, a lot of the kids in the class had real problems with the book…” (pg. 151). How do the students’ reactions reflect the racial tensions in Byler?

8. What changes do you see in Bean over the course of the story? Does she take Liz’s place as the strong, centered Holladay sister?

9. After Maddox is cleared of all charges, Bean says, “I felt completely confused, like the world had turned upside down, and we were living in a place where the guilty were innocent and the innocent were guilty. How are you supposed to behave in a world like that?” (pg 229). What do you think Bean and Liz learned about the adult world from the trial? How does one behave in a place where terrible things are allowed to happen without reprisal?

10. What do you think the emus represent for Liz?

11. When Bean starts waving at strangers, Liz notes, “You’ve gone native.” (pg 60). Have the girls become true Byler residents by the end of the novel? Is there still a bit of California in them? Or a bit of their mother?

12. Is there justice in the way Maddox is ultimately dealt with?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Simon the Fiddler 
Paulette Jiles, 2020
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062966742


Summary
The critically acclaimed, bestselling author of News of the World and Enemy Women returns to Texas in this atmospheric story, set at the end of the Civil War, about an itinerant fiddle player, a ragtag band of musicians with whom he travels trying to make a living, and the charming young Irish lass who steals his heart.

In March 1865, the long and bitter War between the States is winding down.

Till now, twenty-three-year-old Simon Boudlin has evaded military duty thanks to his slight stature, youthful appearance, and utter lack of compunction about bending the truth.

But following a barroom brawl in Victoria, Texas, Simon finds himself conscripted, however belatedly, into the Confederate Army. Luckily his talent with a fiddle gets him a comparatively easy position in a regimental band.

Weeks later, on the eve of the Confederate surrender, Simon and his bandmates are called to play for officers and their families from both sides of the conflict. There the quick-thinking, audacious fiddler can’t help but notice the lovely Doris Mary Dillon, an indentured girl from Ireland, who is governess to a Union colonel’s daughter.

After the surrender, Simon and Doris go their separate ways. He will travel around Texas seeking fame and fortune as a musician. She must accompany the colonel’s family to finish her three years of service.

But Simon cannot forget the fair Irish maiden, and vows that someday he will find her again.

Incandescent in its beauty, told in Paulette Jiles’s trademark spare yet lilting style, Simon the Fiddler is a captivating, bittersweet tale of the chances a devoted man will take, and the lengths he will go to fulfill his heart’s yearning. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1943
• Where—Salem, Missouri, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Missouri
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near San Antonio, Texas

Poet, memoirist, and novelist Paulette Jiles was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks and moved to Canada in 1969 after graduating with a degree in Romance languages from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.

She spent eight years as a journalist in Canada, before turning to writing poetry. In 1984, she won the Governor General's Award (Canada's highest literary honor) for Celestial Navigation, a collection of poems lauded by the Toronto Star as "...fiercely interior and ironic, with images that can mow the reader down."

In 1992, Jiles published Cousins, a beguiling memoir that interweaves adventure and romance into a search for her family roots. Ten years later, she made her fiction debut with Enemy Women (2002), the survival story of an 18-year-old woman caged with the criminally insane in a St. Louis prison during the Civil War. Janet Maslin raved in the New York Times, "This is a book with backbone, written with tough, haunting eloquence by an author determined to capture the immediacy of he heroine's wartime odyssey." The book won the Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction (U.S.) and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (Canada).

In her second novel, 2007's Stormy Weather, Jiles mined another rich trove of American history. Set in Texas oil country during the Great Depression, the story traces the lives of four women, a widow and her three daughters, as they struggle to hold farm and family together in a hardscrabble world of dust storms, despair, and deprivation. In its review, the Washington Post praised the author's lyrical prose, citing descriptions that "crackle with excitement."

A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Jiles currently lives on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas.

Books
1973 - Waterloo Express (poetry)
1984 - Celestial Navigation (poems)
1985 - The Golden Hawks (children)
1986 - Sitting in the Club Car Drinking Rum and Karma Kola
1986 - The Late Great Human Road Show
1988 - The Jesse James Poems
1988 - Blackwater (short stories)
1989 - Song to the Rising Sun (poems)
1992 - Cousins (memoir)
1995 - North Spirit: Travels Among the Cree and Ojibway Nations and Their Star Maps (memoir)
2002 - Enemy Women
2005 - Flying Lesson: Selected Poems
2007 - Stormy Weather
2009 - The Color of Lightning
2013 - Lighthouse Island
2016 - News of the World
2020 - Simon the Fiddler

Awards
Governor General’s Award for Poetry,Canada (Celestial Navigation)
Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, Canada (Enemy Women)
Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction, U.S. (Enemy Women)

Extras
From a 2007 Barnes & Noble interview:

• When I lived in Nelson, British Columbia, there were three or four of us women who were struggling writers; we were very poor and we had a great deal of fun. We shared writing and money and wine. Woody (Caroline Woodward) had a great, huge Volkswagen bug—green—named Greena Garbo. When any of us managed to publish something there were celebrations. It was a wonderful time. They always managed to show up at my place just when I'd baked bread. One time Meagan and Joanie arrived to share with me a horrible dinner they had made of cracked wheat and onions—we were actually all short of food. I had just made lasagna—and they ate all of my lasagna and left me with that vile dish of groats and onions. And then we all got married and went in different directions.

• I have a small ranch that keeps me busy—two horses, a donkey, a cat, a dog, fences, a pasture—I and spend lots of time preventing erosion, clearing cedar, etc.

• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:

Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye gives a clear and cogent analysis of the various sorts of imaginative narratives, among them the quest story. It does not assign value to any one type of story. I came upon Frye's The Well-Tempered Critic in college and loved it. It has the same sort of descriptive brilliance as Anatomy. It was a relief from the contemporary insistence that only the novel of psychological exploration was of literary value."

Other influential books include The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
The reader is treated to a kind of alchemy on the page when character, setting and song converge at all the right notes, generating an authentic humanity that is worth remembering and celebrating.
New York Times


[Jiles's] description of Simon and Doris traveling on separate journeys across the Texas landscape is superb, causing us to feel the elation and sense of possibility that rises in the hearts of man, woman and beast in setting out on the road.
Wall Street Journal


Endearing…. And when the final battle royal arrives in San Antonio, it’s just the rousing ballad we want to hear.
Washington Post


Jiles’ sparse but lyrical writing is a joy to read…. A beautifully written book and a worthy follow-up to News of the World.
Associated Press


In Simon the Fiddler we once again accompany a cast of intriguing characters on a suspenseful Texas-based quest just after the Civil War.… A crackling-good adventure tale.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

 
Luminescent prose.… Jiles’ timeworn territory provides a cozy escape.
Los Angeles Times


Jiles’s gritty and richly atmospheric seventh novel returns to the post–Civil War Texas she explored in News of the World.… Jiles immerses the reader in the sensory details of the era…. [Her] limber tale satisfies with welcome splashes of comedy and romance.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Imbued with the dust, grit, and grime of Galveston at the close of the Civil War,… Jiles brings… her written word as lyrical and musical as Simon's bow raking over his strings. Loyal Jiles readers… will adore the author's latest masterpiece.
Booklist


(Starred review) [A]tmospheric adventure… [with] clever plotting …true to Jiles' loving but cleareyed portrait of Texas' vibrant, violent frontier culture. Vividly evocative and steeped in American folkways: more great work from a master storyteller.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for SIMON THE FIDDLER … then take off on your own

1. Talk about Simon Boudlin; what kind of a person is he? Is he an idealist, a realist, a romantic … or all three?

2. In a particularly lyrical passage, Jiles writes of her hero:

To Simon, the world of musical structures was far more real than the shoddy saloons in which he had to play.… It existed outside him. It was better than he was. He was always on foot in that world, an explorer in busted shoes.

How does the passage describe not just Simon but all of us—especially our capacity to sense the transcendent nature of art? Does art—music, painting and sculpture, literature, or drama—affect you in a similar manner?

3. Describe the land of Texas and the turmoil of its people as the Civil War winds down. Consider the Union occupying forces, the poverty, disease, and violence.

4. What do you think of Doris. Talk about her "situation" vis-a-vis Col. Webb, which is just as precarious as Simon's.

5. Some reviewers (New York Times and Wall Street Journal) feel that the romance between Simon and Doris hits a false note, that it is "ludicrously melodramatic." Others have found in it the promise of hope in a troubled world. What do you think?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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A Simple Plan
Scott Smith, 1993
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307278272

Summary
When two brothers and a friend find four million dollars in the cockpit of a downed plane buried in the snow, their plan seems so simple.

But from the moment it is set into motion, Hank Mitchell's well-ordered life spins out of control, sending him on a downward spiral of deceit, treachery, and blackmail. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Summit, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Scott Smith is an American author and screenwriter and is a graduate of Columbia University. He has published two suspense novels, A Simple Plan and The Ruins. His 1998 screen adaptation of A Simple Plan earned him an Academy Award nomination.

Scott Smith was born in Summit, New Jersey in 1965 and now lives in New York City. After studying at Dartmouth College and Columbia University in New York, he took up writing full time. He wrote the screenplay for his book A Simple Plan starring Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, and Bridget Fonda. This film was nominated for numerous awards, including two Academy Awards, one for Best Adapted Screenplay. The screenplay won numerous awards, such as a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award and a National Board of Review Award. Billy Bob Thornton also won numerous awards for best supporting actor for this film.

Smith's long awaited second novel, The Ruins, was published in 2006. Stephen King claims it as "The best horror novel of the new century." The movie was adapted to film in 2008. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
A Simple Plan, Scott Smith's beautifully controlled and disturbing first novel, delivers a total of nine deaths, harrowing murders all, but it is surely a morality tale, with not a whiff of the whodunit about it. Instead its trail of blood raises a good many rudimentary philosophical questions and does so starkly. What is necessary? What is inevitable? What is justifiable? If Mr. Smith fails to examine them as attentively as he sets them in place, still he tells a thoroughly absorbing story of choices made, both well and badly, and consequences stalled, evaded, suffered and escaped
Rosellen Brown - New York Times Book Review

A better title for A Simple Plan, Scott Smith's much ballyhooed first novel, might be "A Stupid Plan." From the instant he embarks on a path of crime and destruction, Mr. Smith's narrator, Hank Mitchell, exhibits an extraordinary degree of carelessness, thickheadedness and self-delusion, not to mention greed, selfishness and cruelty. The only reason he is not immediately caught or dissuaded from his plan is the equal stupidity of people around him, including his wife, his brother, the local sheriff and the F.B.I.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

Like watching a train wreck. There is nothing to be done, but it is impossible to turn away.
Chicago Times

Once one accepts the bizarre premise of Smith's astonishingly adept, ingeniously plotted debut thriller, the book fulfills every expectation of a novel of suspense, leading the reader on a wild exploration of the banality of evil. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that a tyro writer could have produced so controlled and assured a narrative. When Hank Mitchell, his obese, feckless brother Jacob and Jacob's smarmy friend Lou accidentally find a wrecked small plane and its dead pilot in the woods near their small Ohio town, they decide not to tell the authorities about the $4.4 million stuffed into a duffel bag. Instead, they agree to hide the money and later divide it among themselves. The "simple plan'' sets in motion a spiral of blackmail, betrayal and multiple murder which Smith manipulates with consummate skill, increasing the tension exponentially with plot twists that are inevitable and unpredictable at the same time. In choosing to make his protagonist an ordinary middle-class man—Hank is an accountant in a feed and grain store— Smith demonstrates the eerie ease with which the mundane can descend to the unthinkable. Hank commits the first murder to protect his brother and their secret; he eerily rationalizes the ensuing coldblooded deeds while remaining outwardly normal, hardly an obvious psychopath. Smith's imagination never palls; the writing peaks in a gory liquor store scene that's worthy of comparison to Stephen King at his best.
Publishers Weekly

In the opening pages of this riveting first novel, Hank Mitchell is heading down a snowy road with his brother Jacob and a friend, intent on visiting his parents' grave. After chasing Jacob's huge dog through the woods, the three men stumble upon a tiny plane whose pilot is dead. The plane holds another surprise—a bag containing $4 million. Upright Hank resists taking the money but finally thinks up a "simple plan'' that will protect them if anyone suspects them of stealing. Once Hank veers from the straight and narrow, however, nothing is simple. Unnerved by his somewhat slow-witted brother's panic, distrustful of thief-in-arms Lou, Hank commits a murder—and is launched upon a bloody downward spiral that carries the reader quickly to the end of the book. Buttoned-downed Hank ultimately proves to be made of poorer stuff than his scruffier compatriots, and his carefully reasoned descent into crime is shocking. Occasionally, it seems a bit too pat—the reader is left wondering whether anyone could commit so many crimes without moral upset—but ultimately this should prove popular reading.
Library Journal

A fairy-tale windfall blasts the lives of two brothers, determined to do whatever it takes to hold onto the money, in Scott's electrifying first novel. On their way to visit their parents' graves in rural Ohio, Hank Mitchell and his brother Jacob, together with Jacob's no-account pal Lou, find a downed plane, a dead pilot, and four million dollars. After briefly considering turning the money over to the authorities, they decide to let Hank keep it for six months to see whether anybody comes looking for it--believing in their innocence that if nobody does, they'll be safe in spending it. But the very next day, when Hank and Jacob are back at the plane to make sure they haven't left any traces of their presence, they're forced to kill a witness to their discovery. When Lou finds out and begins to blackmail Hank for advances on his share of the loot, Hank's surprisingly resourceful wife Sarah comes up with a scheme to shut his mouth—a scheme that ends, inevitably, in more violence, as Hank keeps killing to protect his family's stake in the American dream, the secrets of his earlier murders, and his sense of himself as normal "despite everything I've done that might make it seem otherwise." By the time the horrific plot has wound down, nine people have died, with more deaths (the Mitchell parents, seven victims in a Detroit kidnapping) hanging heavily over the story. Yet Smith infuses each new twist of violence with shocks of unexpected pity, as Hank, devastated by the killing, keeps drifting back to the rationale he and Sarah share: He had to do it, it wasn't his fault. An eerily flat confessional whose horror is only deepened by its flashes of tenderness. Think of a backwater James M. Cain, or a contemporary midwestern Unforgiven—and don't think about getting any sleep tonight.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Simple Plan:

1. Hank Mitchell, the center of the story, is an ordinary man who proves capable of tremendous evil. At one point, he says, "I'm just normal... like everyone else"—a statement that brings to mind Hannah Arendt's remark about Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal. On seeing Eichmann in the court room, Arendt was struck by "the banality of evil." Do (most-all-some?) ordinary people contain the seeds of evil?

2. Hank confesses "I did one bad thing...and it led to a worse thing." Is he attempting to absolve himself of guilt?

3. How does the fact that Hank represents the story's point of view affect your judgment? Do you find Hank convincing? Do you identify with him, are you sympathetic to him, do you accept his justifications? Is there a point in which, as a reader, you become complicit?

4. You might also talk about the Cain and Abel parallels with Hank and Jacob. How, as one critic puts it, could this work be viewed as a morality tale? What do you make of the radio preacher in the background as Hank finishes off his last two victims?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)

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Since We Fell 
Dennis Lehane, 2017
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062129383


Summary
Since We Fell follows Rachel Childs, a former journalist who, after an on-air mental breakdown, now lives as a virtual shut-in.

In all other respects, however, she enjoys an ideal life with an ideal husband. Until a chance encounter on a rainy afternoon causes that ideal life to fray. As does Rachel’s marriage. As does Rachel herself.

Sucked into a conspiracy thick with deception, violence, and possibly madness, Rachel must find the strength within herself to conquer unimaginable fears and mind-altering truths.

By turns heart-breaking, suspenseful, romantic, and sophisticated, Since We Fell is a novel of profound psychological insight and tension. It is Dennis Lehane at his very best. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 4, 1965
• Where—Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Eckerd College; M.F.A., Florida International University
• Awards—Edgar Award (2); Shamus Award-Best First Novel; Anthony Award; Dilys Award
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts


Dennis Lehane is an American author. He has written several award-winning novels, including A Drink Before the War and the New York Times bestseller Mystic River, which was later made into an Academy Award-winning film.

Another novel, Gone, Baby, Gone, was also adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film. His novel Shutter Island was adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese in 2010. Lehane is a graduate of Florida International University in Miami, Florida.

Personal Life
Lehane was born and reared in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, and continues to live in the Boston area, which provides the setting for most of his books. He spent summers on Fieldston Beach in Marshfield. Lehane is the youngest of five children. His father was a foreman for Sears & Roebuck, and his mother worked in a Boston public school cafeteria. Both of his parents emigrated from Ireland. His brother, Gerry Lehane, who is two and a half years older than Dennis, is a veteran actor who trained at the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence before heading to New York in 1990. Gerry is currently a member of the Invisible City Theatre Company.

He was previously married to Sheila Lawn, formerly an advocate for the elderly for the city of Boston but now working with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office as an Assistant District Attorney. Currently, he is married to Dr. Angela Bernardo, with whom he has one daughter.

He is a graduate of Boston College High School (a Boston Jesuit prep school), Eckerd College (where he found his passion for writing), and the graduate program in creative writing at Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He occasionally makes guest appearances as himself in the ABC comedy/drama TV series Castle.

Literary Career
His first book, A Drink Before the War, which introduced the recurring characters Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, won the 1995 Shamus Award for Best First P.I. Novel. The fourth book in the series, Gone, Baby, Gone, was adapted to a film of the same title in 2007; it was directed by Ben Affleck and starred Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan as Kenzie and Gennaro. Reportedly, Lehane "has never wanted to write the screenplays for the films [based on his own books], because he says he has 'no desire to operate on my own child.'"

Lehane's Mystic River was made into a film in 2003; directed by Clint Eastwood, it starred Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Bacon. The novel itself was a finalist for the PEN/Winship Award and won the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best Novel, the Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction, and France's Prix Mystère de la Critique.

Lehane's first play, Coronado, debuted in New York in December 2005. Coronado is based on his acclaimed short story "Until Gwen," which was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly and was selected for both The Best American Short Stories and The Best Mystery Short Stories of 2005.

Lehane described working on his historical novel, The Given Day, as "a five- or six-year project" with the novel beginning in 1918 and encompassing the 1919 Boston Police Strike and its aftermath. The novel was published in October, 2008.

On October 22, 2007 Paramount Pictures announced that they had optioned Shutter Island with Martin Scorsese attached as director. The Laeta Kalogridis-scripted adaptation has Leonardo DiCaprio playing U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, "who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island." Mark Ruffalo played opposite DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule. Shutter Island was released on February 19, 2010.

Teaching Career
Since becoming a literary success after the broad appeal of his Kenzie and Gennaro novels, as well as the success of Mystic River, Lehane has taught at several colleges. He taught fiction writing and serves as a member of the board of directors for a low-residency MFA program sponsored by Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He has also been involved with the Solstice Summer Writers' Conference at Boston's Pine Manor College and taught advanced fiction writing at Harvard University, where his classes quickly filled up.

In May 2005, Lehane was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Eckerd College and was appointed to Eckerd's Board of Trustees later that year. In Spring 2009, Lehane became a Joseph E. Connor Award recipient and honorary brother of Phi Alpha Tau professional fraternity at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Other brothers and Connor Award recipients include Robert Frost, Elia Kazan, Jack Lemmon, Red Skelton, Edward R. Murrow, Yul Brynner, and Walter Cronkite. Also in Spring 2009, Lehane presented the commencement speech at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts, and was awarded an honorary degree.

Film Career
Lehane wrote and directed an independent film called Neighborhoods in the mid 1990s. He joined the writing staff of the HBO drama series The Wire in 2004. Lehane returned as a writer for the fourth season in 2006 Lehane and the writing staff won the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony and the 2007 Edgar Award for Best Television Feature/Mini-Series Teleplay for their work on the fourth season. Lehane remained a writer for the fifth and final season in 2008. Lehane and the writing staff were nominated for the WGA Award award for Best Dramatic Series again at the February 2009 ceremony.He served as an executive producer for Shutter Island. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Endlessly surprising.… [A] twisty tale.
Wall Street Journal

The surfeit of plot twists and emotional baggage are buoyed by Lehane’s hard-boiled lyricism and peerless feel for New England noir.
USA Today

With sharply acute characterization, this is classic Lehane.
Guardian (UK)

A pleasantly twisted character study and a love story.… Lehane is in command of what he’s doing.
Tampa Bay Times

Make no mistake, Since We Fell is crime fiction, filled with con men, murder, greed and revenge. But the love story gives this novel its heart.
Associated Press

Another winner from the author of Mystic River.… A raucous mix of lust, greed, and betrayal.
AARP Magazine

A ride you won’t want to miss.
New York Journal of Books


[An] expertly wrought character study masquerading as a thriller.… The book’s conspiracy plot doesn’t cut the deepest; it’s Lehane’s intensely intimate portrayal of a woman tormented by her own mind.
Publishers Weekly


[T]his narrative vehicle never veers out of control, and when Lehane hits the afterburners in the last 50 pages, he produces one of crime fiction’s most exciting and well-orchestrated finales — rife with dramatic tension and buttressed by rich psychological interplay between the characters. —Bill Ott 
Booklist


[P]lenty of intrigue, intricacies, and emotional subtleties..… What seems at the start to be an edgy psychological mystery seamlessly transforms into a crafty, ingenious tale of murder and deception—and a deeply resonant account of one woman’s effort to heal deep wounds.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Sing You Home
Jodi Picoult, 2011
Simon & Schuster
466 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439102725

Summary
Every life has a soundtrack. All you have to do is listen.

Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter’s life. There’s the melody that reminds her of the summer she spent rubbing baby oil on her stomach in pursuit of the perfect tan. A dance beat that makes her think of using a fake ID to slip into a nightclub. A dirge that marked the years she spent trying to get pregnant.

For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love.

In the aftermath of a series of personal tragedies, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people—even those she loves and trusts most—don’t want that to happen.

Sing You Home is about identity, love, marriage, and parenthood. It’s about people wanting to do the right thing for the greater good, even as they work to fulfill their own personal desires and dreams. And it’s about what happens when the outside world brutally calls into question the very thing closest to our hearts: family. (From the publisher.)

The book comes with a CD of original songs by Jodi Picoult (lyrics), performed by Ellen Wilber (music).

Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1966
• Where—Nesconset (Long Island), New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; M.Ed., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Hanover, New Hampshire


Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American author. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003. Picoult currently has approximately 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

Early life and education
Picoult was born and raised in Nesconset on Long Island in New York State; when she was 13, her family moved to New Hampshire. Even as a child, Picoult had a penchant for writing stories: she wrote her first story— "The Lobster Which Misunderstood"—when she was five.

While still in college—she studied writing at Princeton University—Picoult published two short stories in Seventeen magazine. To pay the bills, after graduation she worked at a variety of jobs, including copy writing and editing textbooks; she even taught eighth-grade English and attained a Masters in Education from Harvard University.

In 1989, Picoult married Timothy Warren Van Leer, whom she met in college, and while pregnant with their first child, wrote her first book. Song of the Humpbacked Whale, her literary debut, came out in 1992. Two more children followed, as did a string of bestseller novels. All told, Picoult has more than 20 books to her name.

Writing
At an earlier time in her life, Picoult believed the tranquility of family life in small-town New England offered little fodder for writing; the truly interesting stuff of fiction happened elsewhere. Ironically, it is small-town life that has ended up providing the settings for Picoult's novels. Within the cozy surroundings of family and friends, Picoult weaves complex webs of relationships that strain, even tear apart, under stress. She excels at portraying ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Disoriented by some accident of chance, they stumble, whirl, and attempt to regain a footing in what was once their calm, ordered world.

Nor has Picoult ever shied from tackling difficult, controversial issues: school shooting, domestic violence, sexual abuse, teen suicide, and racism. She approaches painful topics with sympathy—and her characters with respect—while shining a light on individual struggles. Her legions of readers have loved and rewarded her for that compassion—and her novels have been consistent bestsellers.

Personal life
Picoult and her husband Timothy live in Hanover, New Hampshire. They have three children and a handful of pets. (Adapted from a 2003 Barnes and Noble interview and from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2016.)

Book Reviews
Picoult's overstuffed latest is stretched just to the breaking point.... Picoult abandons her usual efforts to present an equal view of both sides of an issue...but her devoted fans will nevertheless find everything they expect: big emotion, diligent research, legal conflict, and a few twists at the end.
Publishers Weekly


Never one to shy away from controversial issues, this time Picoult...forces us to consider both sides of these hot topics with her trademark impeccable research, family dynamics, and courtroom drama. Sure to be a hit with her myriad fans and keep the book clubs buzzing. —Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY 
Library Journal


Told from the perspectives of all three major characters, Picoult’s gripping novel explores all sides of the hot-button issue and offers a CD of folk songs that reflect Zoe’s feelings throughout the novel. —Kristine Huntley
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. An original, accompanying soundtrack is available for Sing You Home. Listen to the soundtrack with your book club members and discuss how the song choices reinforce or affect your reading. In what way did having a soundtrack enhance your understanding of Zoe's "voice"? If you had to create a soundtrack for this book, what songs would you include? Explain your choices.

2. Zoe also claims that "music is the language of memory" and has the power to reach through even the darkest corners of dementia and awaken long-forgotten memories. Are there any songs or albums that remind you of a certain time or place in your life? Do you think it's a blessing or a curse to be reminded of such memories through music?

3. Sing You Home is narrated by three different protagonists, each with their own unique voice and personality. Did this narrative device work for you as a reader? Do you think Zoe's story would've been portrayed differently if there had only been one narrator? Why or why not?

4. Change and metamorphosis are reoccurring ideas in Sing You Home. In your opinion, which characters changed the most? Which characters remained the same?

5. On page 75, Max reflects on the nature of change: "Actually, when you turn into someone you don't recognize, you feel nothing at all." Do you think this is true in all instances? How would you describe periods of self-discovery and metamorphosis like those Zoe experiences?

6. How do Zoe's struggles as a music therapist to Lucy give you insight into her character?

7. Whether it's an expert witness discussing the scientific proof of physiological differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals or Vanessa talking about experiences unique to the gay dating world, great attention is paid to the differences between gay and straight relationships throughout the novel. Do you think the story features any universal dating realities and relationship experiences that transcend different sexual orientations? Explain your answer.

8. Vanessa's mother and Zoe's mother have very different reactions when her daughter says, "I'm gay." Are both mothers justified in their reactions? Discuss.

9. During the trial, Max's attorney brings in expert psychologist Dr. Newkirk to discuss the detriment of same-sex parent households on children. Dr. Newkirk's argument is that a child needs the influence of both genders to ensure healthy development. Do you agree with her? Why or why not? Do you think the family structure ultimately created by Zoe, Vanessa, and Max is a healthy one?

10. When Zoe has doubts about being able to raise a son, her mom tells her, "'It's not gender that makes a family; it's love. You don't need a mother and a father; you don't necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who's got your back.'" (p. 374) Do you agree with her? Explain your answer.

11. During his sermon, Pastor Clive argues against homosexuality by saying, "After all, I like swimming . . . but that doesn't make me a fish." (p. 399) Do you think his fish analogy is relevant? Do you find his interpretation of sexuality more or less accurate than Vanessa's assertion that "we're all just wired differently." (p. 111)

12. When Max says to Zoe, "'God forgives you,'" she replies, "'God should know there's nothing to forgive.'" (p. 406) Their statements are diametrically opposite, and they spend almost the entire novel arguing their beliefs to each other. Do you think both sides' arguments were equally represented in the novel? Which points from either side did you find most compelling or convincing? Which points did you find most difficult to hear?

13. When Max seeks guidance from Pastor Clive as to how he should react to Zoe's new relationship with Vanessa, Pastor Clive tells him a story about Pastor Wallace, who allowed homosexuals into his congregation. Pastor Clive believes that Pastor Wallace is a model for tolerance and that, while homosexuality shouldn't be accepted, gay members of the church should be tolerated. Do you believe Pastor Clive practices what he preaches in the novel? What about when he says that the Eternal Glory Church isn't "anti-gay" but rather "pro-Christ"? (p. 219) Is tolerance even possible without acceptance? Explain.

14. Despite being about a very specific relationship and a unique court case, Sing You Home addresses universal themes and ideas regarding family, love, and acceptance. Do you think this story reaches a wide audience, despite its unique specificities? Did you connect with the characters? Why or why not?

15. Several different story lines are left unresolved, such as Lucy's story and why she made allegations against Zoe, and how Max and Liddy eventually get married. Are there any subplots you wish the author had resolved or delved into more thoroughly? Are there any that you would've resolved differently?
(Questions by publisher.)

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Sing, Unburied, Sing 
Jesmyn Ward, 2017
Scribner
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501126062


Summary
Winner, 2017 National Book Award

Drawing on Morrison and Faulkner, The Odyssey and the Old Testament, Ward gives us an epochal story, a journey through Mississippi’s past and present that is both an intimate portrait of a family and an epic tale of hope and struggle.

