Non-Fiction - Results from #500

Reading Clauius: A Memoir in Two Parts
Caroline Heller, 2015
Penguin
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385337618

Summary
A stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller’s memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America.nn

In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents’ lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European café culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times.

Heller vividly evokes prewar Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler’s power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author’s father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions.

Though Paul’s life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents’ story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler’s rule, Caroline’s parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive—and so she does as well.

Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Riverside, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Chicago; M.F.A, Bennington College; Ed.D, University of California,
Berkeley
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts

Caroline Heller is the director of the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Educational Studies at Lesley University, where she is also a professor in the graduate school of education. She lives in Boston with her family. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Reading Claudius, Caroline Heller’s memoir...[recounts] the lives of her parents, her uncle and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers in Prague on the eve of World War II. Following them through the war years and beyond, it becomes a complex elegy to a vanished time. I was lucky enough to read an early draft, and can’t wait for it to reach the hands of many more people.
Leah Hager Cohen - New York Times Sunday Book Review

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Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Azar Nafisi, 2003
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812971064

Summary
We all have dreams — things we fantasize about doing and generally never get around to. This is the story of Azar Nafisi's dream and of the nightmare that made it come true.

For two years before she left Iran in 1997, Nafisi gathered seven young women at her house every Thursday morning to read and discuss forbidden works of Western literature. They were all former students whom she had taught at university. Some came from conservative and religious families, others were progressive and secular; several had spent time in jail.

They were shy and uncomfortable at first, unaccustomed to being asked to speak their minds, but soon they began to open up and to speak more freely, not only about the novels they were reading but also about themselves, their dreams and disappointments. Their stories intertwined with those they were reading — Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller and Lolita — their "Lolita," as they imagined her in Tehran.

Nafisi's account flashes back to the early days of the revolution, when she first started teaching at the University of Tehran amid the swirl of protests and demonstrations. In those frenetic days, the students took control of the university, expelled faculty members and purged the curriculum. When a radical Islamist in Nafisi's class questioned her decision to teach The Great Gatsby, which he saw as an immoral work that preached falsehoods of "the Great Satan," she decided to let him put Gatsby on trial and stood as the sole witness for the defense. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 1955
• Where—Tehran, Iran
• Education—M.A., Ph.D., Oklahoma University
• Currently—lives in Potomac, Maryland

Azar Nafisi is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. She won a fellowship from Oxford and taught English literature at the University of Tehran, the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai University in Iran. She was expelled from the University of Tehran for refusing to wear the veil and left Iran for America in 1997. She has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New Republic, and is the author of Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabokov's Novels. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two children.

More
There are certain works of western literature that most students in the United States will probably read at some point in their college careers. Pride and Prejudice. The Great Gatsby. Lolita. On American shores, these books are generally considered classics — must-reads for anyone with the slightest interest in literature. Of course, this is most assuredly not the case in the Tehran, Iran. Since the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power and began the anti-Americanism that caused Western culture to essentially be purged from Iran, such titles became all but forbidden. To teach them in the classroom — especially one containing female students — would be a genuine and punishable act of rebellion.

When Azar Nafisi was teaching literature at the University of Tehran, her syllabus was the least of her problems. Imagine living in a society in which it is an offense for a woman to show so much as a strand of hair in public. Now imagine how a woman who was encouraged by her father to explore her own personal history and engage in the art of story telling as a young girl might react to such a society. Nafisi was an independent, free-thinking woman living under a repressive regime. She was also an avowed fan of western culture: the films of the Marx Brothers, the plays of Shakespeare, the music of the Beatles, the literature of Jane Austen, Henry Miller, and Vladimir Nabokov. No longer able to adhere to the stringent rules of Islamic society, Nafisi refused to wear her veil in class and was summarily expelled from the University in 1981.

However, Nafisi's dismissal did not put an end to her teaching career. She returned to her profession in 1987, but had not lost her taste for testing the limits of the system. She would ultimately resign from her post for good in 1995, seeking a more creative means to educate. Nafisi secretively gathered a group of seven women, all former students of hers, to read and discuss those very novels that were deemed inappropriate for women in Iran.

For two years, Nafisi and her small class gathered together at her home on Thursday mornings where they would study Pride and Prejudice, Washington Square, Daisy Miller, and, of course, Lolita. And as the women explored and analyzed these classics, discussing the books in an open forum with a teacher who encouraged the women to express themselves freely, they also opened up about their own lives. Together they talked about their dreams, their failures, and the changes for which they wished.

Azar Nafisi's literary experiment would become the subject of her breakthrough debut memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran. The book poetically recounts both those liberating Thursday mornings and the Ayatollah's rise to power fifteen years earlier.

Reading Lolita in Tehran has deservedly become something of an instant classic. Due to its lyricism, and the courage at the core of the story, the book has won Nafisi nearly universal praise. The New York Times called it "an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction — on the refuge from ideology that art can offer to those living under tyranny, and art's affirmative and subversive faith in the voice of the individual."

Since 1997, Nafisi has lived in the United States, where she continues to teach. She also continues to write, having op-ed pieces and articles published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun, and New Republic. Meanwhile, Reading Lolita in Tehran continues to inspire readers, grateful that Azar Nafisi had the courage to step out from behind the veil.

Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:

• When I was in college I, like so many other students, became involved in the student protest movements, but somehow I could never rid myself of certain 'bourgeois' habits: reading works by those authors called 'bourgeois,' or seeing 'bourgeois' films were among some of my unforgivable sins.

• The first time I visited Washington, D.C., ....I came across Dali's The Last Supper. There I stood, transfixed until I was forced out of the museum....I realized with a shock of the existence of a sense of beauty and dignity that went beyond any transient concern, especially a political one. Through what other means can we reaffirm mankind's highest sense of individual integrity and strength, overcoming not just life's obstacles but death's absolute dominion?

• Whenever I am really nervous and sometimes unhappy, I take out some scoops of coffee ice cream, mix it with coffee and nuts (either walnuts or almonds) and immerse myself in the soothing cool of the coffee ice cream going down my throat. When an idea comes to me for writing, this nervousness reaches its heights and along with it my consumption of ice cream, coffee, and nuts.

• After a particularly hard day, I like to watch Seinfeld, Law and Order, (not Criminal Intent) and mystery films, especially the British mysteries. The most reliable news show I watch is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart! I also love the classic movies on Turner Classic Movies.

• I love paintings. Sometimes I steal an hour or so and go to the Phillips Collection, which is close to my work, and watch and watch. I like to watch only a few paintings at a time and focus on them for a while and then move on to others. Every once in a while I go to the National Gallery in D.C. to pay homage to the one Da Vinci they have. In order to remember a painting or a view, I look at it for a long time, then close my eyes and try to reconstruct the image in my mind, then open my eyes and look again.

• I love going to theater, especially with my family, and three friends with whom we share a great deal. I also love reading poetry and sometimes Shakespeare aloud when I am alone. I hold the book in my hands and move around the house, reading and reading, thinking, If this is not a miracle I don't know what is.

• When asked what book most influence her life, here is what she said:

This is an almost impossible question! If I have to answer it, I would say One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, especially its frame story about the cuckolded king whose kingdom is on the verge of annihilation by his decision to wed a virgin every night and kill her in the morning, thus avenging himself on womankind. His murderous hand is finally stayed by the wise and beautiful Shahrzad, who offers herself as his bride and keeps him entranced for one thousand and one nights by her stories until he is finally cured. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Critics Say . . .
[The book] is a visceral and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in that country and its fallout on the day-to-day lives of Ms. Nafisi and her students. It is a thoughtful account of the novels they studied together and the unexpected parallels they drew between those books and their own experiences as women living under the unforgiving rule of the mullahs. And it is, finally, an eloquent brief on the transformative powers of fiction — on the refuge from ideology that art can offer to those living under tyranny, and art's affirmative and subversive faith in the voice of the individual.
Michiku Kakutani - The New York Times

The meaning of Nafisi's title at once becomes clear: How we read works of literature can depend as much on who we are and where we are as on the works themselves. Reading Lolita in Tehran in the 1990s was not the same as reading Lolita in Washington in 2003. The story of the nymphet Lolita and her guardian/rapist Humbert Humbert strikes different chords in different places, thus reminding us of the limitless power of literature — of art — to reveal and to transform, and of the limitless legitimate interpretations to which great literature lends itself.
Jonathan Yardley - The Washington Post

This book transcends categorization as memoir, literary criticism or social history, though it is superb as all three. Literature professor Nafisi returned to her native Iran after a long education abroad, remained there for some 18 years, and left in 1997 for the United States, where she now teaches at Johns Hopkins. Woven through her story are the books she has taught along the way, among them works by Nabokov, Fitzgerald, James and Austen. She casts each author in a new light, showing, for instance, how to interpret The Great Gatsby against the turbulence of the Iranian revolution and how her students see Daisy Miller as Iraqi bombs fall on Tehran Daisy is evil and deserves to die, one student blurts out. Lolita becomes a brilliant metaphor for life in the Islamic republic. The desperate truth of Lolita's story is... the confiscation of one individual's life by another, Nafisi writes. The parallel to women's lives is clear: we had become the figment of someone else's dreams. A stern ayatollah, a self-proclaimed philosopher-king, had come to rule our land.... And he now wanted to re-create us. Nafisi's Iran, with its omnipresent slogans, morality squads and one central character struggling to stay sane, recalls literary totalitarian worlds from George Orwell's 1984 to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Nafisi has produced an original work on the relationship between life and literature.
Publishers Weekly

Nafisi taught English literature at the University of Tehran from 1979 to 1981, when she was expelled for refusing to wear the veil, and later at the Free Islamic University and Allameh Tabatabai in Tehran. In 1997, she and her family left Iran for the United States. This riveting memoir details Nafisi's clandestine meetings with seven hand-picked young women, who met in her home during the two-year period before she left Iran to read and discuss classic Western novels like Lolita, The Great Gatsby, and Pride and Prejudice. The women, who at first were suspicious of one another and afraid to speak their minds, soon opened up and began to express their dreams and disappointments as they responded to the books they were reading. Their stories reflect the oppression of the Iranian regime but also the determination not to be crushed by it. Nafisi's lucid style keeps the reader glued to the page from start to finish and serves both as a testament to the human spirit that refuses to be imprisoned and to the liberating power of literature. Highly recommended for all libraries. —Ron Ratliff, Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS
Library Journal

So you want a revolution? If your foe is an ayatollah, try reading Jane Austen. So exiled writer and scholar Nafisi (English/Johns Hopkins Univ.) instructs in this sparkling memoir of life in post-revolutionary Iran. A modest dissident during the shah’s regime, a member of a Marxist study group like so many other Iranian students abroad ("I never fully integrated into the movement.... I never gave up the habit of reading and loving ‘counterrevolutionary’ writers"), Nafisi taught literature at the University of Tehran after the revolution. After running afoul of the mullahs for having dared teach such "immoral" novels as The Great Gatsby and such "anti-Islamic" writers as Austen, she organized a literary study group that met in her home. Fittingly, the first work her group, made up of seven young women, turned to was The Thousand and One Nights, narrated by that great revolutionary Scheherazade. "When my students came into that room," Nafisi writes, "they took off more than their scarves and robes.... Our world in that living room became our sanctuary, our self-contained universe, mocking the reality of the black-scarved, timid faces in the city that sprawled below." Tracing her students’ discussions and journeys of self-discovery while revisiting scenes from her "decadent" youth, Nafisi puts a fine spin on works that Western students so often complain about having to read—The Golden Bowl, Mansfield Park, Ulysses, Mrs. Dalloway. And, without once sinking into sentimentality or making overly large claims for the relative might of the pen over the sword, Nafisi celebrates the power of literature to nourish free thought in climes inhospitable to it; as she remarks, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita may not have been a direct "critique of the Islamic Republic, but it went against the grain of all totalitarian perspectives," while enjoying the pages of Pride and Prejudice with friends served as a powerful reminder that "our society was far more advanced than its new rulers." A spirited tribute both to the classics of world literature and to resistance against oppression.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. On her first day teaching at the University of Tehran, Azar Nafisi began class with the questions, “What should fiction accomplish? Why should anyone read at all?” What are your own answers? How does fiction force us to question what we often take for granted?

2. Yassi adores playing with words, particularly with Nabokov’s fanciful linguistic creation upsilamba (18). What does the word upsilamba mean to you?

3. In what ways had Ayatollah Khomeini “turned himself into a myth” for the people of Iran (246)? Also, discuss the recurrent theme of complicity in the book: that the Ayatollah, the stern philosopher-king, “did to us what we allowed him to do” (28).

4. Compare attitudes toward the veil held by men, women and the government in the Islamic Republic of Iran. How was Nafisi’s grandmother’s choice to wear the chador marred by the political significance it had gained? (192) Also, describe Mahshid’s conflicted feelings as a Muslim who already observed the veil but who nevertheless objected to its political enforcement.

5. In discussing the frame story of A Thousand and One Nights, Nafisi mentions three types of women who fell victim to the king’s “unreasonable rule” (19). How relevant are the actions and decisions of these fictional women to the lives of the women in Nafisi’s private class?

6. Explain what Nafisi means when she calls herself and her beliefs increasingly “irrelevant” in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Compare her way of dealing with her irrelevance to her magician’s self-imposed exile. What do people who “lose their place in the world” do to survive, both physically and creatively?

7. During the Gatsby trial Zarrin charges Mr. Nyazi with the inability to “distinguish fiction from reality” (128). How does Mr. Nyazi’s conflation of the fictional and the real relate to theme of the blind censor? Describe similar instances within a democracy like the United States when art was censored for its “dangerous” impact upon society.

8. Nafisi writes: “It was not until I had reached home that I realized the true meaning of exile” (145). How do her conceptions of home conflict with those of her husband, Bijan, who is reluctant to leave Tehran? Also, compare Mahshid’s feeling that she “owes” something to Tehran and belongs there to Mitra and Nassrin’s desires for freedom and escape. Discuss how the changing and often discordant influences of memory, family, safety, freedom, opportunity and duty define our sense of home and belonging.

9. Fanatics like Mr. Ghomi, Mr. Nyazi and Mr. Bahri consistently surprised Azar by displaying absolute hatred for Western literature — a reaction she describes as a “venom uncalled for in relation to works of fiction.” (195) What are their motivations? Do you, like Nafisi, think that people like Mr. Ghomi attack because they are afraid of what they don’t understand? Why is ambiguity such a dangerous weapon to them?

10. The confiscation of one’s life by another is the root of Humbert’s sin against Lolita. How did Khomeini become Iran’s solipsizer? Discuss how Sanaz, Nassrin, Azin and the rest of the girls are part of a “generation with no past.” (76)

11. Nafisi teaches that the novel is a sensual experience of another world which appeals to the reader’s capacity for compassion. Do you agree that “empathy is at the heart of the novel”? How has this book affected your understanding of the impact of the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Reading with Patrick: A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship
Michelle Kuo, 2017
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812997316

Summary
A life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta

Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer in 2004, bursting with optimism and drive.

But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still disabled by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and political awakening.

Convinced she can make a difference in the lives of her teenaged students, Michelle Kuo puts her heart into her work, using quiet reading time and guided writing to foster a sense of self in students left behind by a broken school system. Though Michelle loses some students to gun violence and truancy, she is inspired by students such as Patrick.

Fifteen and in the eighth grade, Patrick begins to thrive under Michelle’s exacting attention, rising to meet her rigorous expectations. However, after two years of teaching, Michelle feels pressure from her parents and the draw of opportunities outside the Delta, and leaves Arkansas to attend law school.

Years later, on the eve of her graduation, she learns that Patrick has been jailed for murder. Feeling that she had left the Delta prematurely, and determined to fix her mistake, Michelle returns to Helena and resumes Patrick’s education—even as he sits in a jail cell awaiting trial.

Every day for the next seven months they pore over classic novels, poems, and works of history. Little by little, Patrick grows into a confident, expressive writer and a dedicated reader galvanized by the works of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, W. S. Merwin, and others.

In her time reading with Patrick, Michelle is herself transformed, contending with the legacy of racism and the question of what the privileged owe to those with bleaker prospects.

Reading with Patrick is an inspirational story of friendship, a coming-of-age story for both a young teacher and a student, an expansive, deeply resonant meditation on education, race, and justice in the rural South, and a love letter to literature and its power to transcend social barriers. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1981
• Raised—Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; M.S., Cambridge University; J.D., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Paris, France

Michelle Kuo is a Taiwanese-American lawyer, professor, and author who grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in social studies and gender studies. She has a Master's in developmental studies from Cambridge and a law degree from Harvard. Her memoir, Reading with Patrick: a Teacher, a Student and a Life-Changing Friendship, was published in 2017.

After her year at Cambridge, Kuo volunteered for Teach America and headed to rural Arkansas to teach English for two year at an alternative school. There she met Patrick Browning, who became the inspiration for her 2017 book, Reading with Patrick.

When her two years in Arkansas were up, Kuo returned to Harvard, this time to earn her law degree. As a student, Kuo became deeply involved in education advocacy and legal aid. She worked as a student attorney at the Criminal Justice Institute (a domestic violence and family mediation clinic) and the Education Law Clinic/Trauma Policy Learning Initiative.

After earning her J.D., Kuo went to Oakland, California, where she worked as a community lawyer at a nonprofit for Spanish-speaking immigrants. She also volunteered as a teacher at San Quentin as part of the Prison University Project. Finally, from 2012-13, she clerked for a judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Currently Kuo is a professor at the American University of Paris, in the History, Law, and Society Program. She won the university's 2016 Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching. (Author bio adapted from a variety of online sources. Retrieved 8/4/2017.)

Book Reviews
Reading with Patrick could be the most affecting book you’ll read this year. To experience such a spectrum of responses — from anger to admiration, disbelief to inspiration, helpless frustration to stand-up-and-shout-cheering — should be enough impetus to get you urgently "reading with Patrick" as soon as possible.
Christian Science Monitor

Three out of four stars!
USA Today

A powerful meditation on how one person can affect the life of another.… One of the great strengths of Reading with Patrick is its portrayal of the risk inherent to teaching.
Seattle Times

[A] tender memoir.
Oprah Magazine

(Starred review.) The author weaves her personal story with that of Patrick …. She witnesses how many Americans are trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and comes to several of the same insights as J.D. Vance in Hillbilly Elegy.… [A] reminder of how literacy changes lives. Highly recommended. —John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston
Library Journal

Honest, thoughtful, and humane, Kuo's book is not only a testament to a remarkable friendship, but a must-read for anyone interested in social justice and race in America. Thoughtfully provocative reading.
Kirkus Reviews

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The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things
Paula Byrne, 2013
HarperCollins
380 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061999093

Summary
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things offers a startlingly original look at the revered writer through a variety of key moments, scenes, and objects in her life and work.

Going beyond previous traditional biographies which have traced Austen’s daily life from Steventon to Bath to Chawton to Winchester, Paula Byrne’s portrait—organized thematically and drawn from the most up-to-date scholarship and unexplored sources—explores the lives of Austen’s extended family, friends, and acquaintances. Through their absorbing stories, we view Austen on a much wider stage and discover unexpected aspects of her life and character.

Byrne transports us to different worlds—the East Indies and revolutionary Paris—and different events—from a high society scandal to a petty case of shoplifting, She follows Austen on her extensive travels, setting her in contexts both global and English, urban and rural, political and historical, social and domestic—wider perspectives of vital and still under-estimated importance to her creative life.

Literary scholarship has revealed that letters and tokens in Austen’s novel’s often signal key turning points in the unfolding narrative. This groundbreaking biography explores Jane's own story following the same principle. As Byrne reveals, small things in the writer's world—a scrap of paper, a simple gold chain, an ivory miniature, a bathing machine—hold significance in her emotional and artistic development.

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things introduces us to a woman deeply immersed in the world around her, yet far ahead of her time in her independence and ambition; to an author who was an astute commentator on human nature and the foibles of her own age. Rich and compelling, it is a fresh, insightful, and often surprising portrait of an artist and a vivid evocation of the complex world that shaped her. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Birkenhead, England, UK
• Education— PhD., University of Liverpool
• Currently—lives in Oxford, England

Paula Byrne is a British author and biographer who wrote Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson (2005) and Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead (2009). Her debut book was the study of Jane Austen, Jane Austen and the Theatre, which was published in 2002 by Hambledon and later reissued by Bloomsbury. Byrne has a Ph. D. from University of Liverpool.

In 2005 her biography Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson was featured on the Richard & Judy Book Club on Channel 4, propelling it into the Sunday Times bestseller list.

Her book Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead was published by HarperPress in the UK in August 2009 and HarperCollins New York in the USA in April 2010. An excerpt was published in the Sunday Times of August 9 under the headline Sex scandal behind Brideshead Revisited. . An illustrated extract appeared in the April 2010 issue of Vanity Fair in advance of American publication.

In a television programme broadcast on BBC2 on Boxing Day 2011 she explored the possibility that a Regency pen and ink drawing of graphite on vellum, labelled on the verso 'Miss Jane Austin', might be an authentic portrait of Jane Austen. The film presented forensic and art historical evidence that the work was authentic to the period, not a forgery, but the case for its being Austen was fiercely debated, both in the programme and subsequently in the Times Literary Supplement. Byrne lent the drawing to Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton, where it was exhibited from summer 2012.

In January 2013, coinciding with the bicentenary of the first publication of Pride and Prejudice, Byrne published a new biography called The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. Featured as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, it approaches the subject's life by means of an array of key objects, including her portable writing desk and the topaz cross given to her by her brother.

Byrne is married to Jonathan Bate, Shakespeare scholar and Provost of Worcester College, Oxford. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/10/14.)

Book Reviews
Vividly persuasive…. The Real Jane Austen is excellent… particularly on the dissonant topics of theater and slavery….Byrnes section on slavery is better still, establishing links between Austen’s protagonists and contemporary figures, her pointed references and contemporary events, which highlight her supposedly oblivious fiction’s sharp views on the slave trade.
New York Times Book Review

Byrne takes Austen seriously as a writer...[she] brings to life a woman of “wonderful exuberance and self-confidence,” of “firm opinions and strong passions.” Little wonder that every other man she meets seems to fall in love with her.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post

Magnificent…explodes the old view of Jane Austen. Byrne’s research is wide, deep and meticulous…a more vivid and memorable Jane Austen emerges than a relentlessly "straight" old-fashioned narrative could deliver.
Times Literary Supplement (UK)

[Byrne] breathes yet more life into Austen and her works by considering the objects that populated her days…. [The] thematic approach offers a revealing picture of Austen and a lively social history….paints a fresh and vivid picture of an inimitable woman.
Economist

Biographer Paula Byrne has taken objects from Jane Austen’s real life and times and used them as if we were dropping in on Austen on any given day...a dynamic new biography in which Austen lives and breathes.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR

A vivacious new portrait.... [E]ach chapter unfolds from the biographer's description of a small object associated with Austen's life.... Byrne's Austen, as revealed through this archive of objects, emerges as a worldly woman, profoundly enmeshed in a wider world than she's often acknowledged to occupy.
Publishers Weekly

Byrne begins each essay in this collection with an image and description of an object of particular importance to Austen...[and] how these items influenced her life and informed her work. This premise is stretched thin at some points...but it is an engaging narrative technique.... Austen intentionally drew inspiration from life in order to add what was at that time an innovative realism and verisimilitude to her novels. —Megan Hodge, Chesterfield Cty. P.L., Richmond
Library Journal

For Austen obsessives, this latest study offers a few flashes of revelation amid long stretches of minutiae.... Ultimately, all of this accumulation of detail doesn't bring readers much closer to a woman the author admits was "a very private person" and "the most elusive of all writers with the exception of Shakespeare."
Kirkus Reviews

2. What conventional views of Jane Austen does Byrne reject in writing her biography. How does her portrayal of Austen differ from, say, her brother's?

3. How much did you know about Austen's life before you read Byrne's book? What new insights have you gained into the author...and, most especially, into her novels? Is there anything that surprises you as a result of Byrne's biography?

4. After reading The Real Jane Austen, how would you define Austen?

5. Talk about Austen's attitudes toward marriage and children. What were her views on slavery?

6. Which essays, detailing which objects in particular—e.g., the East Indian shawl, ivory miniature, or velvet cushions—do you find most enlightening and or persuasive?

7. Do you find any parts of Byrne's book stretched a bit thin...or lacking in persuasiveness...or bogged down in minutiae?

8. Which is your favorite Austen novel (if you have a "favorite")? What insights have you gained into that work after reading Paula Byrne's biography?

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

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The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Naoki Higashida, 2007 (Eng. transl. 2013, David Mitchell, KA Yoshida)
Random House
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812994865

Summary
You’ve never read a book like The Reason I Jump.

Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.

Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: “Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?” “Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?” “Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?” and “What’s the reason you jump?” (Naoki’s answer: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.”)

With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.

In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki’s words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. “It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship.”

This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they’d be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Naoki’s book, in its beauty, truthfulness, and simplicity, is a gift to be shared. (From the publisher.)

Author Bios
Naoki Higashida
Naoki Higashida was born in 1992 and was diagnosed with autism at the age of five. He graduated from high school in 2011 and lives in Kimitsu, Japan. He is an advocate, motivational speaker, and the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction. (From the publisher.)

David Mitchell
• Birth—January 12, 1969
• Where—Southport, Lancashire, UK
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of Kent
• Awards—John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• Currently—lives in County Cork, Ireland

David Stephen Mitchell is an English novelist. He has written five novels, two of which, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has lived in Italy, Japan and Ireland.

Mitchell was born in Southport in Merseyside, England, and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire. He was educated at Hanley Castle High School and at the University of Kent, where he obtained a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

Mitchell lived in Sicily for a year, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England, where he could live on his earnings as a writer and support his then pregnant wife.

Works
Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

His next novels were Black Swan Green (2006) and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), which the Boston Globe called a "masterpiece" and which prompted Dave Eggers to refer to Mitchell, in a New York Times review, as "as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive.”

In 2013, he and his wife Keiko Yoshida translated into English a book written by an autistic 13-year-old Japanese boy. The Reason I Jump became a New York Times bestseller.

In 2012 his novel Cloud Atlas was made into a film. In recent years he has also written opera libretti. Wake, based on the 2000 Enschede fireworks disaster and with music by Klaas de Vries, was performed by the Dutch National Reisopera in 2010. He has also finished another opera, Sunken Garden, with the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa, to be premiered in 2013 by the English National Opera.

Personal life
After another stint in Japan, Mitchell currently lives with his wife Keiko Yoshida and their two children in Clonakilty in County Cork, Ireland. One of their children is autistic.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:

I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself.

Mitchell has the speech disorder of stammering and considers the film The King's Speech (2010) to be one of the most accurate portrayals of what it's like to be a stammerer: "I'd probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old." Mitchell is also a patron of the British Stammering Association. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/16/2013.)

Book Reviews
The Reason I Jump may raise questions, as many books have, about the nature of autism. But it raises questions about translation as well. [David Mitchell's] translation, at its best, is a dance between an objective search for equivalent language and an intuitive grasp of the author’s intent, which may have nothing to do with the translator’s point of view. The parents of an autistic child may not be the best translators for a book by an autistic child.
Sallie Tisdale - New York Times

Please don’t assume that The Reason I Jump is just another book for the crowded autism shelf.... This is an intimate book, one that brings readers right into an autistic mind—what it’s like without boundaries of time, why cues and prompts are necessary, and why it’s so impossible to hold someone else’s hand. Of course, there’s a wide range of behavior here; that’s why "on the spectrum" has become such a popular phrase. But by listening to this voice, we can understand its echoes.
Chicago Tribune

Astonishing. The Reason I Jump builds one of the strongest bridges yet constructed between the world of autism and the neurotypical world.... There are many more questions I’d like to ask Naoki, but the first words I’d say to him are "thank you."
Sunday Times (UK)

This is a guide to what it feels like to be autistic... In Mitchell and Yoshida’s translation, [Higashida] comes across as a thoughtful writer with a lucid simplicity that is both childlike and lyrical.... Higashida is living proof of something we should all remember: in every autistic child, however cut off and distant they may outwardly seem, there resides a warm, beating heart.
Financial Times (UK)

Higashida’s child’s-eye view of autism is as much a winsome work of the imagination as it is a user’s manual for parents, carers and teachers.... This book gives us autism from the inside, as we have never seen it.... [Higashida] offers readers eloquent access into an almost entirely unknown world.
Independent (UK)

Like millions of parents confronted with autism, Mitchell and his wife found themselves searching for answers and finding few that were satisfactory. Help, when it arrived, came not from some body of research but from the writings of a Japanese schoolboy, Naoki Higashida. The Reason I Jump...is a book that acts like a door to another logic, explaining why an autistic child might flap his hands in front of his face, disappear suddenly from home—or jump.
Telegraph (UK)

This is a wonderful book. I defy anyone not to be captivated, charmed and uplifted by it.
Evening Standard London

Whether or not you have experienced raising a child who is autistic...this little book, which packs immeasurable honesty and truth into its pages, will simply detonate any illusions, assumptions, and conclusions you've made about the condition.... What Higashida has done by communicating his reality is to offer carers a way forward and offer teachers new ways of working with the children, and thus opening up and expanding the possibilities for autistic kids to feel less alone. All that in less than 200 pages? What an accomplishment.
Herald Dublin

The Reason I Jump is an enlightening, touching and heart-wrenching read. Naoki asks for our patience and compassion—after reading his words, it’s impossible to deny that request.
Yorkshire Post (UK)

Every page dismantles another preconception about autism.... Once you understand how Higashida managed to write this book, you lose your heart to him.
New Statesman (UK)

A rare road map into the world of severe autism...[Higashida’s] insights...unquestionably give those of us whose children have autism just a little more patience, allowing us to recognize the beauty in ‘odd’ behaviors where perhaps we saw none.
People

Just thirteen years old, effectively unable to speak, Higashida used a special alphabet grid to compose this slim, informative book, which provides an unprecedented look into the mind of a young person with autism.... Higashida gallantly attempts to explain why he and others with autism do the things they do.... Surely one of the most remarkable books yet to be featured in these pages.
Publishers Weekly

In addition to demystifying his condition and translating his experience, the author intersperses some short fables and a concluding short story that shows remarkable empathy and imagination, as the death of an autistic boy leaves a family transformed. "[Higashida] says that he aspires to be a writer, but it's obvious to me that he already is one," writes Mitchell. Anyone struggling to understand autism will be grateful for the book and translation.
Kirkus Reviews

I think that people with autism are born outside the regime of civilisation… [in which] a deep sense of crisis exists… Autism has somehow arisen out of this… if, by our being here, we could help the people of the world remember what truly matters for the Earth, that would give us a quiet pleasure.

What do you think of that assessment? Is there any truth in what Naoki says?

4. Talk about the way in which Naoki believes that he and others with autism feel a sense of guilt: "The hardest ordeal for us is the idea that we are causing grief for other people." What would you say (or have you said) to Naoki or any other individual with autism.

5. Naoki indicates that language, which the rest of us use to communicate feelings, actually get in the way of feelings: that language is simply incapable of conveying our astonishment at the world. Have you ever felt the inadequacy of words to describe your own experiences?

6. Do you know someone, a friend or a member of your own family, with autism? If so, how true does this book ring for you?

7. What is the state of treatment and/or understanding of autism today? What do we (society and the medical profession) need to learn about autism? Does this book help? Will it make a difference?

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

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The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath
Leslie Jamison, 2018
Little, Brown and Co.
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316259613

Summary
With its deeply personal and seamless blend of memoir, cultural history, literary criticism, and reportage, The Recovering turns our understanding of the traditional addiction narrative on its head—demonstrating that the story of recovery can be every bit as electrifying as the train wreck itself.

Leslie Jamison deftly excavates the stories we tell about addiction—both her own and others'—and examines what we want these stories to do and what happens when they fail us.

All the while, she offers a fascinating look at the larger history of the recovery movement, and at the complicated bearing that race and class have on our understanding of who is criminal and who is ill.

At the heart of the book is Jamison's ongoing conversation with literary and artistic geniuses whose lives and works were shaped by alcoholism and substance dependence, including John Berryman, Jean Rhys, Billie Holiday, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, and David Foster Wallace, as well as brilliant lesser-known figures such as George Cain, lost to obscurity but newly illuminated here.

Through its unvarnished relation of Jamison's own ordeals, The Recovering also becomes a book about a different kind of dependency: the way our desires can make us all, as she puts it, "broken spigots of need." It's about the particular loneliness of the human experience-the craving for love that both devours us and shapes who we are.

For her striking language and piercing observations, Jamison has been compared to such iconic writers as Joan Didion and Susan Sontag, yet her utterly singular voice also offers something new.

With enormous empathy and wisdom, Jamison has given us nothing less than the story of addiction and recovery in America writ large, a definitive and revelatory account that will resonate for years to come. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1983
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard, M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop; Ph.D. Yale University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, New York,

Leslie Jamison is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of the novel The Gin Closet (2010), an essay collection The Empathy Exams (2014), and The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath (2018). Jamison also directs the non-fiction concentration in writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts.

Early life
Jamison was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Her parents are Joanne Leslie, a nutritionist and former professor of public health, and Dean Jamison, an economist and global health researcher. Leslie Jamison is the niece of clinical psychologist and writer Kay Redfield Jamison. Leslie grew up with two older brothers. Her parents divorced when she was 11, after which she lived with her mother.

Jamison attended Harvard College, where she majored in English,; her senior thesis dealt with incest in the work of William Faulkner. While an undergraduate, she won the Edward Eager Memorial Fund prize in creative writing, an award also won by classmate, writer Uzodimna Iweala. She was a member of the college literary magazine The Advocate and social club The Signet Society.

After Harvard, Jamison received an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and later her Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University. Her 2016 dissertation, "The Recovered: Addiction and Sincerity in 20th Century American Literature" became the basis for her 2018 book, The Recovering.

Writing
Jamison's first novel, The Gin Closet, follows a young New Yorker searching for an aunt she has never met, eventually finding her living in a trailer and drinking herself to death. The two form a tenuous bond, each trying to save the other's life.

The Empathy Exams, Jamison's second work, an essay collection, shot quickly to #11 on the New York Times bestseller list. Olivia Lang writing in the Times, said, "It’s hard to imagine a stronger, more thoughtful voice emerging this year."

The author's third book, The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, was described by Publishers Weekly as an "unsparing and luminous autobiographical study of alcoholism." It combines Jamison's memoir of her own alcoholism and others' (some famous), with a focus on recovery.

Jamison's work has been published in Best New American Voices 2008, A Public Space, and Black Warrior Review.

Teaching
In the fall of 2015, Jamison joined the faculty at Columbia University's School of the Arts. She is assistant professor and director of the non-fiction concentration in writing.

Personal life
Jamison lives in Brooklyn, New York City, with her husband, the writer Charles Bock, a daughter, and stepdaughter. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/16/2018.)

Book Reviews
Extraordinary.… [S]he calls to mind writers as disparate as Joan Didion and John Jeremiah Sullivan as she interrogates the palpitations of not just her own trippy heart but of all of ours.… Her cerebral, witty, multichambered essays tend to swing around to one topic in particular: what we mean when we say we feel someone else's pain.… I'm not sure I'm capable of recommending a book because it might make you a better person. But watching the philosopher in Ms. Jamison grapple with empathy is a heart-expanding exercise.
Dwight Garner - New York Times

Fascinating…energetic, colorful, fun, buzzy, affecting, and spot-on.… Emotional, as well as factual, honesty is the sine qua non of a memoir. Yet this kind of deep honesty—the merciless self-examination and exposure that Jamison displays--is increasingly rare.
Melanie Thernstrom - New York Times Book Review

Brilliant.… [I]t's as if Jamison has shrugged off her restraints.… We are aware, most fundamentally, of her urgency. This, of course, is as it should be, for Jamison is writing to survive.… The Recovering leaves us with the sense of a writer intent on holding nothing back.
David L. Ulin - Los Angeles Times

Jamison's story makes for riveting reading.… Desire and romantic love are major themes, explored with aching vulnerability and unsparing honesty.… Jamison shows us the human animal in all its wildness, its messiness, and its failure.… Quite on its own terms, The Recovering is a beautifully told example of the considered and self-aware becoming art.
Priscilla Gilman - Boston Globe

Jamison's ardent writing style and extended-release doses of empathy have made her a consistently powerful journalist.… Ambitious, provocative, lyrical.
New York Magazine

If reading a book about [pain] sounds… painful, rest assured that Jamison writes with such originality and humor, and delivers such scalpel-sharp insights, that it's more like a rush of pleasure.… To articulate suffering with so much clarity, and so little judgement, is to turn pain into art.
Entertainment Weekly

A remarkable feat.… Shot through with real yearning.… The Recovering seamlessly blends the story of Jamison's own alcoholism and subsequent recovery with something like a social, cultural, and literary history of addiction.… It's a neat trick: Jamison satisfies readers who want the grisly details that addiction memoirs promise while dismantling that same genre, interrogating why tales of addiction prove so resonant.… She is a bracing smart writer; her sentences wind and snake, at turns breathless and tense. .… Instead of solving the mystery of why she drank, she does something worthier, digging underneath the big emptiness that lives inside every addict to find something profound.
Sam Lansky - Time

Jamison writes with sober precision and unusual vulnerability, with a tendency to circle back and reexamine, to deconstruct and anticipate the limits of her own perspective, and a willingness to make her own medical and psychological history the objects of her examinations. Her insights are often piercing and poetic.
The New Yorker

The crawl back up to sobriety is as engrossing as the downward spiral in this unsparing and luminous.… The dark humor, evocative prose, and clear-eyed, heartfelt insights Jamison deploys here only underscore her reputation as a writer of fearsome talent.
Publishers Weekly

Jamison's questing immersion in intoxication and sobriety is exceptional in its vivid, courageous, hypnotic telling; brilliant in its subtlety of perception, interpretation, and compassion; and capacious in its scholarship, scale, concern, and mission
Booklist

Throughout Jamison's somber yet earnestly revelatory narrative, she remains cogent and true to her dual commitment to sobriety and to author a unique memoir "that was honest about the grit and bliss and tedium of learning to live this way—in chorus, without the numbing privacy of getting drunk." The bracing, unflinching, and beautifully resonant history of a writer's addiction and hard-won reclamation."
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 RECOVERY … then take off on your own:

1. Leslie Jamison opens her account of her own alcoholism by disdaining the "tedious architecture and tawdry self-congratulation of a redemption story." What does she mean, and does she remain true to her desire to avoid the traps she so dislikes? Does she achieve redemption? Is she self-congratulatory? Is her story tedious?

2. How does Jamison link addiction with creativity? Why have so many artists (of all genres) fallen prey to alcoholism? How does addiction and/or attempts at sobriety affect the creative life and output?

3. To what does Jamison attribute her own addiction to alcohol?

4. What is Jamison's experience with Alcoholics Anonymous? What does she find most valuable? How does she view the sharing of attendee "drunkalogs"?

5. Follow-up to Question 4: The author writes, "The paradox of recovery stories …was that you were supposed to relinquish your ego by authoring a story in which you also starred." What is meant by that observation? It seems contradictory: how does one go about dispensing with ego while creating a story with one's self as its center?

6. What is your own experience with alcoholism: either for yourself or someone (family or friend) with whom you are, or were, close? How much about addiction and recovery did you understand before reading this book? Has it changed how you view alcoholism?

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

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A Reed Shaken by the Wind: Travels Among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq
Gavin Maxwell, 1957, 2003
Eland Publishing
236 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780907871934

Summary
The Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq were one of the most isolated communities in the world. Few outsiders, let alone Europeans, had been permitted to travel through their homeland, a mass of tiny islands lost in a wilderness of reeds and swamps in southern Iraq.

One of the few trusted outsiders was the legendary explorer, Wilfred Thesiger, who was Gavin Maxwell’s guide to the intricate landscape, tribal customs and distinctive architecture of the Marsh Arabs. Thesiger’s skill with a medicine chest and rifle assured them a welcome in every hamlet, and Maxwell’s training as a naturalist and writer has left an invaluable record of a unique community and a vanished way of life. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 15, 1914
• Where—near Port William, Wigtownshire, Scotland, UK
• Death—September 7, 1968
• Where—Island of Eileen Ban near Kyle of Lochalsh, Scotland
• Education—Oxford University

Maxwell’s schooling, a succession of disasters all the way up to his time at Oxford, gave him a lifelong sympathy for the despised and oppressed. Having already proved himself a loner and a hardy traveller in the Arctic with Peter Scott, he was ideal material for covert operations in the Second World War. He served in the Special Operations Executive, charged with training operatives who would be sent behind enemy lines on missions of sabotage.