Ward is a major American writer, multiply awarded and universally lauded, and in Sing, Unburied, Sing she is at the height of her powers.

Jojo and his toddler sister, Kayla, live with their grandparents, Mam and Pop, and the occasional presence of their drug-addicted mother, Leonie, on a farm on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

Leonie is simultaneously tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her when she’s high; Mam is dying of cancer; and quiet, steady Pop tries to run the household and teach Jojo how to be a man.

When the white father of Leonie’s children is released from prison, she packs her kids and a friend into her car and sets out across the state for Parchman farm, the Mississippi State Penitentiary, on a journey rife with danger and promise.

Sing, Unburied, Sing grapples with the ugly truths at the heart of the American story and the power, and limitations, of the bonds of family. Rich with Ward’s distinctive, musical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing is a majestic new work and an essential contribution to American literature. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—DeLisle, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., University of Michigan
• Awards—2 National Book Awards (others below)
• Currently—lives in Mississippi; commutes to Mobile, Alabama

Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist and two-time National Book Award winner for fiction. Salvage the Bones won in 2011 (it also won a 2012 Alex Award), and Sing, the Unburied, Sing, won in 2017. Her other two books include her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds (2008) and a memoir, The Men We Reaped (2013), about the deaths of her brother and other young male friends.

Early years
Jesmyn Ward grew up in DeLisle, a small rural community in Mississippi. She developed a love-hate relationship with her hometown after having been bullied at public school by black classmates and, subsequently, by white students while attending a private school paid for by her mother’s employer.

Ward received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University, choosing to become a writer upon graduation in order to honor the memory of her younger brother killed by a drunk driver earlier that year.  Ward went on to earn an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan in 2005. At U of M she won five Hopwood Awards for essays, drama, and fiction.

Shortly afterwards, she and her family became victims of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. With their house in De Lisle flooding rapidly, the Ward family set out in their car to get to a local church, but ended up stranded in a field full of tractors. When the white owners of the land eventually checked on their possessions, they refused to invite the Wards into their home, claiming they were overcrowded. Tired and traumatized, the refugees were eventually given shelter by another white family down the road.

Ward went on to work at the University of New Orleans, where her daily commute took her through neighborhoods ravaged by the hurricane. Empathizing with the struggle of the survivors and coming to terms with her own experience during the storm, Ward was unable to write creatively for three years—the time it took her to find a publisher for her first novel, Where the Line Bleeds.

In 2008 she returned to Stanford as a Stegner Fellow—one of the most prestigious awards available to emerging American writers.

Literary career
Earlier in 2008, just as Ward was deciding to give up writing and enroll in a nursing program, Where the Line Bleeds was accepted by Doug Seibold at Agate Publishing. Starting on the day twin protagonists Joshua and Christophe DeLisle graduate from high school, Where the Line Bleeds follows the brothers as their choices pull them in opposite directions. Unwilling to leave the small rural town on the Gulf Coast where they were raised by their loving grandmother, the twins struggle to find work, with Joshua eventually becoming a dock hand and Christophe joining his drug-dealing cousin.

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Ward "a fresh new voice in American literature" who "unflinchingly describes a world full of despair but not devoid of hope." The novel was picked as a Book Club Selection by Essence and received a Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) Honor Award in 2009. It was shortlisted for the Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Her second novel Salvage the Bones (2011) homes in once more on the visceral bond between poor black siblings growing up on the Gulf Coast. Chronicling the lives of pregnant teenager Esch Batiste, her three brothers, and their father during the 10 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina, the day of the cyclone, and the day after, Ward uses a vibrant language steeped in metaphors to illuminate the fundamental aspects of love, friendship, passion, and tenderness.

Explaining her main character's fascination with the Greek mythological figure of Medea, Ward told Elizabeth Hoover of the Paris Review

It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as "other." I wanted to align Esch with that classic text, with the universal figure of Medea, the antihero, to claim that tradition as part of my Western literary heritage. The stories I write are particular to my community and my people, which means the details are particular to our circumstances, but the larger story of the survivor, the savage, is essentially a universal, human one.

In 2011, Ward won the National Book Award in the Fiction category for Salvage the Bones. Interviewed by CNN’s Ed Lavandera, she said that both her nomination and her victory had come as a surprise, given that the novel had been largely ignored by mainstream reviewers. In a television interview with Anna Bressanin of BBC News on (December 22, 2011), Ward said...

When I hear people talking about the fact that they think we live in a post-racial America, … it blows my mind, because I don’t know that place. I’ve never lived there. … If one day, … they’re able to pick up my work and read it and see … the characters in my books as human beings and feel for them, then I think that that is a political act.

Jesmyn Ward received an Alex Award for Salvage the Bones in 2012. The Alex Awards are given out each year by the Young Adult Library Services Association to ten books written for adults that resonate strongly with young people aged 12 through 18.  Commenting on the winning books in School Library Journal, former Alex Award committee chair, Angela Carstensen described Salvage the Bones as a novel with "a small but intense following—each reader has passed the book to a friend."

In 2013, Ward published her memoir Men We Reaped. She announced on her blog two years earlier that she had finished the book's first draft, calling it the hardest thing she had ever written. The memoir explores the lives of her brother and four other young black men who lost their lives in her hometown. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2013.)

Book Reviews
[Ward's] books reach for the sweep, force and sense of inevitability of the Greek myths, but as translated to the small, mostly poor, mostly black town in Mississippi where she grew up and where she still lives…[Sing, Unburied, Sing] is Ward's most unsparing book…With the supernatural cast to the story, everything feels heightened. The clearest influence is Toni Morrison's Beloved—the child returning from the dead, bitter and wronged and full of questions. The echoes in the language feel like deliberate homage.
Parul Sehgal - New York Times Book Review

The novel is built around an arduous car trip: A black woman and her two children drive to a prison to pick up their white father. Ward cleverly uses that itinerant structure to move this family across the land while keeping them pressed together, hot and irritated. As soon as they leave the relative safety of their backwoods farm, the snares and temptations of the outside world crowd in, threatening to derail their trip or cast them into some fresh ordeal.… The plight of this one family is now tied to intersecting crimes and failings that stretch over decades. Looking out to the yard, Jojo thinks, "The branches are full. They are full with ghosts, two or three, all the way up to the top, to the feathered leaves." Such is the tree of liberty in this haunted nation.
Washington Post


Staggering…even more expansive and layered [than Salvage the Bones]. A furious brew with hints of Toni Morrison and Homer’s The Odyssey, Ward’s novel hits full stride when Leonie takes her childfren and a friend and hits the road to pick up her children’s father, Michael, from prison. On a real and metaphorical road of secrets and sorrows, the story shifts narrators — from Jojo to Leonie to Richie, a doomed boy from his grandfather’s fractured past — as they crash into both the ghosts that stalk them, as well as the disquieting ways these characters haunt themselves.
Boston Globe


As long as America has novelists such as Jesmyn Ward, it will not lose its soul. Sing, Unburied, Sing, the story of a few days in the lives of a tumultuous Mississippi Gulf Coast family and the histories and ghosts that haunt it, is nothing short of magnificent. Combining stark circumstances with magical realism, it illuminates America’s love-hate tug between the races in a way that we seem incapable of doing anywhere else but in occasional blessed works of art.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Ward unearths layers of history in gorgeous textured language, ending with an unearthly chord.
BBC


Ward's execution is anything but [familiar]; her first foray into magical realism is downright luminous.
Entertainment Weekly


(Starred review.) [B]eautifully crafted…. When the dead…make their appearances…their stories are deeply affecting, in no small part because of Ward’s brilliant writing and compassionate eye.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Lyrical yet tough, Ward’s distilled language effectively captures the hard lives, fraught relationships, and spiritual depth of her characters.
Library Journal


In her first novel since the National Book Award–winning Salvage the Bones (2011), Ward renders richly drawn characters, a strong sense of place, and a distinctive style that is at once down-to-earth and magical.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [A] bold, bright, and sharp-eyed road novel.… As with the best and most meaningful American fiction these days, old truths are recast here in new realities rife with both peril and promise.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The novel begins with Jojo’s thoughts, "I like to think I know what death is" and "I want Pop to know I can get bloody" (page 1). How do these thoughts set the stage for Jojo’s birthday and what follows?

2. How does Given’s death shape Leonie, Pop, and Mam? How does it change how they relate to each other?

3. Why does Given begin appearing to Leonie after Michael goes to jail, whenever she gets high? Why doesn’t Leonie tell anyone about seeing Given?

4. Leonie says from the first moment she saw Michael, he "saw me.… Saw the walking wound I was and came to be my balm" (page 54). Discuss how guilt, desire, taboo, defiance, and grief are at work in Michael and Leonie’s connection to each other.

5. What does Leonie get out of her friendship with Misty? What does Jojo see in the dynamics at play between Misty and Leonie?

6. Discuss the gris-gris bag from Pop that Jojo finds hidden in his clothes (page 63). What does each item signify? Why must Jojo hide it from Leonie?

7. Why can Pop only tell Richie’s story to Jojo in pieces (page 70)? What do you think Pop wants or needs Jojo to understand?

8. As Leonie looks at Jojo and Kayla in the back seat on their way to pick up Michael, she thinks, "Sometimes, when Jojo’s playing with Kayla or sitting in Mama’s room rubbing her hands or helping her turn over in the bed, I look at him and see a hungry girl" (page 95). Why does Leonie see this "hungry girl" in Jojo?

9. Why is Jojo convinced that "Leonie kill things" (page 108)? Why are Leonie and Jojo always in conflict, especially concerning how to take care of Kayla?

10. When Richie joins Jojo at Parchman, is it a surprise? Why is Richie tied to Parchman? And to River?

11. Why does Michael brawl with Big Joseph and ultimately choose to leave with Leonie rather than stay with his parents (page 208)?

12. When Mam insists that Leonie help her die, to "Let me leave with something of myself" (page 216), what makes Leonie hesitate? Why does she wish for Given to be there in that moment?

13. What does Richie mean when he tells Jojo, "I can’t. Come inside. I tried. Yesterday. There has to be some need, some lack. Like a keyhole. Makes it so I can come in. But after all that — your mam, your uncle. Your mama. I can’t. You’ve…changed. Ain’t no need. Or at least, ain’t no need big enough for a key"? (page 281)

14. Water plays an important role throughout the novel. Pop’s name is River. Mam is known as the "saltwater woman." The town and prison where Pop and Michael are incarcerated are named for the "parched man." Jojo wonders who the parched man is, if he looked like Pop, Jojo, or Michael. Which characters seem to need water? Which are of the water?

15. Kayla is central to the final scene of the novel, with the "tree of ghosts." Jojo describes her: "Her eyes Michael’s, her nose Leonie’s, the set of her shoulders Pop’s, and the way she looks upward, like she is measuring the tree, all Mam. But something about the way she stands, the way she takes all the pieces of everybody and holds them together, is all her. Kayla" (page 284). How is it fitting that Kayla closes the story, telling the ghosts to "Go home" and singing to them and to Jojo?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Single, Carefree, Mellow:  Stories
Katherine Heiny, 2015
Knopf Doubleday
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804173155


Summary
For the commitment-averse women in the eleven sublime stories of Single, Carefree, Mellow, falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient.

♦ Maya is in love with both her boyfriend and her boss.
♦ Sadie’s lover calls her as he drives to meet his wife at marriage counseling.
♦ Nina is more worried that the Presbyterian minister living above her garage will hear her kids swearing than that he will find out she’s sleeping with her running partner.

The women grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties as Katherine Heiny spins a debut that is superbly accomplished, endlessly entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1967
• Raised—Midland, Michigan, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives outside Washington, DC


Katherine Heiny was only 25 when she received a call from The New Yorker about publishing her short story "How to Give the Wrong Impression." She was then a poor graduate student enrolled in the M.F.A. program at Columbia University and struggling to pay her rent.

Later, after another of her stories appeared in Seventeen Magazine, she received a different phone call—this one from a book publisher who asked if she would be interested in writing young adult books. Why not, she thinks, and now, years later, she claims more than 20 YA novels under her belt...and under various pen names.

Her debut story collection Single, Carefree, Mellow (2015) is her first book as Katherine Heiny. She lives in Washington DC with her husband Ian McCredie and their children. (Adapted from an interview in Longreads.)

Book Reviews
Sharply perceptive.... Ms. Heiny [has] powers of writerly seduction...[a] gift for dreaming up otherwise smart women who lapse into temporary insanity while besotted.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


[S]omething like Cheever mixed with Ephron: white, middle-class suburban discontent simmering below the surface, but treated with a light touch that keeps the focus squarely on the woman's point of view…. [O]n the whole Heiny is very good at portraying the circumscribed landscapes, both literal and emotional, in which her characters live. She also gives credence to what is still a conundrum for many women: What role can I play in a world in which I am neither fully "carefree" and "mellow" when single, nor entirely "giving" and "content" when attached? A world in which I am still implicated in conventions of how women should be?
Naomi Fry - New York Times Book Review


To encounter the wry, funny stories in Katherine Heiny’s Single, Carefree, Mellow is to experience the best form of simultaneous pleasure and sadness.
Philadelphia Tribune


Heartbreaking and darkly comic.
Atlantic


[Heiny is] a badass storyteller.
Huffington Post
 
Chances are you’ve already heard the buzz on this collection of short stories, each of which has a relationship or affair at its center. But no matter how good you imagine it is, it’s better.
Glamour.com


Winning stories you won’t forget.
People
 

Dissatisfied teenagers and bored housewives, clueless boyfriends and cuckolded husbands, and 11 variations on the recurrent theme of infidelity and its fallout populate Heiny’s first collection of stories.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Not all [of Heiny’s characters] are single (or carefree or mellow), but they are all singular, and following their stories is like sitting at a dive bar tossing back deceptively pretty, surprisingly strong drinks with a pal who may not always make the best decisions but always comes away with the most colorful tales.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Infidelity is an overarching theme of the collection. Are there any commonalities among the affairs described in the book? How do different characters wrestle with the idea of being "the other woman"? Does anyone fight this label? Embrace it?

2. Discuss Sasha’s relationship with Monique as described throughout "The Dive Bar." How would you describe their friendship? How does Sasha depend on Monique for moral support? When Sasha is viewing the apartment with Carson, why does she immediately think of Monique?

3. On page 11, Sasha remarks that there is "no limit to the things a real couple can do!" Discuss what makes a relationship "real." What authenticates Sasha’s relationship? Which story describes the most "real" couple, in your opinion?

4. In "How to Give the Wrong Impression," Gwen wrestles with issues of insecurity in her relationship with Boris. How does this manifest throughout the story? When is she most confident?

5. On page 47, Maya laments that "Rhodes, his mother, Bailey—they all deserved someone so much better." How do feelings of guilt factor into Maya’s self-worth? At what points in the book does her decision-making come from a place of guilt? When does she escape that guilt—if ever?

6. In "Blue Heron Bridge," Nina mentions that she "got the sense she sometimes got when she said something funny, that she had suddenly become visible." Explore this concept of "visibility" in connection with Nina’s identity. How does she define herself? How does she determine her self-worth? Why do you think she embarks on her affair with David?

7. On page 31, Gwen leaves the conversation with Linette to put on more makeup even though "this is about as good as it gets." How is femininity presented throughout Single, Carefree, Mellow? In what ways are dating rituals described as performative?

8. On page 49, in the story "Single, Carefree, Mellow," Maya admits she has a "recurring nightmare about marrying Rhodes," yet by the end of the story she knows that "she could not leave Rhodes." Given her oscillating feelings about their relationship, were you surprised that they did get married? What do you think holds their relationship together?

9. In "Cranberry Relish," Heiny arranges the narrative structure so that the perspective alternates between the present moment, where Billy is describing his newest conquest, and flashbacks to the beginning of Josie and Billy’s affair. Why do you think the author chose to frame their relationship this way?

10. How is motherhood described throughout Single, Carefree, Mellow? Contrast the experiences of the protagonist in "That Dance You Do" with Nina in "Blue Heron Bridge."

11. On page 84, Nina relishes "the sweetness that was [hers] now, of the happiness she knew." Given the reaction she has about the news of David’s affair with Bunny Pringle, what do you attribute her happiness to in this scene?

12. Discuss "The Rhett Butlers." How does the narrator see Mr. Eagleton? Does she ever see him as a sexual predator, or merely a boring boyfriend? How did you react to this story? Its ending?

13. In "Andorra," Sadie describes her ability to carry on a long-term affair as "a sign of strength and character" (page 205). How is this assertion refuted throughout the story?

14. Female friendship is an integral aspect of Single, Carefree, Mellow. How do friends in Single, Carefree, Mellow rely on each other for support and comfort? What did you find to be most realistic about Heiny’s portrayal of female friendship? Did any particular friendships in the book resonate with you?

15. Many of the characters in these stories have roommates. Boris and Gwen are roommates; Sasha and Monique are roommates; Fern and Haley were roommates. How does the role of a roommate both fill and fail to fill the role of a romantic partner for these women?

16. On page 193, Maya says that girls are "nothing but heartbreak." What do you think she means by this? Do you agree? Can you connect this statement with the overarching themes of Single, Carefree, Mellow?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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A Single Thread
Marie Bostwick, 2008
Kensington Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780758222572

Summary
Marie Bostwick weaves the unforgettable story of four very different women whose paths cross, changing their lives forever.

It’s a long way from Fort Worth, Texas, to New Bern, Connecticut, yet it only takes a day in the charming Yankee town to make Evelyn Dixon realize she’s found her new home. The abrupt end of her marriage was Evelyn’s wake-up call to get busy chasing her dream of opening a quilt shop. Finding a storefront is easy enough; starting a new life isn’t. Little does Evelyn imagine it will bring a trio like Abigail Burgess, her niece Liza, and Margot Matthews through her door.

Troubled and angry after her mother’s death, Liza threatens to embarrass her Aunt Abigail all over town unless she joins her for quilting classes. A victim of downsizing at the peak of her career, Margot hopes an event hosted by the quilt shop could be a great chance to network—and keep from dying of boredom…

As they stitch their unique creations, Evelyn, Abigail, Liza, and Margot form a sisterhood they never sought—but one that they’ll be grateful for when the unexpected provides a poignant reminder of the single thread that binds us all. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Marie Bostwick was born and raised in the Northwest (USA). Since marrying the love of her life twenty-four years ago, she has never known a moment's boredom. Marie and her family have moved a score of times, living in eight U.S. states and two Mexican cities, and collecting a vast and cherished array of friends and experiences. Marie has three handsome sons and now lives with her husband in Connecticut where she writes, reads, quilts, and is active in her local church. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Bostwick makes a seamless transition from historical fiction to the contemporary scene in this buoyant novel about the value of friendship among women. When Evelyn Dixon's marriage ends, she leaves Texas and drives north until New Bern, Conn., captures her heart. There she pursues a dream of opening a quilt shop, and with little money and a lot of determination, she turns a derelict building into a haven for the crafty set. But three women who show up for quilting class end up learning about more than stitching and batting. Chilly, wealthy Abigail Burgess; her angry 19-year-old niece, Liza; and recently laid-off Margot Matthews all have different reasons for being there, but when Evelyn, having just learned she has breast cancer, breaks down, the trio unites to support her. Evelyn's illness and recovery are the catalysts that force the others to re-examine their own lives, while hints of a possible romance for Evelyn add a complementary thread to the friendship, community and illness story lines. Bostwick's polished style and command of plot make this story of bonding and sisterhood a tantalizing book club contender.
Publishers Weekly

Bostwick succeeds admirably in this departure from historical fiction (e.g., On Wings of the Morning). When divorce forces Evelyn Dixon to leave her Texas home, she impulsively drives to New Bern, CT, where she finds the perfect neglected building to turn into a shop. When her business struggles, a new friend suggests a special event to keep it going. On the day Evelyn holds a Quilt Pink event for cancer, she discovers that she herself has breast cancer. Following the event, she falls apart in front of three women, including the town's wealthiest woman and the woman's troubled niece. Not surprisingly, the three women become Evelyn's friends and assist with the shop while she undergoes treatment, and everyone's lives change. Despite the predictability of the plot, this is a pleasant story of friendship, with a message of starting over despite the odds. It will remind readers of Debbie Macomber's popular The Shop on Blossom Street. The first in Bostwick's "Cobbled Court" series, this comforting book is highly recommended for public libraries.
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
1. In Marie Bostwick’s novel, A Single Thread, Evelyn Dixon is a Texas housewife, who in a matter of days must not only vacate her marriage but also her home. If the circumstances of life called for you to leave your home and move quickly, where would you go? How would you cope? What would scare you about the situation? What would excite you?

2. A quilter of more than 25 years, Evelyn likes the exacting precision her hobby requires. But she also revels in the fact that if 100 people were to quilt the same pattern no two of their quilts would be exactly alike. What do we know about Evelyn because she is a quilter? How would you elaborate on her view of quilting as a metaphor for life?

3. After only a few hours in New Bern, Evelyn realizes she feels more at ease in the New England town than she ever did in her planned suburban development. Do you believe certain places can speak to us? Can you recall a place where you immediately felt at home? Do you know why?

4. When Evelyn ventures into the old brick storefront that will become Cobbled Court Quilts, she doesn’t really see the grime or the broken windows or the water stains on the walls. Instead, she envisions how the tiny window panes would gleam if washed and how inviting the front door would be with fresh red paint. What allows some people, like Evelyn, to see the possibilities in life—and not be overwhelmed by the negatives? Is there danger in having such a world view? Can you remember one time when you saw potential in something (or someone) that no one else did? If you took action on your feeling, what happened?

5. Newly divorced, financially fragile, and of an age when some would say she should be sitting on a Florida beach worrying about her grandkids, what possesses Evelyn instead to open a quilting shop—in a new town no less? Is she brave? Foolhardy? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do or try? Would the people in your life cheer you on? Or brand you delusional? Is it ever too late to pursue your dream?

6. Abigail Burgess-Wynne, the matriarch of New Bern, appears to be popular, pragmatic, and in total control of her life. If she were not a wealthy woman, willing to support many local causes, do you think she would be as popular? Is her popularity only a factor of what she (and her money) can do for others? What could possibly make her so resistant to her niece’s cry for help? What do we risk when we pin someone else’s sins on another?

7. Why does it take Evelyn so long to realize that Charlie Donnelly is smitten with her? Do you think the challenges to her health had anything to do with her lack of awareness of his feelings? Have you ever been unaware of someone’s feelings for you, and what did you do when you finally realized those feelings?

8. When Charlie makes his duck confit and Evelyn hosts her quilting classes, some would say they are just “trying to make a living.” But as Charlie tells Evelyn, there are about 200 easier ways to do that. Pushed, Evelyn admits she dreamed that her store would spawn a community of quilters. Where do you find community in your life? What do we gain through community?

9. Three of the scariest words in the world: You have cancer. After Evelyn hears them, she breaks down not with friends but before three strangers. Why? What is the most unusual situation in your life from which you ultimately made a friend? If you have had cancer or have known someone battling cancer, what did the experience teach you? What would you share about this six-letter word?

10. Abigail may appear chilly, materialistic, and controlling, but Evelyn believes the brittle shell houses a compassionate soul. In fact, she believes the same holds true for the rebellious and prickly Liza Burgess. What would cause Abigail and Liza to hide—even deny—such a positive quality about themselves? Have you ever put up walls in your life, then rued the decision?

11. Too often we believe we are loved for our breasts or our muscles, our looks or our hair, when ideally we all want to be loved for the cocktail of qualities that makes us, well, us. What are your perennial, unchanging qualities—both good and bad, quirky and mundane, silly and serious?

12. Life doesn’t promise that we will always be happy, but Evelyn manages to piece together what she needs to face the journey: a group of loyal friends. Name three things that would help you through the ups and downs of life.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Singles Game 
Lauren Weisberger, 2016
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476778211


Summary
The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada —a dishy tell-all about a beautiful tennis prodigy who, after changing coaches, suddenly makes headlines on and off the court.

How far would you go to reach the top?

When America’s sweetheart, Charlotte “Charlie” Silver, makes a pact with the devil—the infamously brutal tennis coach Todd Feltner—she finds herself catapulted into a world of celebrity stylists, private parties, charity matches aboard mega-yachts, and secret dates with Hollywood royalty.

Under Todd’s new ruthless regime, Charlie the good girl is out. Todd wants “Warrior Princess” Charlie all the way. After all, no one ever wins big by playing nice.

Celebrity mags and gossip blogs go wild for Charlie as she jets around the globe chasing Grand Slam titles and Page Six headlines. But as the Warrior Princess’s star rises on and off the court, it comes at a cost. In a world obsessed with good looks and hot shots, is Charlie Silver willing to lose herself to win it all?

Sweeping from Wimbledon to the Caribbean, from the US Open to the Mediterranean, The Singles Game is a sexy and wickedly entertaining romp through a world where the stakes are high—and no one plays by the rules. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1977
• Raised—Scranton and Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Cornell University
• Currently—lives in New York City


Lauren Weisberger is the American author of six novels. She is best known for her 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a speculated roman a clef of her real life experience as a put-upon assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

Early life and education
Weisberger was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a school teacher mother and a department-store-president turned mortgage-broker father. Weisberger was raised in Conservative Judaism and later Reform Judaism. She spent her early youth in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, a small town outside Scranton. At 11, her parents divorced and she and her younger sister, Dana, moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state, with their mother.

At Parkland High School, in South Whitehall Township near Allentown, Weisberger was involved in intramural sports, some competitive sports, extra projects, and organizations. She graduated in 1995. She attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was an English major, graduating in 1999.

After college, she traveled as a backpacker through Europe, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. Returning home, she moved to Manhattan and was hired as Wintour's assistant at Vogue. She was there for ten months before leaving along with features editor Richard Story. While Weisberger said she felt out of place at the magazine, managing editor Laurie Jones later said, "She seemed to be a perfectly happy, lovely woman".

Weisberger and Story began working for Departures Magazine, an American Express publication, where she wrote 100-word reviews and became an assistant editor. She also published a 2004 article in Playboy magazine.

After mentioning her interest in writing classes to her boss, Richard Story, he referred her to his friend Charles Salzberg. She started writing a story about her time at Vogue, and completed it by trying to write 15 pages every couple of weeks. After repeated urgings, she showed the finished work to agents; it sold within two weeks.

Novels
In 2003, Weisberger's first book, The Devil Wears Prada, was released and spent six months on the New York Times Best Seller List. The book is a semi-fictional but highly critical view of the Manhattan elite. As of July 2006, The Devil Wears Prada was the best-selling mass-market softcover book in the nation, according to Publishers Weekly. The book is largely based on Weisberger's experience at Vogue. There is much speculation that the character of Miranda Priestly represents aspects of Anna Wintour. The fictional Elias-Clark publishing company is said to be modeled after Condé Nast.

The book calls into light the many aspects of one's first job. It also highlights the presumed insanity of the fashion world and the difficulty and pressure a person goes through when trying to balance a demanding job with an adequate social life. The book provides a comical insight into the fashion world. While this book was met with stunning success, one former employee of Anna Wintour, Kate Betts, criticized Weisberger and the book in The New York Times, saying that Weisberger and Wintour are the direct counterparts of their fictional characters and that "Andrea ... is just as much a snob as the snobs she is thrown in with." In 2013 Weisberger published a sequel of the book:  Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.

Weisberger's second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, was published in fall of 2005 and is based upon the trials and tribulations of the New York City public relations world. It received generally unfavorable reviews. Despite debuting on the New York Times Best Sellers List at No. 10, it dropped off the list in two weeks and was noted for its disappointing sales.

Chasing Harry Winston is Weisberger's third novel, released in 2008. The main characters are three best friend New Yorkers facing the horror of turning 30. The book was panned by critics and was voted "#1 Worst Book of 2008" by Entertainment Weekly.

Last Night at Chateau Marmont was released in 2010 and debuted at No. 9 on the New York Times Bestseller List on September 5, 2010

Revenge Wears Prada, a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, was released in 2013. It debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Weisbeger's sixth book came out in 2016: The Singles Game, a look at the highstakes world of professional tennis.

Short Stories
Her short story "The Bamboo Confessions" is included in the anthology American Girls About Town. It is about a New York City backpacker who travels around the world and begins to view her love life back home in a different light. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/11/2013.)