It was in this capacity that he spent some time on the west coast of Scotland, where he returned after the war to buy Soay, a small island off Skye and the setting for his first business, a shark fishery, which in turn formed the basis for his first book Harpoon at a Venture (1952). He tried his hand at freelance journalism and painting, and wrote two books about Sicily, God Protect Me from My Friends (1956) and The Ten Pains of Death (1959). In between these projects he took the journey to the Middle East with his friend, the veteran traveller Wilfred Thesiger, which would result in A Reed Shaken by the Wind (1957). Here his exceptional talent was revealed for the first time.

On his return from Iraq he moved into his new Scottish home at Camusfearna, and began to study the otters he had acquired on his journey through the marshes, which culminated in the publication of Ring of Bright Water (1960). With the worldwide success of this tale, and the subsequent film, Camusfearna became a wildlife preserve with a collection of otters at its heart. The Otters Tale (1962), and The Rocks Remain (1963) continue the narrative of a passionate but accident-prone naturalist on the west coast of Scotland.

Maxwell travelled to Morocco several times over the course of the 1960s, researching his history, Lords of the Atlas, which appeared in 1966. This travel book—part history, part investigative journalism, part romance—studied the Berber dynasty, the Glaoui, that acted as regents of southern Morocco for the French colonial power. It became one of the bibles of British orientalism in the late twentieth century and a fitting swan-song to Maxwell’s oeuvre.

Douglas Botting’s definitive 1993 biography, Gavin Maxwell, A Life tells of the ups and downs of Maxwell’s emotional life—possibly affected by an inherited form of manic-depression. While Gavin loved and even married women (the poet Kathleen Raine and Lavinia Renton) he was primarily homosexual. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
This is prose close to poetry, written by a man of great perception and understanding.
W.O. Douglas - New York Times (2/9/58)

This is a direct, simple and vivid narrative by a man with a fine gift for noting visual details and a sure touch in describing them in tersely graphic prose. Mr. Maxwell writes with modest, and with frankness.
Orville Prescott - New York Times (2/15/1958)

It is not too much to say that the author has produced an almost perfect book of travel.
New Yorker

This is a portrait of the marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. Maxwell presents his impressions of these secluded people, along with numerous photos. Although intended as a travel book, this might make more of a historical or sociological study now, given the current turmoil in Iraq.
Library Journal (2004)

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 Reed Shaken by the Wind:

1. How do you feel about the eventual destruction of the marsh people and their culture? In the last line of his 1958 New York Times review of Maxwell's book, Orville Prescott says:

When oil revenues make it possible, the Iraqi Government is certain to drain the permanent marshes and to destroy one of the world's last untouched wild-life refuges and the way of a life of a picturesque people.

Consider that statement. It's a prescient remark, given the later destruction of the marshes under Sadaam Hussein. But considering the level of disease, slavery, and virulent blood feuds, does Prescott overly romanticize the marsh people? Are indigenous cultures worthy of preservation? Is change necessary...or inevitable? Or should those cultures remain untouched by progress and continue to flourish for as long as they are sustainable?

2. Discuss the long history of the marsh people: where they came from and their role in Iraq's history?

3. What insights might A Reed offer into present-day Iraq and its attempt to form a cohesive nation?

4. "A reed shaken by the wind" is Biblical, a phrase in Matthew referring to a comment by Jesus about John the Baptist. Why might Maxwell have chosen that as the title of this book?

5. Have your group conduct some research in order to trace the destruction of the marshes and the marsh people. How were they destroyed? What is the environmental impact of the marshes' disappearance? Do remnants exist of the physical marsh environment and the people which might provide a resurgence?

6. Maxwell says he "had been searching for somewhere to go, somewhere that was not already suburbanized and where there was still something left to see that had not already been seen and described by hundreds or thousands of my kind before me." That was in the mid-20th century. Over 50 years later, do such unexplored cultures or places exist in the world? What makes a frontier, or unexplored wilderness, so appealing to the human imagination—why are we driven to discover and tame them?

7. What did you find most fascinating about Maxwell's travel account—the animal life and bird life (boars, snakes, dogs, ibis, eagles), the construction of the dwellings and floating islands, the sexuality of the Ma'dan? What most intrigued you?

8. What in the marsh culture did you find admirable? What not so admirable?

9. Talk about the role of the water buffalo in the life and the economy of the Ma'dans.

10. Discuss the riverborn diseases—the bilharzia, in particular, which no one was able to avoid. What was the role, and the efficacy, of modern medicine in eradicating or easing the ravages of disease?

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

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The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece
Edward Dolnick, 2005
HarperCollins
270 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060531188

Summary
In the predawn hours of a gloomy February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo and made off with one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's "The Scream."

It was a brazen crime committed while the whole world was watching the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police turned to the one man they believed could help: a half English, half American undercover cop named Charley Hill, the world's greatest art detective.

The Rescue Artist is a rollicking narrative that carries readers deep inside the art underworld — and introduces them to a large and colorful cast of titled aristocrats, intrepid investigators, and thick-necked thugs. But most compelling of all is Charley Hill himself, a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm whose hunt for a purloined treasure would either cap an illustrious career or be the fiasco that would haunt him forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Marblehead, Massachusetts, USA
• Awards—Edgar Award
• Currently—lives in the Washington, DC area

Edward Dolnick is an American writer, formerly a science writer at the Boston Globe. He has been published in the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, and Washington Post, among other publications.

His books include Madness on the Couch: Blaming the Victim in the Heyday of Psychoanalysis (1998) and Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell's 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon (2001).

Dolnick's book The Rescue Artist: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece (2005)—an account of the 1994 theft, and eventual recovery, of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" from Norway's National Gallery in Oslo—won the 2006 Edgar Award in the Best Crime Fact category.

The Forger's Spell (2008), describes the 1930-40s forging of Johannes Vermeer paintings by a critic-detesting Dutch artist, accepted as "masterpieces" by art experts until the artist's confession and trial in 1945.

Dolnick lives in the Washington, D.C. area, is married, and has two children. His wife, Lynn Iphigene Golden, is a member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family, publishers of the New York Times, and is on the board of The New York Times Company. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
The little-known world of art theft is compellingly portrayed in Dolnick's account of the 1994 theft and recovery of Edvard Munch's iconic painting "The Scream." The theft was carried out with almost comical ease at Norway's National Gallery in Oslo on the very morning that the Winter Olympics began in that city. Despite the low-tech nature of the crime, the local police were baffled, and Dolnick (Down the Great Unknown; Madness on the Couch) makes a convincing case that the fortunate resolution of the investigation was almost exclusively due to the expertise, ingenuity and daring of the "rescue artist" of the title: Charley Hill, a Scotland Yard undercover officer and former Fulbright scholar who has made recovering stolen art treasures his life's work. Hill is a larger-than-life figure who seems lifted from the pages of Elmore Leonard, although his adversaries in this inquiry are fairly pedestrian. While the path to the painting's retrieval is relatively straightforward once some shady characters put the word out that they can get their hands on it, the narrative's frequent detours to other crimes and engaging escapades from Hill's past elevate this work above last year's similar The Irish Game by Matthew Hart.
Publishers Weekly

The theft of, search for and recovery of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (the first time). Dolnick (Down the Great Unknown, 2001, etc.), former chief science writer for the Boston Globe, offers a treatise on art theft using as his take-off point the remarkably easy 1994 pilfering of Munch's masterpiece from Norway's National Gallery. The protagonist is an Anglo-American detective for Scotland Yard, Charlie Hill, a Brit of a certain independent type, with scant regard for petty regulations that get in the way of practicality. But Hill's genuine love of the art he pursues personalizes both his search and the book itself. The chase is something of a game for Hill, just as it is to a certain extent for the thieves. Dolnick's narrative, in fact, is frequently interrupted with digressions on famous art thieves, previous art thefts (particularly the 1990 job at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum) and short vignettes, among them Charlie Hill's war stories from Vietnam. Readers will discover the ridiculousness of the popular image of a reclusive collector who has paid thieves to steal art for his own personal and private enjoyment. Thieves steal art not for any such reason as that but because it's valuable and relatively unguarded, even in museums. They steal art because it's there. The various digressions slow the pace a little as we wait for Dolnick to get back to the story of "The Scream," which needs no embellishment in its extraordinary twists, screw-ups, coincidences, and quick thinking on the part of Hill and his team of experienced undercover cops. In the end, we're left with the impression that they recovered the painting in spite of the Norwegian police rather than because of them. Sadly, Dolnick makes it clear why another version of "The Scream," and also Munch's "Madonna," could be pinched from Oslo's Munch Museum so easily a year ago-and why both are still at large. Overall, a picaresque 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)

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Rewrites: A Memoir
Neil Simon, 1996
Simon & Schuster
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780684835624

Summary
Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, The Goodbye Girl, The Out-of-Towners, The Sunshine Boys — Neil Simon's plays and movies have kept many millions of people laughing for almost four decades. Since Come Blow Your Horn first opened on Broadway in 1960, few seasons have passed without the appearance of another of his laughter-filled plays, and indeed on numerous occasions two or more of his works have been running simultaneously.

But his success was something Neil Simon never took for granted, nor was the talent to create laughter something that he ever treated carelessly: it took too long for him to achieve the kind of acceptance—both popular and critical—that he craved, and the path he followed frequently was pitted with hard decisions.

All of Neil Simon's plays are to some extent a reflection of his life, sometimes autobiographical, other times based on the experiences of those close to him. What the reader of this warm, nostalgic memoir discovers, however, is that the plays, although grounded in Neil Simon's own experience, provide only a glimpse into the mind and soul of this very private man.

In Rewrites, he tells of the painful discord he endured at home as a child, of his struggles to develop his talent as a writer, and of his insecurities when dealing with what proved to be his first great success—falling in love. Supporting players in the anecdote—filled memoir include Sid Caesar, Jerry Lewis, Walter Matthau, Robert Redford, Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse, Maureen Stapleton, George C. Scott, Peter Sellers, and Mike Nichols.

But always at center stage is his first love, his wife Joan, whose death in the early seventies devastated him, and whose love and inspiration illuminate this remarkable and revealing self-portrait. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 4, 1927
• Where—The Bronx, New York, New York, USA
• Education—New York University; University of Denver
• Awards—3 Tony Awards (1965, '85, '91); Pulitzer Prize
(1991); Golden Globe Award (1978); American Comedy
Lifetime Achievement (1989); Drama Desk Award (1991);
Kennedy Center Honoree(1995); Mark Twain Prize for
American Humor (2006)
• Currently—N/A

Neil Marvin Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. His numerous Broadway succcesses have led to his work being among the most regularly performed in the world. Though primarily a comic writer, some of his plays, particularly the "Eugene" Trilogy and The Sunshine Boys, reflect on the twentieth century Jewish-American experience.

Simon was born in The Bronx, New York City to Irving and Mamie Simon where he attended DeWitt Clinton High School. He briefly attended New York University from 1944 to 1945 and the University of Denver from 1945 to 1946. Two years later, he quit his job as a mailroom clerk in the Warner Brothers offices in Manhattan to write radio and television scripts with his brother Danny Simon, including a tutelage under radio humourist Goodman Ace when Ace ran a short-lived writing workshop for CBS. Their revues for Camp Tamiment in Pennsylvania in the early 1950s caught the attention of Sid Caesar, who hired the duo for his popular TV comedy series Your Show of Shows. Simon later incorporated their experiences into his play Laughter on the 23rd Floor. His work won him two Emmy Award nominations and the appreciation of Phil Silvers, who hired him to write for Sergeant Bilko in 1959.

In 1961, Simon's first Broadway play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, where it ran for 678 performances. Six weeks after its closing, his second production, the musical Little Me opened to mixed reviews. Although it failed to attract a large audience, it earned Simon his first Tony Award nomination. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three. He also won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Lost In Yonkers.

In 1966 Simon had four shows running on Broadway at the same time: Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple, and Barefoot in the Park. His professional association with producer Emanuel Azenberg began with The Sunshine Boys in 1972 and continued with The Good Doctor, God's Favorite, Chapter Two, They're Playing Our Song, I Ought to Be in Pictures, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound, Jake's Women, The Goodbye Girl, and Laughter on the 23rd Floor, among others.

Simon has been conferred with two honoris causa degrees; a Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University and a Doctor of Laws from Williams College. He is the namesake of the legitimate Broadway theater the Neil Simon Theatre, formerly the Alvin Theatre, and an honorary member of the Walnut Street Theatre's board of trustees.

Simon has been married five times—to dancer Joan Baim (1953-1973), actress Marsha Mason (1973-1981), twice to Diane Lander (1987-1988 and 1990-1998), and currently actress Elaine Joyce. He is the father of Nancy and Ellen, from his first marriage, and Bryn, Lander's daughter from a previous relationship whom he adopted. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
For a master of the one-liner, Mr. Simon writes surprisingly flat prose, which sometimes wobbles between the cliched and ungrammatical.... Still, the virtues of Rewrites don't depend on good prose. In general, Mr. Simon comes across as ingenuous and likable, avid to master the difficult craft of putting a good play together. His portraits of the people he worked with are acute and winning; the director Mike Nichols, the choreographer Bob Fosse, the producer Saint Subber, the actor George C. Scott, among others, all take on substance in his pages
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times

Ought to be required reading for everyone who aspires to a career in playwrighting, fiction, or poetry.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post

Simon has built his playwrighting career by creating funny, indelible characters. Who can forget Oscar Madison and Felix Unger? This illuminating memoir, which takes Simon into the 1970s, reveals his creative influences, as well as his personal triumphs and tragedies. He is brutally honest in describing his bouts with writer's block, and he's not afraid to admit that directors and actors have often helped him complete some of his most endearing plays. He confides, for instance, that the third act of The Odd Couple went through numerous rewrites and was salvaged only after director Mike Nichols suggested Simon not set the act in the middle of a poker game. Simon's forthright account of his work with Bob Fosse on Sweet Charity illustrates how two immensely talented individuals can work through their differences to create a highly successful show. Anecdotes about actors Simon has worked with make for particularly entertaining copy, and his description of George C. Scott's erratic behavior while he starred in The Gingerbread Lady shows how a playwright's success can hinge on the whims of a troubled actor. However, many digressions, though humorous, distract from the story at hand. Simon's account of his family and personal life beyond the theater lacks resonance, particularly when dealing with his experience with psychotherapy — the only section of the book written in the third person. While this memoir won't bring down the house, in general it's a well-told tale by a man whose talent, diligence and luck have made him Broadway's shining son.
Publishers Weekly

(Audio version.) Famed playwright Simon complained recently about this [audio] condensation, saying during a segment on C-Span, "They abridged the life out of" [the book]. Much is omitted, for sure, but what remains is vintage Simon and better than no recording at all. He describes quirky show folk and his willing but exhaustive efforts in revising his plays, which include Come Blow Your Horn, Barefoot in the Park, and The Odd Couple. Simon's own soft-spoken reading underplays his witticisms—he is not an actor, after all—but lends authenticity to the narrative, especially during the section wherein he talks about the tragic death of his beloved wife, Joan. We get highlights of his life and career from only 1957 to 1973, however. Playgoers and Simon enthusiasts will enjoy Rewrites. —Gordon Blackwell, Eastchester, NY
Library Journal

The prolific master of Broadway fun hops over the footlights to recall much—but not all—of his personal history. This is an intelligent and diverting memoir, artfully constructed. The work of crafting Simon's first dozen or so plays, from Come Blow Your Horn and Little Me to The Sunshine Boys and The Good Doctor, is presented in the order of their creation. The periods of Simon's life that they recall do not fall so neatly in order, and yet the memories that eddy around the landmarks of the plays are somehow all the more effective without strict chronology. There is a funny set piece on young Neil's sexual initiation. His native wit is as abundant as ever, but he can easily write a simple declarative sentence without punctuating it with a gag. There are poignant glimpses of a childhood in a strangely inoperative family, of a sometimes loving, always complex relationship with gagwriter brother Danny. Simon hasn't much use for agents or their advice on business deals. (Following such advice, he "never saw a dime, a nickel, or a penny" from the TV series of The Odd Couple.) There are third-act problems, out-of-town rewrites, and missing stars. Though there are no lessons on how to be funny, the book is full of clues on the craft of playwriting. There are deft character sketches, but, by far, the most touching parts of Simon's story deal with his love for wife Joan. With her early passing some two decades ago Simon brings down the curtain. Not covered: military escapades, much of life as a TV gag writer, and later uxorial adventures. There are more plays, of course, so let's have the next installment soon, Mr. Simon. Neil Simon delivers, from the heart, a fine portrait of the artist.
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 Rewrites:

1. How does the personality of Neil Simon come through in this memoir? How would you describe him? What about him do you find admirable?

2. Simon ponders the roots of humor: ''No one, he says, has yet determined, to my satisfaction, what elements of nature, genetics and environment have to combine to form a man or woman with a keen sense of humor." But Simon himself is a consummate humorist! Do you want to take a stab at what makes people laugh? Does humor come from, say, the mundane in life...or the unexpected? Give it a try! Think of something funny, and try to figure out why.

3. What role did Simon's family play in his artistic develop-ment? Talk about his home life, his parents and their marriage, as well as his brother. (Some good ones: the suitcase-in-the hallway...and his brother's attempt to get him to a brothel.)

4. Simon paints wonderful portraits of famous people who have populated the world of entertainment. Which people or episodes did you most enjoy, find humorous, or surprising?

5. Talk about the long road Simon plodded in order to become a successful playwright.

6. What was it about Hollywood that Simon disliked and that spurred him on to writing for the stage?

7. Most authors use their lives as material for their writing— but they also use their writing as a way to examine or give shape to their lives. How does Simon do either or both of those things?

8. What is the significance of the title, "Rewrites"? In what way might it have a double meaning?

9. The book contains some instructions on how to write a play. Talk about some of his tips: "Character is the foundation of the play"; or "We need to see a character change, not just know that he's changed." What are some of the other pointers he provides? What does he mean by them? How might those same ideas be helpful to us as readers of novels?

10. By far the saddest part of the book is the death of his first wife. How does Simon learn to cope with losing her...or does he?

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

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The Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family
Mike Leonard, 2006
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345481498

Summary
The Ride of Our Lives is the humorous yet deeply moving account of NBC journalist Mike Leonard’s cross-country odyssey with his eccentric parents, three grown children, and a daughter-in-law.

Full of ups and downs, laughs and tears, the month-long journey becomes a much larger tale of hope, persistence, and valuable lessons learned along the way.

A celebration of the ties between parents and children, as well as the unforgettable community of people one can meet across America, The Ride of Our Lives is an inspiring narrative of self-discovery and self-fulfillment–and how one unique family found blessings and simple pleasures on the road called lifets. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 30, 1947
• Where—Paterson, New Jersey, USA
• Raised—suburb, north of Chicago, Illinois
• Education—Providence College
• Currently—lives in Winnetka, Illinois, USA

Michael "Mike" Leonard is an American television journalist presently working for The Today Show on NBC. Leonard has been a feature correspondent for on the show for 28 years, and is known for his stories on everyday life and the unique, creative way he presents his work.

Leonard is also part of a family video production company, Picture Show Films. The company uses digital video exclusively and edits its projects on PowerBooks. Picture Show has produced critically-acclaimed television shows, features for PBS, ESPN, and other news outlets, and videos for fund-raising, corporate training, and other projects. Picture Show is also credited for producing The Brendan Leonard Show, hosted by his son Brendan Leonard.

In 1989, Leonard had the honor of having a G.I. Joe figure sculpted after his likeness by Hasbro. They named their character, Scoop, whose given name was "Leonard Michaels," in honor of the real newsman. Scoop was also in the communications field, just like his inspiration.

In 2006, Leonard published The Ride of Our Lives: Roadside Lessons of an American Family, about a month-long road trip he took with his parents and grown children in an RV. Leonard has four grown children, Matt, Megan, Kerry, and Brendan, and three grandchildren, and currently resides in Winnetka, Illinois with his wife, Cathy. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Heartfelt and whimsical...a cross-country trek through life’s lessons.... Mike Leonard is a storyteller at heart, and each anecdote...punctuates the family’s love, struggles, and triumphs. In short, this is one ride worth taking.
Rocky Mountain News

Fans of NBC News correspondent Leonard's slice-of-life features for the Today show may enjoy this account of a month-long road trip he took with his parents, now in their 80s. But what works on screen doesn't translate to the printed page, and Leonard's attempt to merge a tribute to his parents with greater issues of life and death hits a dead end. As he drives from Chicago through the Southwest, up the East Coast and back to Chicago, Leonard intertwines his reflections with biographical stories by and about his somewhat eccentric parents. Their tales offer the book's most entertaining moments: phlegmatic Jack, who's "conversational `off' button got jammed," likes to sing old songs, while gregarious Marge likes to drink and repeatedly spices her conversation with profanity ("Toora loora, my ass!" she yells during one of Jack's songs). Although Marge's behavior begins to seem more unnerving than unusual, Leonard's account of her brave childhood with an abusive father is the book's highlight. But Leonard keeps putting himself at the center of the story, detailing how charmed his life has been from his college prep high school days to lucking into his TV career, which makes for dull reading.
Publishers Weekly

Take a road trip, combine it with the dynamics of three generations of a family living in close quarters, and the results can be worth sharing. Leonard, NBC's Today Show correspondent, leads the adventure by taking his retired parents and three adult children on a month-long trip from Phoenix to Chicago to be present for the birth of his first grandchild. Along the way, this extended family stops at places like the Alamo and Leonard's parents' alma maters and visits acquaintances from Leonard's previous reporting. Each stop offers further insight into this quirky family and sparks humorous and touching reminiscences of family history. Whether recounting his happy childhood or unearthing new discoveries about his parents' lives, Leonard delivers his engaging account with the same offbeat storytelling style that is the hallmark of his television reporting. His is a story of taking the time to learn about your family and appreciating the sometimes odd people you find in its ranks. —Sheila Kasperek, Mansfield Univ. Lib., PA
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 The Ride of Our Lives:

1. What motivates Leonard to organize this road trip with his parents and children across the U.S? Would you have dared to attempt this with your own family?

2. In literature, as far back as The Odyssey, books about journeys represent a journey of self-discovery. Even though Leonard's trip is a real cross-country road-trip, in what way does he present it as the classic fictional "journey"? Who learns what...about whom?

3. How would you enjoy traveling with Leonard's parents? Talk about Jack and Marge—as characters, as well as parents and grandparents. How do you explain their affection for one another when they seem so incompatible as a married couple?

4. Where are the fault-lines in this family? Where do they fall—between Leonard and his parents...or Leonard and his kids? What is the nature of—and reason for—so-called "generational gaps"? Why do they occur in almost every family, most likely even your own? Speculate on why grandparents and grandchildren seem to get along so well.

5. What does Leonard learn about his parents—for instance, his mother's alcoholic father...his father's childhood trip to Ireland?

6. What were Mike Leonard's own struggles as a child? How did he overcome them? Would it have been different (easier... harder) in today's world? How did his experiences shape his life as a broadcast journalist?

7. Pick out the passages you found particularly funny...and talk about them. Also, those passages that your found most poignant—perhaps Jack and Marge's visit to their college campuses...or their old neighborhood in New Jersey.

8. What was most appealing to you about the places that the Leonard family visited—perhaps the B&B in the Bayou country where the sign says" Pick a room. Take a key. We'll see you for breakfast"? Any others? How did you feel about the diversity and quirkiness of the U.S. after reading this book? Make you want to take a road-trip?

9. Care to make comparisons between the Leonard family and your own?

10. What does this work suggest, if anything, about growing old in the 21st century?

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

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Riding the Bus With My Sister
Rachel Simon, 2002
Penguin Group USA
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780452284555

Summary
Rachel Simon's sister Beth is a spirited woman who lives intensely and often joyfully. Beth, who has an intellectual disability, spends her days riding the buses in her Pennsylvania city. The drivers, a lively group, are her mentors; her fellow passengers are her community.

One day, Beth asked Rachel to accompany her on the buses for an entire year. This wise, funny, deeply affecting book is the chronicle of that remarkable time. Rachel, a writer and college teacher whose hyperbusy life camouflaged her emotional isolation, had much to learn in her sister's extraordinary world. These are life lessons from which every reader can profit: how to live in the moment, how to pay attention to what really matters, how to change, how to love—and how to slow down and enjoy the ride.

Elegantly woven throughout the odyssey are riveting memories of terrifying maternal abandonment, fierce sisterly loyalty, and astonishing forgiveness. Rachel Simon brings to light the almost invisible world of developmental disabilities, finds unlikely heroes in everyday life, and, without sentimentality, portrays Beth as the endearing, feisty, independent person she is.

This heartwarming book about the unbreakable bond between two very different sisters takes the reader on an inspirational journey at once unique and universal. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1959
• Where—Newark, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Bryn Mawr College; M.F.A, Sarah
Lawrence College
• Awards—several philanthropical (below)
• Currently—lives in Wilmington, Delaware

Rachel Simon is an American author of both fiction and non-fiction. Her six books include the 2011 novel The Story of Beautiful Girl and the 2002 memoir Riding The Bus With My Sister. Her work has been adapted for film, television, radio, and stage.

Simon was born in New Jersey and spent most of her first sixteen years in the New Jersey towns of Newark, Millburn, Irvington, and Succasunna. During that time, she began writing short stories and novels, which she shared widely with friends and teachers but never submitted to editors. When Rachel was eight, her parents split up. She and her three siblings remained with their mother for eight years, and then moved to Easton, Pennsylvania to live with their father, with Rachel also becoming a boarding student at Solebury School in New Hope, PA.

Rachel studied anthropology at Bryn Mawr College and graduated in 1981. She then moved to the Philadelphia area and worked at a variety of jobs, including supervisor of researchers for a television study at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College in 1988.

Just before graduating, she won the Writers At Work short story contest, and when she attended the Writers At Work conference that June in Park City, Utah, she decided to be more courageous than she’d been as a teenager. She brought multiple copies of a collection of short stories, Little Nightmares, Little Dreams, that she’d just completed and handed them to every agent and editor who was interested. An editor from Houghton Mifflin bought the manuscript six weeks later and published it to critical acclaim in 1990.

Career
Until 2011, when The Story of Beautiful Girl was published, Rachel Simon was best known for her memoir, Riding The Bus With My Sister (2002). A national bestseller, it became a seminal book in the disability community and a frequent selection on high school reading lists. It was also adapted for a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie in 2005 and has been rebroadcast frequently on the Hallmark Channel. The film stars Rosie O' Donnell as Rachel’s sister Beth and Andie McDowell as Rachel, and was directed by Anjelica Huston.

The success of the book and adaptation of Riding The Bus With my Sister led to Rachel becoming a widely sought-after speaker around the country. The book has also received numerous awards, including a Secretary Tommy G. Thompson Recognition Award for Contributions to the Field of Disability from the US Department of Health and Human Services; a TASH Image Award for positive portrayals of people with disabilities; and a Media Access Award from California Governor's Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities.

Other adaptations of Rachel Simon’s work include the title story from Little Nightmares, Little Dreams (1990), which has been adapted for both the National Public Radio program Selected Shorts, and the Lifetime program “The Hidden Room.” Another story from that collection, “Paint,” was adapted for the stage by the Arden Theatre Company (Philadelphia).

Rachel’s other titles are the novel The Magic Touch (Viking, 1994), the memoir The House on Teacher's Lane (2010); and an inspirational book for writers, The Writer's Survival Guide (1997). She has received creative writing fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts, and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation.

Personal life
She is married to Hal Dean, an architect whom she met shortly after she graduated from college. Their highly unusual, nineteen-year-long path to marriage, is recounted in The House On Teacher’s Lane. They now live in Wilmington, Delaware. Rachel visits frequently with her sister Beth, whose love of bus riding is chronicled in Riding The Bus With My Sister, and who does still ride the buses. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
This perceptive, uplifting chronicle shows how much Simon, a creative writing professor at Bryn Mawr College, had to learn from her mentally retarded sister, Beth, about life, love and happiness. Beth lives independently and is in a long-term romantic relationship, but perhaps the most surprising thing about her, certainly to her (mostly) supportive family, is how she spends her days riding buses. Six days a week (the buses don't run on Sundays in her unnamed Pennsylvania city), all day, she cruises around, chatting up her favorite drivers, dispensing advice and holding her ground against those who find her a nuisance. Rachel joined Beth on her rides for a year, a few days every two weeks, in an attempt to mend their distanced relationship and gain some insight into Beth's daily life. She wound up learning a great deal about herself and how narrowly she'd been seeing the world. Beth's community within the transit system is a much stronger network than the one Rachel has in her hectic world, and some of the portraits of drivers and the other people in Beth's life are unforgettable. Rachel juxtaposes this with the story of their childhood, including the dissolution of their parents' marriage and the devastating abandonment by their mother, the effect of which is tied poignantly to the sisters' present relationship. Although she is honest about the frustrations of relating to her stubborn sister, Rachel comes to a new appreciation of her, and it is a pleasure for readers to share in that discovery.
Publishers Weekly

(Adult/High School) When she received an invitation to her mentally retarded sister's annual Plan of Care review, Simon realized that this was Beth's way of attempting to bring her back into her life. Beth challenged the author to give a year of her life to riding "her" buses with her. Even though Simon didn't know where it would take her, she accepted. During that time, she came to see her sister as a person in her own right with strong feelings about how she wanted to live her life, despite what others thought. Not everyone on the buses, drivers or passengers, liked or even tolerated Beth, and it shamed the author to realize that she sometimes felt the same way about her sibling. As the year passed, Simon came to the realization that "No one can be a good sister all the time. I can only try my best. Just because I am not a saint does not mean that I am a demon." The time together became a year of personal discovery, of acceptance, and of renewed sibling love and closeness. Clear writing and repeated conversations allow readers to hear the voices of both sisters. There is much to mull over, to enjoy, and to savor in this book.-Peggy Bercher, Fairfax County Public Library, VA.
School Library Journal

Family relationships and forgiveness converge in this true-life chronicle by novelist Simon (The Magic Touch, 1994) of a year that gave her better understanding of her mentally retarded sister. Beth Simon has ridden buses for years. Not the way most people do, to get from point A to point B, but "a dozen a day, some for five minutes, others for hours." When hyper-busy, thirtysomething Rachel comes for a visit, Beth asks for a holiday gift: for one year, several times a month, her sister will ride the buses with her. Reluctantly, Rachel agrees. Over the course of the year, she slowly comes to appreciate Beth's ingenuity and stops viewing her solely as a burden. The author gracefully avoids sounding preachy or didactic; she reveals herself to be at times supremely frustrated with her sister's behavior. ("On seventeen buses, over twelve hours, Beth's talk brims with spite about the brutes she encounters. . . . Her babble is unceasing, booming, and unvarying from bus to bus.") The real heroes here are the drivers, who include Beth in family outings, visit her in the hospital, encourage her to try new things, provide her with stability and human connections absent in her highly dysfunctional family. Rachel begins to see that her own life consists of nothing but work; she shut out friends and lovers long ago. This realization, along with Beth's helpful matchmaking ("I wAnt to havE a driver as a BrothEr in law," she writes), leads to a significant relationship. Rachel's reflections on her own life are interspersed with memories of a far-from-ideal childhood: undiagnosed depression exacerbated by Beth's condition toppled their mother, who took up with a violent ex-con after a nasty divorce. The three disparate narratives come together quite well and leave the reader cheering for a reconciliation between the sisters and the rest of the family.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The memoir opens with Beth's annual Plan of Care review, and Beth's request of Rachel to accompany her on bus rides for an entire year. Discuss Rachel and Beth's relationship at the outset of the book: What kind of dynamic do they have? What kind of a role does Rachel play in Beth's life at this point (and vice versa)? What obstacles to their relationship are evident from the first? What do you think was the motivation for Beth's request? Did their tension reflect tensions that you have felt with family members? To whom did you relate to more, Rachel or Beth?

2. Why does Beth love riding the buses? What does she gain from this ad hoc community? Does our understanding of her devotion to the buses deepen over the course of the book, and if so, how does Simon make that happen? Do we come to certain realizations before the character of Rachel does? Examine your own reactions as you read, and when and why they changed. Have you known other people who are devoted to an activity that you do not understand? How did your understanding of Beth's bus riding affect your thoughts about those other people?

3. How do the italicized sections of the book, which relay Rachel and Beth's family history, inform the present-day chapters? Describe the tone of these sections, and the way in which Simon manages to convey their tragic and convoluted past. How does she deal with emotionally charged scenes from the past, and how do they inform our understanding of not only present-day situations and events, but also present-day relationships?

4. Discuss our perspective of Rachel's mother throughout the book: from her panic and despair over the baby Beth's mental disability, to her growing alienation from her children and husband, to her emotional collapse and marriage to "the bad man." How do we view her reunion with her children when they are grown? How does Simon deal with the way each child shifts from anger to forgiveness? At what points do you sympathize with her mother and at what points do you judge her? Discuss the extent to which this is due to the way Simon writes about her mother. How does the story of Rachel's mother shed light on other mothers you might have known who have reached the breaking point with their families?

5. Consider and discuss Rachel and Beth's father: his departure from the family soon after their move to Pennsylvania; his return when their mother kicks Laura, Rachel and Max out of the house; and his tumultuous relationship with Beth, both before and after his remarriage. To what degree do we see him as a sympathetic character? Compare his ability to come to terms with Beth's disability when she was a child with his gradually becoming worn down by their relationship in her adolescence and twenties. Compare and contrast his actions with the actions of their mother. Are there ways in which either is more or less adept than the other? If you know other parents of children with special needs, how do their experiences compare with the experiences of Beth's parents?

6. Examine the relationship between all of the children growing up: Laura, Rachel, Beth and Max. Compare their relationships with each other as children to their relationships with each other as adults. What has changed, and what has remained the same? How supportive of one another were they as children, compared to their lives as adults? How did their dynamic shift over time? What do you think were the direct causes? Would things have been different if the family had stayed together?

7. Discuss the way that Rachel, Laura, and Max were affected by being the siblings of a person with special needs. How much of a role do you think Beth's disability played in their growth as individuals? How did their parents' feelings toward Beth affect the ability of the other siblings to accept her? What are some of the emotions that Rachel reveals she felt about her sister, starting with her being a little child, then a teenager and young adult, and finally a woman entering middle-age? What is the impact of her parents' own difficulties on her sense of her own responsibility toward Beth? Examine Simon's approach to the times when she was not feeling positive about her sister. Discuss the device of the "dark voice." Have you known other siblings of people with disabilities? How do their emotions and concerns mirror those of their parents, and how are they distinct or unique?

8. Discuss Jacob, the Christian bus driver who would have Beth "do unto others as you would have done to you." Consider how we see his role in Beth's life, which goes beyond bus driver to become a true friend (one who takes her to the beach with his family, and cares for her before and after her operation). What kind of a person is Jacob? What makes him likeable, and what keeps him from being an overly sentimental person, or "character," in the book? Compare his role in Beth's life with the friendship he begins to form in Rachel's life. He is clearly on a spiritual journey. Are other characters in the book also on a quest to live a more spiritual life? What is the role of spirituality in the book?

9. Compare and contrast the different bus drivers with one another: Claude, Jacob, Happy Timmy, Rodolpho, Rick, Henry, Estella, Crazy Bailey, Jack, Bert, Cliff and Melanie. Who are your favorites? Which personalities are more vivid than others? What does each contribute to Beth's daily rides? Describe Beth's "falling out" with men such as Claude, Henry, and Cliff. Do we see these men as sympathetic characters or slightly villainous for their lack of patience? Discuss how your perceptions of bus drivers were affected by the characters you "met" over the year. What do their experiences teach us?

10. Now consider Rachel's relationships with the bus drivers. How does her need for their insight and kindness compare to Beth's? How do her relationships with them differ from Beth's, or do they at all? What do you think the bus drivers gain from their friendships with Beth, and subsequently, Rachel (for example, Jacob, Rick or Rodolpho)? How do we see their relationships progress from the opening of the book to its end?

11. Discuss Beth's romantic relationship with Jesse: How would you describe their dynamic? How does their relationship compare with what you know of Sam and Rachel's relationship? Is mental disability portrayed as being a significant factor in Beth and Jesse's compatibility? What did you think of the way Rachel's family handled Beth's burgeoning sexuality, and Beth's annual reminder to Rachel: "Its TEn years since I cant Have a baBy?" Did learning about Beth and Jesse's relationship affect the way you view adults with disabilities? How?

12. What kind of a man is Jesse? What kind of a role does he play in Rachel's life, let alone Beth's? What kind of "character" does he play in the story that unfolds throughout the memoir? Discuss his and Beth's relationship in light of their racial differences, and how they handle their commitment to one another in the face of social opposition. What is the effect on the reader of Jesse riding his bicycle on the periphery of scenes that haven't been about him? What do you think of Jesse's definition of love?

13. Why does Rachel struggle with self-determination? How did it develop in the community at large, and why was Rachel unaware of it until she rode with Beth? What is the role that self-determination plays in Beth's present-day life? Does Rachel's acceptance of it lead her to deal with her sister differently? Compare and contrast the way that Rachel dealt with Beth's "knock-out shot" with the way that Olivia would have dealt with it. What are your feelings about self-determination?

14. Discuss the symbol of the moon. When does it first appear as a symbol, and how does it develop over the course of the book? Examine the symbol of the mountain, which also appears throughout the book. Discuss the use of certain objects or natural phenomena within specific chapters: Beth's bus pass in "The Journey," the airplane in "The Dreamer," the snow in the sterilization section of "Lunch with Jesse," Jack's book in "The Loner," the ocean in "Be Not Afraid," the blue bus in "The Girlfriend," the outdoor candles in "Swans and Witches," and the rainstorm in "Beyond The Limits of the Sky."

15. Is the book enhanced by the inclusion of Beth's letters? How and why? What about Jack's recipes? The references to music?

16. Discuss the various explorations of language that occur throughout the book. What do you think about People First Language? The epithet that Rachel hears her classmates use in school? Did you find yourself questioning your own way of speaking, in the past or present? What is Beth's definition of "cool"? Why does Simon elaborate on Beth's three different meanings for "I don't know"? How does all of this discussion of language expand the larger themes of Beth's struggle for independence and Rachel's struggle to accept Beth?

17. Discuss the ramifications of Rachel's outburst near the culmination of the memoir, where she blurts out "I hate you," in response to Beth's surly, inhospitable demeanor. What does this heat-of-the-moment admission do to both sisters? What kind of change does it invoke in Beth's behavior, and what does it reveal to Rachel about her own feelings? How does it alter their relationship? Why did Simon include it?

18. Compare the annual "Plan of Care" review at the end of the book with the one at the beginning. What kind of progress or change has been made in the way Beth lives her life? What relationships have altered between the people in Beth's apartment? Discuss Rachel's revelations at this meeting and her reaction to Beth's curt "The year's over."

19. Describe the impact of the epilogue to the book, "A Year and a Half Later." What does it demonstrate about Rachel's transformation over the year? What progress has Beth made? How satisfying is this ending, for both the reader and Rachel? What kind of message does Simon leave us with, and how effective is her story as a medium for that message? How did you feel when you finished the final paragraph?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend
Susan Orlean, 2011
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439190142

Summary
He believed the dog was immortal.

So begins Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving account of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from orphaned puppy to movie star and international icon.

Orlean, a staff writer at The New Yorker who has been hailed as “a national treasure” by the Washington Post, spent nearly ten years researching and reporting her most captivating book to date: the story of a dog who was born in 1918 and never died.

It begins on a battlefield in France during World War I, when a young American soldier, Lee Duncan, discovered a newborn German shepherd in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel.

To Duncan, who came of age in an orphanage, the dog’s survival was a miracle. He saw something in Rin Tin Tin that he felt compelled to share with the world. Duncan brought Rinty home to California, where the dog’s athleticism and acting ability drew the attention of Warner Bros.

Over the next 10 years, Rinty starred in 23 blockbuster silent films that saved the studio from bankruptcy and made him the most famous dog in the world. At the height of his popularity, Rin Tin Tin was Hollywood’s number one box office star.

During the decades that followed, Rinty and his descendants rose and fell with the times, making a tumultuous journey from silent films to talkies, from black-and-white to color, from radio programs to one of the most popular television shows of the baby boom era, The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin.

The canine hero’s legacy was cemented by Duncan and a small group of others—including Bert Leonard, the producer of the TV series, and Daphne Hereford, the owner of the current Rin Tin Tin—who have dedicated their lives to making sure the dog’s legend will never die.

At its core, Rin Tin Tin is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war.

Filled with humor and heart and moments that will move you to tears, Susan Orlean’s first original book since The Orchid Thief is an irresistible blend of history, human interest, and masterful storytelling—a dazzling celebration of a great American dog by one of our most gifted writers. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 31, 1955
• Where—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in upstate New York

Susan Orlean is an American journalist. She has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992, and has contributed articles to Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.

Orlean was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Michigan. She was then a staff writer at the Portland, Oregon, weekly Willamette Week, and soon began publishing stories in Rolling Stone, Esquire, Vogue, Outside, and Spy.