Book Reviews
A sparkling novel about a tennis pro who stages a big comeback with the help of her shark-like new coach…the book zooms along in the great tradition of summer reads…If you’re looking for a fast-paced romance with believable characters, Weisberger serves it up right.
Washington Post


Lauren Weisberger, author of the best-selling The Devil Wears Prada, trades fashion magazine politics for the drama that often follows the elite world of competitive tennis in her new book…Weisberger is able to weave interesting aspects of Charlie's celebrity life and work ethic into the fabric of a sizzling love story.
Readers will rally along with Charlie's entourage.
Associated Press


[The Singles Game is] brilliantly written, fun and so stuffed full with interesting characters you won’t be able to put it down.
Daily Mail (UK)


The Devil Wears Prada scribe turns her biting wit to the high stakes world of women’s pro tennis. Look out for cameos from David Beckham and Princes Will and Harry, not to mention lots of sizzling locker-room antics.
Cosmopolitan


A good-girl tennis star is pushed by her tough-genius coach into intense training—and even more intense celebrity status. Lauren Weisberger does the high life like nobody else.
Glamour.com


Tennis fans will love the spot-on descriptions of life on the tour. Weisberger fans will welcome a protagonist who learns to control her life even while living the dream. And women’s-fiction fans will cheer that they’ve found the perfect beach read.
Booklist


Weisberger follows her formula of launching a naïve young woman into uncharted territory....While it lacks the bite of Weisberger's beloved The Devil Wears Prada, this is still a fun, fast-paced read filled with well-crafted and memorable characters.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Singles Game...then take off on your own:

1. What do you learn from The Singles Game about the professional tennis circuit? Does any of it surprise you? How realistic a portrait do you think Lauren Weisberger has drawn? Do you feel the detail enhanced the book or bogged down the pace?

2. How would you describe the people who inhabit the world of tennis—the players, coaches, and celebrities who hover around its edges or at its very center?

3. How good a tennis player is Charlie? Why do so many of the characters—her father, brother and former coach—want her to retire at 25?

4. Talk about what happens to Charlie's moral compass as she pursues higher rankings under new coach. How do the trappings of success entice young people...or people of any age? What are the dangers of succeeding at any cost?

5. If you've read The Devil Wears Prada (or seen the film), what are the similarities between that book's heroine, Andy, and this book's heroine, Charlie?

6. Talk about life on the road—not only for Charlie, but also for any sports or performance artist or, say, for politicians and business people? What are the hardships? What are the perks? How much time have you spent on the road in your life or career? Does the traveling life appeal to you?

7. The Singles Game is a coming of age story. What does Charlie come to understand about herself by the end of the novel?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Sinner 
Petra Hammesfahr, 1999 (2017 movie tie-in)
Penguin Publishing
400 pp
ISBN-13: 9780143132851


Summary
The basis for the "instantly gripping" (Washington Post) limited series on USA starring Jessica Biel, The Sinner is an internationally bestselling psychological thriller surrounding an unexplained murder

On a sunny summer afternoon by the lake, Cora Bender stabs a complete stranger to death. Why? What would cause this quiet, kind young mother to commit such a startling act of violence in front of her family and friends?

Cora quickly confesses, and it seems like an open-and-shut case.

But the police commissioner, haunted by these unaswered questions, refuses to close the file and begins his own maverick investigation. So begins the slow unraveling of Cora’s past, a harrowing descent into the depths of her own psyche and the violent secrets buried within.

A dark, spellbinding novel where the truth is to be questioned at every turn, The Sinner is now a smash summer hit, with the TV series hailed as one of the best new shows of summer. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 10, 1951
• Where—Titz, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Crime Prize of Wiesbaden; Rhineland Literary Prize
• Currently—lives near Cologne, Germany


Hailed as Germany’s Patricia Highsmith, Petra Hammesfahr has written more than 20 crime and suspense novels, and also writes scripts for film and television. She has won numerous literary prizes, including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and the Rhineland Literary Prize.

Hammesfahr's early life was not an easy one. She left school at 13, was married and pregnant by 17. Her husband was an alcoholic. But those experiences she later drew upon for her fiction, a frequent theme of which is the junction of childhood innocence and adult calamity.

Hammesfahr's breakthrough novel, The Sinner, was first published in Germany in 1999, where it remained on the bestseller list for more than 15 months. It was published in England in 2007 and in the U.S. in 2010, becoming both a critical and commercial success. In 2017, the novel was adapted for a TV miniseries, starring Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman. (Adapted from the publisher and Bitter Lemon Press.)

Book Reviews
Hauntingly insightful and sensitive.
Guardian

Delightfully unsettling.
Telegraph

The best psychological suspense novel I have read all year.… [A] brilliant study of a woman driven to the edge of madness.
Sunday Telegraph

This novel by one of Germany's most successful crime writers is wonderfully written, gripping, full of psychological insight.
Literary Review

Petra Hammesfahr's The Sinner demonstrates why she is one of Germany's bestselling writers of crime and psychological thrillers. It's grim, delves deep into the human psyche, and keeps you gripped.
Times (UK)

[A] complex, disturbing, and fast-paced psychological thriller.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Sipping From the Nile: My Exodus from Egypt
Jean Naggar, 2011
Amazon Encore
380 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781612181417


Summary
A memoir of the vanished worlds of an unusual childhood.

Born into a prominent, sophisticated Jewish family who spent time in Europe and lived in the Middle East, author Jean Naggar tells in this coming-of-age memoir the story of her protected youth in an exotic, multicultural milieu. To Naggar, her childhood seemed a magical time that would never come to an end.

But in 1956, Egyptian President Nasser’s nationalizing of the Suez Canal set into motion events that would change her life forever. An enchanted way of life suddenly ends from multinational hostilities, and her closeknit, extended family is soon scattered far and wide. Naggar’s own family moves to London where she finishes her schooling and is swept into adulthood and the challenge of new horizons in America.

Speaking for a different wave of immigrants whose Sephardic origins highlight the American Jewish story through an unfamiliar lens, Naggar traces her personal journey through lost worlds and difficult transitions, exotic locales, and strong family values. The story resonates for all in this poignant exploration of the innocence of childhood in a world breaking apart. (From the author.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 5, 1937
• Where—Alexandria, Egypt
• Raised—Cairo, Egypt; Brighton, England, UK
• Education—B.A., London University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York, USA


Jean Naggar was born Jean Mosseri in Alexandria, Egypt on December 5th, 1937. She grew up in Cairo and attended the Gezira Preparatory School and the English School in Heliopolis before going to boarding school at Roedean School, Brighton, England.

She and her family left Egypt in 1957 following the international Suez crisis. She attended Westfield College at London University and was awarded a BA Hons. degree from London University in 1960.

In 1962 she married Serge Naggar and moved to New York City where, in 1978, she founded the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc., (JVNLA).

Jean and Serge are the parents of three grown children and grandmother of seven.

Her son, Alan Naggar, is an actor, director and theatrical producer in California.

Her son, David Naggar, works at Amazon.com in charge of digital Kindle content. He moved there after 16 years in various executive positions at Random House followed by a year as President of iAmplify, an internet start-up focused on digital content and distribution.

Her daughter, Jennifer Naggar Weltz, is her partner in the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. Jennifer runs the financial and administrative side of the business while also operating as agent of her own list and as rights director for the agency. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
An intriguing way of life that no longer exists. Glamorous, exciting, filled with the sophisticated life of a Jewish family living in Europe and the Middle East, Naggar documents times of elegant lifestyles, to the tumultuous struggles of war. The book is beautifully written, with vivid descriptions of homes, meals, glamorous clothing and social events while living in Egypt, later on in England, and finally in New York City. The history of this extended family is a most interesting look at a loving, religious, educated culture. And like every family, there is passionate love and loss, but always there is the undercurrent of delight and an indomitable will to do more than just survive.
US Review of Books

Discussion Questions
1. In the beginning of the book, Jean sees a black snake in the garden. What does the snake symbolize? How does the discovery of the snake affect the tone of the story?

2. Early on, Jean talks about her Auntie Helen and her ties to Israel and the Zionist movement. Though they lived in the same house, Jean was never aware of her aunt's Israeli connections until later. What does this reveal about Jean's childhood and her understanding of the larger forces around her?

3. Jean appears to be somewhat conflicted about marriage, as there are many instances in her family history of women who have been robbed of an education, and even a childhood, by marriage. Yet, as a teenage girl, she longs to get married and is distraught when she is told that she cannot marry her first love. How have the marriages of the women before her shaped Jean's understanding of the institution of marriage?

4. The narrator describes the celebration of Passover dinner in rich and abundant detail. Discuss the irony of celebrating the exodus of the Jews of Pharaoh’s Egypt for this particular family, whose lives are torn apart by their own exodus during the Suez Crisis. How does this represent the unease between Egypt and its Jewish population?

5. The theme of isolation comes up several times throughout the narrative. Jean and her siblings are isolated from the adult world in their nursery, and the family compound, complete with its own synagogue isolates them from the rest of Cairo. How is this isolation a metaphor for the Jews’ relationship with Egypt and the larger Arab world?

6. Though Jean considers Egypt to be her home, her parents send her to school in Britain and she grows up speaking English, French and Italian. In light of Egypt's colonial past, how does her education affect her ties to her homeland? How do her schooling and her upbringing shape her later in life?

7. Several people in the memoir barely escape death: Jean's great-great grandfather Ezekiel leaves an inn in the middle of the night after hearing a voice in a dream and escapes a massacre; Bert, the driver, avoids a bombing when he brings cough medicine to Jean’s Uncle Ellis, and Jean herself changes flights, thus avoiding being on a plane that crashes. Do you think this recurring theme of near-death suggests that the author believes she cheated death by getting out of Egypt?

8. How does personal spirituality, as opposed to religion, mold the lives of the  Mosseri clan from both an ethnic and traditional standpoint? What other cultural influences play into the author’s and her family’s belief in fate, the power of prayer and their various superstitions?

9. Jean describes her overprotective family as keeping her “in stasis, waiting for life to happen, sensing powerful darknesses around me but never touching them.” Referring to the Suez Crisis that forced their exodus, she says “The moment when my parents' world shattered was also the moment that set me free.“ How was she set free by leaving Egypt?

10. After Jean's family leaves Egypt, she moves to the UK and eventually to New York, where she goes on to have a successful career as a literary agent. How might her life have been different had she stayed in Egypt?

11. At the end of the book, Jean is talking to her grandchildren about making kaak, a traditional Arabic dish. How does food function in the book as a way to tie the present generations to the past?

12. What does the family's relationship with their Egyptian Muslim driver, Osta Hussein, whom Jean describes as 'above suspicion' even at the height of the Suez Crisis, represent? What does it reveal about personal loyalty versus loyalty to one's country or religion?

13. By the time she is writing this story, the author has close ties to Europe, the Arab world and the United States. Discuss the ways in which she is influenced by all of these regions. In what ways is she a product of all three?

14. After the Suez crisis, tens of thousands of Egyptian Jews were forced to leave Egypt along with citizens of French and British descent. While the French and British citizens had countries to return to, the Jews, including Jean's family, were scattered across the globe. Discuss the implications of this difference, in particular with regard to Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

15. When Jean's mother marries her father, she goes to live in the family's compound with her husband's mother and sister instead of establishing a home of her own for her family. How is this a metaphor for the family's sense of displacement and greater search for a home?

16. In the book, Jean returns to Egypt one final time in 1990. So much has changed that she finds her homeland nearly unrecognizable. What do you think the author would make of the seismic changes in Egypt in 2011? Would she think it represented a true break from Egypt's troubled past or more of the same?

17. In this age of email, there will be no handwritten letters lost in an attic to show future generations how we lived and who we really were. How does the personal exploration involved in writing a memoir affect the writer? Future generations? Is this just a matter of personal closure or an attempt to preserve the histories of individuals to add depth to the political overlay that dominates every “history”?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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Siracusa
Delia Ephron, 2016
Penguin Publishing
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399165214


Summary
An electrifying novel about marriage and deceit that follows two couples on vacation in Siracusa, a town on the coast of Sicily, where the secrets they have hidden from one another are exposed and relationships are unraveled.

New Yorkers Michael, a famous writer, and Lizzie, a journalist, travel to Italy with their friends from Maine—Finn; his wife, Taylor; and their daughter, Snow.

“From the beginning,” says Taylor, “it was a conspiracy for Lizzie and Finn to be together.” Told Rashomon-style in alternating points of view, the characters expose and stumble upon lies and infidelities past and present.

Snow, ten years old and precociously drawn into a far more adult drama, becomes the catalyst for catastrophe as the novel explores collusion and betrayal in marriage.

With her inimitable psychological astute­ness and uncanny understanding of the human heart, Ephron delivers a powerful meditation on marriage, friendship, and the meaning of travel.

Set on the sun-drenched coast of the Ionian Sea, Siracusa unfolds with the pacing of a psychological thriller and delivers an unexpected final act that none will see coming. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Born—July 12, 1944
• Raised—Beverly Hills, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York

Although born in New York City, Delia Ephron was raised in famed Beverly Hills, California, by her screen-writing parents. She was the second of four daughters, the oldest of whom was Nora Ephron (1941-2012).

Ephron attended Barnard College (now part of Columbia University) and after graduation stayed in New York, where she met David Brock at a 1969 Martin Luther King rally in Central Park. The two married and, when Brock was offered a teaching position at Brown University, moved to Providence, Rhode Island. In 1971, using her married name, she co-authored two craft books with Lorraine Rodgers: The Adventurous Crocheter and Glad Rags.

In 1975, the couple split up, with Ephron returning to New York and to her maiden name in order to pursue writing. A humorous 500-word article for The New York Times Magazine, "How to Eat Like a Child," was expanded into a book in 1978. It became a bestseller, and Ephron became a contributing editor for New York magazine—her writing career was launched.

Ephron met Jerome Kasner, a screenwriter and playwright, who taught her how write a screenplay. They fell in love, and Ephron moved with him back to Los Angeles, where she remained for many years—writing books (for kids and adults) and screenplays and producing films—until eventually returning to New York.

And her relationship with her more famous sister, Nora? "Very close," according to Delia. In 1978 She told Judy Klemesrud of The New York Times that Nora was her best friend:

Nora encouraged me. She's always been wonderful. She has looked at my work, and I've looked at hers, too. She's one of the best editors in New York. She'll look at a piece and say just one thing, and the whole piece is better.

The two worked together on many projects. After losing Nora to cancer in 2012, she wrote her 2013 memoir, Sister Mother Husband Dog (Etc.). In an interview, Ephron told Publishers Weekly that she never expected to have to go through life without her sister. "Grief stops you in your tracks, it makes you feel you should move on, but you can’t."  Ephron eventually did move on, of course, and in 2016 published Siracusa, a suspense novel about two families traveling together in Europe.

Book Reviews
An irresistible novel for fans of psychological thrillers, or those considering vacationing with former lovers and spouses (often one and the same).
Oprah Magazine


[A] suspenseful, thoroughly delicious tale. You can almost taste the gelato.
People


(Starred review.) A seductive and edgy dissection of two imploding marriages—and an unhinged mother-daughter alliance.... Each of these toxic relationships puts the characters on course to careen headlong into a dark place of deceit and rage in Ephron’s brilliant takedown of marital and familial pretense.
Publishers Weekly


This could be a quick beach read for those interested in romantic suspense or travel writing, as long as they don't mind the cast of unlikable characters. —Kate Gray, Boston P.L., MA
Library Journal


A master of precise and keen character development, a virtuoso of pacing and surprise, a wizard at skewering convention and expectation, Ephron offers a bewitching take on relationships—marital, parental, casual, and serious—in this read-in-one-sitting, escapist escapade with a message.
Booklist


Siracusa starts innocuously enough, as an ironic travelogue about American sophisticates abroad....with each narrator recounting and interpreting the same encounters from vastly differing perspectives….As the clues pile up, the coming storm is expertly foreshadowed—but when it arrives, it’s utterly surprising.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Siracusa...then take off on your own:

1. Lizzie comments at the beginning of Siracusa: "Husbands and wives collaborate, hiding even from themselves who is calling the shots and who is along for the ride." What exactly does she mean, and how does that observation portend events to come in the novel? Would you say that statement holds true for many marriages, if not most?

2. This book is about two imploding marriages. Talk about each marriage and what is at the root of those implosions. What are the ways in which the two couples differ from one another? Where are the fault lines, not just within the relationships, but also within each of the four personalities?

3. Michael, a novelist, says: "As for lying, in this story, which is also my  life, I will make a case for the charm of it." What does he mean? Is he distorting his own life for literary purposes?

4. What role does Snow play in all of this? How would you describe her?

5. Talk about how the characters are prone to both deception and self-deception. Do you find one character more sympathetic than the others? Lizzie, perhaps?

6. Describe the mother-daughter relationship between Taylor and Snow. Healthy? Unhealthy?

7. Of the various perspectives in this book, whose narration did you trust the most? Did that change over the course of the novel?

8. What do you make of Kath and her sudden appearance?

9. As a novel of psychological suspense, Ephron expertly piles up the clues. Were you able to sort them out by the end? Were you caught off guard?

10. Ultimately, what portrait does Ephron paint of marriage? Is her assessment overly dark, even cynical? Lizzie says, "Marriage can't protect you from heartbreak of the random cruelties and unfairnesses that life deals out." Is she right...or not?

11. Lizzie also tells us that "good comes of bad and all the absurdities play out in your favor." Does the story's plot seem to bear her out? Does real life?

12. Inevitable comparisons have been made between Siracusa and Ford Maddox Ford's masterpiece, The Good Soldier (1915). If you've read Ford's book, in what way do the two books resemble one another? If you haven't read The Good Soldier, you might consider reading it next and comparing the two.

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Sister
Rosamund Lupton, 2010
Crown Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307716521


Summary
When her mom calls to tell her that Tess, her younger sister, is missing, Bee returns home to London on the first flight. She expects to find Tess and give her the usual lecture, the bossy big sister scolding her flighty baby sister for taking off without letting anyone know her plans.

Tess has always been a free spirit, an artist who takes risks, while conservative Bee couldn’t be more different. Bee is used to watching out for her wayward sibling and is fiercely protective of Tess (and has always been a little stern about her antics). But then Tess is found dead, apparently by her own hand.

Bee is certain that Tess didn’t commit suicide. Their family and the police accept the sad reality, but Bee feels sure that Tess has been murdered.  Single-minded in her search for a killer, Bee moves into Tess's apartment and throws herself headlong into her sister's life--and all its secrets.

Though her family and the police see a grieving sister in denial, unwilling to accept the facts, Bee uncovers the affair Tess was having with a married man and the pregnancy that resulted, and her difficultly with a stalker who may have crossed the line when Tess refused his advances.

Tess was also participating in an experimental medical trial that might have gone very wrong.  As a determined Bee gives her statement to the lead investigator, her story reveals a predator who got away with murder—and an obsession that may cost Bee her own life.

A thrilling story of fierce love between siblings, Sister is a suspenseful and accomplished debut with a stunning twist. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Rasied—Little Chesterford in Essex, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University
• Awards—New Writers' Award (Carton Television)
• Currently—lives in London, England


Rosamund Lupton is a British author of three novels—Sister (2010), Afterwards (2012), and The Quality of Silence (2016). She studied literature at Cambridge University and lives in London with her husband and two children.

In her first novel, Sister, she tells the story of Beatrice, living in New York, in search for Tess, her missing sister, who lives in London. Sister was a great commercial success, selling well over a million copies worldwide. It has been translated in 30 languages, and it was a best-seller on the New York Times and London's Sunday Times lists.

Her second novel Afterwards was awarded "best mystery books of 2012" by the Seattle Times, and "best book of 2012" by Amazon USA.

Her third novel, The Quality of Silence, follows an astrophysicist and her deaf daughter through the Alaskan wilderness in search of their husband/father. It was optioned by FilmNation in March 2016.

Before turning to novels, Lupton was a script-writer for television and film, writing original screenplays. She won Carlton Television's new writers' competition. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/24/2016.)

Book Reviews
A taut, hold-your-breath-and-your-handkerchief thriller.... Like Kate Atkinson, Patricia Highsmith and Ruth Rendell, Lupton builds suspense not only around the causes and details of her story's brutal denouement, but also around the personalities and motivations of those who lunge and those who duck.... Both tear-jerking and spine-tingling, Sister provides an adrenaline rush that could cause a chill on the sunniest afternoon.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times


A fast-paced, absurdly entertaining novel.... Along with a juicy mystery, it resounds with an authentic sense of sisterly love and loyalty.
Boston Globe

[An] unusual and searing debut... At the harrowing conclusion, Bee's aching heart accepts that "grief is love turned into an eternal missing."
Publishers Weekly

Beautifully written with an unexpected twist at the end, this debut literary thriller was a best seller in Britain and a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick. Thriller fans will eagerly await Lupton's next book. —Marianne Fitzgerald, Annapolis, MD
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Lupton’s remarkable debut novel is a masterful, superlative-inspiring success that will hook readers (and keep them guessing) from page one.... A chilling, gripping, tragic, heart-warming, life-affirming enigma of a story.
Booklist


Hitchcockian spookiness in this tale of two sisters—one living, one dead—in London.... Lupton's decision to make Bee the narrator—and to have her write to her dead sister—enhance the book's eeriness. A skillfully wrought psychological thriller.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What were your initial theories about how Tess died? How would you have pursued the case if you had been one of the DIs?

2. How does Bee and Tess’s relationship compare to the way you and your siblings interact? What causes the most disagreement between you? What brings you together, no matter what?

3. What did the sisters’ mother teach them about motherhood and being a fulfilled woman? What did she teach them about love?

4. How did their father’s absence affect the way Bee and Tess felt about men?

5. Both sisters are involved in creative fields, even debating typefaces in their emails. What does Tess express in her paintings? Is there any room for self-expression in Bee’s commercial design work?

6. Do you think Bee discovers anything new about her sister in a deep way-  for example when she meets her landlord Amias and friends Kasia and Simon? How much of what Beatrice discovers is about herself?

7. What does the novel say about resilience, both physical and emotional, and where it comes from?

8. How does the memory of Leo affect the Hemming family?

9. Though Bee acknowledges that she and her sister are not devout Catholics, how does their Catholicism affect their view of the world (in an Anglican nation, no less)?

10. Why was Tess drawn to Emilio, and Kasia to Mitch? Would you have been more attracted to Todd or to William?

11. Discuss the novel’s structure. How did it affect you as the narrator referred to Tess as “you”? What was your understanding of Mr. Wright and his role?

12. Dr. Nichols, Professor Rosen, and William all inhabit the world of diagnosis and treatment. How do their three different roles (and mindsets) reflect the realities of modern medicine? 

13. Though Chrom-Med is a fictional company, what real-life questions about gene therapy are raised by the novel? What is the ethical way to apply humanity’s knowledge of the human genome?

14. Discuss the novel’s stunning closing scenes. What do you predict for the aftermath?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Sister Mine
Tawni O'Dell, 2007
Crown Publishing
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307351678

Summary
Shae-Lynn Penrose drives a cab in a town where no one needs a cab—but plenty of people need rides. A former police officer with a closet full of miniskirts, a recklessly sharp tongue, and a tendency to deal with men by either beating them up or taking them to bed, she has spent years carving out a life for herself and her son in Jolly Mount, Pennsylvania, the tiny coal-mining town where she grew up.

Two years ago, five of Shae-Lynn’s miner friends were catapulted to media stardom when they were rescued after surviving four days trapped in a mine. As the men struggle to come to terms with the nightmarish memories of their ordeal, along with the fallout of their short-lived celebrity, Shae-Lynn finds herself facing harsh realities and reliving bad dreams of her own, including her relationship with her brutal father, her conflicted passion for one of the miners, and the hidden identity of the man who fathered her son.

When the younger sister she thought was dead arrives on her doorstep, followed closely by a gun-wielding Russian gangster, a shady New York lawyer, and a desperate Connecticut housewife, Shae-Lynn is forced to grapple with the horrible truth she discovers about the life her sister’s been living, and with one ominous question: Will her return result in a monstrous act of greed or one of sacrifice?

Tawni O’Dell’s trademark blend of black humor, tenderness, and a keen sense of place is evident once again as Shae-Lynn takes on past demons and all-too-present. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A. Northwest University
• Currently—lives in Pennsylvania


Tawni O'Dell is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Fragile Beasts, Sister Mine, Coal Run, and Back Roads, which was an Oprah's Book Club pick and a Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection. She is also a contributor to several anthologies including Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female. Her work has been translated into 8 languages and been published in 20 countries. (From Wikipedia.)

Born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania, O'Dell graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She lived for many years in the Chicago area before moving back to Pennsylvania, where she now lives with her two children and her husband, literary translator Bernard Cohen (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Tawni O’Dell’s energy bursts off the page. Sister Mine is one of those novels that insist on being read, front to back, as fast as possible.
Boston Globe

Bitterly poignant in places, it’s also a rollicking good read — and Shae-Lynn’s richly drawn character resonates long after her final wisecrack.
People

Sister Mine delivers a luxurious read, a novel worthy of the literary equivalent of a Grammy or an Oscar. This is a novel for people who devour good writing and craft-intensive storytelling, who savor the haven, both safe and fraught with danger, of a world in which fiction becomes the kind of truth that sets you free. Or, at the very least, makes you laugh and think and wish you’d discovered Tawni O’Dell before now
Portland Oregonian

The strength of O’Dell’s narrative is that she lets her characters tell the story. There is much to recommend. Shae-Lynn’s voice is entrancing in its honesty, and O’Dell’s ability to continue to freshly capture her mining communities is impressive… a worthy read.
Denver Post

Sister Mine is packed with flawed characters formed by violence and neglect who quickly become embedded in the reader’s heart. O’Dell sketches her characters with telling details and cop-shop crackling dialogue..Amid chick lit and knit lit and Brit lit, Sister Mine rates as true-grit lit.
USA Today

O'Dell, whose debut, Back Roads(2000), was an Oprah pick, returns with a terrific third novel set in a Pennsylvania coal country of broken families, altercations and smalltown coping. Policewoman-turned-cabbie Shae-Lynn Penrose, a little over 40 and back in Jolly Mount after a rent-a-cop stint in Washington, D.C., raised son Clay (24 and the town deputy) on her own. For the past 18 years, she has believed that her sister, Shannon, was killed by their abusive father while Shae-Lynn was at college. (Their mother died of complications after giving birth to Shannon; their father was killed much later in a mine explosion.) When a New York lawyer turns up asking for Shannon Penrose, whom he seems to have seen recently, Shae-Lynn is shocked; when Shannon herself suddenly turns up, very pregnant, Shae-Lynn's reaction is primal and tactile. As O'Dell slowly unspools Shannon's very-much-of-her-own-doing predicament, O'Dell demonstrates her mastery of set-piece dialogue, reeling off stingingly acute encounters that are as funny as they can be crushingly sad. Ne'er-do-well Choker Simms (and his two kids, Fanci and Kenny), lawyer Gerald Kozlowski, mine owner Cam Jack, Shae-Lynn's nonboyfriend E.J., Shannon's sort-of-boyfriend Dmitri and others are all wonderfully drawn through Shae-Lynn's keen observations. Family saga O'Dell-style crackles with conflict and a deep understanding of the complications and burdens that follow attachment, sex, love and kinship.
Publishers Weekly

Be prepared for an emotional roller-coaster ride with this latest from O'Dell (Coal Run). The author's focus is Jolly Mount, a small Pennsylvania coal-mining town, but abuse and baby-selling figure into the mix. Years ago, adult siblings Shae-Lynn and Shannon escaped their abusive widowed father: single mother Shae-Lynn took a detour, with young son in tow, and did a six-year stint as a Washington, DC, police officer; younger sister Shannon, however, vanished one day and never resurfaced. Feisty Shae-Lynn, now a cab driver back in Jolly Mount, has long theorized about Shannon's whereabouts. So when a variety of shady sorts begins popping up in Jolly Mount searching for Shannon, Shae-Lynn's suspicions are naturally aroused. O'Dell successfully combines the story of negligent coal-mine owners and unfortunate, disabled, or dead miners with Shae-Lynn's own troubled past in this intense, racy, raucous, and often hilarious novel. Although she occasionally includes some jarring topics that veer toward the sentimental, she also packs this gripping tale with loads of action, intrigue, and suspense. Strongly recommended for all public library collections.
Andrea Tarr - Library Journal

From Oprah Book Club alum O'Dell (Back Roads, 2000, etc.), the far-fetched tale of a cab driver whose long-lost sister turns out to be a surrogate-mother-for-hire. Narrator Shae-Lynn Penrose, the author's first female protagonist, is a ballsy, sassy delight, but the story she tells verges on ridiculous. Shae-Lynn's sister Shannon turns up after 18 years, pregnant with her tenth baby and planning, as usual, to sell it to a wealthy couple. Shannon has run out on the sleazy New York lawyer who sets up the adoptions because she's made her own deal with a Connecticut woman and doesn't want to share the money. Both of these caricatures come looking for her in Centresburg, the Penroses' hard-pressed hometown in Pennsylvania coal country; so does an equally cartoonish Russian gangster, the buddy of another guy Shannon double-crossed. How did Shae-Lynn's sister get to be so callous? The answer lies in the girls' miserable childhood with a widowed father so brutal that when Shannon disappeared, her sister assumed he'd killed her. Shae-Lynn has blunt, bracing things to say about the complicity of their blue-collar community, which disapproved of Dad beating his daughters but did nothing to stop him; she saw lots of domestic abuse swept under the rug during her years as a police officer in Centresburg. Dad wasn't the only brutal coalminer, and even good men like Shae-Lynn's beloved friend E.J., who survived a cave-in two years ago, bear the physical and psychic wounds inflicted by their back-breaking profession. O'Dell's unsentimental, loving depiction of working-class life is as moving as ever. Also familiar, unfortunately, is her weakness for lurid plotting, which here includes the heavily foreshadowed exposure of the man who fathered Shae-Lynn's illegitimate baby and the mustache-twirling cynicism with which he reveals his base nature to their horrified adult son. Many wonderful scenes bear witness for people too often left voiceless in American literature, but coming on the heels of the majestic, passionate Coal Run (2004), this undisciplined novel is a disappointment.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Tawni O’Dell has populated Jolly Mount with some wonderful, fully-fleshed characters: swearing, miniskirt-wearing Shae-Lynn; rugged and quiet E.J.; whisky-drinking, one-legged Jimmy; delightfully precocious Fanci and her little brother Kenny, just to name a few. Who was your favorite character, and why?