In 1982 she moved to Boston and became a staff writer for the Boston Phoenix and later a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. Her first book, Saturday Night, was published in 1990, shortly after she moved to New York and began writing for The New Yorker magazine. She became a New Yorker staff writer in 1992. Orlean was also a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2003.

Orlean is the author of several books, including The Orchid Thief, a profile of Florida orchid grower, breeder, and collector John Laroche. The book formed the basis of Charlie Kaufman's script for the Spike Jonze film Adaptation. Orlean (portrayed by Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated role) was, in effect, made into a fictional character; the movie portrayed her as becoming Laroche's lover and partner in a drug production operation, in which orchids were processed into a fictional psychoactive substance.

She also wrote the Women's Outside article, "Life's Swell" (published 1998). The article, a feature on a group of young surfer girls in Maui, was the basis of the film Blue Crush.

In 1999, she co-wrote The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows About Dieting (And Won't Tell You!) under her married name, Susan Sistrom. Her previously published magazine stories have been compiled in two collections, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People and My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere.

She also served as editor for Best American Essays 2005 and Best American Travel Writing 2007. She contributed the Ohio chapter in "State By State" (2008).

In 2011 she published a biographical history about the dog actor Rin Tin Tin, followed by The Ghost FLower in 2016, and The Library Book in 2018. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/21/2018.)

Book Reviews
Fascinating.... The sweeping story of the soulful German shepherd who was born on the battlefields of World War I, immigrated to America, conquered Hollywood, struggled in the transition to the talkies, helped mobilize thousands of dog volunteers against Hitler and himself emerged victorious as the perfect family-friendly icon of cold war gunslinging, thanks to the new medium of television.... Do dogs deserve biographies? In Rin Tin Tin Susan Orlean answers that question resoundingly in the affirmative.... By the end of this expertly told tale, she may persuade even the most hardened skeptic that Rin Tin Tin belongs on Mount Rushmore with George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt, or at least somewhere nearby with John Wayne and Seabiscuit.
Jennifer Schuessler - New York Times Book Review

Stunning.... A book so moving it melted the heart of at least this one dogged Lassie lover.... Don't let the book's title fool you. Calling Rin Tin Tin the story of a dog is like calling Moby-Dick the story of a whale. Orlean surfs the tide of time, pushing off in the 1900s and landing in the now, delivering a witty synopsis of nearly a century of Rin Tin Tins and American popular culture. The result is a truly exceptional book that marries historical journalism, memoir, and the technique of character-driven, psychologically astute, finely crafted fiction: a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.
Meredith Maran - Boston Globe

Orlean's deadpan sense of humor and ear for the odd and beguiling fact make it hard to put down the book. But there's also something haunting about it, a sense of the brevity of life and fame. . . . Orlean's writing is built to last. As individual as a fingerprint, or a face, it turns what could have been a footnote to history into a touching account of the way one life resonates with others.
Margaret Quamme - Columbus Dispatch

Dazzling.... Susan Orlean has fashioned a masterpiece of reporting and storytelling, some of it quite personal and all of it compelling. Animal-related books have always peppered best-seller lists—Seabiscuit comes quickly to mind—and this one will top such lists. It deserves to, and also to work its way into millions of hearts and minds.... [Carl] Sandburg called Rin Tin Tin "thrillingly intelligent" and "phenomenal." The same can be said for this remarkable book.... Spectacular.
Chicago Tribune

It's a story of magnificent obsession. Nearly a decade in the making, combining worldwide research with personal connection, it offers the kind of satisfactions you only get when an impeccable writer gets hold of one heck of a story.
Kenneth Turan - Los Angeles Times

Remarkable.... Orlean's pursuit of detail is mind-boggling.... The book is less about a dog than the prototypes he embodied and the people who surrounded him. It is about story-making itself, about devotion, luck and heroes.... Ultimately, the reader is left well nourished and in awe of both Orlean's reportorial devotion and at her magpie ability to find the tiniest sparkling detail.
Alexandar Horowitz - San Francisco Chronicle

With this stirring biographical history, Orlean follows up her bestselling The Orchid Thief with another tale of passion and dedication overcoming adversity and even common sense—this one centering on Rin Tin Tin, the German shepherd who founded a film and TV dynasty. After spending a lonely childhood in an orphanage, the young soldier Lee Duncan discovers on the battlefield of WWI France the puppy that will make a name for him as one of Hollywood's top dog trainers, and become his life's guiding purpose. The book follows Rin Tin Tin's trajectory from early Hollywood's "Poverty Row," where Duncan sought the dog's first film deal, to international celebrity in silent films, radio shows, and TV programs. Though Rin Tin Tin's contracts began to lapse in later years, Duncan never ceased grooming canine successors and shopping around scripts, and producer Bert Leonard lived on friends' couches as he poured money into colorizing old episodes of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. Orlean directs a sympathetic gaze toward these men so haunted by their memories of the dog that swept them into stardom. Even readers coming to Rin Tin Tin for the first time will find it difficult to refrain from joining Duncan in his hope that Rin Tin Tin's legacy will "go on forever..
Publishers Weekly

In this exceptional book, Orlean (staff writer, The New Yorker; author, The Orchid Thief) portrays the magical bond, which led to lasting international fame, between a special puppy found on a World War I battlefield and Lee Duncan, the man who rescued him. She spent ten years researching and writing their story, a richly textured narrative filled with personal accounts, astute cultural and social backdrops, behind-the-scenes details on film and television, and an informed look at the historical roles of dogs in war, on-screen, and in the home. Orlean describes Rin Tin Tin's career from the early days in film through the popular 1950s television series. His heroic persona transformed into immortal legend, as subsequent dogs sustained both his name and the noble qualities he symbolized. Duncan and others who were a part of Rinty's story are honestly yet compassionately portrayed. Orlean also shares her own tales of epic research. Verdict: This is a thoroughly researched and masterfully written work that will please a wide audience, especially those who remember this noble canine hero. It is also an important addition to the literature of cultural, entertainment, and animal history. —Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
1. Were you familiar with Rin Tin Tin before reading this book? What memories do you have of the famous dog? What was it like to delve back into the history of Rin Tin Tin? If this was your first introduction to him, what impressions did the book give you?

2. Orlean attributes Lee's fierce love of dogs to his traumatic childhood, in which both his mother and father abandoned him for a time. As Orlean writes: "The experience shaped him; for the rest of his life, he was always deeply alone....The only companion in his loneliness he would ever find would be his dog, and his attachment to animals grew to be deeper than his attachment to any person." (p. 15) Do you agree with this assessment? What other forces, if any, contributed to Lee's love of dogs?

3. Lee and the first Rin Tin Tin shared an incredibly close bond. Do you think Lee's devotion to Rinty was more of an endearing character trait, or a symptom of deeper personal issues? Consider the many people who felt wronged or resentful toward Lee—his daughter Carolyn, his wife Charlotte, and his wife Eva, in your answer.

4. Lee steadfastly believed that Rinty was destined for greatness and, as Orlean writes, "he was lucky to be his human guide and companion." (p. 34) Do you think Lee underestimated, or misunderstood, his importance in creating the Rin Tin Tin juggernaut?

5. On the strangely frequent coincidences that kept Rin Tin Tin's narrative alive, Orlean writes, "Everything connected to Rin Tin Tin was full of happenstance and charm, lightning strikes of fortune and hairpin turns of luck; from a standstill, life around Rin Tin Tin always seemed to accelerate out of the depths of disappointment to a new place filled with possibility." (p. 262) Reflect on a few such serendipitous moments. Do you think life tends to look coincidental in hindsight—or was Rin Tin Tin's story really blessed?

6. Although he never made concrete plans to ensure the continuation of Rinty's legacy, Lee insisted that "There will always be a Rin Tin Tin." (p. 3) Was Lee being prophetic or delusional—or both?

7. The original Rin Tin Tin was considered essentially human in popular culture. A review of one of his films, for example, describes his eyes as conveying something "tragic, fierce, sad and…a nobility and degree of loyalty not credible in a person." (p. 71) Why was Rinty so completely and earnestly anthropomorphized by millions of fans? Where do you stand on the scale from "a dog is a dog" to "Rin Tin Tin was essentially human"?

8. Orlean notes that "when Rin Tin Tin first became famous, most dogs in the world would not sit down when asked." (p. 123) With that in mind, how much of the awe and reverence surrounding Rin Tin Tin the first would you attribute to the novelty of trained dogs? How much stands the test of time?

9. At the height of his earning power, Rin Tin Tin was paid eight times as much as his human co-stars. Do you think this was fair? Why or why not?

10. Orlean writes that Rin Tin Tin, alive on the screen, "was everything Americans wanted to think they were—brave, enterprising, bold, and most of all, individual." (pp. 87, 89) How much of Rin Tin Tin's emotional depth do you think came from viewers projecting their own feelings on him?

11. Orlean writes, "As his fame grew, Rin Tin Tin became, in a way, less particular—less specifically this one single dog—and more conceptual, the archetypal dog hero." (p. 97) In what ways did Rin Tin Tin shift from a literal representation to a symbolic figure? What specific moments, if any, highlight this shift?

12. How did the evolution of the film and television industries dictate the various reincarnations of Rin Tin Tin? Why was Rin Tin Tin—the dog and the archetype—so wildly successful, both in films and later in television?

13. By the late 1950s, Rin Tin Tin's aura of invincibility was beginning to wear off. Orlean explains, "Now, instead of being a miracle, he was a model. He was the dog you could aspire to have, and maybe even manage to have, at home." (p. 217) What explains this shift? Is it necessarily a bad one?

14. The criteria used to determine Rin Tin Tin's descendants evolved as the Rin Tin Tin ideal expanded through time and across mediums. As Orlean concludes, "The unbroken strand is not one of genetics but one of belief." (p. 137) Why did this evolution from genetics to belief occur? Do you think this reliance on human decisions, rather than canine pedigrees, undermines the magical reverence of Rin Tin Tin the first?

15. Orlean writes that at one point she felt like "everybody I met or heard about in connection to Rin Tin Tin was a little crazy." (p. 282) Do you agree? Why or why not? Consider the various actions that Lee, Burt, and Daphne took in the name of defending Rin Tin Tin's legacy.

16. Bert takes over as the protagonist of the book after Lee dies. How do you feel about the way the narrative continues after Lee's death?

17. What do you think Lee and Bert would have thought of this book?

18. Orlean wonders, of the many different iterations of Rin Tin Tin, "Could that wide, wide range of manifestations really belong to anyone?" (p. 297) What do you think? If yes, who owns which parts of the legacy—legally, sentimentally, practically? Do you think Orlean herself now owns a part of the legacy, too?

19. Orlean writes that she sometimes "began to wonder if the legacy of RTT was finally contracting." (p. 311) What do you think? How does her book factor in this observation?

20. Orlean delves into many historical events and movements in the book—dogs in the military, obedience training, movie and television history—to name a few. Which facts surprised you the most?

21. Do you believe that there will always be a Rin Tin Tin? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars
Nathalia Holt, 2016
Little, Brown & Co.
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316338929

Summary
The riveting true story of the women who launched America into space.

In the 1940s and 50s, when the newly minted Jet Propulsion Laboratory needed quick-thinking mathematicians to calculate velocities and plot trajectories, they didn't turn to male graduates.

Rather, they recruited an elite group of young women who, with only pencil, paper, and mathematical prowess, transformed rocket design, helped bring about the first American satellites, and made the exploration of the solar system possible.

For the first time, Rise of the Rocket Girls tells the stories of these women—known as "human computers"—who broke the boundaries of both gender and science.

Based on extensive research and interviews with all the living members of the team, Rise of the Rocket Girls offers a unique perspective on the role of women in science: both where we've been, and the far reaches of space to which we're heading.(From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Nathalia Holt is an HIV researcher and science writer who is author of the books Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV (2015) and Rise of the Rocket Girls: The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars (2016). She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.

Holt's most recent position has been as a research fellow at the Ragon Institute—a joint project of Massacuhsetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. Prior to Ragon, her education and work took place at the University of Southern California, Tulane University, and Humboldt State (Bioloigy, class of 2002).

Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Atlantic, Slate, Popular Science, and Time.

Her research as a science writer took place at the Jet Propulsion Lab archives, the Cal Tech Library, and the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the publisher. Retrieved 4/24/2016.)

Book Reviews
This highly readable, entertaining and informative book tells the story of JPL's 'computers,' the young women who did the calculations now handled by bits of silicon. Holt brings her characters to life, tracing them from their hiring as JPL began its career with the Army developing missiles for the Cold War through its conversion to NASA's lead center for planetary exploration. She celebrates their lives, achievements, and service to the nation, as well as their excitement at having front row seats to the earliest voyages of solar system exploration. It's a story whose telling is long overdue. We can be grateful for this enjoyable read.
Dr. Charles Elachi - Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Planetary Science

Illuminating...these women are vividly depicted at work, at play, in and out of love, raising children—and making history. What a team—and what a story!
Gene Seymour - USA Today

(Starred review.) [T]he lives and work of the women who provided the fledgling Jet Propulsion Lab with computing power, in this accessible and human-centered history.... Holt’s accessible and heartfelt narrative celebrates the women whose crucial roles in American space science often go unrecognized.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) Holt seamlessly blends the technical aspects of rocket science and mathematics with an engaging narrative, making for an imminently readable and well-researched work. —Crystal Goldman
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Those interested in space history will find much to enjoy here, but it is the stories of the women involved, highlighted in sections by decade, that commands attention.... [Holt's] stellar research is evident on every page. This is an excellent contribution to American history. —Colleen Mondor
Booklist

[E]ngaging.... Besides chronicling the development of America’s space program, Holt recounts the women’s private lives—marriages, babies, and the challenge of combining motherhood and work—gleaned from her interviewees’ vivid memories. A fresh contribution to women’s history.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for Rise of the Rocket Girls...then take off on your own:

1. Talk about the individual women and their stories which comprise Rise of the Rocket Girls. Whose story did you find most interesting, whose path perhaps more difficult than others'? In what way do their stories shed light on the greater cultural changes taking place then...and now?

2. Talk about the obstacles in the paths of these women...and the unfairness they overcame to gain acceptance to (or in) the rarefied atmosphere of the Jet Propulsion Lab.

3. Most everyone who reads and/or reviews this book has been surprised by the important role women played in the rocket program. Why have their contributions taken so long to be widely recognized?

4. Holt offers the story of Barbara Canright calculating and graphing the course of a satellite. "Behind her she could sense Richard Feynman...her every move was being carefully watched." In the very next paragraph, Holt adds a detail about Barbara's boyfriend who had kissed her before she left home. Today that domestic scene might not seem such a strange juxtaposition, but in that era there was a fair amount of ambivalence and confusion about women who performed typically male jobs and yet had—gasp!—families or male partners.

What other juxtapositions did you notice in Holt's account of these women doing traditional male jobs...yet exhibiting traditionally "female behavior" or falling prey to demeaning male attitudes? To what extent, if any, do those kinds of juxtapositions exist today?

5. What was the irony of JPL finally promoting the original "human computers" to the title of engineers? Why did it end up contracting rather than expanding opportunities for women at the lab?

6. All the calculations done by the "human computers" were done working with pencils, graph paper, and notebooks—and it could take a day to calculate a single rocket's trajectory. What was the attitude at JPL toward the first IBM 704 when it arrived in the late 1950s? What eventually spurred the use of computers in rocket science?

7. Talk about the close-knit group the women formed for themselves, which included those working in both technical and non-technical jobs. What kind of support did they offer one another no matter what their professional status?

8. Holt notes at the end of the book that there are more women working at JPL now than at any other NASA center. Consider doing some research into the numbers of women in math and science and whether or not they reflect women's positions in the wider society.

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

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Rising Strong: The Reckoning, the Rumble, the Revolution
Brene Brown, 2015
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812995824

Summary
When we deny our stories, they define us.
When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.

Social scientist Brene Brown has ignited a global conversation on courage, vulnerability, shame, and worthiness. Her pioneering work uncovered a profound truth:

Vulnerability—the willingness to show up and be seen with no guarantee of outcome—is the only path to more love, belonging, creativity, and joy. But living a brave life is not always easy: We are, inevitably, going to stumble and fall.

It is the rise from falling that Brown takes as her subject in Rising Strong. As a grounded theory researcher, Brown has listened as a range of people—from leaders in Fortune 500 companies and the military to artists, couples in long-term relationships, teachers, and parents—shared their stories of being brave, falling, and getting back up.

She asked herself, What do these people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common? The answer was clear: They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid to lean in to discomfort.

Walking into our stories of hurt can feel dangerous. But the process of regaining our footing in the midst of struggle is where our courage is tested and our values are forged. Our stories of struggle can be big ones, like the loss of a job or the end of a relationship, or smaller ones, like a conflict with a friend or colleague.

Regardless of magnitude or circumstance, the rising strong process is the same: We reckon with our emotions and get curious about what we’re feeling; we rumble with our stories until we get to a place of truth; and we live this process, every day, until it becomes a practice and creates nothing short of a revolution in our lives.

Rising strong after a fall is how we cultivate wholeheartedness. It’s the process, Brown writes, that teaches us the most about who we are. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 18, 1965
• Where—San Antonio, Texas, USA
• Education—B.S.W., University of Texas, Austin; M.S.W., Ph.D., University of Houston
• Awards—Outstanding Faculty Award (University of Houston)
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas

Brene Brown is an American scholar, author, and public speaker, who is currently a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Over the last twelve years she has been involved in research on a range of topics, including vulnerability, courage, worthiness, and shame. She is the author of three New York Times Bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection (2010), Daring Greatly (2012), and Rising Strong (2015). She and her work have been featured on PBS, NPR, TED, and CNN.

Early life
Brown was born in San Antonio, Texas and spent a formative period in New Orleans, Louisiana. She completed her Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) at University of Texas at Austin, followed by a Master of Social Work (MSW) and Ph.D. from the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston.

Career
Brown began her career as a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Her research focuses on authentic leadership and wholeheartedness in families, schools, and organizations. She presented a 2012 TED talk and two 2010 TEDx talks.

Brown is the author of...
♦ I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power (2007)
♦ The Gifts of Imperfection: Letting Go of Who We Think We Should Be and Embracing Who We Are (2010)
♦ Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead (2012)
♦ Rising Strong: The Reckoning, the Rumble, the Revolution (2015).

Her articles have appeared in many national newspapers.

In March 2013, she appeared on Super Soul Sunday talking with Oprah Winfrey about her book, Daring Greatly. The title of the book comes from Theodore Roosevelt’s speech “Citizenship in a Republic”, which is also referred as "The Man in the Arena" speech, given at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910.

Brown is the CEO and Chief Learning Officer for The Daring Way, a training and certification program for helping professionals who want to facilitate her work on vulnerability, courage and worthiness.

Honors and awards
Houston Woman Magazine voted Brown one of the most influential women of 2009. Her 2010 Ted Talk is one of the most watched talks on the Ted.com website. She has received numerous teaching awards including the Graduate College of Social Work's Outstanding Faculty Award. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/26/2015.)

Book Reviews
This book is about owning your story and choosing how to actively engage with the world. With Brown's excellent guidance, it's easy for readers to become as invested in her story as they are in their own, and, more importantly, to move beyond preconceived stories about themselves.
Publishers Weekly

Brown studies issues of vulnerability and shame—which leads her directly to this book's subject, bravery, both what it is and how we can find it in ourselves.... [T]his book is a sure bet for many social science collections.
Library Journal

[S]olid advice.... [T]the author gives readers the necessary tools to get up and try again. Brown outlines a three-step process—the reckoning, the rumble, and the revolution.... An innovative one-two-three-punch approach to self-help and healing from an author who has helped countless readers change their lives.
Kirkus Reviews

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The River of Doubt: Theordore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
Candice Millard, 2005
Knopf Doubleday
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780767913737

Summary
At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron. After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil's most famous explorer, Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it.

In the process, Roosevelt changed the map of the western hemisphere forever. Along the way, he and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide.

The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt's life, here is Candice Millard's dazzling debut. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968
• Where—N/A
• Education—Baker University; M.A., Baylor
University.
• Currently—lives in Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Candice Sue Millard is an American writer and journalist. She is a former writer and editor for National Geographic and the author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey, a history of the Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition, Theodore Roosevelt's exploration of the Amazon Rainforest in 1913 and 1914. The book was published in 2005. Millard's second book, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, was released in 2011. Both books have been best sellers.

Millard is a graduate of Baker University, Baldwin City, Kansas, and earned a master's degree in literature from Baylor University. She lives in Kansas City with her husband and three children. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
The River of Doubt is not an ordinary biography. Its author, Candice Millard, is a credible historian as well as a former writer and editor for National Geographic. She pays keen attention to nature, human and otherwise, in this vigorous, critter-filled account of Roosevelt's last epic journey: a white-water voyage through the Brazilian rain forest and the deep unknown.
New York Times

[A] fine account.... There are far too many books in which a travel writer follows in the footsteps of his or her hero—and there are far too few books like this, in which an author who has spent time and energy ferreting out material from archival sources weaves it into a gripping tale.
Washington Post

In a gripping account, Millard focuses on an episode in Teddy Roosevelt's search for adventure that nearly came to a disastrous end. A year after Roosevelt lost a third-party bid for the White House in 1912, he decided to chase away his blues by accepting an invitation for a South American trip that quickly evolved into an ill-prepared journey down an unexplored tributary of the Amazon known as the River of Doubt. The small group, including T.R.'s son Kermit, was hampered by the failure to pack enough supplies and the absence of canoes sturdy enough for the river's rapids. An injury Roosevelt sustained became infected with flesh-eating bacteria and left the ex-president so weak that, at his lowest moment, he told Kermit to leave him to die in the rainforest. Millard, a former staff writer for National Geographic, nails the suspense element of this story perfectly, but equally important to her success is the marvelous amount of detail she provides on the wildlife that Roosevelt and his fellow explorers encountered on their journey, as well as the cannibalistic indigenous tribe that stalked them much of the way.
Publishers Weekly

Anacondas, huge snakes found in the Amazon River and its tributaries, can weigh up to 500 pounds. That fact and many others embedded in this marvelously atmospheric travel narrative are here for the reader's asking and edification in Millard's important contribution to the complete biographical record of the great, dynamic Teddy Roosevelt.... [R]eaders of both American history and travel narratives will take delight in living through these exciting pages. —Brad Hooper.
Booklist

The beauty of this story is not just that Roosevelt’s rich history could spawn a thousand adventure stories, but that Millard’s experience with National Geographic is evident in her beautiful scenic descriptions and grisly depictions of the Amazon’s man-eating catfish, ferocious piranhas, white-water rapids, and prospect of starvation.... Millard succeeds where many have not; she has managed to contain a little bit of Teddy Roosevelt’s energy and warm interactions between the covers of her wonderful new book.
Bookmarks Magazine

Discussion Questions
1. Chapter one, “Defeat,” depicts dramatic scenes from Roosevelt’s final election. What parallels exist between a risky political career and a risky Rain Forest expedition? What enabled him to survive both?

2. Compare Rondon’s and Roosevelt’s leadership styles. In what ways did these co-commanders complement each other? In what ways were they at odds?

3. Discuss the very concept of survival as it shapes The River of Doubt. In choosing provisions, what items did Roosevelt’s team consider necessary for survival? What aspects of survival (greater quantities of dry, mildew-free clothes, for example) did they overlook? What intangibles (especially in terms of emotions) are also necessary for such an expedition?

4. What aspects of humanity were represented by the various personalities in the group, ranging from exploitive Father Zahm and the rational Cherrie to the volatile Julio? Can such varied people coexist? How did you react to Roosevelt’s belief that it was necessary for Julio to be found and shot after he murdered one of the team members?

5. Do any contemporary American politicians possess Roosevelt’s public-speaking style? Why did he believe it was important to debate the former Chilean ambassador and deliver speeches refuting the protestors there?

6. Discuss the extraordinary medical history included in The River of Doubt. How was Roosevelt able to survive so much in his lifetime—from gunshot and disease to a train wreck—with only rudimentary medical care? What aspects of modern medicine would have made his expedition safer? Would safer conditions have undermined thethrill?

7. What did you discover about the intricate, sometimes surreal ecology and geography of the Rain Forest itself? What is the significance of the ancient history of South America’s formation, such as the plate tectonics that sculpted the Andes Mountains? What was it like to read descriptions of a region where few humans have adapted to the environment? Why is it important to preserve rather than develop these ecosystems?
8. In the end, what do you believe Roosevelt’s true missions were in this expedition? What was revealed about the nature of some geographic explorers when his success was met with deep skepticism? What motivates any explorer–from ancient nomads to NASA scientists? What separates Roosevelt’s brand of adventurousness from that of contestants on television shows such as “Survivor”?

9. Share your observations about the Cinta Larga, ranging from nutrition and family life to warfare. Does their self-sufficiency make them noble?

10. What did you discover about Roosevelt’s parenting style? Is his approach—particularly his insistence that his children learn to conquer rather than avoid obstacles–prevalent in many American schools today?

11. Do you believe that Kermit’s later despondency, which eventually drove him to suicide, was related more to genetics or to his life’s circumstances? Did his father expect too much of him? How did their relationship shift throughout this father-son expedition? How would you have fared on a similar mission with your mother or father?

12. How might Roosevelt respond to current concerns about the environment and climate change? How might he and his Progressive “Bull Moose” Party have fared in recent elections?

13. What separates The River of Doubt from other presidential narratives you have read? What writing techniques enabled the author to weave together science, travelogue, and history? What do the Notes and Acknowledgments sections reveal about her research techniques? If someone were to write a biography of you, what narratives could be constructed from your collection of letters and other memorabilia?

14. Discuss the historical context of Roosevelt’s trip, in terms not only of South American history but other aspects of world history from this time period, such as the sinking of the Titanic in 1912? Would World War I have unfolded differently if Roosevelt had defeated Wilson?

15. How were the first chapters of Roosevelt’s life, which were marked by poor health, resolved by this final South American chapter? Do his triumphs of endurance, from boxing at Harvard to valiant service during the Spanish-American War, form a timeline of progressively more dangerous challenges throughout his life? If so, did he finally meet his match with The River of Doubt? Why do you believe this expedition was, until now, less well known than his other triumphs?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine
Somaly Mam, 2005
Random House
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385526227

Summary
(A portion of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the Somaly Mam Foundation.)

A riveting, raw, and beautiful memoir of tragedy and hope.

Born in a village deep in the Cambodian forest, Somaly Mam was sold into sexual slavery by her grandfather when she was twelve years old. For the next decade she was shuttled through the brothels that make up the sprawling sex trade of Southeast Asia.

Trapped in this dangerous and desperate world, she suffered the brutality and horrors of human trafficking—rape, torture, deprivation—until she managed to escape with the help of a French aid worker. Emboldened by her newfound freedom, education, and security, Somaly blossomed but remained haunted by the girls in the brothels she left behind.

Written in exquisite, spare, unflinching prose, The Road of Lost Innocence recounts the experiences of her early life and tells the story of her awakening as an activist and her harrowing and brave fight against the powerful and corrupt forces that steal the lives of these girls.

She has orchestrated raids on brothels and rescued sex workers, some as young as five and six; she has built shelters, started schools, and founded an organization that has so far saved more than four thousand women and children in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos.

Her memoir will leave you awestruck by her tenacity and courage and will renew your faith in the power of an individual to bring about change. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Mondulkiri, Cambodia
• Awards—World Children's Prize for The Rights of the Child,
Sweden, 2008; CNN Hero, USA; Glamour Woman of the
Year, 2006; Olympic flag bearer, Torino, 2006; Heroes of
Anti-Trafficking Award, US State Department; Mimosa d'Oro
Award; Festival du Scoop Prize, France; Excmo
Ayuntaniento de Galdar Concejalia de Servicio Sociale, and
Principe de Asturias for International Cooperation, 1998—
both of Spain; Regis University Honorary Doctorate of
Public Service, USA.
• Currently—lives in France and Cambodia

Somaly Mam is the cofounder of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations) in Cambodia and The Somaly Mam Foundation in the United States, whose goal is to save and socially reintegrate victims of sexual slavery in Southeast Asia. She was named Glamour's Woman of the Year in 2006. She lives in Cambodia and France. (From the publisher.)

More
Mam, born into a Cambodian family struggling through poverty, was sold into sexual slavery as a child by her grandfather. She was beaten, raped and tortured. One night she witnessed the murder by a pimp of close friend and, at this moment, made it her mission to escape and find a way to halt the practice of child sex slavery. By the age of 30 Somaly Mam had become an international spokesperson for women and children tortured in the brothels of Southeast Asia.

In 1997, along with her former French husband, Pierre Legros, Mam created the AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire—Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) in Cambodia. Since then, her international foundation has worked in Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. Its goals are to save and socially reintegrate people who are victims of the sex slave trade. Despite threats against her life, Somaly Mam has helped thousands of young girls and teenagers who had been coerced into prostitution.

Mam has attained international recognition for her work. In 1998 she received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Awards for International Cooperation, in the presence of Queen Sofia of Spain. In 2006 she was one of the eight Olympic flag bearers at the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Torino, Italy. In October 2006 she was named a Glamour magazine WOMAN OF THE YEAR at a presentation at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Her award was presented by Mariane Pearl, the journalist, who had been present in Cambodia at the time of the kidnapping of Somaly's daughter, and who reported on the incident for an article that subsequently appeared in the August 1, 2006 issue of Glamour:

The following day, a social worker calls me to say that Somaly has been reunited with her daughter. The police found Ning, who had apparently been drugged, in a bar in Battambang. She said she had been raped by her three captors—the young man who the family knows, along with two others.

When I see mother and daughter again, both are deeply shaken. “I think they kidnapped Ning in retaliation for my work,” Somaly tells me. I see that this is another defining moment in her life. She is deeply hurt. But pausing in her work is not an option. She must keep going—for the sake of all the girls she is helping. For the sake of her daughter. She tells me how earlier, she took Ning’s beautiful, sad face in both of her hands. “You’ve suffered what you’ve suffered,” she told her. “Now you take that pain and you help others. —Glamour

In June 2007 Somaly created the US based Somaly Mam Foundation, and in 2008, she was awarded the World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child in Sweden for her "dangerous struggle" to defend the rights of children in Cambodia. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
In The Road of Lost Innocence, [Mam] writes of corrupt government officials and police who allow the illegal businesses to thrive. Her account inspires outrage.
Jane Ciabattari - Washington Post

An inspiring story from the front lines of a global tragedy. Somaly Mam’s courageous fight to save women and children reminds us that one person can stand up and change the fate of others for good.”
Mariane Pearl (author of A Mighty Heart)

The Road of Lost Innocence is unputdownable, and you read it with a lump in your throat. Somaly Mam’s story is an account of how humanity can sink to the lowest levels of depravity, but it is also a testimony of resistance and hope. She lifted herself out of a well of terror and found the determination and the resilience to save others. Somaly Mam is my candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Ayaan Hirsi Ali (author of Infidel)

The horror and violence perpetrated on young girls to feed the sex trade industry in southeast Asia is personalized in this graphic story. Of "mixed race," Khmer and Phnong, Mam is living on her own in the forest in northern Cambodia around 1980 when a 55-year-old stranger claims he will take her to her missing family. "Grandfather" beats and abuses the nine-year-old Mam and sells her virginity to a Chinese merchant to cover a gambling debt. She is subsequently sold into a brothel in Phnom Penh, and the daily suffering and humiliation she endures is almost impossible to imagine or absorb ("I was dead. I had no affection for anyone"). She recounts recalcitrant girls being tortured and killed, and police collusion and government involvement in the sex trade; she manages to break the cycle only when she discovers the advantages of ferengi(foreign) clients and eventually marries a Frenchman. She comes back to Cambodia from France, now unafraid, and with her husband, Pierre; sets up a charity, AFESIP, "action for women in distressing circumstances"; and fearlessly devotes herself to helping prostitutes and exploited children. The statistics are shocking: one in every 40 Cambodian girls (some as young as five) will be sold into sex slavery. Mam brings to the fore the AIDS crisis, the belief that sex with a virgin will cure the disease and the Khmer tradition of women's obedience and servitude. This moving, disturbing tale is not one of redemption but a cry for justice and support for women's plight everywhere.
Publishers Weekly

Candid memoir of a woman trapped in the sex-slave trade, who is now an activist against it. "You shouldn't try and discover the past," Mam recalls her adoptive father telling her. "You shouldn't hurt yourself." Born in 1970 or 1971 and torn from her ethnic Phnong family during Cambodia's genocidal civil war, Mam suffered as a child in a Khmer village whose people saw her as "fatherless, black, and ugly," possibly even a cannibal. Her pederast grandfather sold her virginity to a Chinese merchant to whom he owed money, a prize in a culture where raping a virgin was believed to cure AIDS. He then sold her to a soldier who "beat me often, sometimes with the butt of his rifle on my back and sometimes with his hands." From there it was a short path to what Mam calls "ordinary prostitution," working for a madam who was quick to hit and slow to feed. In time, after a series of indignities that she recounts in painful detail, Mam extricated herself to live with a French humanitarian-aid worker. Married, she moved with him to France, where she discovered that "French people could be racist, just like the Khmers." Burdened with an unpleasant mother-in-law, she welcomed the chance to return to Cambodia, working in a Doctors Without Borders clinic and turning her home into a kind of halfway house for abused, drug-addicted and ill prostitutes, most of whom were very young. Mam recounts her battles against government officials, pimps, brothel keepers and other foes in a campaign that brought death threats against her, but that slowly gathered force as it gained funding from UNICEF and several European governments. That campaign is ongoing, and Mam concludes that there's plenty left to do, since Cambodiais "in a state of chaos where the only rule is every man for himself." An urgent, though depressing, document, worthy of a place alongside Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, Rigoberto Menchu's autobiography, and other accounts of overcoming Third World hardship.
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 The Road of Lost Innocence:

1. One of the primary questions, of course, concerns Somaly Mam's incredible courage. What inner strengths does she draw upon that enable her to overcome her own degradation and reach out to help others?

2. Were you surprised by Somaly Mam's book? If you were previously unaware of sex slave trafficking, what does that say about the level of awareness of others in the nation and around the world? What else have you heard, watched, or read about this issue? Has it received the attention it deserves in this country? If not, why?

3. What more should be done to increase awareness and to eventually halt the practice of sex slavery? Is Mam's crusade sufficient? What more needs to be done...or, realistically, can be done?

4. Is there one special incident or individual or moment in this book that moved you more than any other?

5. Does this book move you to become personally involved in this issue. What can you, or any one individual (or small group) do to ameliorate the problem of sex slave trafficking?

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

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Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life: A Book by and for the Fanatics Among Us
Steve Almond, 2010
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400066209

Summary
Drooling fanatic, n. 1. One who drools in the presence of beloved rock stars. 2. Any of a genus of rock-and-roll wannabes/geeks who walk around with songs constantly ringing in their ears, own more than 3,000 albums, and fall in love with at least one record per week.

With a life that’s spanned the phonographic era and the digital age, Steve Almond lives to Rawk. Like you, he’s secretly longed to live the life of a rock star, complete with insane talent, famous friends, and hotel rooms to be trashed. Also like you, he’s content (sort of) to live the life of a rabid fan, one who has converted his unrequited desires into a (sort of) noble obsession.

Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life traces Almond’s passion from his earliest (and most wretched) rock criticism to his eventual discovery of a music-crazed soul mate and their subsequent production of two little superfans. Along the way, Almond reflects on the delusional power of songs, the awkward mating habits of drooling fanatics, and why Depression Songs actually make us feel so much better. The book also includes:

sometimes drunken interviews with America’s finest songwriters
a recap of the author’s terrifying visit to Graceland while stoned
a vigorous and credibility-shattering endorsement of Styx’s Paradise Theater
recommendations you will often choose to ignore
a reluctant exegesis of the Toto song “Africa”
obnoxious lists sure to piss off rock critics.

But wait, there’s more. Readers will also be able to listen to a special free mix designed by the author, available online at www.stevenalmond.com, for the express purpose of eliciting your drool. For those about to rock—we salute you! (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 27, 1966
• Raised—Palo Alto, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Weslyan University
• Currently—lives in Arlington, Massachusetts

Steve Almond is an American short story writer and essayist. He was raised in Palo Alto, California, graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School, and received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University.

Almond spent seven years as a newspaper reporter, mostly in El Paso and at the Miami New Times. He has been writing fiction for over ten years. His work can be found in a range of literary magazines, and newspapers including the Boston Globe, Playboy Magazine, Nerve, Polite, Lake Effect, 3:AM Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He also reviews books for the Boston Globe and Los Angeles Times. His work was selected for the Best American Short Stories 2010.

His books include Candyfreak: A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America (2004); (Not That You Asked) Rants, Exploits and Obsessions (2007); Letters from People Who Hate Me (2010); Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life (2010).

Almond served as adjunct professor in creative writing at Boston College for five years until publishing an open letter of resignation in the the Boston Globe on May 12, 2006, in which he explained that his resignation was intended to protest the selection of Condoleezza Rice as the college's 2006 commencement guest speaker.

Almond was a contributing writer to Alarm Clock Theatre Company's Elliot Norton Award winning play PS Page Me Later, based on selections from Found Magazine.

He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
The goofiness and magnetism of rock is celebrated in this exuberant memoir. Rock critic and memoirist Almond (Candyfreak) describes himself as a “drooling fanatic” of rock and roll with a morbid passion for obscure bands, arcane record collections, and proselytizing his musical tastes. This freewheeling mix tape recounts the central role music played in his relationships, sexual encounters, and life transitions, while sprinkling in idiosyncratic lists, from “Rock's Biggest Assholes” to “Silly Names of Rock Star Spawn,” and tragicomic exegeses of songs great and terrible. His rock-critic gig enables his obsessions, giving him cover to profile, hang with, and otherwise stalk rockers while gazing into the bleak underside of their lives, “the desolation in which... art continues to bloom.” Almond deftly straddles the line between intellectual and fan. He's canny about the ways rock stars manipulate their idolators, yet happy to be seduced by them. He veers smoothly between funny, cruel takedowns of rock fatuity while registering its emotional impact (the song “I Bless the Rains Down in Africa” may be “the lovechild of Muzak and imperialism,” but you can't help “sort of digging it”). Almond's snarky, swoony counterpoint makes for a hilarious riff on the power of music.
Publishers Weekly

The result is the nonfiction equivalent of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, a knowing and exhilarating look at how one man dove headfirst into rock music and emerged on the other side intact.
BookPage

(Starred review.) Almond makes clear from the start that he’s no rock star, just a guy who obsesses over music he can’t play.... His hilarious musings seem to contain elements of both Hornby and David Sedaris, but he’s truly a character of his own idiosyncratic making. —June Sawyers
Booklistestions">

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 Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life:

1. What does it mean to be a Drooling Fanatic? Are you one—and proud of it? Or a little embarrassed by your obsession?

2. To what does Almond attribute his passion for R&R? Why is the music so deeply wedged into his soul? And you—why are you hooked...and when did it happen? How much of Almond's story is your own?

3. As a follow-up to Question 2: how can/will rock save your soul? What is its spiritual hook?

4. What was your personal Nil Lara moment for R&R—the moment Almond describes as "the holy shit of all holy shits"?

5. What does Almond see as the difference between great rock artists and their songs...and today's pop artists?

6. Talk about the intersection, as Almond sees it, of the rock culture with the commercial/marketing/corporate culture. So you agree?

7. Which in the book did you enjoy or appreciate most: Almond's stories or his critical appraisals of rock and roll?

8. Talk about Almond's stalking certain rock artists—Reilly, Schneider and Dayna Kurtz—and involving himself in their offstage lives. What does he gain, or learn? Anything? Does he deepen his understanding of their work? Or does his attempts at closeness alter the critical distance he needs to write honestly about the bands' work?

9. How do you react to Almond's list of "Ten Things You Can Say to Piss Off a Music Critic"? Do you agree with some, most, or none of it? What about his other lists...do they add to the book, or are they simply "fillers"?

10. What parts of the book did you find hilarious...or insightful ...or moving...or even cruel?

11. Overall, does this book deliver? Is it funny and informative? Does it cohere and hold your attention? Or do you find it rambling and digressive? Are parts of it awkward or uninteresting, perhaps self-indulgent? What is your assessment?

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

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The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
Helen Rappaport, 2014
St. Martin's Press
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250020208

Summary
They were the Princess Dianas of their day—perhaps the most photographed and talked about young royals of the early twentieth century. The four captivating Russian Grand Duchesses—Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanov—were much admired for their happy dispositions, their looks, the clothes they wore and their privileged lifestyle.

Over the years, the story of the four Romanov sisters and their tragic end in a basement at Ekaterinburg in 1918 has clouded our view of them, leading to a mass of sentimental and idealized hagiography. With this treasure trove of diaries and letters from the grand duchesses to their friends and family, we learn that they were intelligent, sensitive and perceptive witnesses to the dark turmoil within their immediate family and the ominous approach of the Russian Revolution, the nightmare that would sweep their world away, and them along with it.

The Romanov Sisters sets out to capture the joy as well as the insecurities and poignancy of those young lives against the backdrop of the dying days of late Imperial Russia, World War I and the Russian Revolution. Helen Rappaport aims to present a new and challenging take on the story, drawing extensively on previously unseen or unpublished letters, diaries and archival sources, as well as private collections. It is a book that will surprise people, even aficionado. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Raised—North Kent, England, UK
• Education—Leeds University
• Awards—American Library Association Award (for reference)
• Currently—lives in Oxford, England

Helen F. Rappaport (nee Ware; born ) is a British historian, author, and former actress. As a historian, she specialises in the Victorian era and revolutionary Russia.

Rappaport was born in Bromley but grew up near the River Medway in North Kent. She attended Chatham Grammar School for Girls. Her older brother Mike Ware, born 1939, is a photographer, chemist, and writer. She has twin younger brothers, Peter (also a photographer) and Christopher, born in 1953.

She studied Russian at Leeds University where she was involved in the university theatre group and launched her acting career.

Acting
After acting with the Leeds University theatre group she appeared in several television series including Crown Court; Love Hurts; and The Bill. She later claimed to have spent "20 years in the doldrums as an out of work, broke and miserable actress."

Writing
In the early nineties she became a copy editor for academic publishers Blackwell and OUP and also contributed to historical and biographical reference works published by example Cassell and Readers Digest.

By 1998 she had became a full-time author, writing three books for US publisher ABC-CLIO including An Encyclopaedia of Women Social Reformers in 2001, with a foreword by Marian Wright Edelman. It won an award in 2002 from the American Library Association as an Outstanding Reference Source and according to The Times Higher Educational Supplement, "A splendid book, informative and wide-ranging."

• Mary Seacole
In 2003 Rappaport discovered and purchased an 1869 portrait of Jamaican nurse Mary Seacole by Albert Charles Challen. The picture now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Mary Seacole features in Rappaport's 2007 book No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War which was praised by Simon Sebag Montefiore as "Poignant and inspirational, well researched yet thoroughly readable"and also received positive reviews in The Times (London) and Guardian.

• The Last Days of the Romanovs
Her 2008 book Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs received numrous positive reviews in both the UK and US where it became a bestseller.

• Lenin
Conspirator: Lenin in Exile published in 2009 gained considerable publicity due to Rappaport's claim that Lenin died from syphilis and not a stroke.

• Victorian cosmetics industry
Her 2010 book, Beautiful For Ever describes the growth of the Victorian cosmetics industry and tells the story of Madame Rachel who found both fame and infamy peddling products which claimed almost magical powers of "restoration and preservation." According to the Daily Mail, 'Rappaport handles her scandalous Victorian melodrama with energy and aplomb, and produces a richly entertaining portrait of the seamy side of 19th century society."

• Death of Prince Albert
Magnificent Obsession was published on 3 November 2011, the 150th anniversary of its subject; the death of Prince Albert.

• Birth of Photography
Capturing the Light: The Birth of Photography, co-written with Roger Watson, tells the story of Henry Fox Talbot and Louis Daguerre. Both authors took part in an event during the Edinburgh Book Festival in 2013.

• Russian princess
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra came out in 2014, recounting the quiet, sheltered life of the four daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra, the Russian Tsar and his wife.

Translating
Rappaport is a fluent Russian speaker and is a translator of Russian plays, notably those of Anton Chekhov, working with Tom Stoppard, David Hare, David Lan and Nicholas Wright. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/09/2014.)

Book Reviews
Gloom and doom characterized their lives from the very start. The end was written into the beginning. By the final pages, the lack of nitty-gritty is only a relief. This book is Rappaport righting a wrong. History has turned the Romanov sisters into an indiscriminate fairy princess... Rappaport takes on the task of bringing the girls back to earth. She wants to return them their lives, which, though brief, went by slowly and painstakingly, day by uneventful day, page by agonizing page.
People

The public spoke of the sisters in a gentle, superficial manner, but Rappaport captures sections of letters and diary entries to showcase the sisters’ thoughtfulness and intelligence. Readers will be swept up in the author’s leisurely yet informative narrative as she sheds new light on the lives of the four daughters. B&w photo insert.
Publishers Weekly

Rappaport manages to maintain reader interest even as she ticks off the repetitious tale of their boring lives: long walks with their father, sewing, study, tennis and heavy doses of religion.... A gossipy, revealing story of the doomed Russian family's fairy tale life told by an expert in the field.
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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Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter
Kate Clifford Larson, 2015
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547250250

Summary
They were the most prominent American family of the twentieth century. The daughter they secreted away made all the difference.

Joe and Rose Kennedy’s strikingly beautiful daughter Rosemary attended exclusive schools, was presented as a debutante to the Queen of England, and traveled the world with her high-spirited sisters. And yet, Rosemary was intellectually disabled—a secret fiercely guarded by her powerful and glamorous family.

Major new sources—Rose Kennedy’s diaries and correspondence, school and doctors' letters, and exclusive family interviews—bring Rosemary alive as a girl adored but left far behind by her competitive siblings.

Kate Larson reveals both the sensitive care Rose and Joe gave to Rosemary and then—as the family’s standing reached an apex—the often desperate and duplicitous arrangements the Kennedys made to keep her away from home as she became increasingly intractable in her early twenties. Finally, Larson illuminates Joe’s decision to have Rosemary lobotomized at age twenty-three, and the family's complicity in keeping the secret.

Rosemary delivers a profoundly moving coda: JFK visited Rosemary for the first time while campaigning in the Midwest; she had been living isolated in a Wisconsin institution for nearly twenty years. Only then did the siblings understand what had happened to Rosemary and bring her home for loving family visits. It was a reckoning that inspired them to direct attention to the plight of the disabled, transforming the lives of millions. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1958-59
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., M.A., Simmons College; M.B.A., University of New Hampshire; Ph.D.,
Northeastern University
• Honors—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Winchester, Massachusetts

Kate Clifford Larson is an American author, historian, and consultant, most well known as a Harriet Tubman scholar. Her 2003 biography Harriet Tubman, Bound for the Promised Land was one of the first non-juvenile Tubman biographies published in six decades. She lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Education
Larson earned both her B.A. and M.A. from Simmons College and, later, an M.B.A. from Northeastern University. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in history at the University of New Hampshire.

Harriet Tubman
When Larson published Harriet Tubman: Bound for the Promised Land in 2003, two other non-juvenile biographies of Tubman were also published: Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories by Jean M. Humez, and Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton (see LitLovers Review).

Dr. Larson is the consultant for the Harriet Tubman Special Resource Study of the National Park Service. She serves on the advisory board of the Historic Context on the Underground Railroad in Delaware, Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware.

Other works
In addition to her book on Tubman, Larson published her 2008 work The Assassin's Accomplice, about Mary Surratt's role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. In 2015.

She is also the author of the 2015 Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, about Rosemary Kennedy, the mentally disabled sister of President John F. Kennedy.

Larson has also contributed articles and reviews to the Library Quarterly; Afro-Americans In New York Life and History; and a variety of other publications.

Honors & Fellowships
2015 - Wilbur H. Siebert Award, National Park Service Network to Freedom Program
2013 - Commendation, South Caroline House of Representatives Resolution
2007- Education Excellence Award 2007, Maryland Historical Trust
- Price Research Fellowship, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan
- Fellowship, John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization, Brown University
- University Dissertation Fellowship, University of New Hampshire
- Margaret Storrs Grierson Scholar-in-Residence Fellowship, Smith College
- Mary Catherine Mooney Fellowship, Boston Athenaeum

Book Reviews
The tragic life of Rosemary Kennedy, the intellectually disabled member of the Kennedy clan, has been well documented in many histories of this famous family. But she has often been treated as an afterthought, a secondary character kept out of sight during the pivotal 1960s. Now the third child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy takes center stage in Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, by Kate Clifford Larson, a biography that chronicles her life with fresh details and tells how her famous siblings were affected by—and reacted to—Rosemary's struggles…[Larson] has amplified this well-told tale with newly released material from the John F. Kennedy Library and a few interviews. By making Rosemary the central character, she has produced a valuable account of a mental health tragedy, and an influential family's belated efforts to make amends.
Meryl Gordon - New York Times Book Review

[E]ngrossing.... This younger sister of John F. Kennedy exhibited developmental delays from an early age. The author makes it evident that an understanding of special needs, especially those of children, was sorely lacking in the early 20th century.... [An] expertly researched...and candid examination. —Mary Jennings, Camano Island Lib., WA
Library Journal

Fascinating but heartbreaking reading...[with] questions that will haunt the reader long after the last page is turned.
BookPage

Well-researched and fascinating.... Heartbreaking and illuminating, this will serve not only Kennedy fans but also those curious about the history of disabilities in the U.S.
Booklist

In-depth coverage of one Kennedy daughter who never gained the spotlight like her siblings.... A well-researched, entertaining, and illuminating biography that should take pride of place over another recent Rosemary bio, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff's The Missing Kennedy.
Kirkus Reviews

Run the World: My 3,500-Mile Journey Through Running Cultures Around the Globe
Becky Wade, 2016
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062416438

Summary
From elite marathoner and Olympic hopeful Becky Wade comes the story of her year-long exploration of diverse global running communities from England to Ethiopia—9 countries, 72 host families, and over 3,500 miles of running—investigating unique cultural approaches to the sport and revealing the secrets to the success of runners all over the world.

Fresh off a successful collegiate running career—with multiple NCAA All-American honors and two Olympic Trials qualifying marks to her name—Becky Wade was no stranger to international competition.

But after years spent safely sticking to the training methods she knew, Becky was curious about how her counterparts in other countries approached the sport to which she’d dedicated over half of her life. So in 2012, as a recipient of the Watson Fellowship, she packed four pairs of running shoes, cleared her schedule for the year, and took off on a journey to infiltrate diverse running communities around the world. What she encountered far exceeded her expectations and changed her outlook into the sport she loved.

Over the next twelve months—visiting 9 countries with unique and storied running histories, logging over 3,500 miles running over trails, tracks, sidewalks, and dirt roads—Becky explored the varied approaches of runners across the globe.

Whether riding shotgun around the streets of London with Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt, climbing for an hour at daybreak to the top of Ethiopia’s Mount Entoto just to start her daily run, or getting lost jogging through the bustling streets of Tokyo, Becky’s unexpected adventures, keen insights, and landscape descriptions take the reader into the heartbeat of distance running around the world.

Upon her return to the United States, she incorporated elements of the training styles she’d sampled into her own program, and her competitive career skyrocketed. When she made her marathon debut in 2013, winning the race in a blazing 2:30, she became the third-fastest woman marathoner under the age of 25 in U.S. history, qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Trials and landing a professional sponsorship from Asics.

From the feel-based approach to running that she learned from the Kenyans, to the grueling uphill workouts she adopted from the Swiss, to the injury-recovery methods she learned from the Japanese, Becky shares the secrets to success from runners and coaches around the world. The story of one athlete’s fascinating journey, Run the World is also a call to change the way we approach the world’s most natural and inclusive sport.. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Becky Wade is a professional long-distance runner who competes for Asics. A native of Dallas, Texas and a graduate of Rice University, she is a U.S. Junior National Champion, a four-time All-American, and the winner of her debut marathon, the 2013 California International Marathon. One of four Wade twins, she currently trains in Houston, Texas under coaches Jim Bevan and Joe Vigil. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Wade's endearing and inspiring story will appeal to readers looking for an insider's view of the determination and spirit shared by Olympians (and casual runners) throughout the world. —Meagan Storey, Virginia Beach
Library Journal

Every so often a book comes along that becomes a cult classic for competitive runners but also has appeal to a broader audience. Once a Runner, Born to Run, and Running with the Buffaloes were all such books, and this terrific debut is sure to join their ranks.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
The questions below were written by our Associate, Jennifer Johnson, MA, MLIS, Reference Librarian, Springdale (Arkansas) Public Library. Thanks, as always, Jennifer.

1. What observations did Wade make in Run the World? Do you think she enjoyed each country she visited? Which ones did she find more favorable than others?

2. How does Wade’s portrayal of running compare to what you knew before you read the book? Did this book inspire you? How so?

3. Wade writes about her travels through running in different cultures. What major points does she mention as she does this? Are there common themes throughout the book?

4. Which chapters or countries did you enjoy the most? Which ones did you enjoy the least?

5. According to Wade, she wanted to "…question the practices I had assumed were best, test how much of myself I would invest when the leash came off, and ultimately, find a balance between freedom and structure" (6). Do you think the author was successful in finding those answers?

6. After reading Run the World, did your perspective and opinions of the Olympics and track and field change?

7. What did you think of Wade’s writing style? Do you think, considering her content, she wrote in a form that best suited the content?

8. Do you believe that she has the experience and knowledge to critique running styles and cultural approaches to running in other countries? If so, why?

9. Do you think Wade overreaches in her attempts to cover running styles and forms, traveling 3,500 miles, and food? Or was it successful for you? How so?

10. The author explains that she’d "accepted that I’d probably never fully grasp Banchi’s reasoning about Derartu and the Devil — which I later learned was a blend of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and religious superstition, both foreign to my Catholic upbringing. But I was committed to trying, as I remained open-minded to other cultural beliefs and practices… I was searching for meaning in the universal phenomenon of running…" (4). Do you think this is an accurate statement of what she was trying to accomplish? Was she successful?

(Questions submitted to LitLovers by Jennifer Johnson, M.A., M.L.I.S., Reference Librarian, Springdale Public Library. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs, 2002
Macmillan Picador
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312422271

Summary
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus.

So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor’s bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed.

The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock-therapy machine could provide entertainment.

The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances. (From the publisher.)

The 2006 film version stars Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood.

Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1965
• Where—Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—no formal beyond elementary school
• Currently—lives in New York and western Massachusetts

Although Augusten Burroughs achieved moderate success with his debut novel, Sellevision, it was his 2002 memoir, Running with Scissors, that catapulted him into the literary stratosphere. Indeed, few writers have spun a bizarre childhood and eccentric personal life into literary gold with as much wit and panache as Burroughs, whose harrowing accounts of dysfunction and addiction are offset by an acerbic humor readers and critics find irresistible.

Born Christopher Robison (he changed his name when he turned 18), Burroughs is the son of an alcoholic father who abandoned his family and a manic-depressive mother who fancied herself a poet in the style of Anne Sexton. At age 12, he was farmed out to his mother's psychiatrist, a deeply disturbed—and disturbing—man whose medical license was ultimately revoked for gross misconduct. In Running with Scissors, Burroughs recounts his life with the pseudonymous Finch family as an experience tantamount to being raised by wolves. The characters he describes are unforgettable: children of assorted ages running wild through a filthy, dilapidated Victorian house, totally unfettered by rules or inhibitions; a variety of deranged patients who take up residence with the Finches seemingly at will; and a 33-year-old pedophile who lives in the backyard shed and initiates an intense, openly homosexual relationship with the 13-year-old Burroughs right under the doctor's nose.

That he is able to wring humor and insight out of this shocking scenario is testimony to Burroughs's writing skill. Upon its publication in 2002, Scissors was hailed as "mordantly funny" (Los Angeles Times), "hilarious" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "sociologically suggestive and psychologically astute" (New York Times). The book became a #1 bestseller and was turned into a 2006 movie starring Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, and Joseph Fienes.

[Although the doctor who "raised" Burroughs was never named in the memoir, six members of the real-life family sued the author and his publisher for defamation, claiming that whole portions of the book were fabricated. Burroughs insisted that the book was entirely accurate but agreed in the 2007 settlement to change the wording of the author's note and acknowledgement in future editions of the book. He was never required to change a single word of the memoir itself.]

Since Running with Scissors, Burroughs has mined snippets of his life for more bestsellers, including further installments of his memoir (Dry, A Wolf at the Table) and several well-received collections of razor-sharp essays. His writing continues to appear in newspapers and magazines around the world, and he is a regular contributor to National Public Radio's Morning Edition.

Extras
From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:

• When I was very young, maybe six or seven, I used to make little books out of construction paper and wallpaper. Then I'd sew the spine of the book with a needle and thread. Only after I had the actual book did I sit down with a pencil and write the text. I actually still have one of these little books and it's titled, obliquely, "Little Book."

• Well, all of a sudden I am obsessed with PMC. For those of you who think I am speaking about plastic plumbing fixtures, I am not. PMC stands for Precious Metal Clay. And it works just like clay clay. You can shape it into anything you want. But after you fire it, you have something made of solid 22k gold or silver. So you want to be very careful. Anyway, I plan to make dog tags. So there's something.

• I'm a huge fan of English shortbread cookies, of anything English really. I very nearly worship David Strathairn. And I'm afraid that if I ever return to Sydney, Australia, I may not return.

• I will never refuse potato chips or buttered popcorn cooked in one of those thingamajigs you crank on top of the stove.

• And my politics could be considered extreme, as I truly believe that people who molest or otherwise abuse children should be buried in pits. And I do believe our country has been served by white male presidents quite enough for the next few hundred years. I really could go on and on here, so I'd best stop.

• When asked about what book influenced him most as an author, here is his response:

Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz was the first book I read as an adult, at the age of twenty-four. Until this time, I'd never had the opportunity to sit down and read. Reading takes solitude and it takes focus. My life had been extremely chaotic. By the time I was twenty-four, I was already an active alcoholic. But during a brief period of sobriety, I went to a local bookstore and selected Midaq Alley out of all the other books, simply because I liked the cover. It turned out to be a profound experience for me. I was completely absorbed in the book, in the experience of reading. I felt transported from my life into a different, better life. From that moment forward, I was a heavy reader, often devouring three or four books a week. (Bio and interview from Barnes and Noble.)

Book Reviews
...a bawdy, outrageous, often hilarious account...In keeping with this book's dauntless comic timing, this guy doesn't miss a beat.
Janet Maslin - The New York Times

If you love Sedaris, you'll fold over laughing with Running with Scissors, a witty and hilarious memoir.
GENRE Magazine

Bookman gave me attention. We would go for long walks and talk about all sorts of things. Like how awful the nuns were in his Catholic school when he was a kid and how you have to roll your lips over your teeth when you give a blowjob," writes Burroughs (Sellevision) about his affair, at age 13, with the 33-year-old son of his mother's psychiatrist. That his mother sent him to live with her shrink (who felt that the affair was good therapy for Burroughs) shows that this is not just another 1980s coming-of-age story. The son of a poet with a "wild mental imbalance" and a professor with a "pitch-black dark side," Burroughs is sent to live with Dr. Finch when his parents separate and his mother comes out as a lesbian. While life in the Finch household is often overwhelming (the doctor talks about masturbating to photos of Golda Meir while his wife rages about his adulterous behavior), Burroughs learns "your life [is] your own and no adult should be allowed to shape it for you." There are wonderful moments of paradoxical humor Burroughs, who accepts his homosexuality as a teen, rejects the squeaky-clean pop icon Anita Bryant because she was "tacky and classless" as well as some horrifying moments, as when one of Finch's daughters has a semi-breakdown and thinks that her cat has come back from the dead. Beautifully written with a finely tuned sense of style and wit the occasional clich ("Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal") stands out anomalously this memoir of a nightmarish youth is both compulsively entertaining and tremendously provocative.
Publishers Weekly

This memoir by Burroughs is certainly unique; among other adventures, he recounts how his mother's psychiatrist took her to a motel for therapy, while at home the kids chopped a hole in the roof to make the kitchen brighter. Not all craziness, though, this account reveals the feelings of sadness and dislocation this unusual upbringing brought upon Burroughs and his friends. His early family life was characterized by his parents' break-and-destroy fights, and after his parents separated, his mother practically abandoned Burroughs in hopes of achieving fame as a poet. At 12, he went to live with the family (and a few patients) of his mother's psychiatrist. At the doctor's home, children did as they wished: they skipped school, ate whatever they wanted, engaged in whatever sexual adventures came along, and trashed the house and everything in it, while the mother watched TV and occasionally dusted. Burroughs has written an entertaining yet horrifying account that isn't for the squeamish: the scatological content and explicit homosexual episodes may limit its appeal. Recommended for the adventurous seeking an unsettling experience among the grotesque. —Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo
Library Journal

Autobiography of adolescent trauma depicting the author's quest for survival in an unorthodox family alongside his quest for fabulous hair. Copywriter turned novelist Burroughs (Sellevision, 2000) captures in his memoir a particular cultural moment in the late 1970s and early '80s when the baby boomers' flaccid if-it-feels-good-do-it ethos soured. "My parents loathed each other and the life they had built together," he writes. The estrangement of his increasingly manic-depressive poet mother and cold, alcoholic father flung young Burroughs into the strange Northampton, Massachusetts, household of family psychiatrist Dr. Finch, a jolly and permissive yet ominous figure who advocated intense therapy and nonjudgmental fathering. At his mother's insistence, Burroughs spent much of his adolescence living among the Finches. The fussy, hairdressing-obsessed boy was unnerved by their squalid household but became close with irascible daughters Hope and Natalie, participating in their substance abuse and delinquency, helping them wreck the Finches' dilapidated Victorian house. The doctor's pseudo-parenting encouraged the boy's sexual relationship with creepy, manipulative, much older Neil Bookman, Finch's "adopted son." When the doctor coached Burroughs to stage a suicide attempt in order to get out of going to school, our hero began to wonder whether life with the Finches would equip him, or Hope, or Natalie with mainstream survival skills-eventually, surprisingly enough, it did. Burroughs strongly delineates the tangled, perverse bonds among these high-watt eccentrics and his childhood self, aspiring to a grotesque comic merger of John Waters and David Sedaris. However, his under-edited prose is frequently uninspired and rambling, relying on consumer-culture references (from Clairol, Pat Benatar, Brooke Shields, Captain and Tennille, Sea Monkeys, the Brady Bunch, to Magic Eight Balls, etc., etc.) and repetitive sequences of abrasive dialogue ("Stop antagonizing me.... Just stop transferring all this anger onto me"). Presumably he garnered these details from his oft-mentioned journal, but they fail to deepen the characters. An unusual upbringing, reconstituted into a very usual memoir.
Kirkus Review

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 Running with Scissors:

1. Discuss your initial impression of Dr. Finch’s practices. How do they change throughout the book? Do you think he’s unconventional or is he dangerous?

2. Many critics have classified this book as a comedy. Do you agree?

3. Rather than transferring guardianship of Augusten to Dr. Finch, what should Deirdre have done instead? Did she have any other options at that time?

4. Which member of the Finch clan did you sympathize with the most? Which did you dislike the most?

5. Natalie and Augusten were the closest people in each others lives. What made them so compatible? They were thought to be so close yet a single event tore them apart completely. Was their relationship real or a means of survival?

6. Which of Dr. Finch’s “methods” did you find most bizarre?

7. There is a revaluation towards the end of the book. Did it surprise you or was it expected?

8. After the initial release of Running with Scissors, the family sued Burroughs claiming it contained fabricated material. Consequently, the book had to be classified as a novel rather than a memoir. Still, Burroughs isists that all of the stories are true. Because of the outrageous nature of some stories, do you think that some details were exaggerated to put the author in a more complimentary light?

(Questions by Katherine O'Connor of LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero
Christopher McDougall, 2020
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524732363

Summary
From the author of Born to Run, a heartwarming story about training a rescue donkey to run one of the most challenging races in America, and, in the process, discovering the life-changing power of the human-animal connection.

When Chris McDougall agreed to take in a donkey from an animal hoarder, he thought it would be no harder than the rest of the adjustments he and his family had made after moving from Philadelphia to the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country.

But when he arrived, Sherman was in such bad shape he could barely move, and his hair was coming out in clumps. Chris decided to undertake a radical rehabilitation program designed not only to heal Sherman's body but to heal his mind as well.

It turns out the best way to soothe a donkey is to give it a job, and so Chris decided to teach Sherman how to run. He'd heard about burro racing—a unique type of race where humans and donkeys run together in a call-back to mining days—and decided he and Sherman would enter the World Championship in Colorado.

Easier said than done.

In the course of Sherman's training, Chris would have to recruit several other runners, both human and equine, and call upon the wisdom of burro racers, goat farmers, Amish running club members, and a group of irrepressible female long-haul truckers.

An entire community comes together to help save Sherman and, along the way, Chris shows us the joy of a life with animals. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Peach Bottom, Penn.

Christopher McDougall covered wars in Rwanda and Angola as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press before writing his best-selling book Born to Run (2009). His fascination with the limits of human potential led him to create the Outside magazine's web series, "Art of the Hero."

He currently lives with his wife, two daughters, and a farmyard menagerie in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. (From the publisher.)

sherman a mcdougall
McDougall with his wife, Mika, and Sherman.
Bob Williams for The Philadelphia Inquirer

Book Reviews
[A] magical read, one that elicits surprised chuckles even as it tugs at the heartstrings. The motley crew—both human and animal—that it introduces is an absolute delight; McDougall clearly has a gift for fully rendering the people that he meets.… It’s a wonderful read for anyone who has loved an animal that needed to be loved.
Maine Edge

[A] charming story.… McDougall has a colorful writing style that brings to life the animals’ personalities, as well as the various obstacles they encounter during their year of training.… McDougall describes all of it with exquisite detail, making Running with Sherman a fun and inspiring read, not just for runners, but for anyone who believes in the healing power of the human-animal bond.
New York Journal of Books

In this tenderhearted memoir, McDougall (Born to Run) tells of his adoption and rehabilitation of Sherman, an ailing rescue donkey.… Runners and animal lovers alike can find inspiration in this story of the ways in which humans and animals connect.
Publishers Weekly

A humorous and heartwarming book about not only running with donkeys but about community, our connections with one another, and our abilities to persevere and overcome physical and mental challenges. —Melissa Keegan, Ela Area P.L., Lake Zurich, IL
Library Journal

Both inspiring and humorous, a testament to the depth of the animal-human connection.
Booklist

Sherman's transformation from dying donkey to confident runner involved a circle of family, friends, neighbors, and a few feisty donkeys, each of whom McDougall portrays in affectionate, vivid detail.… A charming tale of a resilient donkey and a community's love.
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 RUNNING WITH SHERMAN … then take off on your own:

1. So let's get personal here. Did you cry? When? On first meeting Sherman in his broken-down condition? Or by the end, rehabilitated by loving care.

2. Okay, if you didn't actually well up, which episodes in the book at least moved your or delighted you? How about, say, the moment when Sherman raced uphill to the farm, "touching noses with the two big warhorses" behind the fence?

3. Talk about some of the human characters that populate the book. Zeke, for instance, suffering with depression. Perhaps you might do some online research to find out what psychologists have learned about how bonding with animals can alleviate depression. Who are other characters in this book whose lives were touched by Sherman?

4. (Follow-up to Question 3) Consider other ways in which animals aid humans. Therapy dogs in hospitals, for instance? Equine therapy?

5. What is your own experience bonding with animals, healthy or not? Have you even volunteered, say, to work with animals in a humane society's kennel?

6. As humans, what do we owe animals?

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

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Running with Stilettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes
Mary T. Wagner, 2008; 2013
CreateSpace
185 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781481216692

Summary

You can look at it as finally abandoning the last of the feminine "rescue" fantasies. Or maybe it was just a dose of latent pioneer spirit coming to the surface. Though Davy Crockett never had one of these. (Of course, Davy Crockett never had a pair of leopard-print stilettos in his closet either. Or so we hope.) Either way, I bought a chainsaw...

After a long fall from a tall horse put journalist and soccer mom Mary T. Wagner in a body cast for three months, she didn't take it as a sign to ease back on the throttle. Instead she decided to change careers, went to law school, became a prosecutor, and bought her first pair of spike heels. She never could step entirely away from writing, however, with the result that she’s been called “the Midwest’s answer to Carrie Bradshaw” and “the reincarnation of Erma Bombeck…in sexier shoes.”

By turns funny, touching, courageous and enterprising, this award-winning and inspiring collection of slice-of-life essays is what one reviewer called "life writing at its best." Wagner takes her readers along as she discovers the freedom and joy of riding on the back of a Harley; learns to embrace power tools after her divorce; and finds new tokens of love the second time around in the form of bonfires and car repairs.

Filled with humor, resilience and grace under pressure, Running with Stilettos is a wide-open window into one woman's mission to give every day her best shot...in fabulous shoes. (From the author.)

Visit the author on Facebook.

Author Bio
• Birth—won't say; will admit to "north of fifty"
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Marquette University
• Currently—lives in southeastern Wisconsin

Mary T. Wagner is a former newspaper and magazine journalist who changed careers at forty by going to law school and becoming a criminal prosecutor. Her legal experience has ranged from handling speeding tickets to arguing and winning several cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

A mother of four and a recent grandmother, she lives in rural Wisconsin, where she draws much inspiration for writing from daily walks in the countryside with her dog, Lucky, and the cat who thinks he's a dog...The Meatball. While she was still a full-time "soccer mom," Wagner balanced diapers, dinners and driving duty with freelance writing about public broadcasting programming. Her PBS interviews ran the gamut from Fred Rogers and Captain Kangaroo to legendary conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr.

Wagner's slice-of-life essays have appeared on her signature website, "Running with Stilettos," as well as at Flashionista, More.com, Shortbread Stories, RedRoom, Open Salon, The Front Porch Review, Growing Bolder, and The Write City.

Her third essay collection, Fabulous in Flats, was named "Published Book of the Year" in 2011 by the Florida Writers Association.

Life experience includes motherhood, and stints as a girl scout troop leader, truck stop waitress, office temp, judicial clerk, and radio talk show host. She counts both wearing spike heels and learning to use a cordless drill and chainsaw among her "late blooming" discoveries, and would be hard pressed to surrender either her favorite stilettos or her power tools." (From the author.)

Visit Mary on Facebook.

Book Reviews
They're dangerous, hard to move in, and painful to wear. But most important of all, they're sexy. Running with Stilettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes consists of the reflections of one woman who spends every day in these terrible shoes, but must give it her all anyway. A collection of humorous memoirs in the form of essays of her day to day life, Running with Stilettos is charming and lovely, sure to resonate with many career women who must endure this daunting task daily. Enthusiastically recommended.
Midwest Book Review

Wagner's humorous collection of essays, Running With Stillettos: Living a Balanced Life in Dangerous Shoes, perfectly illustrates the value of a clever and apropos title that not only draws a reader in, but also foreshadows her charming delivery of a well balanced narrative comprised of ordinary moments portrayed as authentically funny Wagner's existential observation is evidenced by the responsibility she takes to infuse her own life with meaning—despite the obstacles—via her passionately and sincerely crafted vignettes
US Review of Books

Discussion Questions
1. In the book’s “Forward,” the author describes her “turning point” in footwear, going from sneakers and sensible shoes to spike heels for the first time when midway through her forties. After finishing the book, what do you think that first pair of stiletto heels really symbolized in her life? Was it just about fashion?

2. How did you respond to the author’s “voice”? Did her experiences with work and children and a failed marriage ring true with you?

3. The author describes some wrenching transitions in her life when she was a teenager in “Cookie Therapy.” How do you think her past family relationships affect her present relationships with her children? Do chocolate chip cookies really make everything better?

4. In the essay “Turbo Dating-A Year in Review,” the author describes jumping into the dating world with both feet after 25 years of marriage. What did you think of her kamikaze approach? In retrospect, do you think she should have waited longer before making that transition? Was she brave, dumb, headstrong, or some other combination?

5. Many modern memoirs—think of Running with Scissors or The Men we Reaped or to a lesser extent The Glass Castle—thrive on peeling back family and relationship dysfunctions with brutal honesty and scalpel-like precision and sharpness, leaving no stones unturned or individuals spared. How is this book different? Why do you think the author took a more veiled approach? Did it leave you feeling relieved…or short-changed?

6. Think back to your childhood. Was it a “safe” place? How has that affected how you view the world and the people around you? How do you think the family decision when the author was a teenager to leave the city and move to an abandoned farm affected her? Does it reverberate in her relationship with her children or in her choices as a mother?

7. In “Ripple Effect,” the author shares the story of how her life and career path was changed by someone else’s encouragement, and reminds her children that “kindness is never wasted” in that you never know where your good words may carry someone else to. Has there been a time in your life when someone’s belief in you has pushed you farther than you thought you could go? What do you think makes some people take that encouragement and run with it, and others turn a deaf ear and stay in place?

8. Which essay in Running with Stilettos was most memorable for you? Why? Was there one in particular that made you think “Hey, I could do that too!” or "Yes, I've gone through that as well!"

9. In “Love in Wood and Wax,” the author talks about how her definitions and understanding of “romance” and “romantic gestures” have changed over time. Have yours? Is that a good thing or not? If they have, do you still miss “the old romantic stuff”?

10. Liberation can take many forms, but in the author’s case, two major symbols of taking charge of her life are her power tools. Which do you think was the biggest leap forward for her—the cordless drill or the chain saw? And where do you stand on the subject of doing “the manly stuff” around the house?

11. After her divorce, the author’s transition in tools went by necessity from cupcake pans and a hand-mixer to the drill and a tool kit. Can you see yourself in her shoes? Are you in them already? What was the last tool you used and what for?

12. In “Return to the Fatherland,” the author writes of taking her elderly father and her teenaged sons to Germany for a reunion with their relatives, only to find en route that his mind was far more fragile than she had known. The roles of parent and child immediately and sadly changed. Did the trip have the result that she had wanted? What good things came from the journey despite her father’s increasing frailty? Do you think that her sons learned more from it than they expected to as well?

13. The author describes the evolution of her thinking about healthy relationships between men and women in “The Devil on Horseback,” based on a romantic suspense novel from her childhood. Has your thinking about relationships changed as well? How? What made it grow or change? Did you ever harbor the same delusions and rescue fantasies that the author grew up with? Where did they come from? Are fairy tales completely to blame?

14. The author clearly has a soft spot for animals, whether cats, dogs, or the horses she had since she was a teenager. Would she have been a different person without them in her life?

15. In “The Island,” the author describes renting a cabin in a vacation spot she had only experienced before this with her husband and children, long before the divorce. Her stated intention was to spend the week writing in peace and quiet. Was that the most important thing she took away from it? Could it have gone badly instead? How would YOU step out of your “pressure cooker” life for a week?

16. Is there a lesson to be taken away from this author’s life? What do you think it is, and why do you think it’s important?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)

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Russka
Edward Rutherfurd, 1991
Random House
945 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345479358

Summary
The author of the phenomenally successful Sarum: The Novel of England now turns his remarkably vast talents to an even larger canvas.

Spanning 1800 years of Russia's history, people, politics, and culture, this grand saga is as multifaceted as the country itself, as it chronicles the lives of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Salisbury, England, UK
• Education—Cambridge University and Stanford University.
• Currently—lives in the USA and Europe

Edward Rutherfurd is primarily known as a writer of epic historical novels. His debut novel Sarum set the pattern for his work with a ten-thousand year storyline.

Educated locally and at the universities of Cambridge and Stanford, he worked in political research, bookselling and publishing. After numerous attempts to write books and plays, he finally abandoned his career in the book trade in 1983, and returned to his childhood home to write Sarum, a historical novel with a ten-thousand year story, set in the area around the ancient monument of Stonehenge and Salisbury. Four years later, when the book was published, it became an instant international bestseller, remaining 23 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Since then he has written five more bestsellers: Russka, a novel of Russia; London; The Forest, set in England's New Forest which lies close by Sarum, and two novels, Dublin: Foundation (The Princes of Ireland) and Ireland: Awakening (The Rebels of Ireland), which cover the story of Ireland from the time just before Saint Patrick to the twentieth century. His books have been translated into twenty languages. Rutherfurd settled near Dublin, Ireland in the early 1990s, but currently divides his time between Europe and North America.

Rutherfurd’s novels chronicle the history of settlements through their development up to modern day, mixing fictional characters and families with real people and events—a kind of historical fiction pioneered by James Michener.

Known as a James Michener disciple, Rutherfurd invents four to six fictional families and tells the stories of their descendants. Using this framework, he weaves them in and out of historical situations, having them interact not only with each other, but also with significant historical figures. Rutherfurd's novels are generally at least 500 pages and sometimes even over 1,000. Divided into a number of parts, each chapter represents a different era in the area of the novel's history. There is always an extensive family tree in the introduction, and each generational line matches with the corresponding chapters. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Spanning 1800 years of Russia's history, people, poltics, and culture, Edward Rurtherford, author of the phenomenally successful Sarum: The Novel of England, tells a grand saga that is as multifaceted as Russia itself. Here is a story of a great civilization made human, played out through the lives of four families who are divided by ethnicity but united in shaping the destiny of their land. Rutherford's Russka succeeds....[He] can take his place among an elite cadre of chroniclers such as Harold Lamb, Maurice Hindus and Henri Troyat.
San Francisco Chronicle

Sarum, to the rich foreign soil of Russia. Though the structure and style mirror that of his first saga, Rutherfurd's close observation of Russia's religious and ethnic diversity give this epic a distinctive flavor. Focusing on the changing fortunes of the small town of Russka and its controlling families, Rutherfurd moves from the tribes of the steppes in the second century A.D. through Cossacks, Tatars, Tsars, revolution and Stalin to touch on a contemporary Russian emigre community near New York City. He weaves an expansive tapestry of Russian lore with a vivid exploration of the historical influences on the modern Russian psyche. Though thoroughly researched, the novel is diminished by occasional soap-opera twists in the narrative thread and present-day phrasing ("pin money," "red tape," "heads or tails") used in distracting asides to the reader.
Publishers Weekly

In his newest novel, Rutherfurd does for Russia what his last novel, Sarum, did for England. Focusing on a small farming community in the Russian heartland between the Dnieper and the Don at the edge of the steppes, he traces its growth through its inhabitants from the first Tatar raid on the Slavs through the Cossacks, aristocrats, and an emigre's recent return. These interconnected lives present a vast panoramic portrait of Russia and its history. However, abundance of historic detail, fascinating though it is, intrudes and overwhelms. Transitions from intertwined stories of succeeding generations are abrupt and the reader longs for more character and plot development. Recommended for devotees of James Michener and Sarum.
Library Journal

A well-written, episodic, dense, at times infuriatingly complex historical saga of Russia by the author of the similarly massive Sarum, which tries—often quite successfully—to re-create the evolution of a mysterious and backward nation riddled with war, political confusion, and religious upheaval. Crammed with exhaustive and obviously well-researched historical, geographical, and cultural detail, this epic novel traces Russia's quest for freedom and identity from A.D. 180 to the present. The primary storyline that finally emerges depicts three rival families who have ties in the quintessential village of Russka: the Bobrovs, gentried noblemen who ultimately lose their precious land to the very serfs they once owned; the cunning Suvorins who amass great wealth as merchants and industrialists; and their distant relations the Romanovs, peasant farmers-cum-revolutionaries. Through the intricacies of marriage, accidents of birth, and other twists and turns of fate, the ancestors and descendants of these proud people move from one century to the next, turning up as warring Alans, barbarous Tatars, bloodthirsty Cossacks, and eventually the more familiar Socialists, Bolsheviks, and Marxists. Rutherfurd's immense canvas allows a fictional cast in the hundreds to populate the same world as Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Pushkin, Lenin, Stalin, Shevchenko, Rasputin, etc., as they grapple with catastrophic events—such as ritual self-immolation, torture by knouting, cholera, and the pogroms. Despite the preponderance of names that repeat themselves from one generation to the next (the plot is littered with very old or very young Arinas and Maryushkas, for example)—a circumstance that may befuddle the casual reader—Rutherfurd's opus extraordinaire may captivate readers of the genre as well as serious history buffs.
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 Russka:

1. Do you feel more knowledgeable about Russian history as a result of reading Rutherfurd's book? Did you come away with a deeper understanding of what makes Russia unique, particularly its violent and brutal history?

2. Rutherfurd uses stories of three families—the Bobrovs, the Suvorins and the Romanovs—to bring history to life. Did you find his characters compelling or fully developed as complex individuals? Were you able to follow the tangled family lineage through 1800 years? Did you find yourself referring frequently to the family tree diagram at the front of the book?

3. Were there particular characters with whom you identified more than others? Any who fascinated you more than others?

4. Which era(s) in Russia's history did you find most interesting or engaging? The era of the nomadic tribes? The rise of Moscow? The reign of Ivan the Terrible or Catherine the Great?

5. Some readers have complained about the number of pages devoted to historical events. Others felt that the historical writing is what makes the book so rich. What do you think? And are 945 pages too long...or just long enough?

6. Many have commented on the fact that Rutherfurd stops his novel after the revolution in 1917. Do you wish he had continued, covering Russia's horrific losses in World War II...or the cold war years and eventual fall of the Berlin Wall? Or was that not Rutherfurd's purpose? Why do you think he ended the book when he did? Did he just...peter out?

7. In this book, how does Rutherfurd develop the three major strains of Russian culture—orthodoxy, authoritarianism, and mysticism. What role does each of those influences play in the unfolding of Russian history?