2. What was your first impression of E.J.? Did your opinion of him change over the course of the book? If so, how and why?

3. Shae-Lynn treasures a series of National Geographic books that were given to her by Jimmy and Isabel. There seem to be particular photographs that she revisits time and again. What is the books’ significance to her?

4. The Penrose house was not a happy place in which to grow up. And while their neighbors were good to the girls, no one ever stepped in and confronted their father on their behalf. “Ostracism is the only way people around here deal with unsavory family situations, and if it doesn’t cause the families to change, everyone washes their hands of them.” (p. 174)  Does this seem to be an accurate portrayal of how things are handled in Jolly Mount?  Is Shae-Lynn’s involvement with Fanci and Kenny a conscious protest of the status quo, or simply the only thing Shae-Lynn knows to do?

5. Shae-Lynn says “a mother’s love is not warm and cuddly like a soft blanket as it’s popularly portrayed. It’s a fierce, rabid love, like having a mad dog living inside you all the time.” (p.332) Do you agree with her assessment of motherly love?

6. Shae-Lynn believes that “a man spends his whole life trying to prove his worth to others. A woman spends her life trying to prove her worth to herself.” (p. 220) Discuss the implications of this statement, especially as they apply to both Shae-Lynn and Shannon. Do you agree with Shae-Lynn?

7. E.J. says that the only thing Shae-Lynn is good at is fighting. (p.92) Much of what we see her do seems to prove him right. So how did Shae-Lynn manage to raise such a level-headed, responsible son?

8. Was Shae-Lynn right to keep Clay’s father’s identity a secret all those years?

9. Did Shannon come back to Jolly Mount with the intention of leaving her baby with Shae-Lynn?

10. Do you think Shannon would have been a different person had her mother been alive to raise her? Do you think all her problems stem from growing up without a mother? Why or why not?

11. Through the course of the novel, Shae-Lynn begins to have trouble getting access to the safe room she imagines for herself. At one point, she becomes startled by the appearance of a face at the window of her safe room. After she surrenders to her physical desire for E.J., she says “for the first time I see what the purpose of my furnished soul has become, no longer to shelter me from monsters but to help me cope with the emptiness of a ransacked heart.... I know now it was [E.J.’s] face at my window, not trying to get in but telling me it’s time to come out.” (pp. 320-321) Discuss this revelation and its impact on Shae-Lynn and her relationship with E.J.

12. After sleeping with E.J. for the first time, Shae-Lynn has a disturbing dream, described on page 327. What do you think it means?

13. What do you think of the mining company’s tradition of giving the mines women’s names? How does it change your view of the mines themselves, and the men who work them?

14. The Jolly Mount Five decide to drop their lawsuit against Cam Jack so that the mines will remain open and continue to provide employment for the men of their town. Do you agree with their decision? Do you think there might have been another option that could have saved the mines and also taken a stand against Cam Jack? Which do you believe was more important: keeping the mines open, or holding Cam Jack accountable for their poor maintenance?

15. It’s six months after the novel ends...where do you see the characters? Are E.J. and Shae-Lynn together? Has Shannon been heard from again? Is Cam Jack alive? Is life the same in Jolly Mount?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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Sister of My Heart
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, 2000
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385489515

Summary
From the award-winning author of Mistress of Spices, the bestselling novel about the extraordinary bond between two women, and the family secrets and romantic jealousies that threaten to tear them apart.

Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family of distinction. Her cousin Sudha is the daughter of the black sheep of that same family. Sudha is startlingly beautiful; Anju is not. Despite those differences, since the day on which the two girls were born, the same day their fathers died—mysteriously and violently—Sudha and Anju have been sisters of the heart. Bonded in ways even their mothers cannot comprehend, the two girls grow into womanhood as if their fates as well as their hearts were merged.

But, when Sudha learns a dark family secret, that connection is shattered. For the first time in their lives, the girls know what it is to feel suspicion and distrust. Urged into arranged marriages, Sudha and Anju's lives take opposite turns. Sudha becomes the dutiful daughter-in-law of a rigid small-town household. Anju goes to America with her new husband and learns to live her own life of secrets. When tragedy strikes each of them, however, they discover that despite distance and marriage, they have only each other to turn to.

Set in the two worlds of San Francisco and India, this exceptionally moving novel tells a story at once familiar and exotic, seducing readers from the first page with the lush prose we have come to expect from Divakaruni. Sister of my Heart is a novel destined to become as widely beloved as it is acclaimed. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 29, 1956
• Where—Kolkata, India
• Education—B.A., Kolkata University; Ph.D., University of
   California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas and San Jose, Calif.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of Desire, and of the prizewinning story collections Arranged Marriage and The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. Her writings have appeared in more than 50 magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.

Divakaruni was born in India and came to the United States at 19. She put herself through Berkeley doing odd jobs, from working at an Indian boutique to slicing bread in a bakery. She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches creative writing at the University of Houston. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Extras
Excerpts from a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:

• During graduate school, I used to work in the kitchen of the International House at the University of California, Berkeley. My favorite task was slicing Jell-O.

• I love Chinese food, but my family hates it. So when I'm on book tour I always eat Chinese!

• I almost died on a pilgrimage trip to the Himalayas some years back—but I got a good story out of it. The story is in The Unknown Errors of Our Lives—let's see if readers can figure out which one it is!

• Writing is so central to my life that it leaves little time/desire/need for other interests. I do a good amount of work with domestic violence organizations—I'm on the advisory board of Asians Against Domestic Violence in Houston. I feel very strongly about trying to eradicate domestic violence from our society.

• My favorite ways to unwind are to do yoga, read, and spend time with my family.

• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her answer:

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. I read this when I was in grad school, and it really made me examine my own role as a woman of color living in the U.S. It made me want to start writing about my own experiences. It made me think that perhaps I, too, had something worthwhile to write about. ("Extras" from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Banerjee's poetically embroidered storytelling powers are in evidence.... [A] bittersweet fairy tale.
Anderson Tepper - New York Times

Ms. Divakaruni emphasizes the cathartic force of storytelling with sumptuous prose...she defies categorization, beautifully blending the chills of reality with rich imaginings.
Wall Street Journal

Her literary voice is a sensual bridge between worlds. India and America. Children and parents. Men and women. Passion and pragmatism.
USA Today

The power of stories and the strength of the women who tell them are lovingly rendered...a novel fragrant in rhythm and language.
San Francisco Chronicle

Like the old tales of India that are filled with emotional filigree and flowery prose, Divakaruni's (The Mistress of Spices) latest work is a masterful allegory of unfulfilled desire and sacrificial love. It is also an intricate modern drama in which generations and castes struggle over old and new mores. Anju and Sudha are cousins, born in the same household in Calcutta on the same day—which is also the day on which their mothers learn that both their husbands have been killed in a reckless quest for a cave full of rubies. Sudha grows up believing her father was a no-good schemer who brought ruin on his cousin, Anju's upper-class father. As they mature, Anju dreams of college, Sudha of children, but arranged marriages divide and thwart them. Anju adjusts to life in California with a man who lusts after Sudha; Sudha grapples with a mother-in-law who turns to the goddess Shasti to fill Sudha's barren womb rather than to a doctor for her sterile son. Ultimately, the tie between Anju and Sudha supersedes all other love, as each sustains painful loss to save the other. When Sudha learns the truth about her father and no longer needs to right his wrongs, she sees that all along her affection for Anju has not been dictated by necessity. An inspired and imaginative raconteur, Divakaruni is sure to engender comparisons with Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things), but Divakaruni's novel stands in its own right as a compelling read. If her prose sometimes veers toward the purple, her mesmerizing narrative sustains it well.
Publishers Weekly

Divakaruni's debut novel, The Mistress of Spices, was a word-of-mouth hit; its blend of magical realism and culinary sensuality also appealed to fans of Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate. This second novel is a bit more earth-bound. Born on the same day their fathers die in a mysterious accident, Sudha and Anju are more than just cousins; although Anju is the daughter of an upper-caste Calcutta family and Sudha the daughter of a black-sheep renegade, they are sisters of the heart, bound by a deep love. Narrated by Sudha and Anju in alternate chapters, this is the tale of their relationship over the years, a friendship that is almost destroyed by jealousy and family secrets. Although much of the plot is contrived (the final revelation is no big surprise) and the male characters are stock cliches, this is still an engaging read, filled with tender, moving moments.
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
1. What kind of relationship is there between the older generation in India, who live in a world full of mystical tales and magical occurrences, and Anju and Sudha's generation, which is more drawn to Western ideals? Why are both cousins, especially Anju, skeptical of their own culture and interested in the west, particularly America? How do they incorporate each world into their lives?

2. How are Sudha and Anju different, and how are they similar? Despite their differences, what continues to keep their relationship strong?

3. The mothers tell the girls that loving someone too much is dangerous. What are they trying to achieve with this warning?

4. What does the ruby symbolize? What is the significance of Anju and Sudha being so "unlucky" in the circumstances under which they were born? Why was it significant for Sudha to know the truth about her past and not be able to tell Anju?

5. There is often a great disparity between what is the proper thing to do and what is the fun, exciting thing to do. How does this theme play itself out in the novel?

6. Why does Anju's mother welcome Sudha and her mother into the family even though she knows the truth about Sudha's father? In contrast, why is Sudha's mother so harsh and seemingly ungrateful? Do she and her daughter belong in the house?

7. The mothers often tell stories and gossip. What role do these stories play in their livesand in the lives of Sudha and Anju?

8. According to Bidhata Purush's predictions, Anju is supposed to be brave and clever, fight injustice, marry a fine man and travel the world, while Sudha is supposed to have a life ofsorrow. Do the girls live up to these predictions? If not, how else would you characterize each?

9. How did having a man enter each of their lives affect the girls' friendship? Would the friendship have evolved differently had they not married? Are men portrayed positively or negatively in this book?

10. Why is there jealousy between the two cousins? Is it inevitable despite their mutual love? Do they ever successfully rise above it?

11. How does Anju change after she comes to America? Would she have been as independent and assertive if she had stayed in India?

12. Sudha defies traditional Indian culture by leaving her husband and raising her child on her own. How do her actions affect her deep connection to Indian culture? How does the author portray Sudha's decision?

13. The keeping of secrets and the telling of lies play a huge part in the novel. Why are so many secrets kept? Is it better to keep some secrets and to tell some lies or to always share the truth?

14. Discuss your reaction to finding out Singhji's identity. Was Sudha's response reasonable?

15. Should Sudha have gone with Ashok? Throughout the novel, does Sudha give up too much for Anju? Are sacrifices required of a true friend?

Consider these next four questions if you have read Divakaruni's other novels and short stories.  

16. What do the characters in lose and gain as they become more "American"?

17. In the story "Affair, " Abha says, "It's not wrong to be happy, is it? To want more out of life than fulfilling duties you took on before you knew what they truly meant?" How is this idea further developed in The Mistress of Spices? In Sister of my Heart?

18. In Divakaruni's stories, women are wives and mothers, but the men are portrayed primarily as husbands, not fathers. How are the men's roles in the novels similar to or different from those in the stories?

19. How does the Indian immigrant experience compare to that of other immigrants—Spanish, Italian, Chinese?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Sisterland
Curtis Sittenfeld, 2013
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812980332


Summary
Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of American Wife and Prep, returns with a mesmerizing novel of family and identity, loyalty and deception, and the delicate line between truth and belief.

From an early age, Kate and her identical twin sister, Violet, knew that they were unlike everyone else. Kate and Vi were born with peculiar “senses”—innate psychic abilities concerning future events and other people’s secrets. Though Vi embraced her visions, Kate did her best to hide them.

Now, years later, their different paths have led them both back to their hometown of St. Louis. Vi has pursued an eccentric career as a psychic medium, while Kate, a devoted wife and mother, has settled down in the suburbs to raise her two young children. But when a minor earthquake hits in the middle of the night, the normal life Kate has always wished for begins to shift.

After Vi goes on television to share a premonition that another, more devastating earthquake will soon hit the St. Louis area, Kate is mortified. Equally troubling, however, is her fear that Vi may be right. As the date of the predicted earthquake quickly approaches, Kate is forced to reconcile her fraught relationship with her sister and to face truths about herself she’s long tried to deny.

Funny, haunting, and thought-provoking, Sisterland is a beautifully written novel of the obligation we have toward others, and the responsibility we take for ourselves. With her deep empathy, keen wisdom, and unerring talent for finding the extraordinary moments in our everyday lives, Curtis Sittenfeld is one of the most exceptional voices in literary fiction today. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 23, 1975
• Where—Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in St. Louis, Missouri


Elizabeth Curtis Sittenfeld is an American writer, the author of several novels and a collection of short stories.

Sittenfeld was the second of four children (three girls and a boy) of Paul G. Sittenfeld, an investment adviser, and Elizabeth (Curtis) Sittenfeld, an art history teacher and librarian at Seven Hills School, a private school in Cincinnati.

She attended Seven Hills School through the eighth grade, then attended high school at Groton School, a boarding school in Groton, Massachusetts, graduating in 1993. In 1992, the summer before her senior year, she won Seventeen magazine's fiction contest.

She attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, before transferring to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. At Stanford, she studied Creative Writing, wrote articles for the college newspaper, and edited that paper's weekly arts magazine. At the time, she was also chosen as one of Glamour magazine's College Women of the Year. She earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Novels
• Prep
Her first novel Prep (2005) deals with coming of age, self-identity, and class distinctions in the preppy and competitive atmosphere of a private school.

• The Man of My Dreams
Sittenfeld's second novel, The Man of My Dreams (2006), follows a girl named Hannah from the end of her 8th grade year through her college years at Tufts and into her late twenties.

• American Wife
Sittenfeld's third novel, American Wife (2008), is the tale of Alice Blackwell, a fictional character who shares many similarities with former First Lady Laura Bush.

• Sisterland
Her fourth novel, Sisterland (2013), concerns a set of identical twins who have psychic powers, one of whom hides her strange gift while the other has become a professional psychic.

• Eligible
A 21st-century retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Eligible was released in 2016. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/12/2013.)

Book Reviews
Delicious insights into sisterhood and motherhood are peppered throughout Sittenfeld’s novel about identical twins with ESP. The story, though, isn’t as convincing as the twins, who are rendered so vividly that readers would be able to pick them out of a crowd.... Sittenfeld offers no fresh perspective on ESP or living with giftedness but delivers a rich and intimate tale of imperfect, well-meaning, ordinary people struggling to define themselves and protect the people they love.
Publishers Weekly


Her psychic sister's prediction of a major earthquake unsettles a St. Louis woman's life in the latest from best-selling Sittenfeld (American Wife, 2008, etc.). Although identical twins Violet and Daisy Shramm as girls both had "the senses," Daisy suppressed her abilities as part of her transformation into ordinary Kate Tucker.... She's mortified...when Vi publicly contradicts seismologist Courtney Wheeling, who says a small quake that rattles St. Louis in September 2009 is not necessarily a prelude to a bigger one.... A rich portrait of intricate relationships within and among families by one of commercial fiction's smartest, most perceptive practitioners.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What and where is Sisterland? If you have a sister, do you see any of your own relationship with her reflected in the relationship between Kate and Vi?

2. The novel opens with a description of the 1811 earthquake in New Madrid, although everything that follows is set in the near-present. Why do you think the novel begins in this way? How does the historical context change how we see Kate’s story?

3. Do you believe that people can have psychic powers? Have you ever experienced strong intuitions about events that happened later?

4. Do you understand why Kate tries to escape her powers? Would you prefer, like Kate, to be normal, or to be special, like Vi?

5. Kate transforms herself from Daisy Shramm to Kate Tucker. How do names define and shape us?

6. Near the end of the novel, Kate and Vi make an important discovery about their “senses” that upsets everything they thought they knew. Were you as surprised by this revelation as the twins? How do you think it might change their understanding of their childhood?

7. Do Kate and Jeremy have a good marriage?

8. Were you surprised by Kate’s choices at the end? How will her family’s life in the future be different from what it was in the past? Do you think it’s plausible that she can continue to conceal her secret indefinitely?

9. Twins are intriguing to many people. Do you think the interest they elicit is justified? Have you known twins in your own life? If you are a twin, did Sittenfeld’s portrayal of them strike you as realistic?

10. Have you read any of Curtis Sittenfeld’s other novels? If so, do you think this one is like or unlike her earlier work?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Sisters
Nancy Jensen, 2011
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312542702


Summary
Growing up in hardscrabble Kentucky in the 1920s, with their mother dead and their stepfather an ever-present threat, Bertie Fischer and her older sister Mabel have no one but each other—with perhaps a sweetheart for Bertie waiting in the wings. But on the day that Bertie receives her eighth-grade diploma, good intentions go terribly wrong. A choice made in desperate haste sets off a chain of misunderstandings that will divide the sisters and reverberate through three generations of women.

What happens when nothing turns out as you planned? From the Depression through World War II and Vietnam, and smaller events both tragic and joyful, Bertie and Mabel forge unexpected identities that are shaped by unspeakable secrets. As the sisters have daughters and granddaughters of their own, they discover that both love and betrayal are even more complicated than they seem.  

Gorgeously written, with extraordinary insight and emotional truth, Nancy Jensen’s powerful debut novel illuminates the far-reaching power of family and family secrets.

In the tradition of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, a dazzling debut novel about the family bonds that remain even when they seem irretrievably torn apart. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Nancy Jensen is a graduate of the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College. Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Northwest Review, Other Voices, Under the Sun, ACM: Another Chicago Magazine, and Louisville Review, as well as in the anthology I to I: Life-Writing by Kentucky Feminists.

Since 2007, her work has been honored with an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, and two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. She shares her home with ten rescued cats and her dog, Gordy, who is her partner on a pet-therapy team visiting hospitals, nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, and daycare centers. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews 
Like so many painful family stories, this one begins with a miscommunication.... Engrossing though all this is, Jensen’s strenuous manipulations, all done to keep the estranged sisters apart, can be maddening.... Nonetheless, Jensen’s portraits of these women are richly alive.... As the sisters continue to orbit away from each other, a new generation of remarkable women “raised up on secrets” takes center stage.... Here The Sisters tells a bigger story. The women change in accordance with the times, captured in vivid details.
Caroline Leavitt - New York Times


This first novel from Nancy Jensen is an extremely ambitious effort to recount American history during the 20th century...through the experiences and perceptions of women. It’s an interesting idea, but Jensen sketches her characters primarily by what they do, rather than what they think or feel. And these women, in general, don’t do very much.... Jensen can’t seem to get the car jump-started. These characters never come to life. The author writes in a foreward that her story is based on a mysterious 50-year estrangement between her grandma and a long-dead sister. But in this narrative, events seem not just mysterious but intractably implausible.
Carolyn See - Washington Post 


As the years pass, each [sister] nourishes a hidden sadness that reverberates through time as their daughters and granddaughters, "raised up on secrets," struggle with the deep-rooted consequences.... Jensen's likable story argues for openness and forgiveness between sisters, for their own sake and for the health of their families.
Anne Leslie - People


Fans of The Help will be beguiled by Jensen's debut novel. Set in rural Kentucky in the midst of the Depression, and inspired by Jensen's own family history, it centers on an incident that created a lifelong breach between two sisters, one that reverberates throughout three generations. It's a sweet but never saccharine tribute to the pull of family.
Whole Living


First-time novelist Jensen—tracing the lives of two sisters separated in their youth by a tragic misunderstanding—[has] an observant eye, adept characterization, and a keen grasp of social issues.
Publishers Weekly


All families have secrets, and those kept by the Fischer family are particularly shameful and life changing. In 1927, sisters Mabel and Bertie are separated for life when their stepfather commits suicide and Mabel runs off with Bertie's boyfriend.... Verdict: Set against the dramatic backdrop of American history from the Great Depression into the 21st century, this beautiful but disturbing debut novel, inspired partly by the author's own family history, will engage readers of well-written, thought-provoking women's fiction. —Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal


(A Best Book of 2011.) A single tragic event shapes four generations of American women in this accomplished and poignant debut.... Encompassing the lives of women in the 20th century, this sprawling saga is tender and satisfying, with a heartbreaking end.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. There are many secrets in The Sisters, beginning with Mabel’s decision not to tell Bertie about Jim Butcher. In trying to understand her sister’s behavior, fourteen-year-old Bertie wonders if “the things she didn’t know were what kept her safe.” What secrets do other characters keep, and how do you think the secrets ultimately help or hurt their loved ones?

2. How does the period in which each woman comes of age affect her experience and shape her outlook on what is possible?

3. How do the main characters perceive loyalty? Betrayal? What do you think of their perceptions?

4. How do Bertie’s girlhood losses affect her daughters’ and granddaughters’ relationships with men?

5. Bertie, Alma, and Lynn are accused by other characters of being hard and cold. How do you see them? To what extent do you think they change in the course of the novel?

6. At the end of her life, Bertie struggles to cry out to Rainey and Lynn, “Forgive. Forgive.” Why do you believe some characters are able to forgive and others not? Do you believe everything can or should be forgiven?

7. What does the novel suggest about whether families are born or made?

8. When Daisy expresses her concern that Mabel is setting herself up for emotional pain by photographing young men bound for Vietnam, Mabel tells Daisy, “You can’t protect yourself from loss.” Do you think this is true? What happens to the characters in the novel, and to people in your experience, when they try?

9. In her interview with Ed Bradley, Mabel says, “I don’t think any real war [is ever over]—large, small, between countries, between people. Even the wars inside ourselves. Something always remains.” Do you agree—in the novel and/or in real life?

10. The Sisters is structured as a series of chronological, interlocking narratives, sometimes with strikingly different perspectives of the same events. In what ways does this structure reflect the experience of an individual within a family?

11. Bertie tells Grace, “Something can happen to change your life so sudden, you can’t get over it fast enough…And that changes things for them too, all in a line.” Do you think that happens in most people’s lives at one time or another? If so, is the chain reaction inevitable, or can someone choose to break the chain?

12. How were you affected when Bertie wrote Deceased on the letter from Mabel, and Mabel later decided not to follow up on Nick’s possible lead about Bertie’s whereabouts? Can you imagine either of them acting differently? Did you find the conclusion satisfying?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Sisters & Husbands
Connie Briscoe, 2009
Grand Central Publishing
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446534895

Summary
Ten years have passed since Sisters and Lovers, and Beverly, now 39, is engaged to Julian, a man her family and friends agree is the epitome of a great catch: he's gorgeous, loyal, trustworthy, successful, and very much in love with her. Since this is Beverly's third engagement in the past five years, after breaking off the previous two at the last moment, everyone's happy that she's finally settling down.

For Beverly and Julian, nothing could be better than being in love and planning their wedding. That is until Beverly's oldest sister's marriage falls apart and dampens the mood of what should have been the happiest time in Beverly's life. Now, second-guessing her impending nuptials, Beverly is forced to wonder if marriage really works.

Will she stick it out? Or will her fears cloud her judgment once again? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 31, 1952
• Where—Washington, DC, USA
• Education—B.A. Hampton University; M.A., American
   University
• Currently—lives in Maryland, USA

Connie Briscoe has been a full-time published author for more than ten years. Born with a hearing impairment, Connie never allowed that to stop her from pursuing her dreams—writing. Since she left the world of editing to become a writer, Connie has hit the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. (From the publisher.)

More
Her own words:

When I wrote Sisters and Lovers, the prequel to Sisters and Husbands, I had recently entered my 40s. I was single after a divorce many years earlier, and most of my girlfriends were also single. I remember thinking how different life was for me and many of my girlfriends than it had been for my parents' generation. Back then, most women were married with children in college by age 40. Yet, women in my generation were less inclined to even marry before reaching their 30s. Many of us, whether single by choice or chance, had to learn to accept living much of our lives without a permanent mate. That's how Beverly was born. When Sisters and Lovers opens, she's 39, still single and struggling with her situation.

Flash forward. In Sisters and Husbands it's 10 years later and Beverly is engaged to be married. After a string of lovers, she's about to take a husband, or so it seems. By this time, though, Beverly has learned to accept life as a single woman and even to embrace it. She questions the necessity of marriage, especially since she's nearly past childbearing age. Plus, over the years she's seen the marriages of her sisters and girlfriends all fall apart, whether married 2 years or 20. Beverly's fiancé is the man of her dreams, but she's not convinced they need to marry. When Sisters and Husbands opens, she's got cold feet.

I went through a similar phase. I first got married in my twenties. It lasted less than a year. He wasn't the right man for me, and I got out. I couldn't understand how I could have been so mistaken about a man, and the experience soured me on marriage for years. But I've always liked the idea of marriage—companionship for life, a sex partner for life, raising children and growing old together. My parents had that. So 15 years later I decided to give marriage another try, and my husband and I are going on 10 years of marriage now.

With age, wisdom and experience maybe you can succeed where before you failed. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Sisters & Lovers [sold] 750,000 copies. [Now comes] the long-awaited sequel, Sisters & Husbands, with high hopes it will become a fixture in beach bags this summer. It's not all happily ever after for Briscoe's three fictional sisters, who live and love and bicker in the affluent, integrated suburbs of Washington, D.C., terrain the Washington native knows firsthand. There is Beverly, a journalist and serial runaway bride; unlucky-in-love Charmaine; and the seemingly perfect Evelyn, a married psychologist. In Husbands, the trio copes with cares and woes more commonly found on Wisteria Lane than in the housing projects of The Wire. Lawyer-husbands having midlife crises. Sassy spoiled stepdaughters. Ticking biological clocks. Sibling rivalry over $500 Prada handbags. The big theme in Sisters & Husbands is marriage, or "how do you keep it alive and fresh?"
USA Today

What I appreciated most about the book was the practicality of the issues at hand. Briscoe considers real-life situations, like blended families, mid-life crisis, and the pre-wedding jitters that many people experience prior to their first marriage. Nothing seems far-fetched or unrealistic. Nonetheless, I did find the characters to be kind of on the mawkish side. Sometimes their emotional reactions to situations made them seem silly, almost corny and difficult to believe. However, the page-turning drama and the situations in the novel make this an easy, fun read. I did find myself pondering the idea and the institution of marriage. Buried in the drama and the sex and the fighting and the emotions of this novel are several questions: Are all people capable of cheating? Is being in love enough? What makes a marriage last? Although Briscoe doesn't exactly provide the answers to these questions, she certainly provides an interesting springboard for discussion in Sisters and Husbands, which is sure to be a summertime hit.
Alysa Hyman - African American Literature Book Club (aalbc.com)

Discussion Questions
1. For those who have read Sisters & Lovers, how have Beverly, Charmaine, and Evelyn grown or changed over the past ten years?

2. Which of the three sisters has grown the most? Which has  grown the least?

3. Did Beverly make the right decision about whether or not to marry Julian? If so, why? If not, why not?

4. Do too many American women have unrealistic expectations of marriage? Do they expect marriage to be a perfect life, or like a fairy tale?

5. What are Beverly’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?

6. What are Charmaine’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?

7. What are Evelyn’s greatest strengths and weaknesses?

8. Which sister is your favorite and why?

9. Which sister is you least favorite and why?

10. Was Charmaine right to go to bat for her son Kenny, even at the risk of destroying her marriage?

11. Do you think that Beverly and Julian will last?

12. Do you think that Charmaine and Tyrone will last?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Sisters & Lovers
Connie Briscoe, 1994
Random House
409 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804113342

Summary
Beverly, Charmaine, and Evelyn are three sisters living in the same city, but in very different worlds. They have at least one thing in common though: in their own corners of Washington, D.C., they are reaching their personal breaking points. Beverly, twenty-nine, is successful, reluctantly single, and perennially disappointed. Evelyn, thirty-seven, is educated and ambitious, with a husband, two great kids, and a house in the suburbs; but the secure world she has built for herself is quite possibly about to crumble. And Charmaine, thirty-five, struggles to support her son as well as her useless husband, all the while wondering what either of her sisters has to complain about.

As this frank and funny novel unfolds, Beverly will find and lose more men than she'd like to admit, Charmaine will kick her husband out and let him back in more times than she'd like her sisters to know about, and Evelyn will try to keep it a secret that her husband isn't Mr. Perfect after all. But what these three women discover is that having a sister gives you one of the few things you can really rely on.

In Sisters & Lovers, debut novelist Connie Briscoe has drawn a vivid and dramatic portrait that will make readers laugh out loud and nod their heads in recognition. It is a novel that announces the welcome arrival of a truly fresh new voice? (From the publisher.)

Also, see the novel's sequel, Sisters and Husbands, which was published in 2009.

Author Bio
• Birth—December 31, 1952
• Where—Washington, DC, USA
• Education—B.A. Hampton University; M.A., American   University
• Currently—lives in Maryland, USA

Connie Briscoe has been a full-time published author for more than ten years. Born with a hearing impairment, Connie never allowed that to stop her from pursuing her dreams—writing. Since she left the world of editing to become a writer, Connie has hit the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. (From the publisher.)

More
Her own words:

When I wrote Sisters and Lovers, the prequel to Sisters and Husbands, I had recently entered my 40s. I was single after a divorce many years earlier, and most of my girlfriends were also single. I remember thinking how different life was for me and many of my girlfriends than it had been for my parents' generation. Back then, most women were married with children in college by age 40. Yet, women in my generation were less inclined to even marry before reaching their 30s. Many of us, whether single by choice or chance, had to learn to accept living much of our lives without a permanent mate. That's how Beverly was born. When Sisters and Lovers opens, she's 39, still single and struggling with her situation.

Flash forward. In Sisters and Husbands it's 10 years later and Beverly is engaged to be married. After a string of lovers, she's about to take a husband, or so it seems. By this time, though, Beverly has learned to accept life as a single woman and even to embrace it. She questions the necessity of marriage, especially since she's nearly past childbearing age. Plus, over the years she's seen the marriages of her sisters and girlfriends all fall apart, whether married 2 years or 20. Beverly's fiancé is the man of her dreams, but she's not convinced they need to marry. When Sisters and Husbands opens, she's got cold feet.

I went through a similar phase. I first got married in my twenties. It lasted less than a year. He wasn't the right man for me, and I got out. I couldn't understand how I could have been so mistaken about a man, and the experience soured me on marriage for years. But I've always liked the idea of marriage—companionship for life, a sex partner for life, raising children and growing old together. My parents had that. So 15 years later I decided to give marriage another try, and my husband and I are going on 10 years of marriage now.

With age, wisdom and experience maybe you can succeed where before you failed. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Although Briscoe lapses into soap opera at times, on the whole, she does a good job of dealing with her characters' sociocultural differences while telling a convincing, passionate contemporary tale. Briscoe knows her D.C. setting well, from her position as managing editor of "American Annals of the Deaf" at Gallaudet University.
Booklist

Set in and around Washington, D.C., Briscoe's earnest debut novel centers on three sisters attempting to balance their needs for love and their self-respect in a male-defined society. Beverly, Charmaine and Evelyn each represent stereotypical "successful" African American women, forced to compromise their desires in order to hold on to their male partners. Charmaine, 35, is a secretary, mother of one and pregnant; she struggles to cope financially and emotionally with her immature, underachieving husband as he weaves bold-faced lies about work, drugs and money. Evelyn, a 37-year-old psychologist and mother of two, resists her lawyer husband's desire to start his own firm, fearing that their standard of living will suffer. Magazine editor Beverly, perhaps the most interesting of the trio, is single, "picky" and reluctantly watching her biological clock tick its way to 30. Determined to move on after her boyfriend takes up with another woman, Beverly finds herself resorting to blind dates, considering artificial insemination and dating white men. Briscoe's writing lacks the energy and sass that Terry McMillan (Waiting to Exhale) brought to the same theme, and her passages of introspection can be awkward and heavy-handed. The audience for this book will find it enjoyable but not memorable.
Publishers Weekly

In this well-paced first novel by journalist Briscoe, three middle-class African American sisters living in the Washington, D.C., area face love, choices, and crises as they journey through life. Beverly, Charmaine, and Evelyn are quite different, yet the bonds of sisterly love remain strong. Briscoe's finely crafted novel is slightly reminiscent of Terri McMillan's Waiting To Exhale and will attract many of the same readers. It is at once humorous, poignant, realistic, and romantic and skillfully uses witty but realistic dialog to keep the story moving along. Because the lives of African Americans are so varied, it is refreshing to read fiction portraying black women in a positive light. Destined to become a keeper , this is recommended for all fiction collections and for libraries supporting African American collections, which far too often simply mirror the interests of "mainstream" America. — Angela Washington-Blair, Dallas
Library Journal

Imagine Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale without the sex, the sizzle, and the funky humor and you have a fair idea of Briscoe's first novel about three black sisters and their problems with their menfolk. Evelyn, Charmaine, and Beverly live in and around Washington, DC. Smart, materialistic Evelyn has it all: a super husband (lawyer Kevin), two great kids, an upscale suburban home, and work she enjoys as a psychologist. Charmaine, a secretary, has her own home, a young son by an ex-boyfriend, and a sexy but shiftless husband, Clarence. Magazine editor Beverly, the baby at 29, is still single and lives alone. Briscoe gives each sister a problem to chew on—nothing wrong with that, except the laborious chewing lasts all novel long. Evelyn's Kevin wants to leave his prestigious law firm and start his own: Will Evelyn's resistance endanger their marriage? Clarence's lies and debts are driving Charmaine crazy: Should she throw the bum out? Beverly has just ditched boyfriend Vernon for apparently two-timing her: Can she relax her high standards and forgive him? Beverly's dilemma leads to a more general complaint: "What's the matter with these black men?'' Her two post-Vernon dates are such dogs that she has a fling with a white guy who turns out to be an anal-retentive nut. The sisters support one another to a point, but sibling rivalries ensure that their relationships stay sweet and sour and add to the novel's most lasting impression, that of a peevish calling to account. Smoothly readable, but flat and uninventive.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Sisters & Lovers:

1. Talk about the differences between the three sisters. What are each of their strengths and weaknesses? Do you have a favorite sister...if so, who and why?

2. What views or expectations does each sister have of marriage? Realistic or not?

3. By the end, what have the three women learned—about themselves, each other, their husbands, and the institution of marriage? How have they changed if, in fact, they have? Has one of the sisters had more to learn than the others?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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The Sisters Brothers 
Patrick deWitt, 2011
HarperCollins
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062041265


Summary
Winner, 2011 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
Winner, 2011 Writers' Trust of Canada Fiction Prize

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it.

Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living–and whom he does it for.

With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force.

Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life– and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
   Writers' Trust of Canada Fiction Prize, Rogers Prize,
   Stephen Leacock Award
• Currently—lives in Portland, Oregon, USA


Patrick deWitt is a Canadian novelist and screenwriter. He was born on Vancouver Island, British Columbia and later lived in California and Washington. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

His first book, Ablutions (2009), was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice book. His second book, The Sisters Brothers (2011), was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the 2011 Governor General's Award for English language fiction. He was one of two Canadian writers, alongside Esi Edugyan, to make all four award lists in 2011.

On November 1, 2011, he was announced as the winner of the Rogers Prize, and on November 15, 2011, he was announced as the winner of Canada's 2011 Governor General's Award for English language fiction. On April 26, 2012, the book The Sisters Brothers won the 2012 Stephen Leacock Award. Alongside Edugyan, The Sisters Brothers was also a shortlisted nominee for the 2012 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/7/2013.)

Book Reviews
[G]ritty, as well as deadpan and often very comic…DeWitt has chosen a narrative voice so sharp and distinctive…it’s very narrowing of possibilities opens new doors in the imagination.
New York Times


[deWitt] rides parallel to the trails of Jack Shaefer, James Carlos Blake and Cormac McCarthy, but he frequently crosses into comic territory to produce a story that's weirdly funny, startlingly violent and steeped in sadness…As the novel runs along, deWitt shifts the story in unpredictable directions, slowing the pace for a surreal finale in the woods that's touched with alchemy.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


A feast of delights in short punchy chapters.... Deliciously original and rhapsodically funny, this is one novel that ropes you in on page one, and isn’t about to ride off into the sunset any time soon.
Boston Globe


[F]ull of surprises, among them…is the quirky beauty of the language Patrick deWitt has devised for his narrator.... The Sisters Brothers is deWitt’s second novel…and is an inventive and ingenious character study. It will make you impatient for the third.
Dallas Morning News


If Cormac McCarthy had a sense of humor, he might have concocted a story like Patrick DeWitt’s bloody, darkly funny western The Sisters Brothers.... [DeWitt has] a skillfully polished voice and a penchant for gleefully looking under bloody bandages.
Los Angeles Times


Wandering his Western landscape with the cool confidence of a practiced pistoleer, deWitt’s steady hand belies a hair trigger, a poet’s heart and an acute sense of gallows humor…the reader is likely to reach the adventure’s end in the same shape as Eli: wounded but bettered by the ride.
Time Out New York


Thrilling…a lushly voiced picaresque story…so richly told, so detailed, that what emerges is a weird circus of existence, all steel shanks and ponies, gut shots and medication poured into the eyeholes of the dying. At some level, this too is a kind of revenge story, marvelously blurry.
Esquire


[Q]uirky and stylish revisionist western.... [A] frontier baron known as the Commodore orders Charlie and Eli Sisters, his hired gunslingers, to track down and kill a prospector named Herman Kermit Warm.... Charlie and Eli ...come off looking less and less like killers and more like traumatized young men.... DeWitt has produced a genre-bending frontier saga that is exciting, funny, and, perhaps unexpectedly, moving.
Publishers Weekly


[E]ngrossing...a gritty, unapologetic homage to pulp Westerns (with perhaps a nod to Cormac McCarthy as well). In the final pages, however, as the hired guns at the center of the story are forced by circumstances to rethink their lives, the novel turns into something much more philosophical, existential, and extraordinary.... It becomes, in effect, a different kind of novel, profoundly literary, and devoted to serious philosophical meditation. —Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Library Journal


A calmly vicious journey into avarice and revenge. The unusual title refers to Charlie and Eli Sisters, the latter of whom narrates the novel. The narrative style is flat, almost unfeeling, though the action turns toward the cold-blooded. It's 1851, and the mysterious Commodore has hired the Sisters brothers to execute a man who's turned against him.... DeWitt creates a homage to life in the Wild West but at the same time reveals its brutality.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.

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The Montclair Sisters
Cathy Holton, 2012
Branwell Books
366 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781938529009


Summary
The last thing twenty-one-year-old Stella Nightingale wants is a job as a caregiver for wealthy Alice Montclair Whittington. Alice, a ninety-four-year-old Southern grande dame with a dry sense of humor and a wicked tongue, has already run off a long line of caregivers.

But Stella, a former runaway from a broken home who's only recently begun to put her life back together, is desperate for work. And she figures she can handle Alice. But strange things are happening at Alice's rambling mountaintop estate. As an unlikely friendship develops between the two women, Alice, whose memory comes and goes, begins to reveal long-ago tales of her illustrious past, tales that pose more questions than they answer. Who is her mysterious sister, Laura? Why won't Alice and her sister, Adeline, ever speak of her? And why are the other caregivers afraid to go down in the basement?

As Stella tries to separate fact from fiction in Alice's life, she struggles to overcome her own devastating family secret, compelled by a deepening friendship that will change the lives of both women forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 24, 1956
• Where—Lakeland, Florida, USA
• Education—Michigan State University
• Currently—lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee


Cathy Holton, the daughter of a college professor and an artist, grew up in college towns in the American South and Midwest. As a child, she entertained her classmates with tales of a scaled creature that lived in her carport shed and a magical phone that hung in her family’s bathroom that could be used to summon an English butler (this was in North Carolina in the 1960’s and her family lived in married student housing).

Once, in a moment of epiphany, she overheard two neighbors discussing her.

“That child is quite the story-teller,” one woman said
“That child is the biggest liar on God’s green earth,” the other woman replied. “She wouldn’t know the truth if it fell out of the sky and clumped her on the head.”

Cathy knew then that she would be a writer.

She studied Creative Writing at Michigan State University under Professor Albert Drake. She has worked as a dude ranch hand, a university seminar coordinator, a paralegal, and an assistant in a fire investigation firm. The mother of three grown children, she lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee with her husband and a rescue dog named Yoshi. She is the author of Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes, Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes, Beach Trip, and Summer in the South, all published through Random House/Ballantine Books.

Her fifth novel, The Sisters Montclair, is about a twenty-one-year old runaway who takes a job as a caregiver for a ninety-four year old Southern grande dame, a woman fleeing her own mysterious past. Think Girl, Interrupted meets Driving Miss Daisy. With a twist. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
(Mainstream press reviews have not yet appeared online for Holton's newest book. Included are reviews from her previous novels.)

Revenge of the Kudzu Debutantes

Holton has a lively, fluid style that shifts easily among the viewpoints’ of several characters and goes down as easily as sweet tea.
Boston Globe

Three Southern Belles wreak havoc in the lives of their cheating husbands in this light, likable debut.
Kirkus Reviews

Secret Lives of the Kudzu Debutantes

Holton’s headstrong heroines deliver homespun wisdom and hearty laughs in this uproarious sequel.
Booklist

Sharp, witty, and warm.
Entertainment Weekly

Beach Trip

A brilliant, bubbly, bracing novel...packed with hilarity and heartache.
Wichita Falls Times Record News

A poignant tale of heartbreak and happiness that celebrates the resiliency of women.
Chattanooga Times Free Press

Summer in the South

Brimming with unforgettable characters, smart conversations, and an engaging mystery that makes spending a summer in the south a tantalizing proposition.
Kirkus Reviews

Part gothic mystery, part romance…sit back with a cold drink on a shady porch, and enjoy.
Roanoke Times

Discussion Questions
1. What was The Sisters Montclair about? What are some of the book’s themes?

2. How realistic were the characters of Stella and Alice? Did you like them? Hate them?

3. The relationship between Stella and Alice is central to the novel. Have you ever experienced a similar friendship with another woman, something perhaps unexpected because of your backgrounds and interests?

4. By falling in love with Brendan, Alice made a choice that had moral implications in the story. Would you have made the same decision? Why or why not?

5. When Professor Dillard asks Stella why she stays with Alice, Stella replies, “Because she’s wounded.” How does this statement relate to Stella’s abandonment by her own mother? How does it relate to the central themes of love, friendship, and support that develop between Stella and Alice?

6. How did the relationship between Alice and her sister, Laura, parallel Alice’s relationship with Stella?

7. Stella and Alice are products, not only of their class, but also of their generation. If Alice had been born into the freedoms afforded women of Stella’s generation, would her life have been different? In what ways? Are there clues in the novel about how Alice fantasized, as a young woman, about living her life?

8. Stella and Alice’s background are so completely different that each has difficulty clearly seeing the other. Alice’s elite upbringing makes her naive about Stella’s past, and Stella has a tendency to believe that money is a protection from tragedy. But does anyone ever truly have a perfect life? Have you ever known someone who seemed to “have it all,” only to discover later that they had suffered through some unimaginable tragedy?

9. The novel essentially takes place in two different time periods. How did the author handle this? Did you feel you were experiencing the time and place in which the book was set?

10. How was Laura’s tragic fate foreshadowed in the novel? Were you surprised by the ending, or expecting it?

11. Were you surprised at the end of the novel by Alice’s confession:

There’s all kinds of love. There’s the kind that comes over you like a sickness, and there’s the kind that comes on after years of shared struggle and companionship. And I can tell you, from my experience, it’s the second kind that lasts longest. The other eventually burns away like a fever. Leaving what—guilt, regret? Would I have been happier with Brendan Burke? I  don’t think so. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I got the life I needed with Bill Whittington, even if it didn’t seem like the one I wanted at the time.

12. Did your impression of Brendan Burke change over the course of the novel? Of Bill Whittington?

13. Did the story pull you in, or did you have to force yourself to finish it?

14. How did the book compare to other books by the author? Would you recommend this book to other readers?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Six of Crows 
Leigh Bardugo, 2015
Henry Holt & Co.
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627792127


Summary
Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker.

Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz's crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don't kill each other first. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Jerusalem, Israel
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Hollywood, California, USA


Leigh Bardugo is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Shadow and Bone (2012) and Siege and Storm (2013). Ruin and Rising (2014) is the third installment in her Grisha Trilogy.

Six of Crows came out in 2015, which, although not yet announced, appears to be the first volume of a new series.

Leigh was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, and graduated from Yale University. She has worked in advertising, journalism, and most recently, makeup and special effects. These days, she’s lives and writes in Hollywood where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band. (Adapted from the author's website .)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Bardugo reveals intriguing new depths and surprises. This has all the right elements to keep readers enthralled: a cunning leader..., nigh-impossible odds, ...skilled misfits, a twisty plot, and a nerve-wracking cliffhanger (Ages 12 & up).
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [W]ildly imaginative....[with] fully fleshed out, dynamic protagonists who will engage and enchant readers. What a thrill it is to return to the world [Bardugo] created with her popular Grisha Trilogy.... [U]unsettling, captivating, magical (Gr 7 & up). —Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK
Library Journal


(Starred review.) This book can be fully enjoyed without having read any previous title. Great characters with complex backstories, dynamic relationships that show growth, and plenty of action to keep the pace lively. The criminal elements that pervade the story give a pleasantly gritty edge to it all. (Ages 15-18). —Stacey Hayman
VOYA


(Starred review.) Adolescent criminals seek the haul of a lifetime in a fantasyland at the beginning of its industrial age.... Cracking page-turner with a multiethnic band of misfits with differing sexual orientations who satisfyingly, believably jell into a family (Ages 14 & up).
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Six of Crows:

1.. How do the characters—Kaz and his crew of five—differ from one another? Start, perhaps, with each one's defining characteristics; then consider...
  ♦ their individual motivations
  ♦ their skills (what talent each brings to the heist)
  ♦ their past histories
  ♦ how each views the society they live in, the job at hand, and one another.

2. To what extent do any of the characters grow or change by the end of the book? Do any (or all) reach a new level of maturity, gain insights, or find peace and redemption from their pasts?

3. Do you have any favorites within the Dregs? Is there one you relate to or sympathize with more than any of the others?

4. Six of Crows is set in the same world as Bardugo's Grisha Trilogy. If you've read any of the books in that trilogy, how does this one compare? If you haven't, was it hard to find your footing at first?

5. Did you enjoy the book's structure—a story told through five different characters? Do the differing voices progress seamlessly through the book, or does the storyline feel disjointed? Why might Bardugo have chosen to tell her story using different points of view?

6. Talk about the various loyalties and friendships that exist among and between crew members—there's Nina and Inej, as well as Jesper, Wylan, and Matthias.

7. What is going on between Nina and Matthias—do they love or hate one another? Or are their conflicted feelings flip sides of the same coin?

8. Follow-up to Question 7: What about the romance between Kaz and Inej? What does Inej mean when she says to Kaz, "I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all"? What are his feelings toward her?

9. Fantasy/dystopian literature is frequently a veiled allusion to the ills of contemporary, society, perhaps serving as a warning. What aspects of Ketterdam, though exaggerated, might be a reflection of our own 21st-century society?

10. Were you surprised by the twists and turns of the plot? Or did you "see it coming."

11. If Six of Crows is the first installment of a series, as most believe, will you be read the next volume?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Skeletons at the Feast
Chris Bohjalian, 2008
Crown Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307394965

Summary
A masterful love story set against a backdrop of epic history and unforgettable courage.

In the waning months of World War II, a small group of people begin the longest journey of their lives.

At the center is eighteen-year-old Anna, the daughter of Prussian aristocrats, and her first love, a twenty-year-old Scottish prisoner of war named Callum. With his boyish good looks and his dedication to her family, he has captured Anna’s heart.

But he is the enemy, and their love must remain a closely guarded secret. Only Manfred, a twenty-six-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, knows the truth. And Manfred, who is not what he seems to be, is reluctantly taken with Anna, just as she finds herself drawn uncomfortably to him.

As these unlikely allies work their way west, their flight will test both Anna’s and Callum’s love, as well as their friendship with Manfred—and will forever bind the young trio together. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—Amherst College
• Awards—Anahid Literary Award, 2000; New England Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Lincoln, Vermont

Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist. Bohjalian is the author of 15 novels, including New York Times bestsellers Midwives, Secrets of Eden, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers.

Bohjalian is the son of Aram Bohjalian, who was a senior vice president of the New York advertising agency Romann & Tannenholz. Chris Bohjalian graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York.

He and his wife lived in a co-op in Brooklyn until March 1986, when the two were riding in a taxicab in which the driver refused to let them out of the car for 45 minutes, ignoring all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight, the driver dropped them off at a near-deserted street in front of a crack house, where the police were conducting a raid and Bohjalian and his wife were forced to drop to the ground for their protection. The incident prompted the couple to move from Brooklyn; Bohjalian said, "After it was all over, we just thought, "Why do we live here?" A few days later, the couple read an ad in The New York Times referencing the "People's Republic of Vermont," and in 1987 the couple moved to Lincoln, Vermont.

Early career
After buying their house, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The Concord Monitor said of Bohjalian during this period, "his immersion in community life and family, Vermont-style, has allowed him to develop into a novelist with an ear and empathy for the common man." Bohjalian continued the column for about 12 years, writing about such topics as his own daily life, fatherhood and the transformation of America. The column has run in the Burlington Free Press since 1992. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. Almost two decades after it was released, Bohjalian said of the book, "It was a train wreck. I hadn't figured things out yet." His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.

In 1998, Bohjalian wrote his fifth book, Midwives, a novel focusing on rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section. The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club, which helped push the book to great financial success. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Victoria Blewer has often described her husband as having "a crush" on the Sybil Danforth character. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret."

Later career
Bohjalian followed Midwives with the 1999 novel The Law of Similars, about a widower attorney suffering from nameless anxieties who starts dating a woman who practices alternative medicine. The novel was inspired by Bohjalian's real-life visit to a homeopath in an attempt to cure frequent colds he was catching from his daughter's day care center. Bohjalian said of the visit, "I don't think I imagined there was a novel in homeopathy, however, until I met the homeopath and she explained to me the protocols of healing. There was a poetry to the language that a patient doesn't hear when visiting a conventional doctor." The protagonist, a father, is based in part on Bohjalian himself, and his four-year-old daughter is based largely on Bohjalian's daughter, who was three when he was writing the book., Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times said the novel shared many similarities with Midwives but that it paled in comparison; Rosenberg said, "Unlike its predecessor, it fails to take advantage of Bohjalian's great gift for creating thoughtful fiction featuring characters in whom the reader sustains a lively interest." Megan Harlan of The Boston Phoenix described it as "formulaic fiction" and said Bohjalian focused too much on creating a complex plot and not enough of complex characterizations. The Law of Similars, like Midwives, made the New York Times bestsellers list.

He won the New England Book Award in 2002, and in 2007 released "The Double Bind," a novel based on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

In 2008, Bohjalian released Skeletons at the Feast, a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany. The novel was inspired by an unpublished diary written by German citizen Eva Henatsch from 1920 to 1945. The diary was given to Bohjalian in 1998 by Henatsch's grandson Gerd Krahn, a friend of Bohjalian, who had a daughter in the same kindergarten class as Bohjalian's daughter. Bohjalian was particularly fascinated by Henatsch's account of her family's trek west ahead of the Soviet Army, but he was not inspired to write a novel from it until 2006, when he read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, Max Hastings' history of the final years of World War II. Bohjalian was struck not only by how often Henatsch's story mirrored real-life experiences, but also the common "moments of idiosyncratic human connection" found in both. Skeletons of the Feast was considered a departure for Bohjalian because it was not only set outside of Vermont, but set in a particular historical moment.

His 2010 novel, Secrets of Eden, was also a critical success, receiving starred reviews from three of the four trade journals (Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly), as well as many newspapers and magazines. It debuted at # 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.

His next novel, The Night Strangers, published in 2011, represents yet another departure for Bohjalian. The is both a gothic ghost story and a taut psychological thriller.

He has written a weekly column for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since February 1992 called "Idyll Banter." His 1,000th column appeared in May 2011.

Personal comments
In a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview, Bohjalian offered up these personal comments:

I was the heaviest child, by far, in my second-grade class. My mother had to buy my pants for me at a store called the "Husky Boys Shop," and still she had to hem the cuffs up around my knees. I hope this experience, traumatizing as it was, made me at least marginally more sensitive to people around me.

I have a friend with Down syndrome, a teenage boy who is capable of remembering the librettos from entire musicals the first or second time he hears them. The two of us belt them out together whenever we're driving anywhere in a car.I am a pretty avid bicyclist. The other day I was biking alone on a thin path in the woods near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, and suddenly before me I saw three bears. At first I saw only two, and initially I thought they were cats. Then I thought they were dogs. Finally, just as I was approaching them and they started to scurry off the path and into the thick brush, I understood they were bears. Bear cubs, to be precise. Which is exactly when their mother, no more than five or six feet to my left, reared up on her hind legs, her very furry paws and very sharp claws raised above her head in a gesture that an optimist might consider a wave and guy on a bike might consider something a tad more threatening. Because she was standing on a slight incline, I was eye level with her stomach—an eventual destination that seemed frighteningly plausible. I have never biked so fast in my life in the woods. I may never have biked so fast in my life on a paved road.

I do have hobbies—I garden and bike, for example—but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community—always off-stage, never on.

Writing style
Bohjalian novels often focus on a specific issue, such as homelessness, animal rights and environmentalism, and tend to be character-driven, revolving around complex and flawed protagonists and secondary characters. Bohjalian uses characteristics from his real life in his writings; in particular, many of his novels take place in fictional Vermont towns, and the names of real New Hampshire towns are often used throughout his stories. Bohjalian said, "Writers can talk with agonizing hubris about finding their voices, but for me, it was in Vermont that I discovered issues, things that matter to me." His novels also tend to center around ordinary people facing extraordinarily difficult situations resulting from unforeseen circumstances, often triggered by other parties. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Bohjalian's sense of character and place, his skillful plotting and his clear grasp of this confusing period of history make for a deeply satisfying novel, one that asks readers to consider, and reconsider, how they would rise to the challenge of terrible deprivation and agonizing moral choices.
Margot Livesey - Washington Post

A poignant account of the conflict's last year.... Harrowing.... In creating the Emmerichs and their relationship to Uri, Bohjalian has given us something new and disturbing. He has also created a wonderful character in the protected child, Theo, whose gradual understanding of what is happening to them is moving and real.... Bohjalian has given us an important addition to the story of World War II, and, not at all incidentally, may expand the vision of those who may have avoided "Holocaust literature" in the past.
Roberta Silman - The Boston Globe

Harrowing...ingenious...compelling.... Judging who's right or wrong is difficult in Skeletons at the Feast, and one senses that's just the way Bohjalian wants it.... A tightly woven, moving story for anyone who thinks there's nothing left to learn, or feel, about the Second World War. That Bohjalian can extract greater truths about faith, hope and compassion from something as mundane as a diary is testament not only to his skill as a writer but also to the enduring ability of well-written war fiction to stir our deepest emotions.
Paula L. Woods - Los Angeles Times

Reading Bohjalian's descriptions of terror and tragedy on the road has just as much impact as seeing newsreels from the end of World War II.... While creating suspense, Bohjalian agilely balances the moral ambiguities of war.... Right and wrong shift depending on the situation. Ignorance is tolerated and murder is justified. But Bohjalian does posit that one absolute exists: No one wins at war.
Dennis Moore - USA Today

In his 12th novel, Bohjalian (The Double Bind) paints the brutal landscape of Nazi Germany as German refugees struggle westward ahead of the advancing Russian army. Inspired by the unpublished diary of a Prussian woman who fled west in 1945, the novel exhumes the ruin of spirit, flesh and faith that accompanied thousands of such desperate journeys. Prussian aristocrat Rolf Emmerich and his two elder sons are sent into battle, while his wife flees with their other children and a Scottish POW who has been working on their estate. Before long, they meet up with Uri Singer, a Jewish escapee from an Auschwitz-bound train, who becomes the group's protector. In a parallel story line, hundreds of Jewish women shuffle west on a gruesome death march from a concentration camp. Bohjalian presents the difficulties confronting both sets of travelers with carefully researched detail and an unflinching eye, but he blinks when creating the Emmerichs, painting them as untainted by either their privileged status, their indoctrination by the Nazi Party or their adoration of Hitler. Although most of the characters lack complexity, Bohjalian's well-chosen descriptions capture the anguish of a tragic era and the dehumanizing desolation wrought by war.
Publishers Weekly

Bohjalian (The Double Bind) leaves his traditional Vermont milieu for this wellcrafted, deeply moving historical novel in which he traces the last months of World War II Germany through various lives, masterfully describing landscape and struggle.... Bohjalian fans will applaud; highly recommended.
Joyce Kessel - Library Journal

Love in a time of war, 1945-1948. Though occasionally groaning under the weight of its mighty themes—man's-inhumanity-to-man, the-horror-the-horror, hope-rising-from-rubble—sheer storytelling here ultimately wins out, trumping the novel's self-consciously mythic ambitions. It features a desperate trio: Anna Emmerich, Prussian aristocrat with "[h]air the color of corn silk," her strapping lover, Callum Finnella, Scottish POW, and the mysterious Manfred, Wehrmacht corporal. Bohjalian (The Double Bind, 2007, etc.) brings them together for an epic romance based on a true-life World War II diary. Callum and Anna, her family in tow, are fleeing Russian invaders, crossing the iced-over Vistula as the Reich nears its bitter end. In their death throes, the Nazis have erupted into spasmodic violence—"live babies held by their ankles and swung like scythes into stone walls while their mothers were forced to watch...." Turns out Manfred's not an actual fascist but the underground alias of Uri Singer, a Jewish refugee masquerading, exchanging his yellow Star of David for a "Nuremberg eagle made of bronze." Outwitting the SA, who'd crammed him and his kin onto an Auschwitz-bound train, Uri had made a run for it, leaping from the boxcar. So, too, had Callum arrived dramatically into Anna's life, jumping from an airplane machine-gunned behind enemy lines, then being captured, and finally farmed out to the Emmerichs as a forced laborer. The three lives intersect as the tale winds through savaged cities. Bohjalian is especially good at conveying the surreal "beauty," the misshapen lyricism, of the war-torn landscape: "Even the stone church had collapsed upon itself...the once imposing pipes of the organ reshaped by heat and flame into giant copper-colored mushrooms." From harrowing to inspiring.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Do you know–or are you yourself–a veteran of World War II? Discuss what you know of the war and any reminiscences that veterans may have shared.