8. Talk about the Old Believer peasants and their martyrdom during the reign of Peter the Great. What gave them strength?

9. The Russian people and their history have been described as backward and slow developing. The book shows Russian women, for instance, swinging their sickles from the 2nd century into the 20th. In what other ways has Russia been slow to develop?. And what factors kept the country from developing as rapidly as the cultures and nation states of Europe?

10. Talk about Russia's particularly violent history—the warring Alans, Tatars, and Cossacks; as well as self-immolation, torture and pograms. How have those events shaped Russia's identity?

11. What role does fate play in history, according to Rutherfurd's novel? Do individuals act upon events...or do events act upon individuals? Who or what shapes history?

12. What thematic and symbolic meaning might the opening chapter have with little Kiy's wandering through the forest searching for the bear cub his uncle promised him?

13. Did you enjoy this book? Does it deliver as a novel in terms of engaging its readers and a creating a level of suspense? Did it keep you turning pages? Was the ending satisfying?

14. Rutherfurd is frequently compared to James Michener. If you've read any of Michener's books, do you find a similarity, or not.

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

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Sacred Secrets: Shredding the Shackles of My Shame
Verianne Barker, 2013
The We Care Group Publishers
354 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620505496

Summary
Peppered with beatings, incest, drugs, and murder, this story of abuse sends us careening through the rages and indiscretions of a father, and provokes our own rage at a mother whose efforts were more to cover up her husband’s physical abuse, than they were to protect her children.

Our sympathy pours out, too, when we see how these children of abuse became adults ravaged by a helpless vulnerability to drugs, crime, and any combination of social ills. This book is not casual reading. Be prepared to feel revulsion, anger, shock, fear, pity, and abject disgust, as this sad saga of one woman’s tale of abuse unfolds.

Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame is the true life story of Louisianan, Connie Gilbert, who no longer wants to pretend that her abused childhood and her subsequent social missteps were all a part of normal living. She is tired of hiding who she was and where she came from.

She is ready to shed the shackles of her shame. See more at The Local Christian Town Hall. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Though she is the creator of this work, Verianne Barker never refers to herself as a writer or an author. She just sees herself as someone who has been blessed to be able to express her thoughts in writing, when she feels that itch to talk it out by writing.

Over the years she has responded to that itch by writing about several issues that span several genres, from poetry to politics but has never felt the compulsion to publish, until faced with the social tragedy that is this story.

Verian, as she prefers to be called because it is the original spelling of her name, lives in South Carolina but is originally from Guyana, in South America. Before settling in South Carolina, she lived in New York and New Jersey and worked in several major cities where she started volunteering as a grammar, writing skills, and general educator in helping to equip basic academic skills to those in need.

It was in one of these classes that she met the Connie, the subject of Sacred Secrets: Shedding the Shackles of my Shame, and was so sympathetic with the story that was her life, that she agreed to help her document its details her to help her to overcome the pain and tell the story that Connie felt would provide the answers to most of the questions so many in her generation and the generation following hers, still have. (From the author .)

Book Reviews
Please visit The Local Christian Town Hall to find reader reviews.

Discussion Questions
1. When a mother keeps her children in an abusive environment she is equally as guilty as the father who inflicts the physical abuse and should be prosecuted accordingly. Discuss.

2. There is a tendency for women to stay with their abusers for reasons that are unfathomable to those looking in from the outside. In this book, the mother stays because she is convinced that one day the Good Lawd will change her abusive spouse and father of her children. One argument is that she stays out of fear but the other is, if she is afraid then why not flee? It is a strange but very common juxtaposition. Discuss.

3. Growing up in an environment where drug use was pervasive and ultimately destructive, it is logical to assume that the product of this environment would steer clear of drugs. Why do you think drug use becomes the chosen path of these children, the products of this environment, anyway?

4. Very frequently, antisocial behaviors seem to pass from generation to generation, giving rise to the contemplation of generational curse. What are your thoughts on why these behaviors follow some families?

5. In this book, we see a generation that has been raised on welfare continue their existence on the welfare system and then raise their own children on welfare as well. There are some that would blame legislators for the institution of this culture of dependency. Using this book as your reference prepare a presentation for Congress to review and revise the welfare system Be very generous with your proposals.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman who Bound Them Together
Ron Hall, Denver Moore, Lynn Vincent, 2006
Thomas Nelson
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780849919107

Summary
Meet Denver, a man raised under plantation-style slavery in Louisiana in the 1960s; a man who escaped, hopping a train to wander, homeless, for eighteen years on the streets of Dallas, Texas.

No longer a slave, Denver's life was still hopeless—until God moved. First came a godly woman who prayed, listened, and obeyed. And then came her husband, Ron, an international arts dealer at home in a world of Armani-suited millionaires. And then they all came together.

But slavery takes many forms. Deborah discovers that she has cancer. In the face of possible death, she charges her husband to rescue Denver. Who will be saved, and who will be lost? What is the future for these unlikely three? What is God doing?

Same Kind of Different As Me is the emotional tale of their story: a telling of pain and laughter, doubt and tears, dug out between the bondages of this earth and the free possibility of heaven. No reader or listener will ever forget it. (From the publisher.)

Authors Bios
Denver Moore grew up on a plantation in Red Parish, Louisiana, where he lived in a shotgun shack as a modern-day slave until he escaped to freedom at the age of thirty. Freedom brought the uneducated and financially destitute Denver the gift of homelessness, which eventually led to ten years in the legendary Angola Prison for armed robbery. After his release, he ended up back on the streets, as a hardened criminal who frequented the Ft. Worth, Texas, Union Gospel Mission.

_________________

Ron Hall grew up in Haltom City, outside Fort Worth, Texas. He attended college, earned an MBA, got married, had kids, became an international art dealer selling million-dollar Picassos, and volunteered to help serve dinner once a week at Ft. Worth's Union Gospel Mission, with his wife Deborah. (Both bios from WittenburgDoor.com)

Book Reviews
An international art dealer and a modern-day slave from Louisiana become friends after the art dealer is roped into volunteering at a homeless shelter by his saintly wife. Sounds like it's got to be fiction, but that's the true story told in Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

"I really wrote the book to honor my wife and honor Denver, who both deserved a place in history," Hall explained. Moore told his half, and Hall wrote it and his half, rewriting the manuscript 14 times before he got up the nerve to take it to agent Lee Hough at Alive Communications.

Co-writer Lynn Vincent was brought in to help craft the story and also to vet the events of the true story. The controversy over author James Frey's embellished memoir cast a long shadow over the book during its preparation. "It made us be much more rigorous than we otherwise would have been," said Greg Daniel, v-p and associate publisher at W. "It looks like we're as clean as we can possibly be."

The authors' profits from the book will go to the Union Gospel Mission in Fort Worth, which now includes the Deborah L. Hall Memorial Chapel. —Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine
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 Same Kind of Different As Me:

1. At the beginning of the book, what kind of person is Ron Hall? How would you describe him (how does he describe himself)? Why does he agree to volunteer at the homeless shelter, and what is his initial reaction in doing so?

2. Talk about the trajectory of Denver Moore's life. What events have landed him in the homeless shelter? Discuss the differences between his life and Ron Hall's. What is Denver's world view?

3. Talk about Deborah Hall? What inspires her life? What does she think of Denver Moore?

4. Eventually, Denver and Ron, two men who have lived vastly different lives, become close friends. What do the two see in one another? What draws them together?

5. What are the symbolic implications of the conversation about how white men fish, especially their catch-and-release method? What does that conversation say about each man, and what is the underlying message that Denver is trying to pass onto Ron?

6. What is the meaning of the book's title, "Same Kind of Difference as Me"? What does it refer to?

7. How do both men change by the end of the book? What do they learn from or teach each other?

8. This is a story about how hate and prejudice can be overcome by love and grace. How difficult is that achievement in most of our lives? What can this book teach us?

9. Does this book inspire you? If so, in what ways?

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

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Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari, 2015
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062316097

Summary
One hundred thousand years ago, at least six human species inhabited the earth. Today there is just one. Us. Homo sapiens.

How did our species succeed in the battle for dominance? Why did our foraging ancestors come together to create cities and kingdoms? How did we come to believe in gods, nations, and human rights; to trust money, books, and laws; and to be enslaved by bureaucracy, timetables, and consumerism? And what will our world be like in the millennia to come?

In Sapiens, Professor Yuval Noah Harari spans the whole of human history, from the very first humans to walk the earth to the radical—and sometimes devastating—breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural, and Scientific Revolutions. Drawing on insights from biology, anthropology, paleontology, and economics, and incorporating full-color illustrations throughout the text, he explores how the currents of history have shaped our human societies, the animals and plants around us, and even our personalities.

Have we become happier as history has unfolded? Can we ever free our behavior from the legacy of our ancestors? And what, if anything, can we do to influence the course of the centuries to come?

Bold, wide-ranging, and provocative, Sapiens integrates history and science to challenge everything we thought we knew about being human: our thoughts, our actions, our heritage...and our future. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 24, 1976
• Where—Israel
• Education—Ph.D., Oxford University
• Awards—Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality (twice);
Moncado Award for Military History
• Currently—lives near Jerusalem, Israel

Yuval Noah Harari is the author of the international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. He lectures at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Harari originally specialized in medieval history and military history, completing his doctorate at the University of Oxford (Jesus College) in 2002 and publishing numerous books and articles, including Special Operations in the Age of Chivalry, 1100-1550; The Ultimate Experience: Battlefield Revelations and the Making of Modern War Culture, 1450-2000; "The Concept of 'Decisive Battles' in World History"; and "Armchairs, Coffee and Authority: Eye-witnesses and Flesh-witnesses Speak about War, 1100-2000."

He now specializes in World History and macro-historical processes. His research focuses on macro-historical questions such as:

—What is the relation between history and biology?
—What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals?
—Is there justice in history?
—Does history have a direction?
—Did people become happier as history unfolded?

His most recent book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind surveys the entire length of human history, from the evolution of Homo sapiens in the Stone Age up to the political and technological revolutions of the 21st century. It has generated much interest both in the academic community and among the general public and has turned Harari into an instant celebrity. YouTube Video clips of Harari’s Hebrew lectures on the history of the world have been viewed by tens of thousands of Israelis. He is also offers a free online course in English entitled A Brief History of Humankind. More than 100,000 people throughout the world have already taken this course.

Harari twice won the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality, in 2009 and 2012. In 2011 he won the Society for Military History’s Moncado Award for outstanding articles in military history. In 2012 he was elected to the Young Israeli Academy of Sciences.

He lives with his husband in moshav Mesilat Zion near Jerusalem. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)

Book Reviews
The sort of book that sweeps the cobwebs out of your brain…. Harari…is an intellectual acrobat whose logical leaps will have you gasping with admiration.
John Carey - Sunday Times (UK)

Harari’s account of how we conquered the Earth astonishes with its scope and imagination…. One of those rare books that lives up to the publisher’s blurb...brilliantly clear, witty and erudite
Ben Shepard - Observer (UK)

An absorbing, provocative history of civilization…packed with heretical thinking and surprising facts. This riveting, myth-busting book cannot be summarised…you will simply have to read it.
John Gray - Financial Times (UK)

Full of…high-perspective, shocking and wondrous stories, as well as strange theories and startling insights.
Bryan Appleyard - Sunday Times (UK)

Not only is Harari eloquent and humane, he is often wonderfully, mordantly funny
Independent (UK)

Engaging and informative…. Extremely interesting.
Guardian (UK)

Harari can write…really, really write, with wit, clarity, elegance, and a wonderful eye for metaphor.
Times (Ireland)

Writing with wit and verve, Harari…attempts to explain how Homo sapiens came to be the dominant species on Earth as well as the sole representative of the human genus.… Provocative and entertaining.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) This title is one of the exceptional works of nonfiction that is both highly intellectual and compulsively readable… a fascinating, hearty read.
Library Journal

(Starred review.) It’s not often that a book offers readers the possibility to reconsider, well, everything. But that’s what Harari does in this sweeping look at the history of humans.… Readers of every stripe should put this at the top of their reading lists. Thinking has never been so enjoyable.
Booklist

(Starred review.) An encyclopedic approach from a well-versed scholar who is concise but eloquent, both skeptical and opinionated, and open enough to entertain competing points of view.…The great debates of history aired out with satisfying vigor.
Kirkus Reviews

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Sargent's Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas
Donna M. Lucey, 2017
W.W. Norton & Company
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393079036

Summary
In this seductive, multilayered biography, based on original letters and diaries, Donna M. Lucey illuminates four extraordinary women painted by the iconic high-society portraitist John Singer Sargent.

With uncanny intuition, Sargent hinted at the mysteries and passions that unfolded in his subjects' lives.

♦ Elsie Palmer traveled between her father's Rocky Mountain castle and the medieval English manor house where her mother took refuge, surrounded by artists, writers, and actors. Elsie hid labyrinthine passions, including her love for a man who would betray her.

♦ As the veiled Sally Fairchild—beautiful and commanding—emerged on Sargent's canvas, the power of his artistry lured her sister, Lucia, into a Bohemian life.

♦ The saintly Elizabeth Chanler embarked on a surreptitious love affair with her best friend's husband.

♦ And the iron-willed Isabella Stewart Gardner scandalized Boston society and became Sargent's greatest patron and friend.

Like characters in an Edith Wharton novel, these women challenged society's restrictions, risking public shame and ostracism. All had forbidden love affairs; Lucia bravely supported her family despite illness, while Elsie explored Spiritualism, defying her overbearing father. Finally, the headstrong Isabella outmaneuvered the richest plutocrats on the planet to create her own magnificent art museum.

These compelling stories of female courage connect our past with our present — and remind us that while women live differently now, they still face obstacles to attaining full equality. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Donna M. Lucey, author of the best-selling Archie and Amélie: Love and Madness in the Gilded Age and other books, recipient of two NEH grants, and a 2017 writer-in-residence at Edith Wharton’s the Mount, is media editor at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
In Sargent's Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas, [Lucey] does…more of what she does best, creating a rollicking snow globe version of an almost unimaginable world of wealth, crackpot notions of self-improvement and high-flying self-indulgence…woven around an often passionate commitment to, deep admiration for and wide-ranging pursuit of the fine and literary arts.… Lucey is a persistent detective and a bemused, sometimes amused, storyteller, attentive to interesting, hilarious, disturbing detail.
Amy Bloom - New York Times Book Review

Like characters from the writings of Edith Wharton, these women were smart, passionate, willful, adventurous and striking-looking — particularly when immortalized by John Singer Sargent. Their enticing collective mini-biographies make up Sargent’s Women: Four Lives Behind the Canvas, by Donna M. Lucey. We learn something of Sargent’s personality, his technique and his circumstances, but Lucey primarily uses him as a portal through which to glimpse these assertive spirits of the Gilded Age.
Alexander C. Kafka - Washington Post

[A] lyrical meditation on life, love, and art in the Gilded Age.… Sargent's Women abounds with dazzling characters in atmospheric settings.… As rich as [Sargent's] portraits are, the textural evidence in which Ms. Lucey ensnares them is finer still.
Jane Kamensky - Wall Street Journal

[Lucey] delivers the goods, disclosing the unhappy or colorful lives that Sargent sometimes hinted at but didn't spell out.… Sargent's Women is a good read …[and its] chatty pleasures are considerable.
Michael Upchurch - Boston Globe

[T]he fascinating lives of four women affiliated with…Sargent…. Oddly, there is little biographical information on Sargent himself…. Still, Lucey ably pulls these four compelling women out of obscurity with insight and infectious enthusiasm.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) [Lucey's] narrative is engaging and elegant, set in a rich cultural and social framework that insightfully reflects the era. Selected portraits, photos, and helpful notes enhance the text.… [S]killfully written. —Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Lucey vividly reveals the hidden truths of [the women's] tumultuous lives…. [A] superlative group portrait… crystal-clear prose… [and] keen insights into what drove these women to break free of their gilded cages.
Booklist

Perceptive…. Lucey chose her subjects well: four women who responded in unexpected ways to the challenges that they faced.… Colorful, animated portraits sympathetically rendered.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. John Singer Sargent confided to an acolyte, "Portrait painting, don’t you know, is very close quarters — a dangerous thing." What do you think Sargent meant by that? Do you agree? Why or why not?

2. Consider the epigraph to the book: "His quarry was a suitable subject, his trophy the creation of a thing of beauty." What do you think of this take on the artistic process? How does it suit Sargent?

3. Sargent maintained that his paintings were not psychological studies. He merely painted what he saw. What does that say about Sargent’s own psychology?

4. Sargent was known for the fabrics and props he used to make his paintings particularly eye-catching. Lucey writes, "The accoutrements were crucial — perhaps a hat, a rose in a hand, a pair of oversized Asian vases to tower over a group of children, a costume covered in beetle wings." Why do you think he chose to strip everything down in Elsie Palmer’s painting? Why such simplicity for this particular subject?

5. Lucey writes, "Perhaps Sargent posed Elsie, consciously or not, in front of that dun-colored linen-fold paneling in an ancient chapel because he sensed she harbored an interior world that was almost religious in its intensity." How do events in her later life bear out that claim?

6. Sargent supposedly liked "that very calm expression" on Elsie’s face. How would you describe Elsie’s expression?

7. Sargent chose to paint the beautiful Sally Fairchild in a blue veil. According to Lucey, Sargent’s evocation captured a "self-assured, beautiful, and privileged young woman with an independent streak." But a veil also suggests chastity. What do you think of Sargent’s decision to pose twenty-one-year-old Sally in the veil?

8. Lucey suggests that Sargent perhaps should have chosen Lucia Fairchild as his subject rather than her sister, Sally. What distinguishes Lucia? What distinguishes Sally? Who do you think is more compelling as the subject for a portrait? Who is more sympathetic?

9. Sargent warned Lucia that one had a better chance for happiness without intense passion. He told her that "terrific love" might lead to bitter disappointment and "Terrific hate." What do you think of this advice? Do Sargent’s women suffer in their quest for "Terrific love"?

10. Sargent said that Elizabeth Chanler possessed "the face of a Madonna." She appears remarkably calm in her portrait, and yet curators at the Smithsonian American Art Museum have pointed to tension. Do you recognize that tension?

11. How accurately does Sargent paint Elizabeth’s internal landscape? Consider Elizabeth’s eyes, posture, and clothing.

12. After Elizabeth falls in love with John Jay "Jack" Chapman, she writes passionately to him, "I crave more habit of you Jack — I need the close waking & sleeping intercourse of every moment of life." Elizabeth’s desire for Jack is clear in her letters. Did her transition from a sickly and overly burdened child to a woman of intense romantic passion surprise you?

13. After viewing the acclaimed Madame X, Isabella "Belle" Stewart Gardner wanted Sargent to paint a similarly provocative portrait of her. How did you react to the finished painting? What does the painting say about Belle’s sense of herself?

14. The French critic Paul Bourget saw Belle’s portrait and wrote, "This woman can do without being loved. She has no need of being loved." Given what you know about Belle, what do you think of Bourget’s critique?

15. Sargent painted Belle for a second time when she was eighty-two years old. Lucey writes, "Shrouded in white cloth, she sits on a couch propped up with cushions; her pale expressionless face seems to be disappearing into the cloth, about ready to vanish." What were your feelings on seeing this portrait?

16. Which of Sargent’s women most intrigued you? Why?

17. Sargent created more than nine hundred paintings and sketches in his lifetime. How do you feel about Lucey’s decision to examine these four subjects?

18. Biographers have depicted Sargent as robustly masculine. Friends called him "a frenzied bugger." Others noted that he avoided romantic relationships yet needed constant companionship. His sittings were often like small parties. Did Sargent’s behaviors and peculiarities surprise you? Why or why not?

19. Do you think Sargent’s personality somehow shows itself on the canvas?

20. Together, Sargent’s women — Elsie, Sally, Elizabeth, and Belle — represent high society during the Gilded Age. Yet each woman is unique, and each one managed to flout convention in her own way. Do women still face some of the same challenges today?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir
Ruth Reichl, 2019
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812982381

Summary
Trailblazing food writer and beloved restaurant critic Ruth Reichl took the job (and the risk) of a lifetime when she entered the glamorous, high-stakes world of magazine publishing. Now, for the first time, she chronicles her groundbreaking tenure as editor in chief of Gourmet.

When Conde Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss.

Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat.

Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication.

This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.

Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 16, 1948
• Where—New York City, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Awards—4 James Beard Awards
• Currently—lives in New York City

Ruth Reichl is an American food writer, perhaps best known as the editor-in-chief of the former Gourmet magazine. She has written more than 10 books, including several best-selling memoirs. These include Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table (1998); Comfort Me with Apples: More Adventures at the Table (2001); Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise (2005); Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir (2019). Her first novel, Delicious!, was published in 2014.

Born to parents Ernst and Miriam (nee Brudno), Reichl was raised in Greenwich Village in New York City and spent time at a boarding school in Montreal as a young girl. She attended the University of Michigan, where she met her first husband, the artist Douglas Hollis. He graduated in 1970 with a M.A. in Art History.

She and Hollis moved to Berkeley, California, where her interest in food led to her joining the collectively-owned Swallow Restaurant as a chef and co-owner from 1973 to 1977, and where she played an important role in the culinary revolution taking place at the time.

Reichl began her food-writing career with Mmmmm: A Feastiary, a cookbook, in 1972. She moved on to become food writer and editor of New West magazine from 1973 to 1977, then to the Los Angeles Times as its restaurant editor from 1984 to 1993 and food editor and critic from 1990 to 1993. She returned to her native New York City in 1993 to become the restaurant critic for the New York Times before leaving to assume the editorship of Gourmet in 1999.

She is known for her ability to "make or break" a restaurant with her fierce attention to detail and her adventurous spirit. For Reichl, her mission has been to "demystify the world of fine cuisine" (CBS News Online). She has won acclaim with both readers and writers alike for her honesty about some of the not-so-fabulous aspects of haute-couture cuisine.

Though an outsider's perspective, she harshly criticized the sexism prevalent toward women in dine-out experiences, as well as the pretentious nature of the ritziest New York restaurants and restaurateurs alike.

Despite her widely-celebrated success, and hilarious tales of how she used to disguise herself to mask her identity while reviewing, she is quite open about why she stopped. "I really wanted to go home and cook for my family," she says. "I don't think there's one thing more important you can do for your kids than have family dinner" (CBS News Online).

She has been the recipient of four James Beard Awards: in 1996 and 1998 for restaurant criticism, one in 1994 for journalism and in 1984 for Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America; as well as several awards granted by the Association of American Food Journalists. She was also the recipient of the YWCA's Elizabeth Cutter Morrow Award, celebrating the accomplishments of strong, successful women.

Reichl served as host for three Food Network Specials titled "Eating Out Loud" which covered cuisine from each coast and corner of the United States, in New York in 2002, and Miami and San Francisco in 2003. She is also frequents Leonard Lopate's monthly food radio show on WNYC in New York. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2014.)

Book Reviews
We know the ending to this foodie fairy tale, but it's still fun to read Save Me the Plums, Reichl's poignant and hilarious account of what it took to bring the dusty food bible back to life with artistic and literary flair through the glory days of magazine-making.… Each serving of magazine folklore is worth savoring. In fact, Reichl's story is juicier than a Peter Luger porterhouse. Dig in.
Kate Betts - New York Times Book Review

In this smart, touching, and dishy memoir.… Ruth Reichl recalls her years at the helm of Gourmet magazine with clear eyes, a sense of humor, and some very appealing recipes. (A Must-Read Book of Spring 2019)
Town & Country

(Starred review) [R]eaders will relish the behind-the-scenes peek at the workings of the magazine…. Reichl’s revealing memoir is a deeply personal look at a food world on the brink of change.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review) This look back in time… [is] part elegy, part picaresque for a recent history that already feels like another era after the Great Recession and the evolution of digital publishing. —Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI
Library Journal

(Starred review) [A] lighthearted but dedicated approach to her work [and] her big-hearted approach to the dinner table.… [R]eaders will be delighted by Reichl’s account of an influential magazine, its final days and the many moments that illustrate the ways food can bring people together.
BookPage

(Starred review) The renowned food writer recounts her adventures as editor-in-chief of the noted epicurean magazine Gourmet in its last decade.… A dream job, it ended in the late-2000s recession, when declining ads forced the closing of the venerable publication. An absolutely delightful reading experience.
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 SAVE ME THE PLUMS … then take off on your own:

1. What made Ruth Reichl's decision to accept the position of editor-in-chief of her favorite magazine a difficult choice: why was she hesitant to take the job? Why did she end up accepting it?

2. How would you describe the inside world of Conde Naste? Talk, for instance, about the perks of Reichl's job— the country club memberships, hairdressers, and much more. Does it all seem outlandish or just down right wonderful, even enviable?

3. How did Reichl manage to juggle the ever-difficult job of being a working mother? What do you make of her comment that "Children… need you around even if they ignore you. In fact, they need you around so they can ignore you"?

4. There is a good deal of humor in Reichl's memoir. Which episodes delighted you most? Ann Patchett's turtle … or David Foster Wallace's lobster festival? Point to some other incidents you found particularly funny or rich.

5. And the food? Which of the many descriptions made your mouth water?

6. At a book signing, Reichl was confronted by a chef who was fired from his job after her restaurant review talked about his "Mushy sole. Cottonly bread." He was unable to find work ever since, he told her. What do you think about the power a single restaurant critic can wield over the lives of people in the food industry? Fair? Unfair?

7. Talk about the ways that Reichl was able to reinvent Gourmet magazine, all the revisions she made in terms of hiring and firing staff, as well as stylistic changes like reinventing Gourmet's covers. What did you find most impressive about her vision and her management style?

8. After an incident while ordering lunch in France at the onset of the 2008 recession, Reichl tells us, "The more stars in your intinerary, the less likely you are to find the real life of another country." What does she mean? How has she finally come to see the outsized perks of magazine life?

9. Talk about the end of Gourmet and, in Reichl's own words, her "terrible sense of failure." What brought about the magazine's closure?

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

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Say Her Name
Francisco Goldman, 2011
Grove/Atlantic
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802119810

Summary
In 2005, celebrated novelist Francisco Goldman married a beautiful young writer named Aura Estrada in a romantic Mexican hacienda. The month before their second anniversary, during a long-awaited holiday, Aura broke her neck while body surfing.

Francisco, blamed for Aura’s death by her family and blaming himself, wanted to die, too. Instead, he wrote Say Her Name, a novel chronicling his great love and unspeakable loss, tracking the stages of grief when pure love gives way to bottomless pain.

Suddenly a widower, Goldman collects everything he can about his wife, hungry to keep Aura alive with every memory. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City with her fiercely devoted mother to her studies at Columbia University, through their newlywed years in New York City and travels to Mexico and Europe—and always through the prism of her gifted writings—Goldman seeks her essence and grieves her loss. Humor leavens the pain as he lives through the madness of grief and creates a living portrait of a love as joyous as it is deep and profound.

Say Her Name is a love story, a bold inquiry into destiny and accountability, and a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would've been. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio• Birth—1954
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education— Hobart College; University of Michigan;
   New School for Social Research
• Awards—Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction; TR Fyvel
   Freedom of Expression Book Award; Guggenheim Fellow-
   ship
• Currently—lives in Mexico City, Mexico and New York

Francisco Goldman is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at Trinity College. He is workshop director at Fundacion Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (FNPI), the journalism school for Latin-America created by Gabriel García Márquez. Goldman is also known as Francisco Goldman Molina, "Frank" and "Paco".

Life
Goldman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a Guatemalan Catholic mother and Jewish-American father. He attended Hobart College, the University of Michigan and the New School for Social Research Seminar College, and studied translation at New York University. He has taught at Columbia University in the MFA program; Brooklyn College; the Institute of New Journalism (founded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez) in Cartagena, Colombia; Mendez Pelayo Summer Institute in Santander, Spain; the North American Institute in Barcelona, Spain. He has been a resident of UCross Foundation. Francisco Goldman was awarded the Mary Ellen von der Heyden fellowship for Fiction and was spring 2010 Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Writing
His first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens (1992), won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and his second, The Ordinary Seaman (1997), was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

In November 2007, he acted as guest-fiction editor for Guernica Magazine. "The Ordinary Seaman" was named one of the 100 Best American Books of the Century by The Hungry Mind Review. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1998 and of a New York Public Library Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship in 2000-2001. His books have been translated and published in a total of eleven languages worldwide. In the 1980s, he covered the wars in Central America as a contributing editor to Harper's magazine.

Goldman's 2007 book The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop? is a nonfiction account of the assassination of Guatemalan Catholic Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera, a crime perpetrated by the Guatemalan military. The book, an expansion on what began as an article in The New Yorker represents the culmination of years of journalistic investigation. It was a New York Times Notable Book, and a Best Book of the Year at Washington Post Book World, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and New York Daily News. While the book has been widely acclaimed, to some degree a predictable disinformation campaign of exactly the kind described in the book itself has been waged against it. A new afterword in the paperback edition, rebuts them. The book is the winner of the 2008 TR Fyvel Freedom of Expression Book Award from the Index on Censorship and of the 2008 Duke University-WOLA (Washington Office on Latin America) Human Rights Book Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2008 Golden Dagger Award in non-fiction and for the inaugural Warwick Prize for Writing.

In 2007 Goldman published his novel, The Divine Husband and, in 2011, Say Her Name, the account of his wife's accidental death.

Family
Goldman's wife, Aura Estrada, died in a bodysurfing accident in Mexico in 2007, which he documents in his 2011 memoir, Say Her Name. He has also established a prize in her honor, The Aura Estrada Prize, to be given every two years to a female writer, 35 or under, who writes in Spanish and lives in the USA or Mexico. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
[p]assionate and moving...[a] beautifully written account of Goldman's short marriage to Estrada...…while Goldman's gifts as a reporter are on full display...the truth that emerges in this book has less to do with the mystery of her death—which, at its core, is the mystery of all tragic deaths—than with the miracle of the astonishing, spirited, deeply original young woman Goldman so adored. "I always wished that I could know what it was like to be Aura," he writes. Goldman revives her through the only power left to him. So remarkable is this resurrection that at times I felt the book itself had a pulse.
Robin Romm - New York Times

Goldman's long cry of pain seems more like memoir than novel. The use of real names, the apparent cleaving to historical facts, the relentless attentiveness to detail and feeling—all suggest that tenebrous realm we've come to know through the eloquence of Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates. Regardless of form, Goldman shares their dark territory. As to what a writer should write about his private life, the answer is that writers have no private lives: We write what we know. Goldman here bears witness to his anguish, which is mighty.
Roxanna Robinson - Washington Post

To call Francisco Goldman’s book about the death of his young Mexican wife an elegy hardly represents it. Lament is closer, but insufficient. It is a chain of eruptions, a meteor shower; not just telling but bombarding us in a loss that glitters. With the power and fine temper of its writing, it is as much poem as prose…. Tense set pieces, respectively heartbreaking and chilling…generate the book’s propulsive drama. What they propel, though, is its most remarkable achievement: the incandescent portrait of a marriage of opposites.
Richard Eder - Boston Globe

Goldman has called on his formidable resources to tell the story of Aura’s life, their life together and his grief as a widower… Harrowing and often splendid reading….these pages manage to bring Aura Estrada back to life. She is unforgettable. Count me glad and grateful to know her name.
Karen R. Long - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Extraordinary.... The more deeply you have loved in your life, the more this book will wrench you.... In a voice that is alternately lush and naked, lyrical and sardonic, philosophical and wry...Say Her Name will transport you into the most primal joy in the human repertoire—the joy of loving…[It] pushes back against the tides of forgetting, and gives Aura a new body, a literary body, to inhabit—a body so vivid that by the end of the book we feel as though we ourselves have met and loved this woman.
Carolina de Robertis - San Francisco Chronicle

Goldman's (The Divine Husband) fifth book is a highly personal account of the author's life in the aftermath of his young wife's drowning. Goldman moves in time from meeting Aura in New York and her harrowing death on Mexico's Pacific Coast to the painful and solitary two years that followed in Brooklyn, marked in part by his mother-in-law's claim that he was responsible for Aura's death. His struggles to exonerate himself from his own conscience, and from his mother-in-law's legal threats, is electric and poignant, encapsulated in painful such moments as the author's discovery of "the indentations of Aura's scooping fingers like fossils" in the surface of her face scrub soon after her death. Goldman also includes fragments of Aura's fiction and her diary: "Played Atari like crazy, rearranged my Barbie house" recall her youth in Mexico City, and "We're on a plane, we've spent most of the day traveling, Paco asleep on my shoulder" illuminate the private moments of the couple's life. Goldman calls this book a novel and employs some novelistic techniques (composite characters, for instance), but the foundation is in truth: messy, ugly, and wildly complicated truth.
Publishers Weekly

With total candor, Goldman (The Divine Husband) describes his life with his wife, Aura Estrada, who died tragically in 2007. This is only a novel in that he changed names to protect some specific identities; otherwise the story is true. This is an authentic work of the heart and soul. He and Aura had a short married life, but one can tell they were happy. They were both gifted writers. He was significantly older; her mother was controlling, and her father absent. Aura was a bright light of ineffable humanity. Goldman describes Aura and his life with her in a gradual way that circles backward and forward in time from the present. He fills in the story bit by bit; the actual description of the accident coming last. Verdict: The feeling, the memorial incarnation that this book creates, is monumental. Essential for all libraries. This book about tragic death is a gift for the living. —Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L., CA
Library Journal

A nonfiction novel of love and loss...and perhaps even a little redemption.... Appropriately, in this novel of death and dying, Goldman writes gorgeous, heartbreaking prose.
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 Say Her Name:

1. Goldman's book opens with the scene in which he and his wife stare through glass at exotic salamanders, the subject of Julio Cortazar's story "Axolotl." Two questions:

a) Why was Aura so desirous of seeing the salamanders?

b) Why might Goldman have begun his memoir with this scene? What symbolic significance does it have in this memoir?

2. Why does Goldman write this book? What is he attempting to understand—and what is he attempting to convey to readers? Does he succeed in either attempt?

3. Why does his mother-in-law blame Goldman? Is there any justification in her court case? Why does Goldman say, "If I were Juniata, I know I would have wanted to put me in prison, too. Though not for the reasons she and her brother gave." What are his reasons?

4. Goldman writes, "I always wished that I could know what it was like to be Aura." Do you think the power of writing—and the mystery of reading—has enabled the author to resurrect Aura? Has he brought her to life for you?

5. What kind of woman was Aura? Describe her qualities, including her eccentricities. Why, for instance, does she keep dresses in her closet that she won't wear?

6. How did Aura's upbringing—especially the pressures imposed on her by her mother—influence the type of woman she became?

7. In her diary, Aura recounts traveling to a beach her mother hever let her visit. Goldman writes that Aura “discovered a new way to be there." In what way was the beach transformative for Aura—how does it change her, or what insights does it open up for her? Have you ever experienced a similar transformation in a special place you found?

8. Talk about the love triangle between Aura, Juanita, and Francisco. Is it natural...or unnatural?

9. How does Goldman himself come across in this account? What does he mean when he calls himself a "man-boy"?

10. What attracts the two to one another? Is their attraction in spite of—or because of—their age difference?

11. Francisco Goldman refers to this work as a novel, yet it is a true account of his wife, her life, and death. So...what is this book: is it a novel or memoir? Can the author have it both ways?

12. If the living move beyond grief, is it a betrayal of the dead?

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

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Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
Patrick Radden Keefe, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385521314

Summary
From award-winning New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs.

They never saw her again.

Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it.

In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress—with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with.

The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past…

…Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1976
• Where—Dorchester, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia University; J.D., Yale University; M.Phil, Cambridge University; M.Sc., London School of Economics
• Awards—National Magazine Award–Feature Writing
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker, an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of The Snakehead and Chatter.

His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, New York, and New York Review of Books, among others, and he is a frequent commentator on NPR, the BBC, and MSNBC.

Patrick received the 2014 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing, for his story "A Loaded Gun," was a finalist for the National Magazine Award for Reporting in 2015 and 2016, and is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Book Reviews
If it seems as if I'm reviewing a novel, it is because Say Nothing has lots of the qualities of good fiction, to the extent that I'm worried I'll give too much away, and I'll also forget that Jean McConville was a real person, as were—are—her children. And her abductors and killers. Keefe is a terrific storyteller.… He brings his characters to real life. The book is cleverly structured. We follow people—victim, perpetrator, back to victim—leave them, forget about them, rejoin them decades later. It can be read as a detective story.… What Keefe captures best, though, is the tragedy, the damage and waste, and the idea of moral injury.… Say Nothing is an excellent account of the Troubles.
Roddy Doyle - New York Times Book Review

An exceptional new book… [that] explores this brittle landscape [of Northern Ireland] to devastating effect… [and] fierce reporting.… The story of McConville's disappearance, its crushing effects on her children, the discovery of her remains in 2003, and the efforts of authorities to hold someone accountable for her murder occupy the bulk of Say Nothing. Along the way, Mr. Keefe navigates the flashpoints, figures and iconography of the Troubles: anti-Catholic discrimination, atrocities by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and occupation by the British Army, grisly IRA bombings in Belfast and London, the internment of Irish soldiers and the hunger strikes of Bobby Sands and others, the Falls Road and the Shankill Road, unionist paramilitaries, the "real" IRA and the “provisionals," counter-intelligence, the Armalite rile and the balaclava. It is a dizzying panorama, yet Mr. Keefe presents it with clarity.
Michael O'Donnell - Wall Street Journal

Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book Say Nothing investigates the mystery of a missing mother and reveals a still-raw violent past.… The book often reads like a novel, but as anyone familiar with his work for The New Yorker can attest, Keefe is an obsessive reporter and researcher, a master of narrative nonfiction.… An incredible story.
Rolling Stone

As the narrator of a whodunit.… [Keefe] excels, exposing the past, layer by layer, like the slow peel of a rotten onion, as he works to answer a question that the British government, the Northern Irish police and the McConville family has been seeking the answer to for nearly 50 years.… Keefe draws the characters in this drama finely and colorfully.… Say Nothing is a reminder of Northern Ireland's ongoing trauma. And with Brexit looming, it's a timely warning that it doesn't take much to open old wounds in Ireland, and make them fresh once more.
Paddy Hirsch - NPR

★ [Keefe] incorporates a real-life whodunit into a moving, accessible account of the violence that has afflicted Northern Ireland.… Tinged with immense sadness, this work never loses sight of the humanity of even those who committed horrible acts in support of what they believed in.
Publishers Weekly

★ Keefe blends… espionage, murder mystery, and political history into a single captivating narrative.… [He] turns a complicated and often dark subject into a riveting and informative page-turner that will engage readers of both true crime and popular history. —Timothy Berge, West Virginia Univ., Morgantown
Library Journal

Keefe’s reconstruction of events and the players involved is careful and assured.… A harrowing story of politically motivated crime that could not have been better told.
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 SAY NOTHING ... then take off on your own:

1. A saying at the time of the Troubles went, “If you’re not confused, you don’t know what’s going on." The times were certainly confusing: for those on the outside of the conflict, let alone those on the inside. Does Patrick Radden Okeefe clear up the confusion for his readers—for you? In what way has reading Say Nothing increased your understanding of Northern Ireland's decades-long (many say centuries-long) struggle?

2. Keefe has zeroed in on the murder of Jean McConville. Given the level of brutality and carnage that took place for so long, why might the author have used that particular episode as the opening of his book?

3. In what way would you describe (as some reviewers have) Say Nothing as a murder mystery?

4. Which individuals—in this book of real life people—do you feel more sympathy for than others? What about those individuals whose actions disturbed you? Despite all the carnage, are you able to find any humanity in those who committed acts of violence? Does it matter that they acted in service to a cause, one they believed in passionately?

5. Follow-up to Question 4: Dolours Price and others feel that the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement took away any justification for the bombings and abductions she had participated in. How would you answer her?

6. What is the significance of the book's title, "Say Nothing." What are the ways that phrase resonates throughout the book?

7. Since the peace accord, a "collective denial" has washed over the Belfast society. Is this obfuscation, a hiding of sorts, beneficial? Has it lead to a genuine, settled peace? Would an open reconciliation, through confession and forgiveness, work? What are the varying points of view, including yours?

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

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The Scholar and the Housewife
Susan Whelan, 2013
Createspace Independent Publishing
566 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781482658316

Summary
As The Scholar, Susan Whelan endeavored to further her education and realize her professional potential, working on Wall Street as an attorney.

As The Housewife, she was deeply committed to guiding her children into adulthood with thought and compassion. Now, she gathers her experiences in The Scholar and The Housewife, a letter to her children that explains her struggle to fulfill not only the dreams of her parents and the goals of her youth, but at the same time, to be the mother that her own mother was to her.

Set in the backdrop of Wall Street in the 1980s and 1990s, the author recounts the events and people that informed her choices and strengthened her beliefs. Global economic expansion, technology, and new financial instruments as well as advances in prenatal testing, early childhood development and preschool philosophies are among the topics she considers, all the while questioning goals and values, "walls and moral hazards" and causes and effects.