2. Both of Anna’s parents are members of the Nazi Party–though it is clear that they are not die-hard believers. Living on their farm in rural Prussia, they are largely sheltered from the atrocities perpetrated against the Jews. As Germans, do you think they share responsibility for the Nazis’ actions even if they didn’t know the full extent of what was happening? Why did they join the party? Did they have a choice? Consider Helmut’s teacher who questions the boy about his father’s loyalty to Hitler and the consequences of resisting. If failure to join meant death for you, what would you have done?

3. A group of POWs is brought to the Emmerich family’s farm to help with the harvest, including a Scot named Callum Finella. He and Anna fall in love. What brings them together? Does the kindness of the Emmerich family, and Callum’s love for their only daughter, change his view of the German people as a whole?

4. We meet Uri on the train to Auschwitz. What kind of man is he? How does he behave on the train? Imagine yourself in those deplorable conditions. Do you think you would seize the opportunity for freedom and jump as Uri did, leaving behind your family to an uncertain future?

5. While arguing with Anna about what is really happening to Jews, Callum says, “Suppose my government in England just decided to ‘resettle’ the Catholics–to take away their homes, their animals, their possessions, and just send them away?” What if this was happening where you live? What actions would you be willing to take to protect your friends and neighbors? At what point would the risks have been too great?

6. To survive, Uri impersonates a German soldier, stealing papers and uniforms from soldiers he either kills or finds dead. Discuss the events that lead up to his first killing of a Nazi. Discuss his reaction to what he has done (page 59). Do you believe his actions were warranted?

7. Although the world is essentially collapsing around them, Anna and Callum fall in love, Theo cries over leaving his beloved horse behind, and Mutti carefully drapes the furniture in sheets to protect it before they flee their home ahead of the Russians. What do these simple, ordinary actions reveal about them as people? About the human capacity for hope?

8. Theo is only a child but he feels lacking in comparison to his older brothers Werner and Helmut, both off fighting in the war. What kind of child is he? Does he fit in with his peers? Why doesn’t Theo tell his mother about his foot? What does this reveal about him? Does Theo change over the course of the novel?

9. Describe Cecile. What kind of woman is she? What keeps her going in spite of the cruelty and degradation she suffers every day? How is she different from her friend Jeanne? Do you think you would act more like Cecile or Jeanne in the same circumstances?

10. In Chapter Eight, Helmut and his father, Rolf, try to convince Uncle Karl to leave his home along with the Emmerichs. He refuses, keeping his daughter, daughter-in-law, and grandson with him in spite of the danger. Why won’t he evacuate? Why won’t he let the women and the child leave? On page 118 he refers to them and their way of life as “skeletons at the feast.” What does he mean by this?

11. Describe the circumstances that bring Uri and the Emmerichs together. Why does he choose to stay with them after running alone for so long? How does he feel about them initially? How do his feelings for them change?

12. On page 178, Callum is thinking about bringing Anna home with him to Scotland after the war. How does he think she will be received? Why is he troubled?

13. During their long march from the prison camp to the factory, Jeanne and another prisoner find soldiers’ rations and eat them. They do not wake Cecile to share them with her. Why? In the same circumstances, what would you have done?

14. Given the odds of success, would you have been brave enough to attempt to escape with Cecile and her friends?

15. Describe Mutti. What was she like at the beginning of the war? At the end? What does she view as her primary responsibility? On pages 291—293, she remembers burying the young German pilot whose plane crashed in her park. Why was burying him—and the enemy Russian soldiers—important to her?

16. How does Anna change as the novel progresses? Why does she feel the need for personal forgiveness at the end? Is she right to feel guilty?

17. Discuss the importance of hope in survival. Which character is the most hopeful? Which character is the most defeated? What moments at the end of the novel symbolize hope most poignantly?

18. Discuss the legacy that Mutti’s generation left for Anna’s. As a nation, what kind of legacy are we leaving for our children?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Skinny Legs and All
Tom Robbins, 1990
Random House
422 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553377880


Summary
An Arab and a Jew open a restaurant together across the street from the United Nations....

It sounds like the beginning of an ethnic joke, but it's the axis around which spins this gutsy, fun-loving, and alarmingly provocative novel, in which a bean can philosophizes, a dessert spoon mystifies, a young waitress takes on the New York art world, and a rowdy redneck welder discovers the lost god of Palestine—while the illusions that obscure humanity's view of the true universe fall away, one by one, like Salome's veils.

Skinny Legs and All deals with today's most sensitive issues: race, politics, marriage, art, religion, money, and lust.  It weaves lyrically through what some call the "end days" of our planet.  Refusing to avert its gaze from the horrors of the apocalypse, it also refuses to let the alleged end of the world spoil its mood. And its mood is defiantly upbeat.

In the gloriously inventive Tom Robbins style, here are characters, phrases, stories, and ideas that dance together on the page, wild and sexy, like Salome herself.  Or was it Jezebel?. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 22, 1932
• Where—Bowling Rock, North Carolina, USA
• Reared—near Richmond, Virginia
• Education—attended Washington and Lee University;
   Virginia Commonwealth University; University of
   Washington, for a Masters degree.
• Currently—lives in La Conner, Washington

So much mythology swirls around Pacific Northwest novelist Tom Robbins that sorting fact from fiction is a daunting challenge. Born Thomas Eugene Robbins in 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, he was raised from age 11 on in a suburb near Richmond, Virginia. He attended Washington and Lee University but did not graduate. Instead, he quit college and spent a year hitchhiking, settling for a while in New York City.

Robbins enlisted in the Air Force in 1957, just one step ahead of the draft, and served three years in Korea. Upon discharge, he moved back to Virginia to attend art school at Richmond Professional Institute (now Virginia Commonwealth University), graduating in 1961. During this time he worked as a copy editor for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

According to Robbins, the South's hidebound racism— perfectly mirrored in the newspaper's policy—prompted him to move as far away from Richmond as possible "while still remaining in the continental United States." He ended up in Seattle in the early 1960s, enrolled in the University of Washington to pursue his Masters, and went to work for the Seattle Times. If we are to believe the story, it was around this time that he first sampled LSD (not yet an illegal substance). Blown away by the experience, he chucked both grad school and his job at the paper and spent the rest of the decade bouncing between the East and West Coasts—writing, working as a DJ in alternative radio, and partaking liberally of the countercultural smorgasbord of the day.

Towards the end of the '60s, Robbins began working seriously at his writing, culminating in 1971 with the publication of his first novel, the comic absurdist tale, Another Roadside Attraction. A failure in hardcover, it nevertheless sold well as a paperback, prompting publishers to release his next book—1976's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues—in both formats simultaneously. Although he has not been a hit with most mainstream critics, Robbins has achieved rarified cult status with successive generations of 20-somethings who adore his goofy, upbeat satirical fiction. He claims to never read reviews but is pleased to have enjoyed a steady string of bestsellers starting with Still Life with Woodpecker in 1980. In 2005, he produced Wild Ducks Flying Backward, a volume of shorter works, including poems, stories, essays, articles, and reviews.

Rumor has it that Robbins polishes each sentence to perfection before moving on to the next. Whether or not that's true, he does admit to being a slow writer—and to needing a long period of rest and recuperation (usually involving travel to some exotic place) in between books. All of which explains why his output is surprisingly slender, especially for a writer who inspires such passionate, fanatical devotion!

Extras
• An accomplished artist, Robbins is one of only a handful of writers to have cover design built into their book contracts.

• When Elvis Presley died of an overdose in his bathroom on August 16, 1977, there was rumored to be a copy of Another Roadside Attraction on the floor beside him.

• While working as a journalist and DJ in Washington state, Robbins attended a 1967 Doors concert in Seattle. He claims that the origins of his unique writing style can be found in that piece.

• Robbins has enjoyed friendships with a group of widely people, from '60s countercultural icons like Alan Ginsberg and Timothy Leary to mythologist Joseph Campbell (with whom he once traveled to South America).

• Robbins has appeared in several films, including Made in Heaven; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; Breakfast of Champions, and Gus Van Sant's 1993 adaptation of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Robbins possesses magnet-like power.
USA Today

In a phantasmagorical, politically charged tale you wish would never end, Robbins holds forth—through a variety of ingenious, off-beat mouthpieces—on art (with and without caps), the Middle East, religious fanaticism of many stripes, and the seven veils of self-deception. Salome, skinny legs and all, belly-dances rapturously at Isaac & Ishmael's, a much-molested restaurant located across the street from the U.N., founded by an Arab and a Jew as an example of happy, peaceful and mutually beneficial coexistence. Ellen Cherry Charles, artist and waitress, heir to the most positive legacy of Jezebel, works at the same joint, nursing a broken heart inflicted by Boomer Petway, redneck welder/bemused darling of the New York art scene. Meanwhile, Can o' Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell traverse half the world on a hejira to Jerusalem—where Conch and Painted Stick will resume religious duties in the Third Temple, dedicated (of course) to Astarte. Unless, mind you, Ellen Cherry's boil-encrusted uncle Buddy, a radio evangelist who gets turned on by Tammy Faye Bakker, manages to start WW III first.... Robbins's lust for laughs is undiminished; this prescription for sanity couldn't be better.
Publishers Weekly

A painter's struggle with her art, a restaurant opened as an experiment in brotherhood, the journey of several inanimate objects to Jerusalem, a preacher's scheme to hasten Armageddon, and a performance of a legendary dance: these are the diverse elements around which Robbins has built this wild, controversial novel. Ellen Cherry Charles, one of the "Daughters of the Daily Special" from Robbin's previous Jitterbug Perfume, takes center stage. She has married Boomer Petway and moved to New York, hoping to make it as a painter. Instead, she winds up a waitress at the Isaac and Ishmael, a restaurant co-owned by an Arab and a Jew. Robbins's primary concern is Middle Eastern politics, supplemented along the way with observations on art, religion, sex, and money. Few contemporary novelists mix tomfoolery and philosophy so well. This is Robbins at his best.
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Skinny Legs and All:

1. Robbins uses the Dance of the Seven Veils as the structure of his novel. Identify and talk about the seven self-deceptions that he sees humans living under.

2. In what way is the biblical Jezebel significant to Ellen Cherry Charles?

3. What is true art? How does the New York art scene misrepresent the artistic ideal? Who represents the ideal in this novel and in what way? Consider this quotation: "In the haunted house of life, art is the only stair that doesn't creak." Who says it and what does it mean?

4. Why would Robbins's use inanimate objects, like a can of beans, a sock, and a stick?

5. How does this story comment on the state of human affairs—what is Robbins overall view of our ability to solve our political and religious differences? Consider Issac and Ishmael, the two men who own the cafe in New York.

6. Who or what does Buddy represent?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.) 

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Skipping Christmas
John Grisham, 2001
Random House
277 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440422969

Summary
Luther and Nora Krank are fed up with the chaos of Christmas. The endless shopping lists, the frenzied dashes through the mall, the hassle of decorating the tree... where has all the joy gone? This year, celebrating seems like too much effort. With their only child off in Peru, they decide that just this once, they'll skip the holidays. They spend their Christmas budget on a Caribbean cruise set to sail on December 25, and happily settle in for a restful holiday season free of rooftop snowmen and festive parties.

But the Kranks soon learn that their vacation from Christmas isn't much of a vacation at all, and that skipping the holidays has consequences they didn't bargain for...

A modern Christmas classic, Skipping Christmas is a charming and hilarious look at the mayhem and madness that have become ingrained in our holiday tradition. (From the publisher.)

A 2004 film version of the book, renamed Christmas with the Kranks, stars Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Author Bio 
• Birth—February 8, 1955
• Where—Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA
• Education—B.S., Mississippi State; J.D., University of Mississippi
• Currently—lives in Oxford, Mississippi and Albermarle, Virginia


John Ray Grisham, Jr. is an American lawyer, politician, and author, best known for his popular legal thrillers. He has written more than 25 novels, a short story collection (Ford County), two works of nonfiction, and a children's series.

Grisham's first bestseller was The Firm. Released in 1991, it sold more than seven million copies. The book was later adapted into a feature film, of the same name starring Tom Cruise in 1993, and a TV series in 2012 which "continues the story of attorney Mitchell McDeere and his family 10 years after the events of the film and novel." Eight of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, Skipping Christmas, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and his first novel, A Time to Kill. His books have been translated into 29 languages and published worldwide.

As of 2008, his books had sold over 250 million copies worldwide. Grisham is one of only three authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; the others are Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling.

Early life and education
Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda Skidmore Grisham and John Grisham. His father was a construction worker and cotton farmer; his mother a homemaker. When Grisham was four years old, his family started traveling around the South, until they finally settled in Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi. As a child, Grisham wanted to be a baseball player. neither of his parents had advanced education, he was encouraged to read and prepare for college.

As a teenager, Grisham worked for a nursery watering bushes for $1.00 an hour. He was soon promoted to a fence crew for $1.50 an hour. At 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor. Through a contact of his father, he managed to find work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi at the age of 17.

It was during this time that an unfortunate incident made him think more seriously about college. A fight broke out among the crew with gunfire, and Grisham ran to the restroom for safety. He did not come out until after the police had "hauled away rednecks." He hitchhiked home and started thinking about college.

His next work was in retail, as a salesclerk in a department store men's underwear section, which he described as "humiliating." He decided to quit but stayed when he was offered a raise. He was given another raise after asking to be transferred to toys and then to appliances. A confrontation with a company spy posing as a customer convinced him to leave the store. By this time, Grisham was halfway through college.

He went to the Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi and later attended Delta State University in Cleveland. Grisham drifted so much during his time at the college that he changed colleges three times before completing a degree. He graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977, receiving a BS degree in accounting.

He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law planning to become a tax lawyer. But he was soon overcome by "the complexity and lunacy" of it. He decided to return to his hometown as a trial lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation. He graduated in 1983 with a JD degree.

Law and politics
Grisham practiced law for about a decade and also won election as a Democrat in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990 at an annual salary of $8,000. By his second term at the Mississippi state legislature, he was the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees.

With the success of his second book The Firm, published in 1991, Grisham gave up practicing law. He returned briefly in 1996 to fight for the family of a railroad worker who had been killed on the job. It was a commitment made to the family before leaving law to become a full-time writer. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500—the biggest verdict of his career.

Writing
Grisham said that, sometime in the mid-1980s, he had been hanging around the court one day when he overheard a 12-year-old girl telling the jury how she been beaten and raped. Her story intrigued Grisham, so he began to watch the trial, noting how members of the jury wept during her testimony. It was then, Grisham later wrote in the New York Times, that a story was born. Musing over "what would have happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants," Grisham took three years to complete his first book, A Time to Kill.

Finding a publisher was not easy. The book was rejected by 28 publishers before Wynwood Press, an unknown publisher, agreed to give it a modest 5,000-copy printing. It was published in June 1989. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on his second novel, the story of an ambitious young attorney "lured to an apparently perfect law firm that was not what it appeared." The Firm remained on the the New York Times' bestseller list for 47 weeks and became the bestselling novel of 1991.

Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his focus from law to the more general rural South, but continued to write legal thrillers. He has also written sports fiction and comedy fiction.

In 2005, Grisham received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. The award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.

In 2010, Grisham started writing legal thrillers for children 9-12 years old. The books featured Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old boy, who gives his classmates legal advice—everything from rescuing impounded dogs to helping their parents prevent their house from being repossessed. His daughter, Shea, inspired him to write the Boone series.

Marriage and family
Grisham married Renee Jones in 1981, and the couple have two grown children together, Shea and Ty. The family spends their time in their Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi, and their other home near Charlottesville, Virginia.

The Innocence Project
Grisham is a member of the Board of Directors of The Innocence Project, which campaigns to free unjustly convicted people on the basis of DNA evidence. The Innocence Project argues that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Grisham has testified before Congress on behalf of the Project and appeared on Dateline on NBC, Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, and other programs. He also wrote for the New York Times in 2013 about an unjustly held prisoner at Guantanamo.

Libel suit
In 2007, former legal officials from Oklahoma filed a civil suit for libel against Grisham and two other authors. They claimed that Grisham and the others critical of Peterson and his prosecution of murder cases conspired to commit libel and generate publicity for themselves by portraying the plaintiffs in a false light and intentionally inflicting emotional distress. Grisham was named due to his publication of the non-fiction book, The Innocent Man. He examined the faults in the investigation and trial of defendants in the murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by DNA evidence more than 12 years later of wrongfully convicted defendants Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. The judge dismissed the libel case after a year, saying, "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz must be discussed openly and with great vigor."

Misc.
The Mississippi State University Libraries maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials related to his writings and to his tenure as Mississippi State Representative.

Grisham has a lifelong passion for baseball demonstrated partly by his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the 2004 baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry Connick, Jr. He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball.

In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that his favorite author is John le Carre. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/6/2013.)

Book Reviews
For all its clever curmudgeonly edge and minor charms, no way does this Christmas yarn from Grisham rank with A Christmas Carol, as the publisher claims. Nor does it rank with Grisham's own best work. The premise is terrific, as you'd expect from Grisham. Fed up with the commercial aspects of Christmas, particularly all the money spent, and alone for the holiday for the first time in decades (their daughter has just joined the Peace Corps), grumpy Luther Krank and his sweeter wife, Nora, decide to skip Christmas this year to forgo the gifts, the tree, the decorations, the cards, the parties and to spend the dollars saved on a 10-day Caribbean cruise. But as clever as this setup is, its elaboration is ho-hum. There's a good reason why nearly all classic Christmas tales rely on an element of fantasy, for, literarily at least, Christmas is a time of miracles. Grisham sticks to the mundane, however, and his story lacks magic for that. He does a smartly entertaining job of satirizing the usual Christmas frenzy, as Luther and Nora resist entreaties from various charities as well as increasing pressure from their neighbors (all sharply drawn, recognizable members of the generic all-American burb, the book's setting) to do up their house in the traditional way, including installing the giant Frosty that this year adorns the roof of every home on the block except theirs. And when something happens that prompts the Kranks to jump back into Christmas at the last minute, Grisham does slip in a celebration of the real spirit of Christmas, to the point of perhaps squeezing a tear or two from his most sentimental readers (even if he comes uncomfortably close to It's a Wonderful Life to do so). But it's too little, too late. The misanthropy in this short novel makes a good antidote to the more cloying Christmas tales, and the book is fun to read. To compare it to Dickens, however, is...humbug.
Publishers Weekly

Accountant Luther Krank is a Scrooge for the new millennium. He calculates that he and his wife, Nora, can take a Caribbean cruise during Christmas for much less money than they spent during the previous year's Christmas season. But Luther doesn't just want to take a vacation during Christmas; he wants to take a vacation from Christmas and skip it altogether. This means that the Kranks will not buy a Christmas tree or calendar, put up any decorations, send any Christmas cards, give any gifts, or attend or host any parties much to the chagrin of their hyperfestive neighbors. However, an unexpected phone call at the last minute leads to a change in plans. Hilarity ensues, but the poignant conclusion is unforgettable. Grisham astutely captures the way many people spend the holiday season, from fighting the crowds to commenting on their neighbors' Christmas trees. A Painted House was Grisham's first departure from the legal thriller genre, and this further demonstrates his ability to tell a story with nary a courtroom in sight. Highly recommended for all public libraries. —Samantha J. Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Skipping Christmas: 

1. This book has been called a "modern day Christmas classic." What does the term mean—what makes the book a "Christmas classic"? Do you agree that it is?

2. As you were reading the book, did you find yourself siding with the Kranks' decision to skip Christmas...or disgreeing with them?

3. What are your feelings toward the Christmas holidays? Has this book affected how you will view the season?

4. When friends and neighbors learn that the Kranks plan to skip Christmas, they try to convince them to change their minds. Why do the neighbors find the Kranks' plans so disturbing? Do you find the neighbors' interference appropriate ... or inappropriate?

5. When the Kranks learn Blair is returning from Peru for the holidays, they decide to cancel their cruise and celebrate the holidays as they had in the past. Yet they decided not to tell Blair what they had been planning. Why? Does it seem strange that parents would behave this way toward an adult child?

6. Have you seen Christmas with the Kranks, the 2004 film based on the book and starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis? If so, how does it compare to the book? If not, do you want to see it after having read the book?

7. Talk about the commercialization of the Christmas season. Do you agree with the Kranks that it's excessive and detracts from the true meaning of Christmas? Or do you feel that the holiday with all its commercial trappings is festive and exciting...that the Kranks are Scrooges...and that you need to take the good with the bad? (There's no "right" answer here....) Is it possible to avoid or escape the commercialism and still celebrate Christmas?

8. Once the Kranks change their plans with Blair's arrival, the neighbors pull together to help them pull off their traditional holiday celebration. Did your opinion of the neighbors change?

9. If you skipped Christmas, what would you miss the most? Alternatively...what would you enjoy the most?

10. Did you find this story enjoyable, even endearing? Or do you think John Grisham should stick to writing legal thrillers?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Skippy Dies
Paul Murray, 2010
Faber & Faber
672 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780865478619


Summary
As promised, 14-year-old Daniel “Skippy” Juster dies in the opening scene of Paul Murray’s tragicomic masterwork. But much remains to be seen in the ensuing chapters. Who is responsible for his demise? And why does he die such a weird death, gasping for air on the floor of a doughnut shop without having eaten any doughnuts? And what are we to make of his final message, written on the floor in syrupy raspberry filling: “TELL LORI”?

Set in Dublin at the Seabrook College for boys, Skippy Dies combines the visceral power of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest with the raw anxieties of life in the 21st century. The result is a dazzling and uproarious novel in which nearly all the characters are at odds with one another (and with themselves) as they walk the line between fantasy and reality, spectacular deception and jaw-dropping revelation.

While a ruthless Acting Principal (“the Automator”) tries to dissolve the school’s affiliation with the Holy Paraclete Fathers, faculty and students alike revel in unholy obsessions. For the teenage drug dealer Carl, it’s porn, laced with his borderline psychotic fantasies. For the pudgy young genius Ruprecht, it’s a quest to open a portal to a parallel universe. Unable to get his students to understand the magnitude of the Great War, the history teacher Howard Fallon spends equal time trying to get it on with his sexy colleague Aurelie. For Eoin “MC Sexecutioner” Flynn, life is an endless hip-hop soundtrack.

As for Skippy, with a distracted father and a cancer-stricken mother, he simply dreams of a day when no one harasses him anymore. There’s not enough Ritalin in the world to bring normalcy to Seabrook, but then again, normalcy is all relative within those historic walls.

Hailed by The New Yorker as an author who “gets away with just about everything,” Paul Murray reinvents adolescence, adulthood, and storytelling itself in Skippy Dies. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Dublin, Ireland
• Education—B.A., Trinity College, Dublin; M.A.,
   University of East Agnlia.
 • Currently—lives in

Murray was born in Dublin in 1975, the son of a professor of Anglo-Irish Drama in UCD and a teacher mother. Murray attended Blackrock College in south Dublin, an experience that would later provide the basis for the school in Skippy Dies. He studied English literature at Trinity College, Dublin, and subsequently completed his Masters in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He also spent time in Barcelona as an English teacher, a time he did not enjoy, describing it as "a brief and unhappy stint teaching English to a Catalan businessman, who pointed out many faults in my grammar I had not known about hitherto". He describes Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow as a very influential book to him.

Murray has written two novels: his first, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Prize in 2003 and nominated for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. His second novel Skippy Dies was longlisted for the 2010 Booker Prize and shortlisted for the 2010 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. It was also #3 on Time magazine's top ten works of fiction from 2010.  (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Extravagantly entertaining . . . One of the great pleasures of this novel is how confidently [Paul Murray] addresses such disparate topics as quantum physics, video games, early-20th-century mysticism, celebrity infatuation, drug dealing, Irish folklore and pornography . . . Six hundred sixty-one pages may seem like a lot to devote to a bunch of flatulence-obsessed kids, but that daunting length is part and parcel of the cause to which Skippy Dies, in the end, is most devoted. Teenagers, though they may not always act like it, are human beings, and their sadness and loneliness (and their triumphs, no matter how temporary) are as momentous as any adult’s. And novels about them—if they’re as smart and funny and touching as Skippy Dies—can be just as long as they like.
Dan Kois - New York Times


Dazzling.... If killing your protagonist with more than 600 pages to go sounds audacious, it’s nothing compared with the literary feats Murray pulls off in this hilarious, moving and wise book....  Murray is an expansive writer, bouncing around in time, tense and point of view. He’s unafraid to tempt sentimentality, to write directly at his deep themes, to employ shameless cliffhangers. And he’s talented enough to get away with most of it.... The mixture of tones is the book’s true triumph, oscillating the banal with the sublime, the silly with the terrifying, the sweet with the tragic. In short, it’s like childhood. In shorter, like life.... Murray makes the right choices, refusing to spare kid and kidult alike the gorgeous harshness of the world, filled as it is with ‘a sadness everyone can recognize, a sadness that is binding and homelike.
Jess Walter - Washington Post Book World


He really does die. It’s in the opening scene. But as Paul Murray’s novel backtracks to explain what brought about his death, Skippy is so desperately, painfully alive that you hope the mere act of reading about him will save him.... Murray balances.... forces in finely tuned chords of pathos and comedy, a virtuosic display you’d expect from a writer with the confidence to kill of his title character in the title.
Radhika Jones - Time


At Dublin's Seabrook College, Skippy survives the daily indignities common to a boarder's life in an elite boys school. Still, something's wrong. Why does he want to quit the swim team? Why are his grades slipping? And who's the dark-haired St. Brigid's girl Skippy is always trying to spy on with his roommate's telescope? Seabrook is the world in miniature, and its gates threaten to burst from the hugger-mugger of cruelty, scandal, and materialism teeming within. It takes Skippy's tragic death and a sequence of events both hilarious and horrifying to recover the consolations provided by sympathy and friendship. Whether these will be enough to redeem Seabrook remains anyone's guess, though Murray suggests that a fleeting sense of grace may be all we can hope for and more than we deserve. Verdict: Murray's second novel (after An Evening of Long Goodbyes) is almost flawless, a gift for fans of character and plot. In addition to his masterly use of James Joyce and Robert Graves throughout, Murray has created a social realism that holds its own with that of Dickens. Skippy Dies deserves to be widely read and loved. —J. Greg Matthews, Washington State Univ. Lib., Pullman
Library Journal


(Starred review.) An extremely ambitious and complex novel, filled with parallels, with sometimes recondite references to Irish folklore, with quantum physics, and with much more. Hilarious, haunting, and heartbreaking, it is inarguably among the most memorable novels of the year to date. —Michael Cart
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What were your initial theories about why Skippy died?

2. Why can't Howard be happy with Halley? Is his obsession with Aurelie any different from Skippy's obsession with Lori?

3. Who are the heroes and villains in this novel? Is the bad behavior due to bad parenting, high testosterone levels, materialism, lack of belief in a difficult God? Other factors?

4. How does Seabrook compare with your high school? Which characters most closely resemble you and your circle of friends?

5. What do the novel's priests have to say about the nature of the suffering they see at Seabrook? Do they defy or fit the stereotype of prep-school priests?

6. When Carl's parents fight loudly (David versus jealous mother Lucia), what do you think they're teaching him about love? How do they manage to stay so clueless about their son?

7. With his emphasis on marketing, branding, and public relations, does the Automator (Greg Costigan) reflect a typical trend in education today?

8. Would the novel have been as interesting if it had been set at the all-girl's school St. Brigid's? Are teenage girls as destructive as teenage boys?

9. Howard tells the Automator that Skippy earned his nickname because he has buck teeth, which cause him to make a kangaroo-like noise when he speaks. What makes Skippy an easy target? Are those who pick on him (including Father Green, badgering Skippy about obscenity in front of the whole French class) sadistic?

10. Google "M-theory." What do the articles seem to say about the search for order in the universe, even before the Big Bang? Why is it an ideal theory for Ruprecht's obsession, and for this novel?

11. Part I closes with a blend of Professor Tamashi's interview on the eleventh dimension and scenes from Skippy's "seduction" by Lori. What does it take to give and get love in Skippy Dies? What do those scenes say about the reality that love creates? What does the novel say about the reality that drugs create?

12. Lori's father, Gavin Wakeham, is an alumnus of Seabrook, and he is eager to share with Skippy his recollections of the faculty (which included a fondler, alumni who returned to their alma mater to teach when other opportunities didn't work out, and the perennially socially conscious Father Green). What impressions did the school make on Mr. Wakeham? What impressions will it leave on Skippy's class?

13. Discuss Ruprecht's quartet and the musical performance he links to communicating with the dead. Is it a step forward or backward for him, mentally

14. Which came first: Carl's drug use or his obsession with power and violent sex? When he became haunted by Dead Boy, did you think he was seeing a hallucination or a ghost? Reread his explosive closing scene. Is he a Demon, or the victim of one?

15. After Skippy's funeral, his father tells Howard that Skippy's great-grandfather served in Gallipoli. Does Skippy's generation lack valor?

16. Howard and Father Green are appalled to see the Automator defend Coach Roche. Is Tom worthy of defense?

17. Ultimately, who is to blame for Skippy's death?

18. Discuss part IV, "Afterland." Is Greg's message a victory letter? Did he get everything he wanted?
(Discussion Questions by publisher.)

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Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, the Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death
Kurt Vonnegut, 1969
Random House
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440180296

Summary
Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch-22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it unique poignancy—and humor. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 11, 1922
• Where—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Education—Cornell University; Carnegie Institute of Technology;
   Univeristy of Tennessee; M.A., University of Chicago
• Died—April 11, 2007
• Where—New York, New York

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th-century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973) blend satire, gallows humor, and science fiction. As a citizen he was a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a critical leftist intellectual. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

Early Years
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to third-generation German-American parents, Kurt Vonnegut, Sr. and Edith (Lieber). Both his father and his grandfather Bernard Vonnegut attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology and were architects in the Indianapolis firm of Vonnegut & Bohn. His great-grandfather Clemens Vonnegut, Sr. was the founder of the Vonnegut Hardware Company, an Indianapolis institution.

Vonnegut graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in May 1940 and matriculated into Cornell University that fall. Though majoring in chemistry, he was Assistant Managing Editor and Associate Editor of The Cornell Daily Sun. He was a member of the Delta Upsilon Fraternity, as was his father. While at Cornell, Vonnegut enlisted in the U.S. Army. The Army transferred him to the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee to study mechanical engineering.

On Mothers' Day in 1944, when Vonnegut was 21, his mother committed suicide with sleeping pills.

World War II
Kurt Vonnegut's experience as a soldier and prisoner of war had a profound influence on his later work. As a private with the 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division, Vonnegut was captured during the Battle of the Bulge on December 19, 1944, after the 106th was cut off from the rest of Courtney Hodges's First Army. Imprisoned in Dresden, Vonnegut was chosen as a leader of the POWs because he spoke some German. After telling the German guards "...just what I was going to do to them when the Russians came..." he was beaten and had his position as leader taken away. While a prisoner, he witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945 which destroyed most of the city.

Vonnegut was one of a group of American prisoners of war to survive the attack in an underground slaughterhouse meat locker used by the Germans as an ad hoc detention facility. The Germans called the building Schlachthof Fünf (Slaughterhouse Five) which the Allied POWs adopted as the name for their prison. Vonnegut said the aftermath of the attack was "utter destruction" and "carnage unfathomable." This experience was the inspiration for his famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and is a central theme in at least six of his other books. In Slaughterhouse-Five he recalls that the remains of the city resembled the surface of the moon, and that the Germans put the surviving POWs to work, breaking into basements and bomb shelters to gather bodies for mass burial, while German civilians cursed and threw rocks at them. Vonnegut eventually remarked, "There were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Germans sent in troops with flamethrowers. All these civilians' remains were burned to ashes."

Vonnegut was liberated by Red Army troops in May 1945 at the Saxony-Czechoslovakian border. Upon returning to America, he was awarded a Purple Heart for what he called a "ludicrously negligible wound," later writing in Timequake that he was given the decoration after suffering a case of "frostbite".

Post-War Career
After the war, Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked at the City News Bureau of Chicago. Vonnegut admitted that he was a poor anthropology student. According to Vonnegut in Bagombo Snuff Box, the university rejected his first thesis on the necessity of accounting for the similarities between Cubist painters and the leaders of late 19th Century Native American uprisings, saying it was "unprofessional."

He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York, in public relations for General Electric, where his brother Bernard worked in the research department. Vonnegut was a technical writer, but was also known for writing well past his typical hours while working. While in Schenectady, Vonnegut lived in the tiny hamlet of Alplaus...and rented an upstairs apartment located across the street from the Alplaus Volunteer Fire Department, where he was an active Volunteer Fire-Fighter for a few years. To this day, the apartment where Vonnegut lived still has a desk at which he wrote many of his short stories; Vonnegut carved his name on its underside. The University of Chicago later accepted his novel Cat's Cradle as his thesis, citing its anthropological content, and awarded him the M.A. degree in 1971.

In the mid-1950s, Vonnegut worked very briefly for Sports Illustrated magazine. On the verge of abandoning writing, Vonnegut was offered a teaching job at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. While he was there, Cat's Cradle became a best-seller, and he began Slaughterhouse-Five, now considered one of the best American novels of the 20th century, appearing on the 100 best lists of Time and the Modern Library.

Early in his adult life he moved to Barnstable, Massachusetts, a town on Cape Cod, where he managed the first Saab dealership established in the U.S.

Personal Life
The author's name appears in print as "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr." throughout the first half of his published writing career; beginning with the 1976 publication of Slapstick, he dropped the "Jr." and was simply billed as Kurt Vonnegut. His older brother, Bernard Vonnegut, was an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany, SUNY, who discovered that silver iodide could be used for cloud seeding, the process of artificially stimulating precipitation.

After returning from World War II, Kurt Vonnegut married his childhood sweetheart, Jane Marie Cox, writing about their courtship in several of his short stories. In the 1960s they lived in Barnstable, Massachusetts, where for a while Vonnegut worked at a Saab dealership. The couple separated in 1970. He did not divorce Cox until 1979, but from 1970 Vonnegut lived with the woman who would later become his second wife, photographer Jill Krementz. Krementz and Vonnegut were married after the divorce from Cox was finalized.

He raised seven children: three from his first marriage; three of his sister Alice's four children, adopted by Vonnegut after her death from cancer; and a seventh, Lily, adopted with Krementz. His son, Mark Vonnegut, a pediatrician, wrote two books, one about his experiences in the late 1960s and his major psychotic breakdown and recovery, and one which includes anecdotes of growing up as his father was a struggling writer, his subsequent illness and a more recent breakdown in 1985, and what life has been like since then. Mark was named after Mark Twain, whom Vonnegut considered an American saint.

Of Vonnegut's four adopted children, three are his nephews: James, Steven, and Kurt Adams; the fourth is Lily, a girl he adopted as an infant in 1982. James, Steven, and Kurt were adopted after a traumatic week in 1958, in which their father James Carmalt Adams was killed on September 15 in the Newark Bay rail crash when his commuter train went off the open Newark Bay bridge in New Jersey, and their mother—Kurt's sister Alice—died of cancer. In Slapstick, Vonnegut recounts that Alice's husband died two days before Alice herself, and her family tried to hide the knowledge from her, but she found out when an ambulatory patient gave her a copy of the New York Daily News a day before she herself died. The fourth and youngest of the boys, Peter Nice, went to live with a first cousin of their father in Birmingham, Alabama, as an infant. Lily is a singer and actress.

Vonnegut's first wife Jane Marie Cox later married Adam Yarmolinsky and wrote an account of the Vonneguts' life with the Adams children. It was published after her death as the book Angels Without Wings: A Courageous Family's Triumph Over Tragedy.

A lifelong smoker, Vonnegut smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, a habit he referred to as a "classy way to commit suicide." On November 11, 1999, an asteroid was named in Vonnegut's honor: 25399 Vonnegut.

Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007 after falling down a flight of stairs in his home and suffering massive head trauma.

Writing Career
Vonnegut's first short story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" appeared in the February 11, 1950 edition of Collier's (it has since been reprinted in his short story collection, Welcome to the Monkey House). His first novel was the dystopian novel Player Piano (1952), in which human workers have been largely replaced by machines. He continued to write short stories before his second novel, The Sirens of Titan, was published in 1959. Through the 1960s, the form of his work changed, from the relatively orthodox structure of Cat's Cradle to the acclaimed, semi-autobiographical Slaughterhouse-Five, given a more experimental structure by using time travel as a plot device. These structural experiments were continued in Breakfast of Champions (1973), which includes many rough illustrations, lengthy non-sequiturs and an appearance by the author himself, as a deus ex machina.

Vonnegut attempted suicide in 1984 and later wrote about this in several essays.

Breakfast of Champions became one of his best-selling novels. It includes, in addition to the author himself, several of Vonnegut's recurring characters. One of them, science fiction author Kilgore Trout, plays a major role and interacts with the author's character.

In 1974, Venus on the Half-Shell, a book by Philip José Farmer in a style similar to that of Vonnegut and attributed to Kilgore Trout, was published. This caused some confusion among readers, as for some time many assumed that Vonnegut wrote it; when the truth of its authorship came out, Vonnegut was reported as being "not amused". In an issue of the semi-prozine The Alien Critic/Science Fiction Review, Farmer claimed to have received an angry, obscenity-laden telephone call from Vonnegut about it.

In addition to recurring characters, there are also recurring themes and ideas. One of them is ice-nine (a central wampeter in his novel Cat's Cradle).

With the publication of his novel Timequake in 1997, Vonnegut announced his retirement from writing fiction. He continued to write for the magazine In These Times, where he was a senior editor, until his death in 2007, focusing on subjects ranging from contemporary U. S. politics to simple observational pieces on topics such as a trip to the post office. In 2005, many of his essays were collected in a new bestselling book titled A Man Without a Country, which he insisted would be his last contribution to letters.

The April 2008 issue of Playboy featured the first published excerpt from Armageddon in Retrospect, the first posthumous collection of Vonnegut's work. It included never before published short stories by the writer and a letter that was written to his family during World War II when Vonnegut was captured as a prisoner of war. The book also contains drawings by Vonnegut and a speech he wrote shortly before his death. The introduction was written by his son, Mark Vonnegut.

Vonnegut also taught at Harvard University, where he was a lecturer in English, and the City College of New York, where he was a Distinguished Professor.

Art Career
Vonnegut's work as a graphic artist began with his illustrations for Slaughterhouse-Five and developed with Breakfast of Champions, which included numerous felt-tip pen illustrations. Later in his career, he became more interested in artwork, particularly silk-screen prints, which he pursued in collaboration with Joe Petro III.

Politics
Vonnegut was deeply influenced by early Socialist labor leaders, especially Indiana natives Powers Hapgood and Eugene V. Debs, and he frequently quoted them in his work. He named characters after both Debs (Eugene Debs Hartke in Hocus Pocus and Eugene Debs Metzger in Deadeye Dick) and Russian Communist leader Leon Trotsky (Leon Trotsky Trout in Galápagos). He was a lifetime member of the American Civil Liberties Union and was featured in a print advertisement for them.

In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

Vonnegut frequently addressed moral and political issues but rarely dealt with specific political figures until after his retirement from fiction. Though the downfall of Walter Starbuck, a minor Nixon administration bureaucrat who is the narrator and main character in Jailbird (1979), would not have occurred but for the Watergate scandal, the focus is not on the administration. His collection God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian referenced controversial assisted suicide proponent Jack Kevorkian.

Though he was a dissident to the end, Vonnegut held a bleak view on the power of artists to effect change. "During the Vietnam War," he told an interviewer in 2003, "every respectable artist in this country was against the war. It was like a laser beam. We were all aimed in the same direction. The power of this weapon turns out to be that of a custard pie dropped from a stepladder six feet high."

Religion
Vonnegut described himself variously as a skeptic, freethinker, humanist, Unitarian Universalist, agnostic, and atheist. He disbelieved in the supernatural, considered religious doctrine to be "so much arbitrary, clearly invented balderdash," and believed people were motivated by loneliness to join religions.

Vonnegut considered humanism to be a modern-day form of freethought, and advocated it in various writings, speeches and interviews. Vonnegut went on to serve as honorary president of the American Humanist Association (AHA), having taken over the position from his late colleague Isaac Asimov, and serving until his own death in 2007.

Vonnegut was at one time a member of a Unitarian congregation. Vonnegut identified Unitarianism as the religion that many in his freethinking family turned to when freethought and other German "enthusiasms" became unpopular in the United States during the World Wars.

While he often identified himself as an agnostic or atheist, he also frequently spoke of God. Despite describing freethought, humanism and agnosticism as his "ancestral religion," and despite being a Unitarian, he also spoke of himself as being irreligious. A press release by the American Humanist Association described him as "completely secular." (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Pre-Internet books have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.

I now, I know (as Kurt Vonnegut used to say when people told him that the Germans attacked first). It sounds crazy. It sounds like a fantastic last-ditch effort to make sense of a lunatic universe. But there is so much more to this book. It is very tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; and it works. But is also very Vonnegut, which mean you'll either love it, or push it back in the science-fiction corner.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times


Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement.
Boston Globe

Splendid art.... A funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears.
Life


(Audio version.) "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time." So begins Vonnegut's absurdist 1969 classic. Hawke rises to the occasion of performing this sliced-and-diced narrative, which is part sci-fi and partially based on Vonnegut's experience as a American prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany during the firebombing of 1945 that killed thousands of civilians. Billy travels in time and space, stopping here and there throughout his life, including his long visit to the planet Tralfamador, where he is mated with a porn star. Hawke adopts a confidential, whisper-like tone for his reading. Listening to him is like listening to someone tell you a story in the back of a bus—the perfect pitch for this book. After the novel ends, Vonnegut himself speaks for a short while about his survival of the Dresden firestorm and describes and names the man who inspired this story. Tacked on to the very end of this audio smorgasbord is music, a dance single that uses a vintage recording of Vonnegut reading from the book. Though Hawke's reading is excellent, one cannot help but wish Vonnegut himself had read the entire text.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
1. After reading the book, why do you think that Vonnegut dedicated his novel to Mary O’Hare and Gerhard Muller?

2. Why does Vonnegut choose to write a “jumbled and jangled” war book?

3. What is the significance of the phrase “so it goes”?

4. What is the significance of the bird cry “poo-tee-weet”?

5. Explain the subtitle, "The Children’s Crusade or a Dirty Dance With Death."

6. Discuss the major themes of Slaughterhouse-Five?

7. How does Vonnegut use time to communicate his themes?

8. Discuss the use of irony in the novel.

9. Are we intended to believe Billy’s tales of Tralfamadore or are we, like Barbara, supposed to assume that Tralfamadore is a figment of Billy’s post-brain-damaged imagination?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Sleepwalker 
Chris Bohjalian, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804170994


Summary
A spine-tingling novel of lies, loss, and buried desire—the mesmerizing story of a wife and mother who vanishes from her bed late one night.

When Annalee Ahlberg goes missing, her children fear the worst.

Annalee is a sleepwalker whose affliction manifests in ways both bizarre and devastating. Once, she merely destroyed the hydrangeas in front of her Vermont home. More terrifying was the night her older daughter, Lianna, pulled her back from the precipice of the Gale River bridge.

The morning of Annalee's disappearance, a search party combs the nearby woods. Annalee's husband, Warren, flies home from a business trip. Lianna is questioned by a young, hazel-eyed detective. And her little sister, Paige, takes to swimming the Gale to look for clues.

When the police discover a small swatch of fabric, a nightshirt, ripped and hanging from a tree branch, it seems certain Annalee is dead, but Gavin Rikert, the hazel-eyed detective, continues to call, continues to stop by the Ahlbergs' Victorian home.

As Lianna peels back the layers of mystery surrounding Annalee's disappearance, she finds herself drawn to Gavin, but she must ask herself: Why does the detective know so much about her mother? Why did Annalee leave her bed only when her father was away? And if she really died while sleepwalking, where was the body?

Conjuring the strange and mysterious world of parasomnia, a place somewhere between dreaming and wakefulness, The Sleepwalker is a masterful novel from one of our most treasured storytellers. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—Amherst College
• Awards—Anahid Literary Award, 2000; New England Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Lincoln, Vermont


Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist. Bohjalian is the author of nearly 20 novels, including New York Times bestsellers Midwives, Secrets of Eden, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers.

Bohjalian is the son of Aram Bohjalian, who was a senior vice president of the New York advertising agency Romann & Tannenholz. Chris Bohjalian graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York.

He and his wife lived in a co-op in Brooklyn until March 1986, when the two were riding in a taxicab in which the driver refused to let them out of the car for 45 minutes, ignoring all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight, the driver dropped them off at a near-deserted street in front of a crack house, where the police were conducting a raid and Bohjalian and his wife were forced to drop to the ground for their protection. The incident prompted the couple to move from Brooklyn; Bohjalian said, "After it was all over, we just thought, "Why do we live here?" A few days later, the couple read an ad in The New York Times referencing the "People's Republic of Vermont," and in 1987 the couple moved to Lincoln, Vermont.

Early career
After buying their house, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The Concord Monitor said of Bohjalian during this period, "his immersion in community life and family, Vermont-style, has allowed him to develop into a novelist with an ear and empathy for the common man." Bohjalian continued the column for about 12 years, writing about such topics as his own daily life, fatherhood and the transformation of America. The column has run in the Burlington Free Press since 1992. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.

Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. Almost two decades after it was released, Bohjalian said of the book, "It was a train wreck. I hadn't figured things out yet." His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.

In 1998, Bohjalian wrote his fifth book, Midwives, a novel focusing on rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section.

The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club, which helped push the book to great financial success. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Victoria Blewer has often described her husband as having "a crush" on the Sybil Danforth character. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret."

Later career
Bohjalian followed Midwives with the 1999 novel The Law of Similars, about a widower attorney suffering from nameless anxieties who starts dating a woman who practices alternative medicine. The novel was inspired by Bohjalian's real-life visit to a homeopath in an attempt to cure frequent colds he was catching from his daughter's day care center. Bohjalian said of the visit, "I don't think I imagined there was a novel in homeopathy, however, until I met the homeopath and she explained to me the protocols of healing. There was a poetry to the language that a patient doesn't hear when visiting a conventional doctor."

The protagonist, a father, is based in part on Bohjalian himself, and his four-year-old daughter is based largely on Bohjalian's daughter, who was three when he was writing the book., Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times said the novel shared many similarities with Midwives but that it paled in comparison; Rosenberg said, "Unlike its predecessor, it fails to take advantage of Bohjalian's great gift for creating thoughtful fiction featuring characters in whom the reader sustains a lively interest." Megan Harlan of The Boston Phoenix described it as "formulaic fiction" and said Bohjalian focused too much on creating a complex plot and not enough of complex characterizations. The Law of Similars, like Midwives, made the New York Times bestsellers list.

He won the New England Book Award in 2002, and in 2007 released "The Double Bind," a novel based on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

In 2008, Bohjalian released Skeletons at the Feast, a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany. The novel was inspired by an unpublished diary written by German citizen Eva Henatsch from 1920 to 1945. The diary was given to Bohjalian in 1998 by Henatsch's grandson Gerd Krahn, a friend of Bohjalian, who had a daughter in the same kindergarten class as Bohjalian's daughter. Bohjalian was particularly fascinated by Henatsch's account of her family's trek west ahead of the Soviet Army, but he was not inspired to write a novel from it until 2006, when he read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, Max Hastings' history of the final years of World War II. Bohjalian was struck not only by how often Henatsch's story mirrored real-life experiences, but also the common "moments of idiosyncratic human connection" found in both. Skeletons of the Feast was considered a departure for Bohjalian because it was not only set outside of Vermont, but set in a particular historical moment.

His 2010 novel, Secrets of Eden, was also a critical success, receiving starred reviews from three of the four trade journals (Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly), as well as many newspapers and magazines. It debuted at # 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.

His next novel, The Night Strangers, published in 2011, represents yet another departure for Bohjalian. The is both a gothic ghost story and a taut psychological thriller.

He has written a weekly column for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since February 1992 called "Idyll Banter." His 1,000th column appeared in May 2011.

Personal comments
In a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview, Bohjalian offered up these personal comments:

I was the heaviest child, by far, in my second-grade class. My mother had to buy my pants for me at a store called the "Husky Boys Shop," and still she had to hem the cuffs up around my knees. I hope this experience, traumatizing as it was, made me at least marginally more sensitive to people around me.

I have a friend with Down syndrome, a teenage boy who is capable of remembering the librettos from entire musicals the first or second time he hears them. The two of us belt them out together whenever we're driving anywhere in a car.I am a pretty avid bicyclist. The other day I was biking alone on a thin path in the woods near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, and suddenly before me I saw three bears. At first I saw only two, and initially I thought they were cats.

Then I thought they were dogs. Finally, just as I was approaching them and they started to scurry off the path and into the thick brush, I understood they were bears. Bear cubs, to be precise. Which is exactly when their mother, no more than five or six feet to my left, reared up on her hind legs, her very furry paws and very sharp claws raised above her head in a gesture that an optimist might consider a wave and guy on a bike might consider something a tad more threatening. Because she was standing on a slight incline, I was eye level with her stomach—an eventual destination that seemed frighteningly plausible. I have never biked so fast in my life in the woods. I may never have biked so fast in my life on a paved road.

I do have hobbies—I garden and bike, for example—but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.

He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community—always off-stage, never on.

Writing style
Bohjalian novels often focus on a specific issue, such as homelessness, animal rights and environmentalism, and tend to be character-driven, revolving around complex and flawed protagonists and secondary characters.

Bohjalian uses characteristics from his real life in his writings; in particular, many of his novels take place in fictional Vermont towns, and the names of real New Hampshire towns are often used throughout his stories. Bohjalian said, "Writers can talk with agonizing hubris about finding their voices, but for me, it was in Vermont that I discovered issues, things that matter to me."

His novels also tend to center around ordinary people facing extraordinarily difficult situations resulting from unforeseen circumstances, often triggered by other parties. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Sex, secrets and the mysteries of sleep: These are the provocative ingredients in Chris Bohjalian’s spooky thriller The Sleepwalker. It’s a dark, Hitchcockian novel… Trust me, you will not be able to stop thinking about it days after you finish reading this book.
Carol Memmott - Washington Post


Great mystery writers, like great magicians, have the ability to hide the truth that’s right before your eyes. Best-selling novelist Chris Bohjalian is at the full power of his literary legerdemain in his newest book, The Sleepwalker…. Bohjalian teases and tantalizes the reader…. Masterful plotting evokes a magician who distracts his audience to look this way, not that way. The ending will have the reader rereading for missed clues. The Sleepwalker is Bohjalian at his best: a creepily compelling topic and an illusionist’s skill at tightening the tension. This is a novel worth losing sleep over.
Patty Rhule - USA Today
 

Literary and compelling, a combination so rare I’m tempted to apply for federal intervention.... I hesitate to say more, because to know too much may spoil the fun of discovery. Rest assured the denouement is perfect. This is Bohjalian at his very best.
Curt Shleier - Seattle Times


A perfectly crafted surprise ending…. Bohjalian succeeds in making us accomplices in a dark world we never knew existed.
Laura Patten - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


After a chronic sleepwalker goes missing, the general consensus is accidental death. But nothing is what it seems in this gripping mystery.
Cosmopolitan


[A] stylish fusion of mystery and domestic thriller.... Powered by brilliantly rendered characters, an intriguing topic (parasomnia), and a darkly lyrical...this novel has only one weak point—its highly improbable conclusion, which may leave readers unsatisfied.
Publishers Weekly


It takes unexpected answers to solve this mystery. Bohjalian’s latest will captivate readers who crave an edge-of-your-seat page-turner they can’t put down.  —Susan Carr
Library Journal


Annalee Ahlberg…is never seen again…. Bohjalian raises essential questions of identity and heredity, sexuality and desire, bringing the Ahlberg family conundrum into focus with a didn’t-see-that-one-coming powerhouse ending. —Carol Haggas
Booklist


The problem with the novel is primarily one of shape. The first two-thirds of the book are spent wondering whether Annalee is missing or dead.... [T]he only reason the ending is a surprise is because...[of] red herrings. Sensational subject matter aside, this thriller is a sleeper.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What were your initial theories about Annalee’s disappearance? As the characters reacted to the evidence, what did they reveal about themselves?

2. When you read Annalee’s emails, along with reminiscences of her, what were your impressions? What was it like to get to know her through Lianna’s eyes?

3. Does Warren’s career as a literature professor (specializing in poetry, no less) enhance his ability to cope with his wife’s sleepwalking, or is science the only way to understand it?

4. How does the relationship between Lianna and Paige compare to the relationship between you and your siblings? What determines whether siblings will take care of each other or become rivals?

5. Spoiler alert! Lianna looks like her mother and takes on some of Annalee’s responsibilities even though she is only twenty-one years old. Is it ethical for thirty-three-year-old Gavin to date Lianna, or is he the key to her healing?

6. The author provides detailed images of how a missing person’s body might look after being ravaged by a river. How did this description affect you? Does the physical body or the psyche or the soul play the primary role in making us who we are?

7. The Sleepwalker takes place in the year 2000, just before the dawn of smart phones and the profusion of social media. How does this make for a better storyline?

8. Lianna has a talent for magic. Why is she drawn to creating illusions, and to being in control of the reality behind them?

9. As the Ahlbergs confront the role of genetics in their family tragedy, what issues are raised about the heart of our identities? Are the Ahlberg girls shaped more by nature or nurture?

10. Spoiler alert! How did you react as you read about the court cases of defendants who were sleepwalking (and the sexual assault accusations Gavin faced when he was younger, described on page 177)? Who is responsible for protecting society from the crimes of a sleepwalker?

11. How would you describe the portrait of a marriage that emerges in the novel? How was trust formed and tested between Annalee and Warren? Did secrecy strengthen or weaken their relationship?

12. In the end, when the meaning of the italicized passages became clear, what did you discover about the nature of guilt? Could anything have prevented Annalee’s disappearance?

13. Spoiler alert! What does sexsomnia tell us about the human sex drive? When Lianna has sleep sex with Gavin for the first time, is she having an encounter with his true self?

14. What surprising facts did you learn about sleepwalking, and sleep in general, as you read this novel? If you were a sleepwalker, what would your strongest impulses be?

15. In a review for Library Journal, Barbara Hoffert observed that Chris Bohjalian “never writes the same book twice. From the rural Vermont-set Midwives to the historical The Sandcastle Girls to the close-at-hand dystopia of Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands, he charts crucial moments in different settings and with different sensibilities.” Although he is a master of variety, what common strands appear in his depictions of humanity? How did The Sleepwalker enhance your experience of other Bohjalian novels?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing 
Mira Jacob, 2014
Random House
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812994780


Summary
A winning, irreverent debut novel about a family wrestling with its future and its past.
 
With depth, heart, and agility, debut novelist Mira Jacob takes us on a deftly plotted journey that ranges from 1970s India to suburban 1980s New Mexico to Seattle during the dot.com boom.

The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is an epic, irreverent testimony to the bonds of love, the pull of hope, and the power of making peace with life’s uncertainties.
 
Celebrated brain surgeon Thomas Eapen has been sitting on his porch, talking to dead relatives. At least that is the story his wife, Kamala, prone to exaggeration, tells their daughter, Amina, a photographer living in Seattle.
 