In an ambitious yet easily digestible work, Whelan brings her experience as a mother, volunteer, lawyer, businesswoman, and United Nations delegate to an honest discussion of the pressures on women, children and families today in America. In doing so, she offers some practical food for thought, particularly in the way of some provocative and compelling economic considerations. (From the author's website.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 18, 1959
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Boston College; J.D., Fordham
University
• Currently—lives in Westchester County, New York, and
Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Susan Whelan graduated from Boston College as the Scholar of the College, after which she earned a J.D. at the Fordham University School of Law. She practiced law on Wall Street, advising financial institutions, and currently serves the Holy See as a legal expert and Delegate to the United Nations covering trade law and the law of the sea. She is happily married, is the mother of six children, and lives with her family in Westchester County, New York and Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. (Visit the author's website.)

Book Reviews
This book is a fantastic choice for women who are focused on excelling in their careers while loving and raising a family of their own. Susan Whelan's experiences will spark discussions on a range of topics including - work/life balance, economics, politics, and parenting.
User review - Goodreads.com

I love this book. So true to life and real but in a light hearted, fun way. The short extracts really work and the mix up of the mommy bits with the Wall Street world keep you engaged. Inspiring.
User review - Amazon.com

Discussion Questions
1. On page 13 in “Empty Nest”, Susan tells her children to “Follow your heart.” After reading the book, how do you think that Susan followed that advice on her path from law school graduation through her decision to stay home with her children?

2. Think about Gloria’s experience during her high school reunion in the chapter “Walls” from pp. 17-18, are there other examples in the book where walls are drawn between two people because of success or lack thereof? Do you think those who belittled Gloria’s success have a perspective that can be brought into a more instructive discussion with regard to the role of both Wall Street and education in our society?

3. Susan writes

Where we begin is with the knowledge that I am just one of hundreds of thousands of children who were brought up with the same values and attitudes in the 1960s, ‘70s, and early ‘80s. I was just a normal kid from a big Irish family, with parents who were happily married, a mother who was home taking care of us for the most part and who later returned to work as a teacher, and a father who worked hard balancing corporate work and family responsibilities (49).

How is Susan’s upbringing at once both extremely average and also unique? How does her upbringing translate into how she raises her children?

4. How does Bill’s role play out in Susan’s decisions? How does his unwavering support compare with the lack of support from the federal government discussed in the chapter “Maternity Leave” from pp. 63-65?

5. The chapter “Free Advice” illustrates a problem that is even more exaggerated today. Unsolicited advice is around every corner—on the front of a hundred magazines, discussed on television talk shows, and has hundreds of dedicated websites. While Susan begins the book with advice to her children, she resents the critical advice of a stranger in a store. How does this juxtaposition make sense? Do you think advice is appropriate without personal knowledge of a person’s individual problem? How has advice become such a valuable and sellable commodity when it is so readily given away—by friends, relatives and strangers on the grocery line?

6. Discuss Susan’s response to her interview in the chapter “The Victim.” Do you think her reaction was the best possible course of action?

7. What do you think about the different pre-school philosophies described in the book? While there are certainly merits to each system, is there one system that works best?

8. How does Susan Whelan respond to the arguments made by Anne-Marie Slaughter and Sheryl Sandberg regarding work-life balance?

9. How does the ability to hire home assistance change the Whelan’s family life? How does Susan address the unique circumstances that allow her to hire help? Does she address how other families can handle children while all parents continue to work?

10. What do you think is the most important current issue that Susan raises in the book?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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The School of Essential Ingredients
Erica Bauermeister, 2009
Penguin Group USA
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425232095

Summary
A "heartbreakingly delicious" national bestseller about a chef, her students, and the evocative lessons that food teaches about life

Once a month, eight students gather in Lillian's restaurant for a cooking class. Among them is Claire, a young woman coming to terms with her new identity as a mother; Tom, a lawyer whose life has been overturned by loss; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer adapting to life in America; and Carl and Helen, a long-married couple whose union contains surprises the rest of the class would never suspect.

The students have come to learn the art behind Lillian's soulful dishes, but it soon becomes clear that each seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. And soon they are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of what they create. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1959
• Where—Pasadena, California, USA
• Education—Ph.D., University of Washington
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

In her words:
I was born in Pasadena, California in 1959, a time when that part of the country was both one of the loveliest and smoggiest places you could imagine. I remember the arching branches of the oak tree in our front yard, the center of the patio that formed a private entrance to our lives; I remember leaning over a water faucet to run water across my eyes after a day spent playing outside. It’s never too early to learn that there is always more than one side to life.

I have always wanted to write, but when I read Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” in college, I finally knew what I wanted to write – books that took what many considered to be unimportant bits of life and gave them beauty, shone light upon their meaning. The only other thing I knew for certain back in college, however, was that I wasn’t grown up enough yet to write them.

So I moved to Seattle, got married, and got a PhD. at the University of Washington. Frustrated by the lack of women authors in the curriculum, I co-authored 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide with Holly Smith and Jesse Larsen and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14 with Holly Smith. In the process I read, literally, thousands of books, good and bad, which is probably one of the best educations a writer can have. I still wrote, but thankfully that material wasn’t published. I taught writing and literature. I had children.

Having children probably had the most dramatic effect upon how I write of anything in my life. As the care-taker of children, there was no time for plot lines that couldn’t be interrupted a million times in the course of creation. I learned to multi-task, and when the children’s demands were too many, we created something called the “mental hopper.” This is where all the suggestions went — “can we have ice cream tonight?” “can we take care of the school’s pet rat over the summer?” “can I have sex at 13?” The mental hopper was where things got sorted out, when I had time to think about them. What’s interesting about the mental hopper is that when something goes in there, I can usually figure out a way to make it happen (except sex at 13).

And that is how I write now. All those first details and amorphous ideas for a book, the voices of the characters, the fact that one of them loves garlic and another one flips through the pages of used books looking for clues to the past owner’s life, all those ideas go in the mental hopper and slowly but surely they form connections with each other. Stories start to take shape. It’s a very organic process, and it suits me. So when people say being a mother is death for writers, I disagree. Yes, in a logistical sense, children can make writing difficult. In fact, I don’t think it is at all coincidental that my first novel was published after both my children were in college. But I think differently, I create the work I do, because I have had children.

It’s been more than thirty years since I first read Tillie Olsen. My children are now mostly grown. I’ve been married for three decades to the same man; I’ve lived in Italy; I’ve stood by friends as they faced death. I’ve grown up a bit, and I’ve returned, happily and naturally, to fiction.

Novels
The first result was The School of Essential Ingredients, a novel about eight cooking students and their teacher, set in the kitchen of Lillian’s restaurant. It’s about food and people and the relationships between them – about taking those “unimportant” bits of life and making them beautiful. The response to School has been a writer’s dream; the book is currently being published in 23 countries and I have received letters and emails from readers around the world.

My second novel, Joy For Beginners came out two years later (see how much more quickly you can write when the children are in college?). Joy For Beginners follows a year in the life of seven women who make a pact to each do one thing in the next twelve months that is new, or difficult, or scary – the twist is that they don’t get to choose their own challenges. It has been a marvelous experience to watch this book become a catalyst for readers and entire book clubs, and to read the letters of those who have decided to change their lives or who have simply gained insight through the characters.

My third novel was published in early 2013. The Lost Art of Mixing returns to some of the characters from The School of Essential Ingredients whose stories simply weren’t finished (although I have to say, even I was surprised to learn where those stories went). It begins one year later, and throws four completely new characters into the mix, in an exploration of miscommunication, serendipity, ritual, and (well, of course) food. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
School is a tale where strangers unite over food, each rediscovering their own essence via cooking’s wonders and pleasures…. Bauermeister manages to keep them fresh and their stories enticing though a series of achingly real vignettes and devastating flashbacks. And her cooking descriptions (fresh crab, handmade tortillas, luscious fondue, pasta sauce simmered for hours, a to-die-for tiramisu) will compel readers to hit the farmers market and run for the kitchen.
Seattle Times

Food Network fans will devour this first novel about a whimsical cooking school run by a gentle chef with a fierce passion for food.
People

In this remarkable debut, Bauermeister creates a captivating world where the pleasures and particulars of sophisticated food come to mean much more than simple epicurean indulgence. Respected chef and restaurateur Lillian has spent much of her 30-something years in the kitchen, looking for meaning and satisfaction in evocative, delicious combinations of ingredients. Endeavoring to instill that love and know-how in others, Lillian holds a season of Monday evening cooking classes in her restaurant. The novel takes up the story of each of her students, navigating readers through the personal dramas, memories and musings stirred up as the characters handle, slice, chop, blend, smell and taste. Each student's affecting story-painful transitions, difficult choices-is rendered in vivid prose and woven together with confidence. Delivering memorable story lines and characters while seducing the senses, Bauermeister's tale of food and hope is certain to satisfy.
Publishers Weekly

If the connected stories of Holly's students and the magic of cooking are what captured your readers, then Bauermeister's lush and evocative story should make a great next read. Ever since Lillian was a little girl, she has understood the power of food to fulfill the heart's desire. As a successful restaurant chef, she now hosts a cooking school, helping others explore the magic ingredients that their lives are missing. Told in a series of character studies, the novel illuminates the lives of Claire, a young mother overwhelmed with her new role; Carl and Helen, a long-married couple with a complicated history; and a handful of others (including a Lillian herself). Each finds hope and solace in this novel that unfolds in a pace similar to Senate's and with the same attention to detail and description. — Neal Wyatt, "RA Crossroads," Booksmack!
Library Journal

Cassandra Campbell's exquisite, sensuous vocal tones set the mood for The School of Essential Ingredients—a novel that treats food as emotional metaphor and as therapy. A lovely homage to the soul-healing properties of a sumptuous meal—or an essential ingredient--this work enchants and inspires. The story traces the experiences (internal and external, past and present) of eight cooking-class students who are gathering at Lillian's restaurant. Campbell sweetly and deliberately speaks to the sensations of cookery and taste. While Lillian never shares a recipe in the traditional sense, her culinary creations are "without words," and transform the life of each student with aromas, flavors, and textures that unlock memories and eventual healing. As the students' lives intertwine, there are surprise results—which sparkle with Campbell's lyrical delivery.
AudioFile

Discussion Questions
1. When Claire first walks into Lillian’s, she reflects: “When was the last time she had been someplace where no one knew who she was?” Is the anonymity of the kitchen a lure for Lillian’s students?

2. How did you respond to the story of Lillian’s upbringing? Would Lillian have been better off with a more traditional home life, like those of her school friends? Do you agree with Abuelita’s statement that “sometimes our greatest gifts grow from what we are not given”?

3. Besides scenes from her childhood, the author discloses very little about Lillian. Why do you think she did this? How would the book be different if we knew more about Lillian’s day-to-day life?

4. As a general rule, Lillian doesn’t give her students recipes. Why do you think she does this? What are the pros and cons of this approach to cooking?

5. Did Helen do the right thing by telling Carl about her affair? How would their marriage—and Helen and Carl themselves—have evolved had he never learned the truth?

6. Each of the character’s stories centers on a dish or an ingredient that has a profound effect upon how they see themselves or the world. What connections do you see between Claire and the crabs? Between Chloe and tortillas? Tom and the pasta sauce?

7. Although we only see Charlie, Tom’s wife, in flashback, she seems to share Lillian’s love of essential ingredients. What do you make of Charlie’s statement that “We’re all just ingredients. What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal”?

8. Chloe observes that Thanksgiving at her house is “about everyone being the same, and if you’re not, eating enough so you won’t notice.” Is this something that our culture buys into in a larger sense? How does Lillian’s approach to food fly in the face of this idea?

9. Isaac says to Isabelle that he thinks “we are each a chair and a ladder for the other.” What do you think he means? Are there people in your life who are or have been that for you?

10. Lillian tells the class that “a holiday is a lot like a kitchen. What’s important is what comes out of it.” In what way do the kitchens in this book—Lillian’s childhood kitchen, the greasy spoon where Tom meets Charlie, the kitchen that Antonia saves from demolition—represent different celebrations of life? Is there a kitchen in your life that you associate with a particular celebration or emotional milestone?

11. At the end of the novel, Lillian reflects that: “She saw how connected [the students’] lives had become and would remain. Where did a teacher fit in the picture, she wondered, when there was no longer a class?” What does happen to Lillian once her class is disbanded? Do you feel that each character’s story is resolved? What do you imagine happens in these characters’ lives after the book ends?

12. What would be your essential ingredients?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Seabiscuit: An American Legend
Laura Hillenbrand, 2001
Random House
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345465085

Summary
Seabiscuit was an unlikely champion: a roughhewn, undersized horse with a sad little tail and knees that wouldn't straighten all the way. But, thanks to the efforts of three men, Seabiscuit became one of the most spectacular performers in sports history.

The rags-to-riches horse emerged as an American cultural icon, drawing an immense following and becoming the single biggest newsmaker of 1938 — receiving more coverage than FDR or Hitler. Laura Hillenbrand beautifully renders this story of one horse's journey from also-ran to national luminary. (From the publisher.)

Seabiscuit was adapated to film in 2003 and stars Jeff Bridges and Tobey Maguire.

Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Fairfax, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Kenyon College
• Awards—William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award;
National Book Critics Circle Award Nomination, 2002
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.

Laura Hillenbrand is an American author of books and magazine articles. Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Hillenbrand spent much of her childhood riding bareback "screaming over the hills" of her father's Sharpsburg, Maryland, farm. A favorite of hers was Come On Seabiscuit, a 1963 kiddie book. "I read it to death, my little paperback copy," she says.

She studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, but was forced to leave before graduation when she contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She has struggled with the condition ever since, remaining largely confined to her home. On the irony of writing about physical paragons while being so incapaciated herself, she says, "I'm looking for a way out of here. I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually. It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination. And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie Zamperini [hero of Unbroken] as he's breaking the NCAA mile record. People at these vigorous moments in their lives—it's my way of living vicariously.

She now lives in Washington, D.C, with her husband, Borden Flanagan, a professor of Government at American University. They were college sweethearts and married in 2008.

Writing
Hillenbrand's first book was the acclaimed Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001), a non-fiction account of the career of the great racehorse Seabiscuit, for which she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2001. She says she was compelled to tell the story because she "found fascinating people living a story that was improbable, breathtaking and ultimately more satisfying than any story [she'd] ever come across."She first told the story through an essay she sold to American Heritage magazine, and the feedback was positive, so she decided to procede with a full novel. Upon the book's release, she recieved rave reviews for her storytelling and research. It was made into the Academy Award nominated film Seabiscuit (2003).

Hillenbrand's second book is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010), a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini (1917-).

Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Equus magazine, American Heritage, Blood-Horse, Thoroughbred Times, Backstretch, Turf and Sport Digest, and many other publications. Her 1998 American Heritage article on the horse Seabiscuit won the Eclipse Award for Magazine Writing.

Hillenbrand is a co-founder of Operation Iraqi Children. (From Wikipedia.)

Critics Say . . .
T]he story of this ragged-tailed racehorse [is] an allegory for Depression-era America.... [Hillenbrand's book] is a flawless trip, with the detail of good history...and the charm of grand legend.
Jim Squires - The New York Times

Seabiscuit brings alive the drama, the beauty, the louche charm and the brutality of horse racing. Hillenbrand makes the reader understand why Americans, crushed by the Depression, found so much hope, inspiration and pleasure in the story of a small horse who rose from obscurity to become a champion.
Deirdre Donahue - USA Today

Hillenbrand, a contributing writer at Equus magazine, is a deft storyteller whose descriptions of such races are especially good, filled with images of pounding hooves and splattering mud.
Mark Hyman - Business Week

Gifted sportswriter Hillenbrand unearths the rarefied world of thoroughbred horse racing in this captivating account of one of the sport's legends. Though no longer a household name, Seabiscuit enjoyed great celebrity during the 1930s and 1940s, drawing record crowds to his races around the country. Not an overtly impressive physical specimen—"His stubby legs were a study in unsound construction, with huge, squarish, asymmetrical `baseball glove' knees that didn't quite straighten all the way"--the horse seemed to transcend his physicality as he won race after race. Hillenbrand, a contributor to Equus magazine, profiles the major players in Seabiscuit's fantastic and improbable career. In simple, elegant prose, she recounts how Charles Howard, a pioneer in automobile sales and Seabiscuit's eventual owner, became involved with horse racing, starting as a hobbyist and growing into a fanatic. She introduces esoteric recluse Tom Smith (Seabiscuit's trainer) and jockey Red Pollard, a down-on-his-luck rider whose specialty was taming unruly horses. In 1936, Howard united Smith, Pollard and "The Biscuit," whose performance had been spotty--and the horse's star career began. Smith, who recognized Seabiscuit's potential, felt an immediate rapport with him and eased him into shape. Once Seabiscuit started breaking records and outrunning lead horses, reporters thronged the Howard barn day and night. Smith's secret workouts became legendary and only heightened Seabiscuit's mystique. Hillenbrand deftly blends the story with explanations of the sport and its culture, including vivid descriptions of the Tijuana horse-racing scene in all its debauchery. She roots her narrative of the horse's breathtaking career and the wild devotion of his fans in its socioeconomic context: Seabiscuit embodied the underdog myth for a nation recovering from dire economic straits.
Publishers Weekly

A veteran thoroughbred-racing writer whose stories have appeared in American Heritage, Talk, and other magazines, Hillenbrand here takes readers on a thrilling ride through 341 pages on the back of champion thoroughbred Seabiscuit. This is a Cinderella story in which four creatures, united for a brief period of time (1936-47), spark the imagination of an entire country. Hillenbrand combines the horse's biography with a social history of 1930s and 1940s America and incisive portraits of the team around Seabiscuit. Charlie Howard, a car dealer, bought the crooked-legged, scruffy little horse; Tom Smith, a man who rarely spoke to people but who communicated perfectly with horses, became its trainer; and Red Pollard, a half-blind jockey, rode Seabiscuit to fame. Hillenbrand's extensive research compares favorably with that of Alexander MacKay-Smith's in Speed and the Thoroughbred (Derrydale, 2000). This story of trust, optimism, and perseverance in overcoming obstacles will appeal to many readers. Highly recommended. —Patsy E. Gray, Huntsville P.L., AL
Library Journal

The former editor of Equus magazine retells the riveting story of an unlikely racehorse that became an American obsession during the Depression. Like all heroes of an epic, Seabiscuit had to endure setbacks, dispel doubts about his abilities, and contend with formidable rivals. Hillenbrand deftly mixes arcane horse lore with a narrative as compelling as any adventure yarn as she introduces first the men who would make Seabiscuit great and then the horse himself. Racing was a popular, often unregulated sport in the 1930s, and wealthy men like Bing Crosby and his friend Charles Howard, who became Seabiscuit's owner, fielded strings of horses all over the country. Howard, a sucker for lost causes, took on as his trainer Tom Smith, a taciturn westerner down on his luck who studied horses for days until he took their measure. Both men were well suited to invest emotionally and financially in Seabiscuit, as were the two jockeys who would be associated with him, Red Pollard and George Woolf. Howard first saw Seabiscuit racing in 1936. The colt was a descendant of the famous Man o' War, but his body was stunted, his legs stubby, and he walked with an odd gait. Smith believed he had potential, however, so Howard bought him and took him back to California. There Smith patiently worked on Seabiscuit's strengths, corrected his weaknesses, and encouraged his ability to run faster than any other horse. When Smith thought he was ready, Howard began racing the colt. Seabiscuit broke numerous track records, despite accidents, injuries, and even foul play. His fame was secured with a 1938 race against his rival, War Admiral; their contest divided the country into two camps and garnered more media coverage than President Roosevelt, who himself was so riveted by the race that he kept advisers waiting while he listened to the broadcast. A great ride.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Seabiscuit grew so popular as a cultural icon that in 1938, he commanded more space in American newspapers than any other public figure. Considering the temper of the times as well as the horse’s early career on the racetrack, what were the sources of The Biscuit’s enormous popularity during that benchmark period of U.S. history? Would he be as popular if he raced today? What did the public need that it found in this horse?

2. The Great Match Race between Seabiscuit and War Admiral in 1938 evoked heated partisan passions. These passions spilled over on radio and into the daily prints, with each colt leading a raucous legion of followers to the barrier at Pimlico Race Course that autumn day. What were the differences separating these two horses, and what did each competitor represent in the American experience that set one apart from the other?

3. All jockeys in the 1930s endured terrible hardships and hazards, starving themselves to make weight, then competing in an exceptionally dangerous sport. For George Woolf and Red Pollard, there were additional factors that compounded the difficulties and dangers of their jobs — diabetes for the former and half-blindness for the latter. Why, in spite of this, did they go on with their careers? What were the allures of race riding that led them to subject themselves to such risk and torment?

4. What was the role of the press and radio in the Seabiscuit phenomenon? How did Howard use the media to his advantage? How did the media help Seabiscuit’s career, and how was it a hindrance?

5. Seabiscuit possessed all the qualities for which the Thoroughbred has been prized since the English imported the breed’s three foundation sires from the Middle East three hundred years ago. What were those qualities? What made this horse a winner?

6. Horses of Seabiscuit’s stature, from Man o’ War in the 1920s to Cigar in the 1990s, have always generated a powerful gravitational field of their own, attracting crowds of people into their immediate orbit, shaping relationships among them, and even affecting the personalities of those nearest them. How did Seabiscuit shape and influence the lives of those around him?

7. Red Pollard, Tom Smith, and Charles Howard formed an unlikely partnership. In what ways were these men different? How did their differences serve as an asset to them?

8. What critical attribute did Howard, Smith, and Pollard share? How did this shared attribute serve as a key to their success?

9. In what ways was each man in the Seabiscuit partnership similar, in his own way, to Seabiscuit himself? How did these similarities help them cultivate the horse’s talents and cure his ailments and neuroses?

10. What lessons can be drawn from the successes of the Seabiscuit team? What does their story say about the role of character in life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Belle de Jour (Anonymous), 2007
Grand Central Publishing
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446540827

Summary
Belle couldn't find a job after University. Her impressive degree was not paying her rent or buying her food. But after a fantastic threesome with a very rich couple who gave her a ton of money, Belle realized that she could earn more than anyone she knew—by becoming a call girl. The rest is history.

Belle became a 20-something London working girl—and had the audacity to write about it—anonymously. The shockingly candid and explicit diary she put on the Internet became a London sensation. She shares her entire journey inside the world of high-priced escorts, including fascinating and explicit insights about her job and her clients, her various boyfriends, and a taboo lifestyle that has to be read to be believed.

The witty observations, shocking revelations, and hilarious scenarios deliver like the very best fiction and make for a titillating reading experience unlike any other. The book has been turned into a Showtime series. (From the publisher.)

The book was adapted to a British TV series, which aired from 2007-2011.

Author Bio
• Aka—Belle de Jour
• Birth—November 5, 1975
• Raised—Florida, USa
• Education—B.S.,Florida State University; M.A.,
and Ph.D., Uiversity of Sheffield (UK)
• Currently—lives in the UK

Brooke Magnanti is a research scientist, blogger, and writer, who, until her identity was revealed in November 2009, was known by the pen name Belle de Jour.

While completing her doctoral studies, between 2003 and 2004, Magnanti supplemented her income by working as a London call girl. Her diary, published as the anonymous blog "Belle de Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl" became increasingly popular, as speculation surrounded the identity of Belle de Jour, and whether the diary was real.

Remaining anonymous, Magnanti went on to have her experiences published as The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2005 and The Further Adventures of a London Call Girl in 2006. Her first two books were UK top 10 best-sellers in the nonfiction hardback and nonfiction paperback lists. In 2007, Belle's blogs and books were adapted into a television programme, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, starring Billie Piper as Belle, with the real name Hannah Baxter. In November 2009, reportedly fearing her real identity was about to come out, Magnanti revealed her real name and occupation as a child health scientist. (From Wikipedia...read more on Wikipedia under Belle de Jour.)

Book Reviews
A lurid, witty, sad, moving and...honest version of her life as a call girl...The author is clearly well-educated, and peppers her writings with erudite literary allusions...Whoever Belle is, she is obviously witty and clever, but also touched by melancholy. An intriguing, often disturbing work.
Lucy Cavendish - Evening Standard

She lists like Hornby. She talks dirty like Amis. She has the misanthropy of Larkin and examines the finer points of sexual technique as she is adjusting the torque on a beloved but temperamental old E-type...It's hard to believe that this clever and candid new voice has no more to say. Whoever the author is, she should give up the day job. Only then will we find out what the real Belle de Jour is made of.
Katy Guest - Indepentent

In between appointments, Belle slots in real dates and holidays, and treats us to excepts from her 'A-Z Of London Sex Work'— tips on how to chat to clients ('Lie your head off. Think of it as proving ground for a future political career'), where to buy your knickers and how to smuggle whips into hotels."
Hephizibah Anderson - Daily Mail

A talent for comedy means it's not really porn, and it's barely erotica—more like one long open-mic stand-up routine about a working girl's lige and the people she meets...a guaranteed hit.
Focus

Belle dispels the stereotypes of street hookers with her painfully candid viewpoint. She is intelligent, witty, sharp as a tack, and possessor of a life filled with friends…and even a "straitlaced as a whalebone corset" boyfriend. The anonymous author provides the perfect counterbalance to the raw sexual content with a matter-of-fact, humorous voice with a healthy dose of irony. And the scenarios with clients are hilarious when taken out of context. Her journal of this lifestyle is as entertaining as it is enlightening, reading more like fiction than an autobiography. It requires an open mind and nonjudgmental attitude, but it’s well worth the time.
Bookfetish. org

Told with verve, and swinging both ways, this is a little like an owner’s manual to sexual positions, variations and perversions, in fact there seems to be little this woman hasn’t experienced at one time or another. Her account about lit candles getting set into assorted orifices nearly put this reviewer off, yet the candor and humor help keep this diary from sinking into the quagmire as Belle recounts light boyfriends and a true flame. Explicit to a fault, this fun, quick read is sure to have you laughing out loud as Belle reveals the quirks and fantasies of her varied clientele.
Bookbrothel.com

Apart from merely being an entertaining read, the book does come up with a few enlightening insights — that a change of lingerie, spare stockings, makeup kit, phone, diary and the occasional whip will never fit into a small handbag; that not all men who avail of her services are chauvinistic, desperate sleazeballs; and that not all call girls are trashy, uncultured women who wouldn't know how to write a book if their lives depended on it.
Samanth.blogspot.com

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 Secret Diary of a Call Girl:

1. What was your attitude toward prostitution before reading this book? Did your attitude change after having read it? How so or how not so? What surprised you about the book?

2. Is Belle De Jour making a pitch on behalf of the call-girl industry? Or is she simply presenting her life as it is? What is her own attitude toward "the industry"? Is there a legal, moral or societal difference between high-paid call girls and street prostitutes?

3. How did you find Belle's candor and matter-of-fact tone?

4. Many readers and reviewers find the book humorous. Do you? Who is the butt (oh, that's rich...) of the jokes?

5. Talk about the male clients and what they're looking for?

6. Belle says in her opening chapter

In a world of twelve-year-olds in sexy boots and grannies in sparkly minidresses, the surest way to tell the prostitute walking into a hotel at Heathrow is to look for the lady in the designer suit

7. Is it possible for society to be judgmental about selling sex, when we are bombarded by sex to sell products. Think about the use of heightened sexuality—in the fashion industry, advertisements, popular music, TV shows and film?

8. Did you have fun reading the book?

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

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The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of America
Kim Ghattas, 2013
Henry Holt & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805095111

Summary
The first inside account to be published about Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state, anchored by Ghattas's own perspective and her quest to understand America's place in the world

In November 2008, Hillary Clinton agreed to work for her former rival. As President Barack Obama’s secretary of state, she set out to repair America’s image around the world—and her own. For the following four years, BBC foreign correspondent Kim Ghattas had unparalleled access to Clinton and her entourage, and she weaves a fast-paced, gripping account of life on the road with Clinton in The Secretary.

With the perspective of one who is both an insider and an outsider, Ghattas draws on extensive interviews with Clinton, administration officials, and players in Washington as well as overseas, to paint an intimate and candid portrait of one of the most powerful global politicians. Filled with fresh insights, The Secretary provides a captivating analysis of Clinton’s brand of diplomacy and the Obama administration’s efforts to redefine American power in the twenty-first century.

Populated with a cast of real-life characters, The Secretary tells the story of Clinton’s transformation from popular but polarizing politician to America’s envoy to the world in compelling detail and with all the tension of high stakes diplomacy. From her evolving relationship with President Obama to the drama of WikiLeaks and the turmoil of the Arab Spring, we see Clinton cheerfully boarding her plane at 3 a.m. after no sleep, reading the riot act to the Chinese, and going through her diplomatic checklist before signing on to war in Libya—all the while trying to restore American leadership in a rapidly changing world.

Viewed through Ghattas's vantage point as a half-Dutch, half-Lebanese citizen who grew up in the crossfire of the Lebanese civil war, The Secretary is also the author’s own journey as she seeks to answer the questions that haunted her childhood. How powerful is America really? And, if it is in decline, who or what will replace it and what will it mean for America and the world? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—Beirut, Lebanon
• Education—University of Beirut
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C., USA

Kim Ghattas is a journalist for the BBC and author, currently covering the US State Department. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon, of a Lebanese father of Christian background and a Dutch mother. She has two older sisters. Ghattas attended the American University of Beirut, studying political science. At the same time, she worked as an intern at an English-language newspaper in Beirut.

Later, Ghattas worked for the Financial Times and the BBC from Beirut. After reporting from the Middle East, in early 2008 she moved to Washington, DC to take up her post covering the US State Department. Her work has been published in Time magazine, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post and she appears regularly as a guest on NPR radio shows. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Kim Ghattas has written a terrific book—not just our first intimate portrait of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, but also a riveting personal story about what it's like to be a journalist, and a Lebanese woman at that, living in the Clinton bubble. Ghattas is very smart about the nuances of American policy and the patient intelligence that is required for creative diplomacy, and she has made it all come alive in compelling, page-turning fashion.
Joe Kline (Time magaizne columnist)

The Secretary is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how Hillary Clinton became one of the hardest working and most active secretaries of state in modern American history. Ghattas movingly interweaves Clinton's story with her own as a Lebanese woman. It's hard to read this vivid account and not wonder how Hillary would perform in the Oval Office.
David Ignatius (Washington Post columnist)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton becomes the face of a superpower in this captivating profile. Ghattas, State Department correspondent for the BBC, jetted around the globe with Clinton as she refereed Israeli-Palestinian quarrels, wrangled with Chinese officialdom, smoothed ruffled diplomatic feathers after Wikileaks publicized catty American cables, and strategized over the Arab Spring upheavals. In Ghattas’s vivid portrait, Clinton emerges as a charismatic, tireless woman, magnetic during her trademark town hall meetings with ordinary citizens (cries of “We love you, Hillary” trail her everywhere), candid and forthright in private conversation, but always agonizing over anodyne public statements that will be obsessively parsed for policy shifts. But as the author floats along in Clinton’s exciting, exhausting bubble of pre-eminence, she also examines America’s ongoing centrality in world affairs: while they resent American power, in every country people she encounters expect the United States to magically settle their crises and conflicts. Attuned to that mindset since her childhood in war-torn Lebanon, Ghattas receives in her travels with Clinton an eye-opening education in the complexity and limitations of U.S. foreign policy making. Her perceptive reportage on Clinton’s personal leadership grounds a shrewd analysis of America’s role as the still-indispensable nation. (8-page b&w photo insert.)
Publishers Weekly

[An] engaging look at U.S. diplomacy under Hillary Clinton.... Ghattas presents a close-up look at the touchiest of diplomatic issues in the first Obama administration, from the Arab Spring uprisings to WikiLeaks...a rich portrait of the different perspectives on U.S. power and influence around the world as well as her own personal experiences and ambivalence about the U.S. —Vanessa Bush
Booklist

An intimate, admiring look at the four-year global travails of the secretary of state from a member of her traveling press corps. A Beirut-born BBC journalist assigned to the U.S. State Department in 2008, Ghattas has closely observed Clinton in her busy, high-profile position as secretary over the last four years. Here, she records her key role in the reshaping of American foreign policy. Ghattas' work is invaluable in revealing the effort behind the headlines.... Ghattas, as a Lebanese woman who keenly felt the American betrayal of her country during the long civil war of 1975 to 1990, comes to a sense of forgiveness and understanding of American might. A personal look at the Secretary's diplomacy via a flexible, pragmatic approach rather than ideology.
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 Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America's First Black Dynasty
Lawrence Otis Graham, 2006
HarperCollins
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060985134

Summary
Blanche Kelso Bruce was born a slave in 1841, yet, remarkably, amassed a real-estate fortune and became the first black man to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate.

He married Josephine Willson—the daughter of a wealthy black Philadelphia doctor—and together they broke down racial barriers in 1880s Washington, D.C., numbering President Ulysses S. Grant among their influential friends. The Bruce family achieved a level of wealth and power unheard of for people of color in nineteenth-century America. Yet later generations would stray from the proud Bruce legacy, stumbling into scandal and tragedy.

Drawing on Senate records, historical documents, and personal letters, author Lawrence Otis Graham weaves a riveting social history that offers a fascinating look at race, politics, and class in Americarts. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Westchester County, NY
• Education—B.A., Princeton Univesity; J.D.,
Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Westchester County, New York

Lawrence Otis Graham is an attorney and commentator on race, politics, and class in America. He is one of the nation’s leading authors and experts on race, politics and class in America. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, he is the author of 14 books and numerous articles in such publications as the New York Times, Essence, Reader’s Digest, Glamour and U.S. News & World Report. His book, Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class was a New York Times, L.A. Times and Blackboard bestseller.

Graham’s newest book, The Senator and the Socialite: The True Story of America’s First Black Dynasty is an important biography of U.S. Senator Blanche Bruce, the first black to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. Graham is also the author of such books as The Best Companies for Minorities, Proversity—two Important guides on diversity in the workplace—as well as the very popular Member of the Club, which focused on his now-famous experience of leaving his New York law firm and going undercover as a busboy to expose racism, sexism and anti-Semitism at an all-white country club in Greenwich, Connecticut. That was originally a cover story on New York magazine.

Graham has appeared on more than one hundred TV shows including Oprah, Today Show, The View, Good Morning America, and has been profiled in USA Today, Time, Ebony, People Magazine and many other publications. He is a popular speaker at colleges, corporations and other institutions where he has addressed the issues of diversity and culture. His audiences have included Duke, UCLA, Howard, Yale, Kraft Foods, Corning, Xerox, Disney, American Library Association and many other organizations around the U.S. and Japan. His research and advice have appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

He is leading a campaign to get the U.S. Post Office to honor Senator Blanche Bruce on a stamp since the nation has never placed a black elected official on a stamp. Graham is married to the corporate executive, Pamela Thomas-Graham, who is the author of novels including Blue Blood and Orange Crushed. They live in Manhattan and Westchester County, New York. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
A compelling portrait of the Bruce family’s rise, dynamics and downfall.... A poignant tale of struggle, accomplishment...an illuminating account.
Eric Foner - Washington Post

Not just a history but a revealing commentary on race and class, and their force in shaping our lives today.
Chicago Tribune

Excellent history of slavery, Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, late 19th century politics and the misunderstood differences between early Republicans and Democrats.
San Francisco Chronicle

Graham is a superb storyteller, and the Bruce dynasty perfect fodder for this gifted writer.
Amersterdam News

Graham digs deep and unearths secrets in…his absorbing book on money, class and color issues.
Essence

In 1878, the Times ran its first wedding announcement for a black couple: Senator Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave who entered the Senate in the fading days of Reconstruction (many newspapers ignored his election, assuming that he would never be seated), and Josephine Willson, a daughter of the light-skinned black élite. The Bruces established what the author calls America’s first black dynasty, although its members “lived much of their lives outside of black circles.” Graham, whose “Our Kind of People” profiled the black upper class, recovers the history of a family that broke barriers in Washington and at Exeter and Harvard. At the same time, he offers a devastating view of the compromises it made.
The New Yorker

Buried within this account of a black family that includes "a United States senator; a bank president; [and] a Washington socialite" is a rags to riches to welfare tale that ought to intrigue, but merely bores. Slave-born Blanche K. Bruce (1841-1898) was the first African-American to serve a full term in the United State Senate (1874-1880). Having obtained wealth in addition to political clout in Mississippi, he acquired elite class status through his marriage to Josephine Willson, daughter of a wealthy dentist whose freeborn roots extended back to the late 18th century. The first half of this repetitious family biography focuses largely on Bruce's political life, the second on his son Roscoe, who after a stint at Tuskegee returns to Washington as superintendent of "Colored Schools." The family spirals through a decline that finds Roscoe managing an apartment complex in Harlem and his sons jailed for fraud. In tracing the fortunes of the clan, Graham (Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class) allows an absorption with class status to obscure fresher areas, such as Blanche Bruce's involvement in the serious work of the black women's club movementlists.
Publishers Weekly

Graham, an attorney and noted author (Our Kind of People), tells the fascinating story of Blanche K. Bruce, the first African American elected to a full term in the U.S. Senate (he represented Mississippi from 1875 to 1881), and of his heiress wife, family, and descendants. Graham opens with an account of Bruce's rise from Virginia slavery to a position of power and influence, first in the Senate, then as a government bureaucrat in Washington, DC, until his death in 1898. He then details the sad story of the downward mobility experienced by Bruce's son, Roscoe, and grandson, Roscoe Jr. The family's downfall was propelled partly by an extravagant lifestyle that ultimately went beyond its means and culminated in a jail term served by Roscoe Jr. in the 1930s. In the end, Blanche's son worked in a laundry despite his Harvard degree, and his granddaughter passed for white. Unfortunately, this interesting saga is marred by errors: whole sentences are repeated unnecessarily, the chronology is often confusing, and Boston, it seems, is 500 miles from New York City. Still, given the importance of the story it tells, this is recommended for major libraries. —A.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN
Library Journal

Graham details the political machinations of the post-Reconstruction South to keep blacks from rising above servitude, the venality of congressional politics that went along with the injustices, and one man's attempts to build and maintain a dynasty in the midst of great social and political turmoil. —Vanessa Bush
Booklist

A former slave, Blanche Kelso Bruce, becomes a U.S. Senator (1875-81), a man of wealth and prestige; a couple of generations later, all is gone. Graham, who has published previously on race and class (Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class, 1999, etc.), ends with a sad image. At a 2002 unveiling of a portrait of Sen. Bruce in the U.S. Capitol, only one member of the populous Bruce family attended. (Some, we learn, are apparently passing for white.) The author charts the spectacular rise and fall of the Bruces. Born in 1841, Bruce moved around a bit with his white owners, who were involved both in tobacco and cotton. After his manumission (the details of which are sketchy), Bruce barely escaped Quantrill's raiders in Kansas and, after a brief stop at Oberlin College (he ran out of money, didn't graduate), ended up in Mississippi, where he profited mightily from Reconstruction and from the recent enfranchisement of freed slaves. After holding a few offices (including county sheriff), Bruce won the Senate election in the state legislature and headed off to Washington. He married a well-to-do woman from a prominent black family and with his own healthy investments in Mississippi real estate, they lived well and sent their son, Roscoe, to Phillips Exeter and Harvard, where he excelled. After the senator died, both his widow and son worked for Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee. But Roscoe, says Graham, was an arrogant man who preferred the company of whites, and he soon fell from grace (he'd once dined with the Rockefellers). The fortune melted away in the next generation—as did the prestige. Roscoe's son (also named Roscoe) served a prison sentence; a daughter passed for white; a third son also had legal difficulties. Graham's research is impressive and comprehensive—though some disjointedness, abruptness and occasional omissions suggest substantial textual cuts. A compelling story that shows how the American Dream can transmute into the American Nightmare.
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 The Senator and the Socialite:

1. What qualities did Blanche Kelso Bruce possess that allowed him to rise—not just from obscurity, but from slavery? In what way was Bruce better positioned to succeed after the Civil War than most other slaves?

2. How does Graham present the variety and complexities of the slave experience, in which some slaves were given far greater freedoms than others?

3. Bruce and his wife Josephine lived largely outside the African-American community, associating primarily with whites. Would you say they deliberately turned their backs on their own race...or would you say that the nature of their accomplishments placed them in the circle of the white establishment (i.e., rich people tend to associate with rich people)?

4. A follow-up to Question 3: Can Bruce's treatment of his tenant farmers—the conditions he permitted them to live under—be justified? What about his silence in the Senate as white violence stripped black people of their rights?

5. Talk about the succeeding generations of the Bruce family. Which descendants do you admire...or whom do you feel were less than admirable? What about the two Roscoes, son and grandson? What was the cause—or causes—of the family's downfall?