Reluctantly Amina returns home and finds a situation that is far more complicated than her mother let on, with roots in a trip the family, including Amina’s rebellious brother Akhil, took to India twenty years earlier. Confronted by Thomas’s unwillingness to explain himself, strange looks from the hospital staff, and a series of puzzling items buried in her mother’s garden, Amina soon realizes that the only way she can help her father is by coming to terms with her family’s painful past. In doing so, she must reckon with the ghosts that haunt all of the Eapens. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—New Mexico, USA
• Education—M.F.A., New School of Social Research
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City


Mira Jacob is the founder of Pete’s Reading Series in New York City and has an MFA from the New School for Social Research. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son. The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is her first novel. (From the publisher.)

Read about Mira and her parents in Vogue.

Book Reviews
Beautifully wrought, frequently funny, gently heartbreaking.... Moving forward and back in time, Jacob balances comedy and romance with indelible sorrow, and she is remarkably adept at tonal shifts. When her plot springs surprises, she lets them happen just as they do in life: blindsidingly right in the middle of things.
Boston Globe


Jacob’s novel is light and optimistic, unpretentious and refreshingly witty. Jacob has created characters with evident care and treats them with gentleness even as they fight viciously with each other. Her prose is sharp and true and deeply funny.... This is the literary fiction I will be recommending to everyone this summer, especially those who love multigenerational, multicultural family sagas.
Associated Press


[A]lways engrossing and often feels so true to life that it’s a surprise that it’s not.
Austin Chronicle


The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing is a rich, engrossing debut told with lightness and care, as smart about grief as it is about the humor required to transcend it.
Kansas City Star


[A] sprawling, poignant, often humorous novel that’s worth missing cocktails on the deck in order to finish a chapter.... Told with humor and sympathy for its characters, the book serves as a bittersweet lesson in the binding power of family, even when we seek to break out from it.
Oprah Magazine


With wit and a rich understanding of human foibles, [Mira] Jacob unspools a story that will touch your heart.
People
 

This debut novel so fully envelops the reader in the soul of an Indian-American immigrant family that it's heart-wrenching to part with them.... Thanks to Jacob’s captivating voice, which is by turns hilarious and tender and always attuned to shifts of emotion, her characters shimmer with life.
Entertainment Weekly

 
[E]motionally bountiful debut.... The author has a wonderful flair for recreating the messy sprawl of family life, with all its joy, sadness, frustration, and anger. Although overlong, the novel, through its lovingly created and keenly observed characters, makes something new of the Indian immigrant experience in America.
Publishers Weekly


Jacob’s writing is refreshing, and she excels at creating a powerful bond between the reader and her characters, all wonderfully drawn and with idiosyncratic natures—the mother, Kamala, for instance, is a born-again Christian—that make them enchanting. Recommended for those who like engaging fiction that succeeds in addressing serious issues with some humor.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Jacob's darkly comic debut—about a photographer's visit to her parents' New Mexico home during a family crisis—is grounded in the specifics of the middle-class Indian immigrant experience while uncovering the universality of family dysfunction and endurance.... [Written] with naked honesty about the uneasy generational divide among Indians in America and about family in all its permutations.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The book starts in India, but doesn’t go back. Why do you think the author chose to open the book there? 2. Why do you think Amina was unhinged by taking the picture of Bobby McCloud? Do you believe her own explanation?

3. What do you think compelled Amina to photograph the worst moments at the wedding?

4. Sanji is presented as different than the rest of the adults in the Albuquerque “family.” What might make her different and why?

5. Kamala is a very polarizing character in the book. Were you drawn to or repelled by her? How do you think the author feels about her?

6. Kamala and Amina seem at odds most of the time, but what traits do they have in common?

7. Amina uses the camera to express herself. Kamala uses her cooking. Is there anything that you use (cooking, art, music, work) to connect to your world and the people in your life?

8. Akhil is angry with America in a way that Amina isn’t. What is the source of his anger?

9. If Akhil had lived longer, who else would he have painted on his ceiling? 

10. Do you think Sunil was really sleepwalking when he set fire to the house? 

11. All of the Eapens go through tremendous change, though Amina’s are more subtle than most. What is the biggest change in Amina’s personality?

12. If Jamie and Amina hadn’t shared their past, do you think she would have been able to trust him?

13. When Thomas sees Akhil, he believes it’s a genuine visit, not a side effect of his tumor. When Amina sees Akhil, she thinks it’s a symptom of her depression. Which explanation are you more inclined to believe?  

14. What invention do you imagine Thomas was last working on?

15. Why do you think the author titled her novel The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Sliver of Truth (Ridley Jones series #2)
Lisa Unger, 2007
Crown Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307338495

Summary
Ridley Jones is being careful about where she steps and trying to get on with her life when a seemingly mundane act—picking up a few envelopes of prints at a photo lab—puts her at the nexus of a global network of crime. A shadowy figure of a man appears in almost every picture she’s taken in the last year, lurking just far enough away to make identification impossible. Now the FBI is at her door, some serious bad guys are following her every move, and the family she once loved and relied on is more distant than ever.

The only thing Ridley knows for sure is that she has to get to the truth about herself and her past if she’s ever going to find her way home. Charged with relentless intensity and kinetic action, playing out with unnerving suspense on the streets of New York and London, and seen through the terrified but determined eyes of a young woman whose body and heart are pushed to the point of shattering, Sliver of Truth is another triumph from the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—April 26, 1970
• Where—New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Reared—The Netherlands, UK, and New Jersey, USA
• Education—New School for Social Research
• Currently—lives in Florida


Lisa Unger is an award winning New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world.

She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.

Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press).

More
Her own words:

I have always most naturally expressed myself through writing and I have always dwelled in the land of my imagination more comfortably than in reality. There’s a jolt I get from a good story that I’m not sure can be duplicated in the real world. Perhaps this condition came about because of all the traveling my family did when I was younger. I was born in Connecticut but we moved often. By the time my family settled for once and all in New Jersey, I had already lived in Holland and in England (not to mention Brooklyn and other brief New Jersey stays) for most of my childhood. I don’t recall ever minding moving about; even then I had a sense that it was cool and unusual. But I think it was one of many things that kept me feeling separate from the things and people around me, this sense of myself as transient and on the outside, looking in. I don’t recall ever exactly fitting in anywhere. Writers are first and foremost observers … and one can’t truly observe unless she stands apart.

For a long time, I didn’t really believe that it was possible to make a living as a writer … mainly because that’s what people always told me. So, I made it a hobby. All through high school, I won awards and eventually, a partial scholarship because of my writing. In college, I was advised by teachers to pursue my talent, to get an agent, to really go for it. But there was a little voice that told me (quietly but insistently) that it wasn’t possible. I didn’t see it as a viable career option as I graduated from the New School for Social Research (I transferred there from NYU for smaller, more dynamic classes). I needed a “real job.” A real job delivers a regular pay check, right? So I entered a profession that brought me as close to my dream as possible … and paid, if not well, then at least every two weeks. I went into publishing.

When I left for Florida, I think I was at a critical level of burnout. I think that as a New Yorker, especially after a number of years, one starts to lose sight of how truly special, how textured and unique it is. The day-to-day can be brutal: the odors, the noise, the homeless, the trains, the expense. Once I had some distance though, New York City started to leak into my work and I found myself rediscovering many of the things I had always treasured about it. It came very naturally as the setting for Beautiful Lies. It is the place I know best. I know it as one can only know a place she has loved desperately and hated passionately and then come to miss terribly once she has left it behind.

But it is true that we can’t go home again. I live in Florida now with my wonderful husband, and I’m a full-time writer. There’s a lot of beauty and texture and darkness to be mined in this strange place, as well. I’m sure I’d miss it as much in different ways if I returned to New York. I guess that’s my thing … no matter where I am I wonder if I belong somewhere else. I’m always outside, observing. It’s only when I’m writing that I know I’m truly home. (Author bio from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Bestseller Unger's sensational second thriller (after Beautiful Lies) puts her in the same league as such genre masters as Peter Straub and Peter Abrahams. From the cryptic opening section, which ends with a New York Times reporter finding her husband bleeding to death, Unger grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go. Meanwhile, the FBI informs Ridley Jones, a magazine writer, that her late uncle, Max Smiley (who's really her biological father), is still alive and being sought by assorted international players on all sides of the law. Rapidly finding that little in her life is what it seems, Jones is horrified to be confronted with evidence indicating that Smiley is a misogynistic monster of the first order, who may have played a role in the murder of the reporter's husband. Unger's gifts for dialogue and pacing set this far above the standard novel of suspense and will leave many anxiously awaiting her third book.
Publishers Weekly

Freelance journalist Ridley Jones stops by the photo lab to pick up her pictures and is taken in for questioning by FBI agents on her way home. It seems that a mysterious figure is hovering in the background in several of her photos, and Special Agent Dylan Grace believes that the figure is Ridley's Uncle Max, whom she thought was dead. In Unger's follow-up to Beautiful Lies, Ridley must face the fact that her beloved uncle may not only be alive but that he wasn't the man she believed him to be. The FBI wants her to lead its agents to him, but she doesn't completely trust anyone now, including her boyfriend, Jake, who informs her that Max was part of a vicious crime ring. Determined to discover the truth in the web of lies surrounding her, Ridley decides to do some investigating on her own and encounters danger and deception at every turn. A fast-paced story that readers will find difficult to put down; recommended.
Library Journal

More identity crisis for New York City journalist Ridley Jones in this murky follow-up to Unger's debut (Beautiful Lies, 2006). Just when she thought she'd figured out who her real father is, single working girl Ridley is confronted with fresh evidence that her dead Uncle Max Smiley, revealed a year ago (and in Unger's previous book) to be her biological father, might in fact still be alive, and responsible for a series of ghastly assaults on women. Max, an abused child himself, was a self-made real-estate developer and the shadowy head of the Project Rescue organization, which ostensibly saved at-risk children from abusive parents, but in some cases actually abducted children and placed them in foster homes. Ridley's adoptive parents, Ben and Grace Jones, were also involved in Project Rescue, and adopted Ridley as a child. At this point in her life, Ridley is still picking up the pieces of her identity, having been involved in the last year with Jake, a former Project Rescue baby who is still obsessed with Max's whereabouts. Meanwhile, Ridley is being trailed by FBI Special Agent Dylan Grace, who ties her to the recent disappearance of a New York Times journalist, Myra Lyall. In a development that turns these characters into paranoid, damaged people, it's revealed that Agent Grace's mother happened to have been a spy and one of Max's victims. And with everyone looking for Max, possibly at the center of a sex slave trade, the trail leads naturally to Ridley, the beloved daughter he will surely reveal himself to at the novel's 11th hour. Ridley is a character still in search of herself, and this effort offers appealing moments of first-person honesty, but could lose readers unfamiliar with Unger's first.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Of all the baffling plot twists in Sliver of Truth, which one caught you most by surprise? Why?

2. The book’s pivotal scene—where Ridley confronts Max at Potter’s Field—bookends the novel, appearing at the beginning and near the conclusion. Why do you think the author chose to structure this scene like this? What did you think of having it split in this way?

3. In chapter 2, Ridley describes her childhood habit of hiding from adults, saying, “I just got better and better at finding places to hide. Eventually I had to reveal myself or never be found” (page 21). In the context of the novel, does this statement have another meaning? If so, what?

4. What was your opinion of Dylan Grace? At first, did you think he was being honest with Ridley about his motives for finding Max?

5. “Some of us are lost and some of us are found. I think that’s really the difference Max had observed” (page 273). Who are the “lost” characters in Sliver of Truth, and who are “found”? What are the differences between these characters?

6. Talk about the relationship between Dylan and Ridley. Did you expect that he and Ridley would get together? Why do you think they were so attracted to each other?

7. “I was filled with dread and fury, and yes, the slightest glimmer of hope,” Ridley says after she finds out Max is still alive (page 283). Why hope? Does this foreshadow her ultimate encounter with Max? At any point in the novel did you believe Max was alive?

8. Ghosts and hauntings are recurrent themes in Sliver of Truth. Discuss some instances where they are prominent, and their significance. Does the author employ other symbols like these?

9. “I have a tremendous ability to compartmentalize my emotions. Some call it denial, but I think it’s a skill to be able to put unpleasant things out of your head for a little while in order to accomplish something else,” (page 98). Consider this statement of Ridley’s. What does it reveal about her personality? Do you agree with what she says?

10. Nature versus nurture is a theme Ridley frequently debates with herself: Is her true self a result of her adoptive parents’ upbringing, or is she Max’s daughter (and therefore shares his traits)? What do you think? Are we really products of our DNA, or do the people around us shape who we become?

11. Discuss Jake. Did you imagine that he was not who he claimed to be? Were you surprised to discover what his real identity actually was? Do you think Ridley suspected that Jake was lying to her?

12. If you read Beautiful Lies, did you realize that Jake lied to Ridley on the Brooklyn Bridge?

13. Why was Ridley unable to see the real Max, despite the attempts by many to inform her of his wrongdoings? For that matter, why does it seem that all the men in Ridley’s life (Dylan, Jake, her ex-boyfriend Zack, even her adoptive father, Ben) hid their true selves from her?

14. “I’m sure you were hoping for a neater package–the villain is caught and brought to justice. I live happily ever after” (page 351). What did you think of the book’s ending? When Ridley’s real intentions against Max were revealed, were you surprised?

15. What do you think the title means?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Slumdog Millionaire (originally published as Q & A)
Vikas Swarup, 2005
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439136652


Summary 
Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.

Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history—from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal.

Swarup's Q & A [Slumdog Millionaire] is a beguiling blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know — not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil — and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
• Birth—1963
• Where—Allahabad, India
• Education—Allahabad University
• Awards—Exclusive Book Boeke Prize (South Africa); Prix
  Grand Public (France)
• Currently—posted to Pretoria, South Africa

Vikas Swarup is a 1986 Indian Foreign Service bureaucrat, an Indian novelist and diplomat who has served in Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia and Great Britain. He was born in Allahabad into a family of lawyers and did his schooling at Boys' High School & College, Allahabad. He pursued further studies at Allahabad University in Psychology, History and Philosophy. In 1986 he joined the Indian Foreign Service. Since August, 2006, he has been posted in Pretoria as India's Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa.

Swarup's debut novel, Q and A, [aka Slumdog Millionaire in film] tells the story of a penniless waiter in Mumbai who becomes the biggest quiz show winner in history. Critically acclaimed in India and abroad, this international bestseller has been translated into 41 languages.

Acclaim: book and film
• The novel was shortlisted for the Best First Book by the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and won South Africa’s Exclusive Books Boeke Prize 2006, as well as the Prix Grand Public at the 2007 Paris Book Fair.

• A BBC radio play based on the book won the Gold Award for Best Drama at the Sony Radio Academy Awards 2008 and the IVCA Clarion Award 2008.

• Harper Collins brought out the audio book, read by Kerry Shale, which won the Audie for best fiction audio book of the year.

• Film4 of the UK had optioned the movie rights and the movie titled Slumdog Millionaire (SDM) directed by Danny Boyle was first released in the US to great critical acclaim.

• SDM won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival and three awards (Best Film, Best Director and Most Promising Newcomer) at the British Independent Film Awards 2008.

• The National Board of Review picked SDM as the best film of 2008.

• The movie swept five awards out of its six nominations at the Critics' Choice Awards, and all four nominations awarded at the Golden Globe Awards which includes best director, picture, screenplay & score, and seven BAFTA Awards.

• It received 10 Oscar nominations of which it won 8, including Best Picture and Best Director, as well as prizes for cinematography, sound mixing, score and film editing. SDM’s eight Oscars was the largest total won by a single film since The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won 11 in 2004.

More
Swarup's second novel Six Suspects, (2008) and has been translated into several languages and optioned for a film by the BBC and Starfield productions.

Swarup's short story "A Great Event" has been published in The Children’s Hours: Stories of Childhood, an anthology of stories about childhood to support Save the Children and raise awareness for its fight to end violence against children.

Vikas Swarup has participated in the Oxford Literary Festival, the Turin International Book Fair, the Auckland Writers’ Conference, the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the Kitab Festival in New Delhi, the St. Malo International Book & Film Festival in France, the Words on Water Literary Festival at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and the Jaipur Literature Festival in India.

He and his wife, Aparna, have two sons, Aditya and Varun. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
It was an inspired idea by Vikas Swarup to write Q & A.... A broad and sympathetic humanity underpins the whole book
Sunday Telegraph (London)

A rare, seemingly effortless brew of humour, drama, romance and social realism.... Swarup...has achieved a triumph with this thrilling, endearing work which gets into the heart and soul of modern India.
New Zealand Herald

Vikas Swarup weaves a delightful yarn. With an easy style, Q & A is sweet, sorrowful and funny. An enchanting tale.
Sunday Tribune (India)

Ram's funny and poignant odyssey explores the causes of good and evil and illustrates how, with a little luck, the best man sometimes wins. Deborah Donovan
Booklist

When Ram Mohammad Thomas, an orphaned, uneducated waiter from Mumbai, wins a billion rupees on a quiz show, he finds himself thrown in jail. (Unable to pay out the prize, the program's producers bribed local authorities to declare Ram a cheater.) Enter attractive lawyer Smita Shah, to get Ram out of prison and listen to him explain, via flashbacks, how he knew the answers to all the show's questions. Indian diplomat Swarup's fanciful debut is based on a sound premise: you learn a lot about the world by living in it (Ram has survived abandonment, child abuse, murder). And just as the quiz show format is meant to distill his life story (each question prompts a separate flashback), Ram's life seems intended to distill the predicament of India's underclass in general. Rushdie's Midnight's Children may have been a model: Ram's brash yet innocent voice recalls that of Saleem Sinai, Rushdie's narrator, and the sheer number of Ram's near-death adventures represents the life of the underprivileged in India, just as Saleem wore a map of India, quite literally, on his face. But Swarup's prose is sometimes flat and the story's picaresque form turns predictable. Ram is a likable fellow, but this q&a with him, though clever, grows wearying.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions 
1. Why does Vikas Swarup choose the name “Ram Mohammad Thomas” for his protagonist? The names represent three different religions—besides displaying India’s diversity, what does this say about Ram Mohammad Thomas as a person?

2. When Ram recounts the story of Father Timothy, he repeatedly refers to himself as an “idiot orphan boy” (pg. 49). Considering how well Father Timothy treats him, why does he describe himself in this manner?

3. Ram has a recurring dream of a tall woman with black hair that obscures her face. At what moments does he have this dream, and why? What does this woman represent? Is she his biological mother? A symbol of hope? Abandonment?

4. In telling Gudiya’s story, Ram asks “But what was Gudiya’s crime? Simply that she was born a girl and Shantaram was her father?” (pg. 68). Are there other women in this novel who are treated poorly simply because of their sex? Do any female characters not need Ram’s protection? How would you describe his relationships with women?

5. Several characters, especially Ram and Salim, are big movie fans. Is there a reason for this? Do films help them escape their frequently dreary lives, is it simply a significant part of their culture, or is there another reason?

6. What are Ram’s ambitions in life? Why does he tell Prem Kumar he doesn’t know how he’s going to spend the billion rupees? Why does Ram turn in Colonel Taylor? Is this retribution for the colonel’s spying, his derogatory comments about Indians, or for the way he treats his family? Or does Ram simply want to collect his wages before returning to Mumbai?

7. “The city may have chosen to ignore the ugly growth of Dharavi, but a cancer cannot be stopped simply by being declared illegal” (pg. 134). Are there any other problems that go unacknowledged because they’re too painful to face? If so, what impact does this have on the characters?

8. What do you think of Salim’s decision to give Ahmed, the hit man, a picture of Maman? Did Salim have another choice? Is he guilty of murder? Did Ram have other options besides throwing Shantaram down the stairs? Are these violent acts justifiable considering the behavior of the victims?

9. Consider the impact of Western culture on Ram. He dreams of eating at places like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, and he practices “speaking Australian.” Why is this important to him?

10. Why does Ram want to have “manageable dreams” (pg. 279)? What does he mean by this? And does this conflict with him appearing on a game show to win one billion rupees?

11. Considering he believes he’s already murdered two people, why is Ram unable to kill Prem Kumar?

12. How do you think Ram changes, if at all, during his eighteen years? Is he a stronger person at the end of Q&A than he was as a boy? Which journey had the greatest impact on him, either for better or worse?

13. “I realized a long time ago that dreams have power only over your own mind; but with money you can have power over the minds of others” (pg. 316). In relation to this novel, would you agree with this statement? Are there characters without money that are able to influence others?

14. Despite his lack of formal education, Ram is able to answer twelve questions correctly in order to win a billion rupees. Was this pure luck, or do you think he’ll always be able to find the answers to life’s many questions? What do you envision the future holds for Ram?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Small Blessings
Martha Woodroof, 2014
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250040527


Summary
From debut novelist Martha Woodroof comes an inspiring tale of a small-town college professor, a remarkable new woman at the bookshop, and the ten-year old son he never knew he had.

Tom Putnam has resigned himself to a quiet and half-fulfilled life.

An English professor in a sleepy college town, he spends his days browsing the Shakespeare shelves at the campus bookstore, managing the oddball faculty in his department and caring, alongside his formidable mother-in-law, for his wife Marjory, a fragile shut-in with unrelenting neuroses, a condition exacerbated by her discovery of Tom’s brief and misguided affair with a visiting poetess a decade earlier.

Then, one evening at the bookstore, Tom and Marjory meet Rose Callahan, the shop's charming new hire, and Marjory invites Rose to their home for dinner, out of the blue, her first social interaction since her breakdown.

Tom wonders if it’s a sign that change is on the horizon, a feeling confirmed upon his return home, where he opens a letter from his former paramour, informing him he'd fathered a son who is heading Tom's way on a train.  His mind races at the possibility of having a family after so many years of loneliness.

And it becomes clear change is coming whether Tom’s ready or not.

A heartwarming story with a charmingly imperfect cast of characters to cheer for, Small Blessings's wonderfully optimistic heart that reminds us that sometimes, when it feels like life has veered irrevocably off track, the track shifts in ways we never can have imagined. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Martha Woodroof was born in the South, went to boarding school and college in New England, ran away to Texas for a while, then fetched up in Virginia. She has written for NPR, npr.org, Marketplace, and Weekend America, and for the Virginia Foundation for Humanities Radio Feature Bureau.

Her print essays have appeared in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. Small Blessings is her debut novel. She lives with her husband in the Shenandoah Valley. Their closest neighbors are cows. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Woodroof nails the debut novel: This warm, wise tale leaves a smile long after the final page is turned.
People Magazine


This book is a charmer: quirky, clear-hearted and effervescent.
Oprah.com


A delightful tale about what happens when good intentions go well.
Good Housekeeping


Woodroof’s charming debut deals with a bizarre paternity case set against the backdrop of a quirky college town.... Along with dark humor and a confident command of story, strong characters and absurdist twists add to the fun.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) A warm, caring and thoroughly entertaining debut that reads remarkably well.
Library Journal

Woodroof’s light hand and compassion for her characters make the story flow naturally. The question of what makes a family is gently asked and answered throughout. A pleasant read about ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances and the optimism that guides them.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. At the beginning of the book, Tom Putman is resigned to a not very-fulfilling home life. Does this mean he’s kind or passive? Brave or timid? Did he make a mistake marrying Marjory?

2. Why has Rose Callahan worked in bookstores her entire professional life? How does the experience of working at The Bookstore for Mr. Pitts seem different to her from her earlier work experiences?

3. Why are Russell Jacobs and Iris Benson so antagonistic toward each other at the start of the story?

4. How does Agnes Tattle view her son-in-law? How does Tom view his mother-in-law?

5. What is the importance of Marjory Putnam inviting Rose to dinner?

6. How do you feel about Tom having a brief affair that seems to have produced a son?

7. How does Rose Callahan view her childhood? Her mother, Miss Mavis Callahan?

8. Does the community at small women’s college where Small Blessings takes place seem cozy and supportive, or isolated and self-absorbed?

9. What effect does Henry have on Tom? On Rose? On Agnes? On Russell?

10. Why does Agnes wear her long-dead husband's pajamas?

11. Does it take courage to admit you are happy? Does Small Blessings have a happy ending? If so, why?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Small Change
Lynn Rodolico, 2013
Eccolo Editions
334 pp.
ISBN-13: 9788890698668


Summary
NEWBORN TWINS ABANDONED IN DUMPSTER

From an act of desperation is born the inspiring tale of love and good fortune, not only for the twins but for the couple who have been waiting to adopt.

Set in England and Italy, Small Change is a poignant recounting of love, loss and steadfast commitment.

Rich in empathy and humor, embedded in delightful, thought-provoking prose, best-selling author Lynn Rodolico offers a viable alternative to the modern-day despair of the individual’s inability to make a difference.

Half the proceeds from Small Change are donated to Children’s Rights charities (From the publisher.)

See the video.

Author Bio
• Birth—April 1, 1953
• Where—Santa Monica, California, USA
• Education—Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara
• Awards—Book of the Month Award (France)
• Currently—lives in Sicily and Florence, Italy


Lynn April Barber Rodolico was born in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in the coastal town of Pacific Palisades. Her earliest, happiest memories come from inventing stories beneath the large fruit trees in her backyard, and later, when she was old enough to roam, the dramatic pounding of the Pacific Ocean below the town's cliffs.

Writing had always been a favorite pastime but it wasn't until she left her job as Administrator of a Shakespearean theatre company in Massachusetts that she started to write full time. She gave herself one year in which to succeed or fail as a writer. To perfect her skills, first in the Berkshires and later in New York City, she wrote commercial novels in the Romance genre under a series of pseudonyms. Her success was quick and exceptional.

Lynn's first published novel, Passion’s Flight sold 350,000 copies and was translated into seven languages. Her second novel, Heart & Soul, proved a greater success, both commercially and literary, winning the Book of the Month Award in France. Opening Bid was another best seller romance and was translated into eleven languages. Intimates moved out of the romance category, allowing for real character development, but its circulation was thwarted when her editor changed publishing houses and the book remained orphaned in the warehouse.

In 1985 Lynn moved to Italy for a year to finish a novel. On her first day in Florence she met the man who would transform her life from a solitary search to a unified communion. Two Seas is a fictionalized memoir of their life on an olive farm in the Tuscan hills and their unexpected love affair with the Island of Sicily. Her most recent novel, Small Change, takes place in Italy and England. It was published in 2013. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Tender and eloquent...an extraordinary eye for detail.
Trisha Thomas - AP Journalist, Rome

A novel of great intercultural sensitivity.
Charles de Chassiron, London

The new book by Lynn Rodolico, Small Change, marks an interesting deviation from her previous novel, Two Seas. The change is not only literary in form, but alters the perspective about the essence of life itself. Two Seas is a romantic discovery of a new land where nature dominates the story with a continuous sense of wonder, which leads to an exploration of the self, whereas Small Change takes a modernistic approach, where the characters (some of whom appear in Two Seas) move the plot forward with their behavior, feelings and thoughts, while nature remains discreetly in the background. Written in a fluid and personal style, almost like an Impressionist painting, Small Change presents a fascinating story set in both England and Italy. Starting with the misery of a tragic decision, Small Change leads the reader through a tangled web of beautifully described situations, to a happy conclusion which, in a sort of modern catharsis, will transport the reader to an optimistic and confident view of the spontaneous goodness of humanity.
Luigi Giannitrapani, Genova

Discussion Questions
1. Love is presented in many forms in Small Change: a mother and her children; a wife and husband; a son’s devotion for his parents; sisters and friends. Which of these relationships is most successful and why? How are they similar or different from your definition of love and caring?

2. Small Change begins with a desperate act and deals with difficult issues, but Rodolico proposes the novel as “a viable alternative to modern-day despair." Did you find the novel inspiring? Did it make you want to better the world, even in a small way?

3. One of the characters is a self-confessed liar, and therefore may be considered an unreliable narrator. Did this short-coming influence your sense of compassion for her? Or did the complication in her character make her seem more human and therefore more worthy of your sympathy?

4. The protagonist, Christine, has a sixth sense, if and when she chooses to follow it. Does the unexplainable spiritual aspect of the story seem realistic or far-fetched?

5. Each of the characters in Small Change experiences an alteration during the course of the book. How does Thomas change? Christine? Anne? Does this metamorphosis occur for the secondary characters as well? Has their transformation altered you, as a reader?

6. In Rodolico’s previous novel, Two Seas, nature played a significant role, almost as if it were the protagonist of the story. How is nature portrayed in Small Change? How does it alter as the story shifts from the English countryside to London to Florence, Italy? Do the characters behave differently according to the nature that surrounds them?

7. Was the unfolding of Small Change predictable or unexpected? Were you surprised by the book's ending?  Were you sorry to say goodbye to the characters?

8. How would you categorize Small Change? Is it a love story? A story about adoption? Family and Relationships? Mothers and Children? Human Rights?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)

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