6. Discuss the nature of the Bruce family's relationship with Booker T. Washington. Does the author represent Washington and his views on education and segregation objectively? How do you feel about Washington after reading this book? Did he make undue concessions...or did he face the facts as they existed in his era?

7. Does the author see the story of the rise and fall of the Bruce famil as a cautionary tale? Or does he position the story as an inspiration for later generations? How do you see the story?

8. Is America still as race-obsessed today as it was in the post-Civil-War years?

9. What have you learned from this book—about the nation, its history of racism, and the individuals it covers?

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

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A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
Jason Roberts, 2006
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780007161263

Summary
He was known simply as the Blind Traveler. A solitary, sightless adventurer, James Holman (1786-1857) fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia, hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon, helped chart the Australian outback—and, astonishingly, circumnavigated the globe, becoming one of the greatest wonders of the world he so sagaciously explored.

A Sense of the World is a spellbinding and moving rediscovery of one of history's most epic lives—a story to awaken our own senses of awe and wonder. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Education—University of California, Santa Cruz
• Awards—Van Zorn Prize (short story)
• Currently—lives in northern California, USA

Jason Roberts is an American writer of fiction and nonfiction. He is best known for the bestselling A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler (2006), a biography of James Holman, the blind adventurer of the early 19th century.

He was the editor of The Learn2 Guide (Villard) and has also contributed to McSweeney's, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, the Village Voice, Believer, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

In addition to his work as a journalist and author, Roberts was the founder of the pioneering educational website Learn2.com, honored by Yahoo as "one of the ten most important websites of the 20th Century." He is also an authority on multimedia programming, and has written or co-written several volumes in the Director Demystified reference/instructional series (Peachpit Press).

He is a graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz and member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, a workspace co-operative that also includes Po Bronson, Caroline Paul, Tom Barbash, Peter Orner, ZZ Packer, and B. Ruby Rich, among others. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Roberts's vibrant prose and meticulous recreation of Holman's world offer modern readers a chance to see what Holman saw as he tapped his way around the globe.
Rachel Hartigan Shea - Washington Post

Through meticulous research…with intrigue and humor, Roberts brings Holman fully to life.
New York Daily News

An admirable work, testament to the determination, resourcefulness, and skill of not only its subject, but also its author.
Boston Globe

A remarkable job of resurrecting Holman from obscurity, painting a portrait of a complex and compelling persona.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Paints a convincing and well-researched picture of Holman’s early life.... Holman’s first trip, to Russia, is particularly well-drawn.
The Economist

In this vibrant biography of James Holman (1786-1857), Roberts, a contributor to the Village Voice and McSweeney's, narrates the life of a 19th-century British naval officer who was mysteriously blinded at 25, but nevertheless became the greatest traveler of his time. Holman entered the navy at age 12, at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. When blindness overcame him, Holman was an accomplished sailor, and he engineered to join the Naval Knights of Windsor, a quirky group who only had to live in quarters near Windsor Castle and attend mass for their stipend. For many blind people at the time, this would have been the start of a long (if safe) march to the grave. Holman would have none of it and spent the bulk of his life arranging leaves of absence from the Knights in order to wander the world (without assistance) from Paris to Canton; study medicine at the University of Edinburgh; hunt slavers off the coast of Africa; get arrested by one of the czar's elite bodyguards in Siberia; and publish several bestselling travel memoirs. Roberts does Holman justice, evoking with grace and wit the tale of this man once lionized as "The Blind Traveler."
Publishers Weekly

In his first book of narrative nonfiction, freelance writer Roberts (McSweeney's) tells the story of James Holman, who enjoyed a brief period of fame in the early 19th century as the "Blind Traveler." After serving in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars, he was blinded at age 25 by a mysterious illness. What Holman decided to do with his life after losing his sight was amazing and inspiring: he became a world traveler and author, going as far afield as West Africa, Ceylon, and Siberia; his best-selling books were known to such figures as Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Francis Burton. In time, Holman's fame was eclipsed by the efforts of jealous rivals, who mocked the thought of a blind travel writer. By his death, his works were no longer in print, and he had been largely forgotten by a public who had perhaps only ever seen him as a novelty. Holman's accomplishments deserve Roberts's labor of love, a well-written popular history that will appeal to an audience interested in stories of individuals triumphing over physical difficulties. Recommended for public and academic libraries. —Robert J. Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN
Library Journal

(Adult/High School) An engaging account of a most undeservedly obscure figure. The book itself is a fortuitous happenstance; had a certain volume not caught Roberts's eye during a "wander break" through the stacks on a library visit, the story of Lieutenant James Holman, known to his contemporaries as the Blind Traveler, might still be lost to a modern audience. Born in 1786, Holman began service in the British navy at the age of 12. The rigorous lifestyle ravaged him physically; by age 20, pain had left him nearly incapacitated; five years later, he was blind, ill, and strapped for funds. Holman pursued a course-travel-that proved the best remedy. The Blind Traveler traversed the globe, encountering a plethora of colorful characters and gaining short-lived fame, if not fortune, from his narratives and memoirs. Roberts re-creates each journey, both geographical and physiological, providing insights into 18th-century beliefs, mores, and worldly knowledge, along with a ghastly array of "cures" inflicted on Holman by practitioners of medicine. The admiration and respect that the author feels for his subject are unmistakable, but in no way diminish the accomplishments of "the most restless man in history." Black-and-white reproductions show Holman as he was depicted by contemporaries during his travels. This volume is an obvious addition to any number of booklists, from biographies to "nonfiction that reads like fiction." —Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
School Library Journal

From newcomer Roberts, the first and very welcome, full-scale biography of a great, early-19th-century world voyager who also happened to be blind. James Holman (1787-1857) was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy when he inexplicably lost his eyesight. He was fortunate to be admitted to England's Naval Knights, a sanctuary at Windsor Castle. With his half-pension from the navy and the small financial benefit of being a knight, he made £84 a year (at a time when a government clerk earned £600). But as Roberts, a smooth, thoughtful writer, so ably chronicles, Holman was not about to let the business of life pass him by. He wanted to travel, even on a shoestring. Though sightless, Holman was a wizard at haptic perception, or touch-based understanding. "Where vision gulps, tactility sips successively over time," observes Roberts. There is no doubt, however, that Holman took great draughts of sensory input, which coalesced into well-honed senses of place. His feet were rheumatic, but they itched. His first journey was a Grand Tour-style circuit of Western Europe, resulting in a well-received book about his adventure. Then it was off to Russia, crossing to Siberia in a cart with a Tartar postilion, shadowed by police, through the "path-swallowing marshlands known as the Baraba Steppe." Next stop was the African island of Fernando Po, where Holman worked to thwart the slave trade. Both of those travels also sold well as narratives. On he fared to Brazil, Zanzibar, New Zealand, Ceylon and the Levant, for three or five or six years, returning with reports of soy sauce, kangaroo-hunting, wall-plastering in the Indian fashion. The extent of his lifetime travels probably amounted to 250,000 miles, writesRoberts, who himself deserves readers' admiration for not only making each step a pleasure to read, but for opening our eyes to so remarkably forgotten an individual. A polished and entertaining account of an astonishing wayfarer.
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 Sense of the World:

1. Start with Holman's blindness, the first remarkable fact about him (which made the second fact, his globetrotting, all the more remarkable). What was his reaction to his loss of sight? What would be yours? What inner strengths must Holman have drawn upon?

2. How did society/people treat Holmes when he first began to travel? Might his experiences be instructive to us today—in terms of how we treat blind people? Have you ever had a personal experience with someone who is blind? How'd it go?

3. Talk about the method Holman used to move about independently—tapping his cane to produce sound and echo. How was he able to decode the sounds to determine his surroundings? Does the fact that blindness often enhances the faculty of hearing explain Holmes's achievements—or is there something else at work here?

4. Why would Holman have refused his brother's offer to accompany him on his travels. What would your decision have been?

5. Would the fact that Holman traveled at the turn of the 19th century, when the world was not so peopled, travel not so rapid, have made his travels as a blind man easier or more difficult than today?

6. At one point, Holman quipped: "while vision gulps, tactility sips." What does he mean by this?

7. Holman's comment above suggests that not seeing can yield a richer sensation than seeing. On the other hand, Edmund Burke—who insisted that "no smells or tastes can produce a grand sensation" like that of sight"—seems to imply that a sightless person is not fully developed. Care to discuss the differences in opinion? And while you're at it: if an evil genie forced you to choose between one or the other, which would it be—blindness or deafness?

8. How did Holman make use of his sociable nature to help himself out of difficult, even dangerous, situations.

9. Which of his adventures do you find most astonishing: his ascent of Vesuvius, his attempt to cross Siberia, his work in Fernando Po hunting slavers...or any of his other exploits?

10. To what do you attribute the scorn leveled at Holman, and the eventual neglect of his books? What prompted Captain Chochrane's villification against him?

11. Does Roberts give us an objective biography? Or is he overly biased in favor of his subject? In other words, has he fallen under his Holman's spell? Does it matter?

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

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Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Carlo Rovelli, 2015 (2016, U.S.)
Penguin Books
96 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399184413

Summary
The international bestseller that reveals all the beauty of modern physics in seven short and enlightening lessons.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is a book about the joy of discovery.

Carlo Rovelli brings a playful, entertaining, and mind-bending introduction to modern physics, offering surprising—and surprisingly easy to grasp—explanations of Einstein's general relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particles, gravity, black holes, the complex architecture of the universe, and the role humans play in this weird and wonderful world.

He takes us to the frontiers of our knowledge: to the most minute reaches of the fabric of space, back to the origins of the cosmos, and into the workings of our minds.

"Here, on the edge of what we know, in contact with the ocean of the unknown, shines the mystery and the beauty of the world," Rovelli writes. "And it’s breathtaking." (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 3, 1956
• Where—Verona, Italy
• Education—B.S., M.S. University of Bologna; Ph.D., University of Padova
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Marseille, France

Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist and writer who has worked in Italy and the USA, and currently works in France. His work is mainly in the field of quantum gravity, where he is among the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory. He has also worked in the history and philosophy of science.

Academia
In 1981, Rovelli graduated with a BS and MS in Physics from the University of Bologna, and in 1986 he obtained his PhD at the University of Padova, Italy. Rovelli refused military service, which was compulsory in Italy at the time, and was therefore briefly detained in 1987.

He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Rome, Trieste, and at Yale University. Rovelli was on the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh from 1990 to 2000 where, although now in France, he continues to hold the post of Affilated Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.

Currently, Rovelli works in the Centre de Physique Theorique at Aix-Marseille University in Marseille, France. He is the first president of the Samy Maroun Center for Quantam Physics founded in 2014.

Loop quantum gravity
In 1988, Carlo Rovelli, Lee Smolin, and Abhay Ashtekar introduced a theory of quantum gravity called loop quantum gravity. In 1995, Rovelli and Smolin obtained a basis of states of quantum gravity, labelled by Penrose's spin networks, and using this basis they were able to show that the theory predicts that area and volume are quantized. This result indicates the existence of a discrete structure of space at very small scale.

In 1997, Rovelli and Michael Reisenberger introduced a "sum over surfaces" formulation of theory, which has since evolved into the currently covariant "spinfoam" version of loop quantum gravity. In 2008, in collaboration with Jonathan Engle and Roberto Pereira, he introduced the spin foam vertex amplitude which is the basis of the current definition of the loop quantum gravity covariant dynamics. The loop theory is today considered a candidate for a quantum theory of gravity. It finds applications in quantum cosmology, spinfoam cosmology, and quantum black hole physics.

Physics without time
In his 2004 book Quantum Gravity, Rovelli developed a formulation of classical and quantum mechanics that does not make explicit reference to the notion of time. The timeless formalism is needed to describe the world in the regimes where the quantum properties of the gravitational field cannot be disregarded. This is because the quantum fluctuation of spacetime itself make the notion of time unsuitable for writing physical laws in the conventional form of evolution laws in time.

This position has led him to face the following problem: if time is not part of the fundamental theory of the world, then how does time emerge? In 1993, in collaboration with Alain Connes, Rovelli has proposed a solution to this problem called the thermal time hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, time emerges only in a thermodynamic or statistical context. If this is correct, the flow of time is an illusion, one deriving from the incompleteness of knowledge.

Relational quantum mechanics
In 1994, Rovelli introduced the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on the idea that the quantum state of a system must always be interpreted relative to another physical system (like the "velocity of an object" is always relative to another object, in classical mechanics). The idea has been developed and analyzed in particular by Bas van Fraassen and by Michel Bitbol. Among other important consequences, it provides a solution of the EPR paradox that does not violate locality.

History and philosophy of science
Rovelli has written a book on the Greek philosopher Anaximander, published in France, Italy, US, and Brazil. The book analyses the main aspects of scientific thinking and articulates Rovelli's views on science. Anaximander is presented in the book as a main initiator of scientific thinking.

For Rovelli, science is a continuous process of exploring novel possible views of the world; this happens via a "learned rebellion," which always builds and relies on previous knowledge but at the same time continuously questions aspects of this received knowledge. The foundation of science, therefore, is not certainty but the very opposite, a radical uncertainty about our own knowledge, or equivalently, an acute awareness of the extent of our ignorance.

Religious views
In his book on Anaximander, Rovelli argues that the conflict between science and religion is ultimately unsolvable, because (most) religions demand acceptance of some absolute truths, while scientific thinking is based on constant questioning of any truth. Thus, for Rovelli the source of the conflict is the acceptance of ignorance as the basis of science versus religion's claims that it is the repository of certainty.

Popular writings
2006 - What Is Time, What Is Space? (Di Renzo, Editore)
2011 - The First Scientist: Anaximander and His Legacy
2014 - A Journey into Loop Quantum Gravity and the History of the Main Underlying Ideas
2015 - Seven Brief Lessons of Physics

Recognition
1995 - Int'l. Xanthopoulos Award, Int'l. Society for General Relativity and Gravitation
2009 - First Prize, FQXi Contest—The Nature of Time
2013 - Second Prize, FQXi Contest—The Relation Between Physics and Information
Senior member, Institut Universitaire de France
Member, Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences
Honorary member, Accademia di Scienze Arti e Lettere di Verona
Honorary Professor, Beijing Normal University (China
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/20/2016.)

Book Reviews
The writing is elegant and poetic, and Carlo's explanatory clarity is compelling. He organized this short book into seven lessons that introduce the non-specialized reader to the most fascinating questions about the universe, including how we learn about it.
NPR

Rovelli has a rare knack for conveying the top line of scientific theories in clear and compelling terms without succumbing to the lure of elaborate footnotes... a breath of fresh air.
Guardian (UK)

Brief but eloquent... The slim volume is stereotypically the province of poetry, but this beautifully designed little book shows that science, with its curiosity, its intense engagement with what there really is, its readiness to jettison received ways of seeing, is a kind of poetry too
Financial Times (UK)

A slim poetic meditation... Rovelli belongs to a great Italian tradition of one-culture science writing that encompasses the Roman poet Lucretius, Galileo, Primo Levi and Italo Calvino. The physics here is comprehensible and limpid, and Rovelli gives it an edge through his clear-eyed humanistic interpretations.
Independent (UK)

Bite-sized but big on ideas: Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics…makes the mysteries of the universe almost comprehensible.
Evening Standard (UK)

Carlo Rovelli's Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has turned relativity and quantum physics into best-selling material.
la Repubblica

If you want to understand what gets physicists out of bed in the morning, there is no better guide than Rovelli.... Seven Brief Lessons on Physics is an absorbing, lovely book.... This is physics as romantic poetry and, by God, it’s beguiling
New Statesman

[Carlo Rovelli’s] concise and comprehensible writing makes sense of intricate notions such as general relativity, quantum mechanics, cosmology and thermodynamics. Rovelli's enthusiastic and poetic descriptions communicate the essence of these topics without getting bogged down in details.
Scientific American

Physics has always been popularized, but professor Rovelli’s book is something else: his prose stands out as pristine and seductive at the same time, with all the substance that arouses a real interest in his readers.
Corriere della Sera

[E]nchanting.... [Rovelli] poses a Zen-like question…that leads to the book’s heart: he asserts that the study of infinitesimal particles and black holes is part of being human, and that the divide between science and the rest of learning is artificial.
Publishers Weekly

Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli, one of the founders of the loop quantum gravity theory…tells you everything you ever wanted to know about physics in under 100 pages. And it's fun, too.
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century…. An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.
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 Seven Brief Lessons on Physics...then take off on your own:

1. Rovelli deals with the most difficult issues of post-Newton physics: relativity, quantum physics, gravity, and much more. Consider each chapter at a time: which concepts do you find easiest to grasp...and which most difficult?

2. Overall, does Rovelli present these complex theories in a manner that lay people can understand? Where does he succeed, and where does he fall short?

3. Consider Rovelli's concept of time: it exists only when there is heat. Nothing in physics means "now"—time is only a matter of statistics. Do you grasp this esoteric idea of something we depend on in our personal lives...day by day, minute by minute? In other words how do you square Rovelli's cosmic idea of time with the concept of metrical time? Time based on entropy? Or on the earth's revolution around the sun? Einstein's time is bent by gravity. How does Rovelli's thermodynamic approach jibe with any of these concepts of time?

4. Discuss the concept of how one thing and its opposite can both be true at the same time. What other physics concepts fly in the face of "common sense"?

5. "The world seems to be less about objects than about interactive relationships," Rovelli writes. He seems to mean that everything exists only in its relationship to something else. Can you explain this more thoroughly, or find examples?

6. Rovelli says that studying physics is part of being human, that it is a way to connect us with ourselves as well as with the greater cosmos. Discuss what he means. Do you agree?

7. What are the new frontiers of physics? Where do physicists go from here according to Rovelli? Has science run up against a wall, as some physicists have worried? Or are there promises of new answers yet to come for some of the most stubborn scientific questions?

8. Talk about the book's last chapter, which encourages us to become more self-aware before it is too late. "All of our cousins are already extinct," Rovelli points out. What does he mean by self-awareness and what are the consequences of its lack? What do you take away from Rovelli's admonitions?

9. What does Rovelli have to say about free will?

10. Rovelli refers to physics as an adventure. Is it for you? Or is it a slog? Or is physics still something so arcane that it's nearly impossible for you to grasp? How have you come away from Seven Brief Lessons? Enlightened a lot? Enlightened somewhat? Or as befuddled as you were beforehand?

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, feel free to use these, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Sex and the City
Candace Bushnell, 1997
Grand Central Publishing
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446673549

Summary
Here is the collection of columns that inspired the addictive and multiple award-winning HBO series! Sex and the City offers a tantalizing glimpse of the openings, launch parties, and celebrity affairs that keep society amused.

Throughout, a cast of characters—the troubled writer, the successful businessman, the famous underwear model, and others-searches for true love...or at least someone to go home with at the end of the night. It's a chronicle of the true-life adventures of the "in" crowd that is often hilarious and sometimes terrifying, but always mesmerizing. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 1, 1958
• Where—Glastonbury, Connecticut, USA
• Education—attended Rice University
• Currently—lives in New York City

Candace Bushnell is an American author and columnist based in New York City. She is best known for writing a sex column that was turned into a book, Sex and the City, which became the basis of the immensely popular television series of the same name, and its subsequent film adaptation. Bushnell married New York City American Ballet Theater ballet artist Charles Askegaard on July 4, 2002.

Bushnell was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Upon dropping out of Rice University in the late 1970s, she was known throughout New York City as a party-goer and socialite. One of her favorite places was Studio 54. Later on in life, she got a job as a columnist in the New York Observer.

In 1994, her editor-in-chief asked her if she wanted to write a column for the paper, and she accepted the job. She wanted a column based on the adventures she and her friends usually spoke about, and she called it "Sex and the City."

In 1998, HBO started airing a show, Sex and the City, based on, but not exactly like, Bushnell's column. The Sex and the City television show enhanced Bushnell's already growing fame. The television series ceased original production in 2004, with the last episode airing on HBO in February 2004. It is now in syndication.

Many other writers have compared the Carrie Bradshaw character on the television show to Bushnell because Carrie, like Bushnell, is also a newspaper sex and lifestyles columnist who enjoys the New York nightlife and, indeed, Candace's initials are the same as Carrie's. Bushnell has stated in several interviews that Carrie Bradshaw is her alter ego. Bushnell was one of three judges for the 2005 reality television show Wickedly Perfect on CBS. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
The media celebrities! The heartbreak! The strappy sandals! This bumptious collection of Candace Bushnell's "Sex and the City" columns from the New York Observer provides a prime banquette seat to witness the intense and rather frightening mating rituals of the attractive, successful, over-35-and-still-unmarried set.

Those who follow Bushnell's column will be familiar with much of the material here; indeed, a fair portion of the chapters have run in the Observer in the last six months. Placed between hard covers, however, this so-called sex column takes on a different tone — it becomes a kind of serial novel that works as both a comedy of manners and a class study of the current Age of Non-Innocence.

In her search for love amidst an endless stream of lunches and cocktail parties, Bushnell paints a bleak but funny portrait of her sisters in heels as they get everything they want except for a husband and children. We follow the intrepid, hungover "reporter" from a swingers' club (where the hottest thing was the buffet table) to a male forum on threesomes; from dinner with men who bed models to a bawdy ladies' tea where a serial dater is dissected. During the last third of the book, the voice shifts from the first person to that of Carrie (aka Bushnell). As she chronicles her relationship with Mr. Big (aka cigar-chomping Vogue publisher Ron Galotti), you may begin to understand why these womens' relationships fail.

One compelling aspect of these juicy, fast-reading pieces is that they offer an insider's view of a very elite Manhattan. Sure, names have been changed and events modified (and who knows how she records those quotes), but if you're a bold-faced-name junkie, you know who she's talking about, or can at least enjoy speculating. Bushnell delivers the bad news about love in Manhattan in an engaging "he said/she said" style ("He gave her more drugs and she gave him a blow job"), as though she were hoarsely whispering in your ear during lunch at the Royalton.

As compelling as Bushnell can be, by the midway point of Sex and the City, the book's message is painfully clear: In her New York, locating and securing a powerful husband is, sadly, a woman's ultimate accomplishment.
Christie Muhlke - Salon

"We're leading sensory saturated lives," announces jetsetting photographer and playboy Peter Beard in a roundtable discussion of ménages à trois, setting the tone of opulent debasement that suffuses this collection of Bushnell's punchy, archly knowing and sharply observed sex columns from the New York Observer. Prowling the modish clubs, party circuit and weekend getaways of rich and trendy New York society (most of whose denizens are identified by pseudonyms), Bushnell offers a brash, radically unromantic perspective. She visits a sex club and dates a Bicycle Boy ("the literary romantic subspecies" whose patron saints are George Plimpton and Murray Kempton). But in most chapters she keeps to the sidelines, deploying instead her alter-ego Carrie (like the author, a blonde writer from Connecticut in her mid-30s), whose sweet if feckless romance with Mr. Big, a nondescript power player, serves as a foil for the hilarious, unsentimentalized misadventures of her peers. These include model-chasers like Barkley, 25, a painter with the face of a Botticelli angel whose parents pay for his SoHo junior loft, and Tom Peri, the "emotional Mayflower," who ferries newly dumped women to higher emotional ground and is then invariably dumped. The effect is that of an Armistead Maupin-like canvas tinged with a liberal smattering of Judith Krantz. Collected in one volume, Bushnell's characters grow generic, but in small doses these essays are brain candy that will appeal equally to urban romantics and anti-romantics.
Publishers Weekly

Fascinating and haunting insights into the love lives of the rich and randy in New York. Bushnell has gleaned pieces from her popular New York Observer column and combined them into an oddly touching collection. While the privileged, beautiful, pony-skin-boot-wearing folk she reports on seem ripe for parody, Bushnell has chosen to humanize them. The earlier articles feature Bushnell herself; she wisely removes herself from the later pieces, writing with the detached grace of an early Didion, and allows her friend (and alter ego?) Carrie to do the reporting. In one story, Carrie and her friends journey to Connecticut's wealthy suburbs to attend a wedding shower, complaining all the way. Bushnell perfectly captures the poignant moment when the New York group, glossy and single, realize that they are in fact jealous of their settled friend. The realization leads to a series of confessions: One woman nervously admits that she broke her ankle while rollerblading in an attempt to impress the younger man she was dating. Many of these pieces focus on the rise and fall of Carrie's relationship with "Mr. Big," who is a better date than most of the model-obsessed men she meets, but who is a "toxic bachelor" (unappreciative, self-centered, allergic to commitment) all the same. Bushnell's point, at its simplest level, is that what the glamorous women she writes about really want is a husband. But her writing is more sensitive than that, subtly catching the ways in which, beneath the veneer of Manolo Blahnik shoes and the eternal round of parties and the late nights at trendy bars, New York is a cruel place for smart, older women. Whatever lip service their male peers pay to equality, what men want is perpetual youth. Often funny and occasionally bleak, this is a captivating look at the "Age of Un-Innocence," in a city in which the glittering diversions don't quite make up for the fact that "Cupid has flown the coop."
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)

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Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard
Laura Bates, 2013
Sourcebooks
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402273148

Summary
While he was trying to break out of prison, she was trying to break in.

Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before—supermax solitary confinement.

In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.

Thus begins the most unlikely of friendships, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years—a friendship that, in the end, would save more than one life. (From the publisher.)

Watch Laura Bates on TED
Listen to Laura Bates on NPR

Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Raised—state of Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia College, Chicago; M.A., Northeastern
Illinois University; Ph.D., Univeristy of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Terre Haute, Indiana

Laura Bates is a professor of English at Indiana State University, where she has taught courses on Shakespeare for the past fifteen years to students on campus and in prison.

Bates earned her B.A. degree from Columbia College in Chicago and her M.A. at Northeastern Illinois Univeristy. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Comparative Literature, with a focus on Shakespeare studies.

For more than 25 years she has worked in prisons as a volunteer and as a professor. She created the world’s first Shakespeare program in supermax—the long-term solitary confinement unit. Her work has been featured in local and national media, including two segments on MSNBC-TV’s Lock Up. She is the author of Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard (2013). Happily married for nearly thirty years, she and her husband Allan Bates, a retired professor and playwright, live in Indiana. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Indiana State literature professor Bates details her remarkable work teaching Shakespeare to inmates, an experience that proved momentous for both teacher and students....[who]discuss and dissect themes of revenge, criminality, honor, and love—from Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello, among others. Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective, for Bates as she offers the prisoners an alternative to frustrated violence. Her brave, groundbreaking work continues to be closely watched and modeled.
Publishers Weekly

From breaking out to breaking through, that’s what reading Shakespeare did for Indiana federal prison inmate Larry Newton, who was locked in solitary confinement for more than 10 years.... The journey he makes and the impact it has on Bates herself combine to form a powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances.
Booklist

The unorthodox bonding of a Shakespeare instructor and a convicted murderer. Beginning in 2003, English professor Bates (Indiana State Univ.) began an inaugural group-study program in a solitary confinement prison space.... The author emerges as a selfless tutor dedicated to education without reservation, and she fought hard to educate Newton and other surprisingly charismatic inmates, whom she profiles with a dignified mixture of pride and humanitarianism. The 10 years spent in supermax became a transformative journey for students and teacher alike. An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline and the Bard of Avon.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently debating the constitutionality of capital punishment and life without parole for juvenile offenders. What is your opinion? Do you think that Larry, who came to prison at 17, should spend the rest of his life behind bars?|

2. What kinds of conditions are appropriate for violent offenders? Do you agree that long-term solitary confinement is, as judged by Human Rights Watch, inhumane? What about solitary confinement for juveniles, as Larry experienced starting at the age of ten, described in Chapter 15 (“Supermax Kid”)?

3. Is rehabilitation possible? What evidence can prove a prisoner’s rehabilitation? Do you think that Larry is rehabilitated?

4. Research has shown that higher education results in lowered recidivism and is, therefore, cost-efficient use of tax dollars: it is cheaper to educate than to incarcerate. But are prisoners deserving of higher education? Should their education be funded by tax dollars or by the prisoners themselves…or some other way? Should all prisoners have this opportunity, including lifers?

5. A teacher’s ultimate accomplishment is when his or her student becomes a teacher, passing on the lessons learned. What lessons did Larry learn from Dr. Bates? Do you think that he was a good teacher in prison—and do you believe that he would be a good teacher in society if given the chance?

6. Would most husbands be as supportive of their wife’s prison work as Allan was? Why or why not? Would you support such work done by your own spouse?

7. In what ways was the work of Dr. Bates with prisoners grounded in her parents’ experiences as war refugees and immigrants? Do you think, as she does, that they would have approved of her work? Why or why not? Was she right to keep it a secret from them?

8. Both Larry and Dr. Bates accepted a number of challenges in their work. What are some of these challenges—and how did they face them?

9. “This prison doesn’t matter,” says Larry referring to the prison of concrete and steel. Breaking out of habitual patterns of self-destructive thinking can be more damaging and more difficult to break out of. How did Larry break those chains, with the help of Shakespeare?

10. Larry feels that we create our own personal prisons, and the author has identified a few of hers throughout the book. Do you feel that they both successfully overcame their own prisons?

11. Every one of the prisoners in the Shakespeare group said that he wanted to make a positive contribution to society despite his transgressions. What kinds of contributions are prisoners uniquely able to provide?

12. Macbeth said that he dared not to look on it (his murder) again, but Larry did. The book states that getting convicted killers to look on their crime (i.e., to examine the reasons for the offense) is a key to keeping them from killing again. Why do you think that is so important?

13. Acknowledging responsibility for his crime—as Larry has done—is considered to be an essential ingredient for demonstrating rehabilitation. Why do you think that is so?

14. Look at the following three chapters and consider how you would have reacted.

Chapter 6 – Newton’s In
Chapter 25 – The Shower (Me)
Chapter 26 – All Hands On Deck

15. Think about the Shakespeare plays you have read (or read a new one) and consider the ways in which you can find personal relevance in the four-hundred-year-old text. Do one, or more, of the characters have any traits that you have? Does he or she face a challenge that you have faced? Are there relationships among two or more of the characters that are similar in some ways to your own relationships?

16. What are your own personal prisons—and how can you overcome them?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Shape of the Eye: A Memoir
George Estreich, 2013
Penguin Group USA
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399163340

Summary
When Laura Estreich is born, her appearance presents a puzzle: does the shape of her eyes indicate Down syndrome, or the fact that she has a Japanese grandmother?

In this powerful memoir, George Estreich, a poet and stay-at-home dad, tells his daughter's story, reflecting on her inheritance—from the literal legacy of her genes, to the family history that precedes her, to the Victorian physician John Langdon Down's diagnostic error of "Mongolian idiocy." Against this backdrop, Laura takes her place in the Estreich family as a unique child, quirky and real, loved for everything ordinary and extraordinary about her. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
George Estreich's collection of poems, Textbook Illustrations of the Human Body, won the Gorsline Prize and was published in 2004. A woodworker, fly-fisherman, and guitar player, he has taught composition, creative writing, and literature at several universities. He lives in Cornvallis, Oregon, with his wife Theresa, a research scientist, and his two daughters, Ellie and Laura.. (From .)

Book Reviews
The moving, heartbreakingly lucid story about how a family learned to cope with, and ultimately appreciate, a daughter born with Down syndrome. Neither [ Estreich nor his wife] was prepared for the news that the baby girl they would name Laura had Trisomy 21, Down syndrome. Both were devastated; but for the author, the diagnosis had even more profound implications.... With the humility born of painful experience, Estreich concludes that "it is not the chromosome, but our response to it, that shapes the contour of a life." A poignantly eloquent meditation on the genetics of belonging.
Kirkus Reviews

The Shape of the Eye is a memoir of a father’s love for his daughter, his struggle to understand her disability, and his journey toward embracing her power and depth. Estreich is raw and honest and draws us each into a new view of what it means to be 'human’ and what it means to be ‘different.’ This book is beautifully written, poetically insightful, and personally transformative. To read it is to rethink everything and to be happy because of the journey.
Timothy P. Shriver, Ph.D. - Chairman & CEO of the Special Olympics

The Shape of the Eye personalizes Down syndrome, bringing a condition abstracted in the medical literature into the full dimensionality of one family's life. It's brave of George Estreich to make what has befallen his family so public, trusting of him to let an unknown audience second-guess the family's choices. Because he's opened his home and heart in this memoir, we are privileged to witness in chaotic, heart-wrenching, joyous detail what it means to have and to love a child with Down syndrome.
Marcia Childress - Associate Professor of Medical Education, University of Virginia School of Medicine

Discussion Questions
1. Is the book mainly about George, or Laura? How does George change, during the book? How does Laura?

2. What did you know about Down syndrome before reading the book? What did you learn?

3. The Shape of the Eye uses medical terminology, particularly in the first half of the book. Why do you think this is?

4. The Shape of the Eye opens in a doctor’s office, and has numerous encounters in hospitals and elsewhere. Some of these are successful, and some less so. In your personal experience, when is medicine most effective, and when it is not? What are the characteristics of good communication between patient, doctor, and caregiver?

5. Are people with Down syndrome visible in your community? How would you describe your community’s attitude towards people with disabilities in general? Have you seen significant change in those attitudes?

6. The author refers to Down syndrome as “Laura’s way of being human.” Do you see Down syndrome this way, or as a medical condition primarily, or as something else altogether?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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Sharp: Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion
MIchelle Dean, 2018year
Grove Atlantic
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802125095

Summary
Dorothy Parker, Rebecca West, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Pauline Kael, Joan Didion, Nora Ephron, Renata Adler, and Janet Malcolm—these brilliant women are the central figures of Sharp.

Their lives intertwine as they cut through the cultural and intellectual history of America in the twentieth century, arguing as fervently with each other as they did with the sexist attitudes of the men who often undervalued their work as critics and essayists.

These women are united by what Dean terms as "sharpness," the ability to cut to the quick with precision of thought and wit, a claiming of power through writing rather than position.

Sharp is a vibrant and rich depiction of the intellectual beau monde of twentieth-century New York, where gossip-filled parties at night gave out to literary slanging-matches in the pages of the Partisan Review or the New York Review of Books as well as a considered portrayal of how these women came to be so influential in a climate where women were treated with derision by the critical establishment.

Mixing biography, literary criticism, and cultural history, Sharp is an enthralling exploration of how a group of brilliant women became central figures in the world of letters despite the many obstacles facing them, a testament to how anyone not in a position of power can claim the mantle of writer and, perhaps, help change the world. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978 (?)
• Raised—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; L.L.M, McGill University
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Citation for Reviewing
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, USA

Michelle Dean is a Canadian author, journalist, and former lawyer who now lives in Los Angeles, California. The child of parents born in Quebec, she grew up in the suburbs of Ottawa. She earned her B.A. from Toronto University and, in 2005, a law degree from McGill University.

After law school Dean left Canada for New York City where she spent five years working as an attorney in a large corporate law firm. In 2010, not particularly happy with the law (and laid off), Dean returned to Canada, settling in Toronto to pursue freelance journalism. Shortly after, however, she returned to New York to continue her writing career, then on to Los Angeles, California.

A contributing editor at the New Republic, she has written for The New Yorker, Nation, New York Times Magazine, Slate, New York Magazine, Elle, Harper’s, and BuzzFeed. In 2016 she received the National Book Critics Circle’s 2016 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing.

Her book Sharp: The Women Who Made an Art of Opinion was released to favorable reviews in 2018. (Adapted from various online sources.)

Book Reviews
A virtue of [Dean's] book is that it shows how each woman, by wielding a pen as if it were a scalpel or a scimitar, confounded the gender norm of niceness and placed her analytical prowess front and center. Among 20th-century intellectuals, "men might have outnumbered women, demographically," Dean writes, but "in the arguably more crucial matter of producing work worth remembering, the work that defined the terms of their scene, the women were right up to par—and often beyond it."… Dean artfully shepherds the reader through the professional and personal ups and downs of each life, keeping an eye on the affinities—a taste for battle, an ethic of intellectual honesty—that made some of them allies (McCarthy and Arendt, Arendt and Adler) and drove others apart (McCarthy and Sontag, Adler and Kael).
Laura Jacobs - New York Times Book Review

[A]n entertaining and erudite cultural history of selected female thinkers who "came up in a world that was not eager to hear women’s opinions about anything." Indeed, Ms. Dean herself performs the work of a public intellectual by doing justice to the substance of her subjects’ work, while also conveying―through her own wit and lively opinions―why their work matters.
Maureen Corrigan - Wall Street Journal

[A] timely new book.… Dean deftly and often elegantly traces these women’s arguments about race, politics and gender.… The book is consistently entertaining and often truly provocative―especially for anyone who makes or loves art or literature.… [U]rgent in its own right.
Kate Tuttle - Los Angeles Times

Sharp is a dinner party you want to be at.… Dean’s literary bash is as stimulating and insightful as its roster of guests. She not only encapsulates their biographies and achievements with remarkable concision, but also connects the dots between them.… Sharp is a wonderful celebration of some truly gutsy, brilliant women.
Heller McAlpin - NPR

In a happy case of it takes one to know one, Michelle Dean has delivered a penetrating book about penetrating American writers.… Drawing on close readings of their works and other sources, Dean succinctly charts how these women broke into public discourse and how they were viewed and received . . . Dean serves one incisive sentence after another.
Jim Higgins - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A sagacious, stylish survey of 10 female essayists, critics, scholars and memoirists.… Not just a tribute to 10 remarkable women but to virtues that all writers―male and female alike―can aspire to: toughness, tenacity and clear-headed thinking.
Peter Tonguette - Columbus Dispatch

(Starred review.) Few readers could fail to be impressed by both the research behind and readability of this first book by Dean…. The book has a few glitches.… Taken as a whole, however, this is a stunning…introduction to a group of important writers.
Publishers Weekly

What distinguishes all of these writers, in Dean’s telling, are traits encapsulated by the title adjective: wit, verbal precision, and a kind of polemical fearlessness that made all ten women stand out in a culture very much dominated by men.
Library Journal

[A] uniquely intellectual slant to the current renaissance in women’s historys.… With the word ferocity appearing with satisfying frequency, Dean presents shrewd, discerning, fresh, and crisply composed interpretations of… transformative thinkers. —Donna Seaman
Booklist

…20th-century women whose lives had a deep impact on culture.… [E]ngaging portraits of brilliant minds. A useful take on significant writers "in a world that was not eager to hear women's opinions about anything."
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 SHARP … then take off on your own:

1. Define what Michelle Dean means by referring to the women in her new book as "sharp." How, as she explains in her preface, how does that description cut differently with respect to gender?

2. The 10 women in Sharp defied female expectations of the 20th century. How much, if at all, do you think cultural expectations for female behavoir have changed in the early 21st century?

3. Of the 10 writers, are there any you're familiar with, whose works you've read?

4. Of the 10 profiles, which did you find most engaging? Whom did you come away wishing you could meet at a dinner party (as NPR's reviewer Heller McAlpin put it)? Which of the women did you not find so admirable?

5. Is there anyone who deserved to be included in Dean's book but wasn't … or who was included but could have been left out? What about Virginia Woolf or Camille Paglia, or perhaps an expanded role for Zora Neale Hurston, who receives only a cameo appearance?

6. Talk about the issues that made some of the women allies (McCarthy and Arendt, Arendt and Adler) and some of them foes (McCarthy and Sontag, Adler and Kael).

7. Neither Joan Didion (gasp!) nor Hannah Arendt supported feminism. Why?

8. How does Dean describe the milieu of the 20th century intellectual life with its cocktail parties and political and literary warfare. Do we have anything similar today?

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

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Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Irene Spencer, 2006
Center Street
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781599951584

Summary
Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law, Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. Her dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused and how one woman and her children found their way out, into truth and redemption. (From the publisher.)

More
Throughout her childhood, Irene Spencer was repeatedly told that polygamy was not only expected, but required in order to receive the rewards of heaven. She was also taught that she should never question the leaders of her church and community.

Irene wanted to marry a non-believer, but the guilt of denying "God's call" troubled her. She felt she couldn't let Him down. She believed God told her she must marry her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron, and become his second wife—so, Irene did as she felt God commanded. Then in July 1953, the government raided the fundamentalist polygamous Mormon village of Short Creek, Arizona, where many of Irene's friends and family had found a haven. Fearful of additional crackdowns Verlan fled Utah with his two young wives and moved them to the LeBaron family ranch in Mexico.

Their years in the Mexican desert with Verlan's four brothers, his mentally ill sister, as well as his numerous wives and children were inconceivably hard. Irene lived in broken-down adobe buildings with no electricity or running water. An outdoor toilet, old tire treads for door hinges, dim oil lamps, and recycled old clothes, served as her only "creature comforts." Little had Irene expected that this required path to Heaven would involve a detour through Hell.

Irene's escape from the clutches of this aberrant lifestyle is a monumental achievement. With the obstacles of multiple children to support, impoverished living conditions, and lack of skills and education to equip her for independence, Irene's story becomes truly compelling and inspirational. (From the author's website.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 1, 1937
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Currently—lives in Anchorage Alaska

During the 28 years of her first marriage to a polygamous husband, Irene gave birth to 13 children (all single births). She also adopted a newborn daughter, who became her ninth child. Irene has 121 grandchildren. She has 49 great-grandchildren.

Among her many talents, she is an accomplished seamstress who sews for family and friends, she's a great cook and bakes pastries and homemade bread, she speaks Spanish and English fluently and has traveled to 23 foreign countries and 23 states.

Irene Spencer currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her husband Hector Spencer. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Spencer writes grippingly...in this brave and honest book, [and] lays bare the secrets of her heart and of a devastating religious practice.
People Magazine

(Starred review.) Utterly engaging...jaw-dropping stuff as Irene provides a fascinating insight into Mormon life and polygamous marriage.
Marie Claire

I experienced great sadness and joy while reading this brave woman’s story. I rejoiced when she finally escaped from this maddening situation into a glorious new day and life. I encourage all who believe that dreams do come true, to read this fantastic story. I celebrate Irene’s courage to pick up the pieces of her Shattered Dreams and step into the promise of a brand new tomorrow.
Armchair Review

After fifty pages of establishing shots—explanations of terms like the "Celestial Law," the "Principle," and the history of the fundamentalists' banishment from the Mormon church at large —Spencer launches into a life story full of poverty, suffering and fear. The pain comes from within and without, as the small sect's communities are raided by the government and forced to flee to places like El Valle, Mexico, then overtaken by overzealous megalomaniacs within the family. Then there is internal pressure, as the women bound to oaths of plural marriage resent one another, their shared husband and their general lots in life. There's so much going against the fundamentalist faction that you wonder how it doesn't implode before the narrative is up. And then there is the ultimate relationship of mixed messages—that between Spencer and God. Overall, it's a good read, but it takes some patience to get through the countless pregnancies and home deliveries.
Anna McDonald - New York Post

Just as A Mormon Mother is the standout memoir of a 19th-century polygamous woman's life, this autobiography offers the compelling voice of a contemporary plural wife's experiences. Daughter of a second wife, Spencer was raised strictly in "the Principle" as it was lived secretly and illegally by fringe communities of Mormon "fundamentalists" groups that split off from the LDS Church when it abandoned polygamy more than a century ago. In spite of her mother's warnings and the devotion of a boyfriend with monogamist intentions, Spencer followed her religious convictions—that living in polygamy was essential for eternal salvation—and became a second wife herself at the age of 16 in 1953. It's hard to tell which is more devastating in this memoir: the strains of husband-sharing with ultimately nine other wives, or the unremitting poverty that came with maintaining so many households and 56 children. Spencer's writing is lively and full of engaging dialogue, and her life is nothing short of astonishing. After 28 years of polygamous marriage, Spencer has lived the last 19 years in monogamy. Her story will be emotional and shocking, but many readers will resonate with the universal question the memoir raises: how to reconcile inherited religious beliefs when they grate against social norms and the deepest desires of the heart.
Publishers Weekly

An engrossing, though flawed memoir about poverty, procreation and polygamy south of the border. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints banned the practice more than a century ago, but some communities of self-styled "Mormon fundamentalists" continue to practice "plural marriage." In 1953, when the author was 16, she became the second wife of Verlan LeBaron, who was already married to her half-sister Charlotte. LeBaron and his wives (he eventually acquired ten) lived in Mexico, which was less zealous than the U.S. in enforcing anti-polygamy laws. But the patriarch couldn't provide for all those spouses and their offspring. They lived hand-to-mouth; Spencer fashioned undergarments from flour sacks and learned to get by without toilet paper. She recounts not just the financial difficulties, but also the emotional struggles of LeBaron's wives, who competed with one another for his affection and attentions. He often provoked the women, as when he gave one wife's wedding dress to a new bride to wear. Nonetheless, the author notes, genuine friendship and love grew among some of the wives. Much of her narrative focuses on sex and childbirth; she enjoyed making love with her husband and tried to cajole him into more frequent romps in the sack. Spencer gave birth to 13 babies, and her descriptions of labor, as well as the pregnancies she attended as an ersatz midwife, become tedious. There are curious omissions here. The author seldom explores how growing up in a polygamous household affected her children. And she offers little detail about how she adjusted after LeBaron finally died. The epilogue tells us that Spencer later became a "born-again Christian" and entered a monogamous marriage, but that seems an insufficient coda to such an intense story. Gives the lie to the suburban cheer of HBO's Big Love.
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 Shattered Dreams:

1. Talk about the obvious—monogamy. What is your attitude toward its practice: are you neutral toward it? Offended by it? Do you support it—or its right to be practiced?

2. If a religious group truly believes that polygamy is a necessary path to salvation, does the government have a right to prohibit it? What is the state's legitimate interest in preventing polygamy?

3. Discuss "the Principle," by which Irene's and other fundamentalist families live.

4. Talk about the wives and their varying relationships to one another. How would you react, as one of nine wives?

5. Discuss Irene's statement:

All the books I had read on Mormon polygamy were vivid accounts of sacrificing women who upheld and emphatically stated they loved "the Principle." Yet, I was convinced that these committed women...had been forbidden to give way to their true feelings, so they smothered their own agony and wrenching pain, as I too had been emphatically instructed to do.

What is the price one pays for living against one's "true feelings" as Irene says of herself? Does relgion have the right to ask one to sacrifice one's "true feelings" for a higher purpose?

6. All religions ask us to live according to certain belief-based rules, but when at what point do those rules become unfair, excessive, or irrelevant? Think of Catholicism and the prohibition of birth control; Judaism and the prohibition of pork; Islam and the covering of women.

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

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She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement
Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, 2019
Penguin Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525560340

Summary
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters who broke the news of Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment and abuse for the New York Times — Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey reveal the thrilling, untold story of their investigation and its consequences for the #MeToo movement.

For many years, reporters had tried to get to the truth about Harvey Weinstein’s treatment of women. Rumors of wrongdoing had long circulated.

But in 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey began their investigation into the prominent Hollywood producer for the New York Times, his name was still synonymous with power.

During months of confidential interviews with top actresses, former Weinstein employees, and other sources, many disturbing and long-buried allegations were unearthed, and a web of onerous secret payouts and nondisclosure agreements was revealed. These shadowy settlements had long been used to hide sexual harassment and abuse, but with a breakthrough reporting technique Kantor and Twohey helped to expose it.

But Weinstein had evaded scrutiny in the past, and he was not going down without a fight; he employed a team of high-profile lawyers, private investigators, and other allies to thwart the investigation. When Kantor and Twohey were finally able to convince some sources to go on the record, a dramatic final showdown between Weinstein and the New York Times was set in motion.

Nothing could have prepared Kantor and Twohey for what followed the publication of their initial Weinstein story on October 5, 2017.

Within days, a veritable Pandora’s box of sexual harassment and abuse was opened. Women all over the world came forward with their own traumatic stories. Over the next twelve months, hundreds of men from every walk of life and industry were outed following allegations of wrongdoing.

But did too much change—or not enough? Those questions hung in the air months later as Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford came forward to testify that he had assaulted her decades earlier.

Kantor and Twohey, who had unique access to Ford and her team, bring to light the odyssey that led her to come forward, the overwhelming forces that came to bear on her, and what happened after she shared her allegation with the world.

In the tradition of great investigative journalism, She Said tells a thrilling story about the power of truth, with shocking new information from hidden sources.

Kantor and Twohey describe not only the consequences of their reporting for the #MeToo movement, but the inspiring and affecting journeys of the women who spoke up—for the sake of other women, for future generations, and for themselves. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are investigative reporters at the New York Times.

Kantor has focused on the workplace in her reporting, and particularly the treatment of women, covered two presidential campaigns, and is the author of The Obamas. Twohey has focused much of her attention on the treatment of women and children, and in 2014, as a reporter with Reuters News, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.

The authors have shared numerous honors for breaking the Harvey Weinstein story, including a George Polk Award, and, along with colleagues, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. (From publisher.)

Book Reviews
Two years after their landmark reporting on sexual harassment and abuse allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein helped set off the #MeToo movement (and won a Pulitzer Prize), these two Times journalists take readers behind their reporting and expand the Weinstein story to be "less about the man and more about his surround-sound ‘complicity machine,'" our reviewer, Susan Faludi, wrote. It reads, she said, "a bit like a feminist All the President’s Men."
New York Times

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, 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)

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

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The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
Jeff Hobbs, 2014
Scribner
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476731902

Summary
A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young African-American man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets—and of one’s own nature—when he returns home.

When author Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert’s life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s, with his father in jail and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year.

But Robert was a brilliant student, and it was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics. But it didn’t get easier. Robert carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, “fronting” in Yale, and at home.

Through an honest rendering of Robert’s relationships—with his struggling mother, with his incarcerated father, with his teachers and friends and fellow drug dealers—The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace encompasses the most enduring conflicts in America: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, education, family, friendship, and love. It’s about the collision of two fiercely insular worlds—the ivy-covered campus of Yale University and Newark, New Jersey, and the difficulty of going from one to the other and then back again.

It’s about poverty, the challenges of single motherhood, and the struggle to find male role models in a community where a man is more likely to go to prison than to college. It’s about reaching one’s greatest potential and taking responsibility for your family no matter the cost. It’s about trying to live a decent life in America.

But most all the story is about the tragic life of one singular brilliant young man. His end, a violent one, is heartbreaking and powerful and unforgettable. (From the publisher.)

Watch video.

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Raised—Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—Los Angeles, California

Jeff Hobbs graduated with a BA in English language and literature from Yale in 2002, where he was awarded the Willets and Meeker prizes for his writing. Hobbs spent three years in New York and Tanzania while working with the African Rainforest Conservancy. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
[A] haunting work of nonfiction with a title that is all too self-explanatory…. Mr. Hobbs writes in a forthright but not florid way about a heartbreaking story…. [He] does a fascinating job of raising…questions, even though he cannot possibly answer them.
Janet Maslin - New York Times Book Review

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace deserves...a turn in the nation’s pulpit from which it can beg us to see the third world America in our midst. Robert Peace, who called his mother “my heart,” was her only and beloved son. But he was our son, too. We are the wondrous country that made him a Yale man. We are the wanting country where even that wasn’t enough to spare him.
Anand Giridharadas - New York Times Book Review

An impressive debut in which keen insights are often strewn amid the narrative like shiny pennies on a dirty sidewalk.
Boston Globe

Hobbs...captures the restlessness and ridiculousness of the sushi set's adult-onset angst with note-perfect acuity and a wry sense of humor.
USA Today

[An] ambitious and darkly contemporary first novel... You don't need to draw the parallels with The Great Gatsby's rootless socialites to hear the slither of snakes in the grass.
Los Angeles Magazine

(Starred review.) A man with seemingly every opportunity loses his way in this compelling biographical saga.... Hobbs reveals a man whose singular experience and charisma made him simultaneously an outsider and a leader in both New Haven and Newark.
Publishers Weekly

Hobbs reconstructs the life and thoughts of Rob Peace—his close friend and roommate for four years at Yale University—after his friend's untimely death.... At its core, the story compels readers to question how much one can really know about another person. —Jessica Spears, Monroe Coll. Lib., Bronx, NY
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Peace navigated the clashing cultures of urban poverty and Ivy League privilege, never quite finding a place where his particular brand of nerdiness and cool could coexist... [Hobbs] set out to offer a full picture of a very complicated individual. Writing with the intimacy of a close friend, Hobbs slowly reveals Peace as far more than a cliché of amazing potential squandered.
Booklist

(Starred review.) Ambitious, moving tale of an inner-city Newark kid who made it to Yale yet succumbed to old demons and economic realities.... An urgent report on the state of American aspirations and a haunting dispatch from forsaken streets.
Kirkus Reviews

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A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson, 2003
Random House
560 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780767908184

Summary
This brand-new edition of the colossal bestseller is lavishly illustrated to convey, in pictures as in words, Bill Bryson's exciting, informative journey into the world of science.

In this acclaimed bestseller, beloved author Bill Bryson confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves.

Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. The result is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it.

Now, in this handsome new edition, Bill Bryson's words are supplemented by full-colour artwork that explains in visual terms the concepts and wonder of science, at the same time giving face to the major players in the world of scientific study. Eloquently and entertainingly described, as well as lavishly illustrated, science has never been more involving or entertaining. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 8 1951
• Where—Des Moines, Iowa, USA
• Education—B.A., Drake University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Norfolk, England, UK

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of North Yorkshire, UK, for most of his professional life before moving back to the US in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to the UK, living in Norfolk, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University.

Early years
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of William and Mary Bryson. He has an older brother, Michael, and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth.

He was educated at Drake University but dropped out in 1972, deciding to instead backpack around Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high school friend, the pseudonymous Stephen Katz (who later appears in Bryson's A Walk in the Woods). Some of Bryson's experiences from this European trip are included as flashbacks in a book about a similar excursion written 20 years later, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.

Staying in the UK, Bryson landed a job working in a psychiatric hospital—the now defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water in Surrey. There he met his wife Cynthia, a nurse. After marring, the couple moved to the US, in 1975, so Bryson could complete his college degree. In 1977 they moved back to the UK where they remained until 1995.

Living in North Yorkshire and working primarily as a journalist, Bryson eventually became chief copy editor of the business section of The Times, and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent.

He left journalism in 1987, three years after the birth of his third child. Still living in Kirkby Malham, North Yorkshire, Bryson started writing independently, and in 1990 their fourth and final child, Sam, was born.

Books
Bryson came to prominence in the UK with his 1995 publication of Notes from a Small Island, an exploration of Britain. Eight years later, as part of the 2003 World Book Day, Notes was voted by UK readers as the best summing up of British identity and the state of the nation. (The same year, 2003, saw Bryson appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage.)

In 1995, Bryson and his family returned to the US, living in Hanover, New Hampshire for the next eight years. His time there is recounted in the 1999 story collection, I'm A Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to American After 20 Years Away (known as Notes from a Big Country in the UK, Canada and Australia).

It was during this time that Bryson decided to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz. The resulting book is the 1998 A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. The book became one of Bryson's all-time bestsellers and was adapted to film in 2015, starring Robert Redford and Nick Nolte.

In 2003, the Brysons and their four children returned to the UK. They now live in Norfolk.

That same year, Bryson published A Short History of Nearly Everything, a 500-page exploration, in nonscientific terms, of the history of some of our scientific knowledge. The book reveals the often humble, even humorous, beginnings of some of the discoveries which we now take for granted.

The book won Bryson the prestigious 2004 Aventis Prize for best general science book and the 2005 EU Descartes Prize for science communication. Although one scientist is alleged to have jokingly described A Brief History as "annoyingly free of mistakes," Bryson himself makes no such claim, and a list of nine reported errors in the book is available online.

Bryson has also written two popular works on the history of the English language—Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (1990) and Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States (1994). He also updated of his 1983 guide to usage, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words. These books were popularly acclaimed and well-reviewed, despite occasional criticism of factual errors, urban myths, and folk etymologies.

In 2016, Bryson published The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in England, a sequel to his Notes from a Small Island.

Honors
In 2005, Bryson was appointed Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding the late Sir Peter Ustinov, and has been particularly active with student activities, even appearing in a Durham student film (the sequel to The Assassinator) and promoting litter picks in the city. He had praised Durham as "a perfect little city" in Notes from a Small Island. He has also been awarded honorary degrees by numerous universities, including Bournemouth University and in April 2002 the Open University.

In 2006, Frank Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines, awarded Bryson the key to the city and announced that 21 October 2006 would be known as "Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day."

In November 2006, Bryson interviewed the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair on the state of science and education.

On 13 December 2006, Bryson was awarded an honorary OBE for his contribution to literature. The following year, he was awarded the James Joyce Award of the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin.

In January 2007, Bryson was the Schwartz Visiting Fellow of the Pomfret School in Connecticut.

In May 2007, he became the President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. His first area focus in this role was the establishment of an anti-littering campaign across England. He discussed the future of the countryside with Richard Mabey, Sue Clifford, Nicholas Crane and Richard Girling at CPRE's Volunteer Conference in November 2007. (From Wikipedia. Adapted 2/1/2016.)

Book Reviews
The more I read of A Short History of Nearly Everything, the more I was convinced that Bryson had achieved exactly what he'd set out to do, and, moreover, that he'd done it in stylish, efficient, colloquial and stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between. The basic facts of physics, chemistry, biology, botany, climatology, geology — all these and many more are presented with exceptional clarity and skill.
Ed Regis - The New York Times

Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have come out in recent years.... [T]o read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace.... [A] trip worth taking for most readers.
Publishers Weekly

Writing with wit and charm, Bryson...takes us on a scientific odyssey from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization. Reflecting his gift for making science comprehensible yet fun, he tells the story of the discoveries and the people that have shaped our understanding of the universe. —James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib, Chicago
Library Journal

Bryson...asks the hard questions of science—e.g., how did things get to be the way they are?—and, when possible, provides answers.... Loads of good explaining, with reminders, time and again, of how much remains unknown, neatly putting the death of science into perspective.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. This book presents science as a series of questions—mostly unanswered. Is this surprising to you? How was science presented to you when you were in school?

2. Bryson mentions that, several times in the past, scientists thought that all the big questions were answered. Some even believe we have reached that point today. Still others wonder if we might soon reach the limits of our intellectual ability to understand the strangeness of atomic particles or explore multiple universes. Any thoughts?

3. A major theme of the book is resistance to new scientific ideas despite solid evidence for them. Bryson gives a number of examples—the Big Bang and plate tectonics are two. What other theories faced initial rejection?

4. Follow-up to Question 3: At the same time, Bryson addresses the idea of scientists clinging to widely accepted but disproven ideas—a young earth and Ether are two that come to mind. What are some of the others in the book?

• Why do you think scientists are resistant to change?
• Are scientists any different from lay people in their resistance to change?
• What current widely held idea do you think might be disproven in the future?

5. Bryson often cites examples of global crises that may have influenced the Earth in the past—meteor strikes, salinity crisis, volcanoes, changes in solar output. How does this relate to the current consideration of global warming?

6. Follow-up to Question 5: Considering the Bryson's examples of powerful global forces beyond human control—including hurricanes, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and ice ages—do you think differently about human ability to control what happens on earth? To what extent are we "masters" of the earth?

7. What is the connection between human beings and extinction of other species? Consider, for instance, how the dodos and passenger pigeons became extinct? Bryson makes a number of statements on the subject. What do you think?

• Over the last 50,000 years or so, wherever we have gone, animals have tended to vanish, in often astonishingly large numbers.
• The people who were most intensely interested in the world’s living things were the ones most likely to extinguish them.
• It’s an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe’s supreme achievement and it’s worst nightmare simultaneously.
• We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even to make it better.

8. How has this book affected your thinking about evolution? Do you agree that evolution may be "a lottery" or that, as human beings, "we are not the culmination of anything”?

9. Do a little research into Drake’s equation for the possibility of life on other worlds. Do you think life in the universe is inevitable or rare? Why? How about other complex (multi-cellular) life? How about intelligent life?

10. Bryson presents scientists as human beings with very human stories. Many died unhappy receiving no recognition or credit for their work. How would you feel if this happened to you? Which story touches you the most?

11. Consider the common question: “Why are there so few women scientists?” Does this book agree there is a shortage, or does it tell us why we don't hear about female scientists? Consider doing some research on Mme Lavoisier, Curie, or Franklin.

(Questions adapted from the Penguin Random House Teachers Guide.)

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Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis
Timothy Egan, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780618969029

Summary
How a lone man’s epic obsession led to one of America’s greatest cultural treasures: Prizewinning writer Timothy Egan tells the riveting, cinematic story behind the most famous photographs in Native American history—and the driven, brilliant man who made them.

Edward Curtis was charismatic, handsome, a passionate mountaineer, and a famous photographer, the Annie Leibovitz of his time. He moved in rarefied circles, a friend to presidents, vaudeville stars, leading thinkers. And he was thirty-two years old in 1900 when he gave it all up to pursue his Great Idea: to capture on film the continent’s original inhabitants before the old ways disappeared.

An Indiana Jones with a camera, Curtis spent the next three decades traveling from the Havasupai at the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the Acoma on a high mesa in New Mexico to the Salish in the rugged Northwest rain forest, documenting the stories and rituals of more than eighty tribes. It took tremendous perseverance — ten years alone to persuade the Hopi to allow him into their Snake Dance ceremony. And the undertaking changed him profoundly, from detached observer to outraged advocate. Eventually Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs, preserved 10,000 audio recordings, and is credited with making the first narrative documentary film. In the process, the charming rogue with the grade school education created the most definitive archive of the American Indian.

His most powerful backer was Theodore Roosevelt, and his patron was J. P. Morgan. Despite the friends in high places, he was always broke and often disparaged as an upstart in pursuit of an impossible dream. He completed his masterwork in 1930, when he published the last of the twenty volumes. A nation in the grips of the Depression ignored it. But today rare Curtis photogravures bring high prices at auction, and he is hailed as a visionary. In the end he fulfilled his promise: He made the Indians live forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Born—November 8, 1954
• Where—Seattle, Washington, USA
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize, Journalism (2001); National Book
Award, Nonfiction; Washington State Book Award (twice)
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

Timothy Egan is an American Pulitzer Prize winning author who resides in Seattle, Washington. He currently contributes opinion columns to the New York Times as the paper's Pacific Northwest correspondent. In 2001, he won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his contribution to the series "How Race is Lived in America."

In addition to his work with the New York Times, he has written six books, including The Good Rain (Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, 1991), Breaking Blue, and Lasso the Wind.

The Worst Hard Time is his non-fiction account of those who lived through The Great Depression's Dust Bowl, for which he won the 2006 Washington State Book Award in history/biography and a 2006 National Book Award.

In 2009 he wrote The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, which details the Great Fire of 1910 that burned about three million acres (12,000 km²) and helped shape the United States Forest Service. The book also details some of the political issues of the time focusing on Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. Egan won a second Washington State Book Award in history/biography in 2010 for this work, and a second Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award.

In 2012 Egan published a biography of Western and Native American photographer, Edward Curtis: Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Edward Curtis deserves to be remembered as the American artist who racked up the most miles. Traveling by rail, wagon and foot, he undertook a project that struck observers as ambitious and possibly insane. His goal, he said, was to salvage a heritage from oblivion, to document all the tribes in North America that were still intact.... Timothy Egan offers a stirring and affectionate portrait of an underknown figure...[though] the book at times reads less like a thoughtful biography than a sentimental adventure story for boys.
Deborah Solomon - New York Times Book Review

Egan's account of Curtis's life is not so much a traditional biography as a vivid exploration of one man's lifelong obsession with an idea.... Curtis, who died in poverty and obscurity in 1952, qualifies as a Western desperado of a type we don't often hear about. Egan's spirited biography might just bring him the recognition that eluded him in life.
Gary Krist - Washington Post

An obsessive genius neglects his personal life and business matters to pursue a great white whale. It's a familiar tale and the essential narrative of Egan's terrific biography.... Egan fills his chronicle with bright turns of phrase and radiant descriptions.... A sweeping tale about two vanishing ways of life.
Wall Street Journal

Egan here offers a carefully researched portrait of the man the Indians called the “Shadow Catcher.” Evenhanded and free of conjecture, Egan’s narrative traces the career of the 6-foot-2 mountaineer with the Vandyke beard who was born in 1868 and scrabbled from poverty to prominence in Seattle with his camera, along the way rubbing elbows with scientists, presidents, and titans of commerce, before fading into near oblivion before his death in 1952. Egan takes a neutral stance toward Curtis’s sometime manipulations of his subjects’ costumes and rituals. But it’s clear his sympathies lie with the audacious creator of the arresting images of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, the aging Apache Geronimo, Navajo horsemen diminutive against the towering cliffs of the Canyon de Chelly, Hopi maidens with their hair in squash blossom swirls, and some 40,000 more that are his legacy.
Kathryn Lang - Boston Globe

Portrait photographer, so well respected that President Theodore Roosevelt chose him to photograph his daughter’s wedding. Yet in 1900, at the height of his fame, Curtis gave it up to pursue what would become his life’s work—“a plan to photograph all the intact Native American tribes left in North America” before their ways of life disappeared. This idea received the backing of J.P. Morgan and culminated in a critically acclaimed 20-volume set, The North American Indian, which took Curtis 30 years to complete and left him divorced and destitute. Unfailingly sympathetic to his subject, Egan shadows Curtis as he travels from Roosevelt’s summer home at Sagamore Hill to the mesas and canyons of the Southwest tribes and to the rain forests of the Coastal Indians and the isolated tundra on Nunivak Island. Egan portrays the dwindling tribes, their sacred rites (such as the Hopi snake dance), customs, and daily lives, and captures a larger-than-life cast. With a reporter’s eye for detail, Egan delivers a gracefully written biography and adventure story.
Publishers Weekly

Edward Curtis's photographs have been controversial since their rediscovery in the 1970s.... Most damaging to his reputation and his financing efforts was his claim, based on eyewitness accounts, that Gen. George Armstrong Custer's actions at the Battle of the Little Big Horn were not heroic, but in fact cowardly. Egan seeks to restore Curtis to a deserved high reputation. Verdict: This fascinating biography is recommended to readers interested in the American West from the late 19th through early 20th century. —John Burch, Campbellsville Univ. Lib., KY
Library Journal

New York Times Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Egan (The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America, 2009, etc.) returns with the story of the astonishing life of Edward Curtis (1868–1952), whose photographs of American Indians now command impressive prices at auction. This is an era of excessive subtitles--but not this one: "Epic" and "immortal" are words most fitting for Curtis, whose 20-volume The North American Indian, a project that consumed most of his productive adult life, is a work of astonishing beauty and almost incomprehensible devotion..... Lucent prose illuminates a man obscured for years in history's shadows
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 Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher:

1. Egan chooses to use the word "epic" in his subtitle. What does epic mean—and in what way does it apply to the life of Edward Curtis?

2. What do you think of Curtis? What kind of man was he—as a husband, father, artist, advocate, and public figure? Do you think of him as delusional...driven...or visionary?

3. Why did Curtis consider George Custer of the Little Big Horn battle a coward?

4. How does Egan present the West of Curtis's time and before? Is the author's portrait of the past realistic...or idealistic? In what way has the historical West vanished?

5. Do Curtis's photographs, sometimes doctored, reflect an authentic Native American culture? What about the alarm clock he removed from one of his photos, for instance? Or was Curtis striving for something mythic rather than authentic?

6. What made Curtis a controversial figure in his day?

7. How would you describe the Anglo/European Americans attitude toward the Native Americans during Curtis's era? How have those attitudes changed...and what changed them?

8. Egan writes of Curtis:

And just what made a dropout from a one-room schoolhouse think he could get the nation’s top ethnologists to back his project? Balls. Those who didn’t try for the highest peak were doomed to the foothills.

Some critics contend that Egan is too close to his subject and that his book "reads less like a thoughtful biography than a sentimental adventure story for boys." Do you agree or disagree with that statement by New York Times reviewer, Deborah Soloman (see above)?

9. What have you learned about Edward Curtis and/or Native American history after reading Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher? What did you find most surprising—or struck you as particularly interesting—in this book?

10. A fine book to pair this with is Marianne Wiggin's 2007 The Shadow Catcher, a fictionalized biography of Curtis written from the perspective of his wife, Clara. The book was a National Book Award finalist.

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

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Sightlines: A Poet's Diary
Janet Grace Riehl, 2006
iUniverse, Inc.
171 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780595374991

Summary
As the author of this book, I want to share some of the creative process behind writing Sightlines. The book evolved over a year, following a secluded retreat, in response to my sister's death in a car accident.

During this time, I came to a strong sense that the world is charged with meaning, and that is a poem. The only trick is to tease out the meaning. That is what I proceeded to do as I moved back and forth between my Midwest home to my Northern California home.

Putting together this poet's diary was a little like assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle. Mortality became keenly real to me as my parents and I aged together. The sorrow of life's fragility, and joy at its tenderness, form the sightlines of all five sections in this collection of 90 poems as I examine and share the people and places of my life.

Her more recent CD version features Janet's voice reading her poems and stories, with music provided by her 93-year-old father.

Author Author
Following a family tragedy, Janet Grace Riehl returned to her childhood home in the Midwest. There, through her craft, she discovered a new sense of connection reuniting her, and the reader, with life through her debut collection Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary.

Janet is an award-winning author, artist, performer, community mentor, and creative collaborator. Her poems, stories, and essays have been widely published in national literary magazines such as Harvard Review and the anthologies Stories to Live By: Wisdom to Help You Make the Most of Every Day and Hot Flashes 2.

Her life moves between the big city in St. Louis in the Central West End to the family home place on the bluffs above the Mississippi River in Southwestern Illinois where she collaborates on creative projects with her 92-year-old father. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Rich and vibrant, complete with vivid language that bursts, or sneaks, into your mind.
James BlueWolf (Author)

I had read Sightlines: A Poet's Diary and truth be told, I did not want to listen to the spoken version. I feared that my personal experience of the written poems, which had been profoundly moving, would be diminished. I need not have feared. Although listening was a different experience, it was as rich and meaningful as reading had been.
Marcelline M. Burns (Amazon Customer Review)

Janet examines selected pieces of her family’s lives, picking them up, turning them over, scrutinizing them like pieces in a giant jigsaw puzzle. She tells the story of each piece as a vignette…with a twist. Narrative is not Janet’s medium, but rather something she calls the story-poem.... Story-poems are spare, yet rich in sensory description and emotion. As you read, you become engrossed…a story unfolds. There is logic, if not always a chronology, to her story-poem progression.... With the Sightlines audiobook, Janet has given us more than a heartfelt family chronicle. She breaks barriers for the memoir genre that should get every memoirist thinking. The writer in me is inspired to create something unique for my family.
Kendra Bonnett - Women's Memoirs Review

The new audio book Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music by Janet Riehl is a compilation of very personal music and poetry that is not to be missed.

Riehl's audio book developed from her written text, Sightlines: A Poet's Diary, which was published in 2006. With the new release, Riehl adds the elements of down-home music and her own voice bringing life to the poems she created. The musical component features her father's singing and fiddle playing as he is joined by other musicians for recordings that took place in his living room. The fact that the music was not performed in a high-tech professional studio makes its inclusion even more appealing and appropriate.

The poems by Janet Riehl are divided into five groupings that are spread over four CDs. The first section is devoted to her sister Julia (also known as Skeeter), who was tragically killed in a car crash several years ago. The emotional images Riehl creates through her words examine Julia's work, her love of life, the moment of her death, and the longing of those she left behind. Riehl goes on to share equally captivating poetry about her father, her mother, and two places that have special meaning to her—the family home in Evergreen Heights and her later residence of Clear Lake in Northern California. In addition to the poems themselves, Riehl provides emotional commentary that fills in the missing pieces and develops a more complete memory for the listeners to enjoy. Her words are straightforward, beautifully crafted, and offer a wonderful piece of storytelling.

From beginning to end, the new audio book Sightlines: A Family Love Story in Poetry & Music is a delight....The audio segments have been expertly compiled and edited to create the comfortable atmosphere of someone's home while also displaying professional detail to recording quality and content progression. Each moment of the CDs is filled with warmth, humor, and a deep connection to those who have come before us. Sightlines is a must-have audio book for anyone who appreciates a good love story with the perfect musical accompaniment!
Sarah Moore - Writers in the Sky

This recorded version of Sightlines: A Poet's Diary (2006) expands on the original 90 poems by including brief clips of 40 songs played by her 93-year-old father and his Sunday Afternoon music group. The poems are further set in a wider context with her father's stories, and he reads the poems he wrote that open Sightlines, along with the lines of dialogue that appear in poems sprinkled throughout. In this unique offering, we glimpse the lives, past and present, of the poet and her family.

Together words and songs weave a magical tapestry of myriad threads, recounting family folklore in the warm timbres of Riehl's quiet-spoken voice, each story-poem set in the lively rhythms of fiddles, guitars and mandolins, music reminiscent of a bygone era. The sometimes slightly discordant notes of the violin merely add to the beauty of the tales told.

This series of poems and songs is a memoir. It is also a series of love poems, composed in memory and celebration of three people and two places Riehl loves. She traces the treasured reminiscences of a childhood shared with her two older siblings—her sister, Julia Ann, and her brother, Gary, tenderly watched over by loving parents. Her attentiveness to detail is evident in the images and words which reflect her considered awareness of who she is and where she comes from. Here is where Riehl composes the haunting and lyrical songs to her sister, tragically killed in an automobile accident, an experience so devastating that almost every succeeding poem is written in reference, either directly or obliquely, to it. The mother and father captured on her pages are our mothers and fathers, the love she expresses for them is the love we feel for our own.

One striking feature of Riehl's poetry is the unmistakeable sense of presence that the author brings to her subject matter. Pick any poem from the book, and almost immediately the reader comes face to face, as it were, with the poet. She recounts, sometimes in devastating and searingly honest detail, her mother's progressive dance towards death. She is not afraid to open herself to the suffering of returning and re-living the death of her sister, a tragedy that changed everything. Riehl is a woman who has seen a lot, more in fact than many of us would wish to encounter. Yet her presence assures us that we too can survive the unthinkable; that we can live to tell the tale. And what is more, that in telling our stories we become more of who we are destined to be.

If we can locate the bravery within ourselves that Riehl points us towards, then we too may become in time as compassionate, caring, understanding and yes, even forgiving, as she. For indeed is this not what the best memoirs do? They do not point the finger of blame, but rather paint a picture of a wholly believable individual, someone who might have been our sister or brother or mother or father.

In the end it is the universality of her subject matter that renders her poetry so accessible. We read her poems not just to peep through a window into her life, but to lift the veil a little on our own, so that we may perhaps learn something about ourselves and our loved ones, even while we swim in the subterranean waters of her words.
Edith O'Nuallain - Story Circle Book Reviews

Discussion Questions
(These questions are provided by LitLovers and the author. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)

1. Choose a poem that has resonance for you. Listen to Janet’s reading and the interlude music on the Sightlines audio book. Why does that particular poem carry personal meaning? Does listening to Janet’s reading clarify or deepen your response to the poem?

2. How do the 90 poems relate to the songs, banter, and stories in the interlude? Pick a track to listen to and discuss how each relates to each other. What does the music bring to your experience in reading/hearing the poetry.

2. Edith O'Nuallain, a reviewer (see above) mentions the poet's bravery in facing loss of loved ones. Where in these poems do you find words that convey emotional solidity, the poet's strength through adversity?

3. Does poetry have a special ability to convey emotions such as longing, suffering, sadness, quiet acceptance and joy? Are poems different from a novel's expressivity? If you think so, in what way?

4. Riehl calls the poems in Sightlines "story poems" which she defines as "combining highly compressed narrative, musing, and observation using poetic techniques such as alliteration, imagery, and metaphor." In the story poem, as in prose, the sentence rather than the line is the primary unit. Her aim is to condense the work while keeping it accessible. How well do you feel this form succeeds in telling her story?

5. Riehl views Sightlines as an extended narrative, each piece fitting into another like a puzzle. What is the overall narrative spanning the five sections in the book? Is there a narrative arc, as in a piece of prose such as a novel or a memoir?

6. Riehl writes of three people and two places she loves. What would be on your short list for people and places you love?

7. Riehl has identified several themes in Sightlines: power of place, time, family, home, memory, and impermanence (the fragility and change in life). What are some of the poems you’d include in each theme? Do you see other themes here? Is there an over-all message? As a reader do you need a message?

8. The author has kindly offered up a recipe for her father's scrapple, a traditional loaf made of cornmeal and pork. It would be fun to serve it at a meeting devoted to Sightlines.

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Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War
Virginia Nicholson, 2008
Oxford University Press
328 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780195378221

Summary
Almost three-quarters of a million British soldiers lost their lives during the First World War, and many more were incapacitated by their wounds, leaving behind a generation of women who, raised to see marriage as "the crown and joy of woman's life," suddenly discovered that they were left without an escort to life's great feast.

Drawing upon a wealth of moving memoirs, Singled Out tells the inspiring stories of these women: the student weeping for a lost world as the Armistice bells pealed, the socialite who dedicated her life to resurrecting the ancient past after her soldier love was killed, the Bradford mill girl whose campaign to better the lot of the "War spinsters" was to make her a public figure—and many others who, deprived of their traditional roles, reinvented themselves into something better.

Tracing their fates, Nicholson shows that these women did indeed harbor secret sadness, and many of them yearned for the comforts forever denied them—physical intimacy, the closeness of a loving relationship, and children. Some just endured, but others challenged the conventions, fought the system, and found fulfillment outside of marriage. From the mill-girl turned activist to the debutante turned archeologist, from the first woman stockbroker to the "business girls" and the Miss Jean Brodies, this book memorializes a generation of young women who were forced, by four of the bloodiest years in human history, to stop depending on men for their income, their identity, and their future happiness.

Indeed, Singled Out pays homage to this remarkable generation of women who, changed by war, in turn would change society. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Currently—lives in East Sussex, England

Virginia Nicholson was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1955. Her father was the art historian and writer Quentin Bell, acclaimed for his biography of his aunt Virginia Woolf. Her mother Anne Olivier Bell edited the five volumes of Virginia Woolf’s Diaries.

Virginia grew up in the suburbs of Leeds, but the family moved to Sussex when she was in her teens. She was educated at Lewes Priory School (Comprehensive). After a gap year working in Paris she went on to study English Literature at King’s College Cambridge.

In 1978 Virginia spent a year living in Italy (Venice), where she taught English and learnt Italian. Returning to the UK in 1979 she re-visited her northern childhood while working for Yorkshire Television as a researcher for children’s programmes. In 1983 she joined the Documentary department of BBC Television.

In 1988 Virginia married screenwriter and author William Nicholson. Following the birth of their son in 1989, Virginia left the BBC and shortly afterwards the Nicholsons moved to East Sussex. Two daughters were born in 1991 and 1993.

Living in Sussex, Virginia became increasingly involved with the Trust that administered Charleston, home of her grandmother the painter Vanessa Bell, in due course becoming its Deputy Chairman. Her first book (co-authored with her father) Charleston: A Bloomsbury House and Garden was published in 1997. In 1999/2000 she made a ten-city tour of the USA to promote the book and Charleston itself.

In November 2002 Viking published Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939 to critical acclaim. Its publication in the USA in February 2004 was followed by a sell-out lecture and publicity tour round five American cities.

Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men After the First World War, was published in August 2007. In this latest book Virginia Nicholson has set out to tell the stories of a remarkable generation of women forced by a historic tragedy to reinvent their lives. Singled Out received a spate of enthusiastic reviews which applauded it as a pioneering and humane work of social history. The work on this book was combined with her continuing commitment to the Charleston Trust. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
The women Nicholson celebrates changed our culture. They turned the Victorian spinster into the modern career woman. But, she believes, they were also different from modern women. Like anyone who has lived through a war, they had lower expectations of happiness and a stoicism and dignity that were all their own. Her book applauds the celebrities but does not forget the obscure.... Powerful.... Inspiring.
John Carey - Sunday Times (London)

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 Singled Out:

1. Talk about the moment when the senior mistress at Bournemouth High School for Girls announced the "terrible fact" that "only one out of 10 of you girls can ever hope to marry." Having been raised in the Edwardian era, when marriage was all women were prepared for...and expected to attain...how must those young women at Bournemouth have felt? How would that pronouncement have made you feel?

2. Consider the public's treatment of the so-called "War Spinsters." Why would the Daily Mail have labeled them "a disaster to the human race"? What made their own country-men and -women turn against them...even to the point of suggesting that they be exported to Canada? If you had been one of those women, would you have remained in the UK...or headed out to Canada or Australia?

3. What about those who deigned to give the women advice for landing a husband? Funny...condescending...insulting...?

4. Talk about the "survivor's guilt" that some women experienced—Gertrude Caton-Thompson, among others. How did they cope?

5. What difference did socioeconomic class make in how the women redefined (or did not) their lives as single women?

6. Discuss the many paths the women chose to support themselves and find fulfillment. Which of the women's stories do you find most impressive—in terms of obstacles overcome or achievements? Are there any for whom you feel particular sympathy, or whose stories make you most angry, or sad?

7. How did the women find sexual fulfillment—or did they? What about Marie Stopes' responses to letters she received from women? What about Radclyffe Hall and her championship of lesbianism?

8. What was the cultural and historical impact of the "war spinsters"? The thrust of Nicholson's book is to show not just how the women coped, even thrived, but to hold them up as forerunners of the modern career woman. Do you agree? If they were pioneers, why did it take another 50 years (at least) for feminism—career and educational opportunities, equal pay, and widespread public acceptance—to take hold? Were they real pioneers...or simply anomalies of their time?

9. Singled Out is a scholarly work. Do you find it emotionally compelling or overly academic? Also, Nicholson packs a lot of women's stories into her book. Did you find it difficult to remember them and keep them straight?

10. How lonely were these women? Does a lifetime of engaging work and service to others compensate for a lack of husband and children?

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

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