Fiction

'Round Midnight
Laura McBride, 2017
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501157783

Summary
From the author of We Are Called to Rise comes a novel about the interconnected lives of four women in Las Vegas, each of whom experiences a life-changing moment at a classic casino nightclub.

Spanning the six decades when Las Vegas grew from a dusty gambling town into the melting pot metropolis it is today, ‘Round Midnight is the story of four women—one who falls in love, one who gets lucky, one whose heart is broken, and one who chooses happiness—whose lives change at the Midnight Room.

June Stein and her husband open the El Capitan casino in the 1950s, and rocket to success after hiring a charismatic black singer to anchor their nightclub. Their fast-paced lifestyle runs aground as racial tensions mount.

Honorata leaves the Philippines as a mail order bride to a Chicago businessman, then hits a jackpot at the Midnight Room when he takes her on a weekend trip to Las Vegas.

Engracia, a Mexican immigrant whose lucky find at the Midnight Room leads to heartbreak, becomes enmeshed in Honorata’s secret when she opens her employer’s door to that Chicago businessman—and his gun.

And then there is Coral, an African-American teacher who struggles with her own mysterious past. A favor for Honorata takes her to the Midnight Room, where she hits a jackpot of another kind.

Mining the rich territory of motherhood and community, 'Round Midnight is a story that mirrors the social transformation of our nation. Full of passion, heartbreak, heroism, longing, and suspense, it honors the reality of women’s lives. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1960-61
• Where—Spokane, Washington, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—Las Vegas, Nevada

Laura McBride teaches at the College of Southern Nevada and lives with her husband and two children in Las Vegas. She graduated with a degree in American Studies from Yale University. She wrote part of We Are Called to Rise, her first novel, published in 2014, while in residency at Yaddo. Her second novel, 'Round Midnight, came out in 2017. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
[M]oving, intertwined stories of four women in Las Vegas.… [T]his diverse group of complex women intersect in surprising ways…a tale of love, loss, and the unexpected, unheralded ways that lives meet around blackjack and roulette tables.
Publishers Weekly

[A] jewel of a novel. Haunting and unpredictable, 'Round Midnight is the beautifully told story of how fates intertwine in ways we can’t plan.
BookPage

If McBride is trying to prove what one of her characters declares—that if you change one life, you change the world—she succeeds magnificently.… McBride powerfully addresses an important theme, namely, how much a personal choice can impact others and even alter history.
Booklist

There's enough information…to turn the pages, but not much more. Touching on questions of race and class, McBride doesn't break new ground and doesn't go into much depth but tells a readable story that may appeal to book clubs who'd like to add their own analyses.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Describe El Capitan. What does June love about it? How and why is it significant to the other characters in ’Round Midnight? Does it change throughout time?

2. Why do you think McBride introduces the principal characters as falling in love, and getting lucky, and so on? How does those descriptions affect your reading of their stories?

3. When June Stein first appears, the narrator says of her, "She was bad for the neighborhood. Things happened to other girls because of June Stein." What were your initial impressions of June? Did you like her? Were you surprised by the way her story ended?

4. At the end of June’s section, Del examines the choices he made. What were they? Were they bad?

5. When Honorata arrived in the United States, she thought that "the Honorata who had lived in Manila did not exist anymore." How has she changed?

6. Augusta tells Coral: "Life is long. There’s a lot of ways for a secret to come out." What secret has Augusta been keeping? Do you agree with her decision to do so?

7. When Coral tells Ada she’s afraid to share news of her pregnancy, Ada instructs her to "give up that Coral thing…that everything-has-to-be-right, my-life-isn’t-messy thing." Do you think Coral is a perfectionist, needing to control everything around her? How have her experiences shaped her? Why is she afraid to tell Koji about her pregnancy?

8. Nanay tells Honorata that Malaya is "an American," who "should do American things." What does she mean? Do you think Malaya and Honorata are alike despite coming of age in different cultures?

9. In the aftermath of June’s pregnancy, she believes that "Del was not the one who had made the mistake. It was not Del who had risked Marshall’s world." Do you agree? What mistakes have been made? How does Del handle this situation?

10. Do you think Del’s actions are justified? What effect do they have on both Del and June?

11. Coral sees her relationship with Gerald as "a private shame." Do you think any of the romantic relationships in ’Round Midnight are healthy?

12. Cora believes that, ultimately, marrying Del "was going to be the best decision June ever made." Do you agree? Is June’s marriage to Del beneficial to her? Did you find any aspects of their relationship surprising?

13. Moving to Las Vegas was "not the hardest thing [Engracia] had done. It was easy to do hard things for her son." What other sacrifices, if any, does Engracia make for him? Do you think she’s a good mother? Do other characters in ’Round Midnight make sacrifices for their children? Were there any that you found particularly moving?

14. Once Coral was older, "she sometimes imagined Odell Dibb differently than Augusta had described him." What did you think of Odell? Did you like him?

15. Eddie, speaking to June about their relationship, says, "For you, it’s fun. For me, it’s the end." Is the friendship dangerous for each of them? Do they also support each other?

16. In chapter 26, the narration switches from third person to first, with June telling her own story. What is the effect of the change in narration? Why do you think McBride does it?

17. Why does Coral choose to share the story of her upbringing with Malaya? Does it help Malaya? What effect does sharing the story have on Coral?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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& Sons
David Gilbert, 2013
Random House
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812984354

Summary
The panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic novelist, two interconnected families, and the heartbreaking truths that fiction can hide.

The funeral of Charles Henry Topping on Manhattan’s Upper East Side would have been a minor affair (his two-hundred-word obit in The New York Times notwithstanding) but for the presence of one particular mourner: the notoriously reclusive author A. N. Dyer, whose novel Ampersand stands as a classic of American teenage angst. But as Andrew Newbold Dyer delivers the eulogy for his oldest friend, he suffers a breakdown over the life he’s led and the people he’s hurt and the novel that will forever endure as his legacy. He must gather his three sons for the first time in many years—before it’s too late.

So begins a wild, transformative, heartbreaking week, as witnessed by Philip Topping, who, like his late father, finds himself caught up in the swirl of the Dyer family.

First there’s son Richard, a struggling screenwriter and father, returning from self-imposed exile in California.
In the middle lingers Jamie, settled in Brooklyn after his twenty-year mission of making documentaries about human suffering.
And last is Andy, the half brother whose mysterious birth tore the Dyers apart seventeen years ago, now in New York on spring break, determined to lose his virginity before returning to the prestigious New England boarding school that inspired Ampersand.

But only when the real purpose of this reunion comes to light do these sons realize just how much is at stake, not only for their father but for themselves and three generations of their family.

In this daring feat of fiction, David Gilbert establishes himself as one of our most original, entertaining, and insightful authors. & Sons is that rarest of treasures: a startlingly imaginative novel about families and how they define us, and the choices we make when faced with our own mortality. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio

David Gilbert is the author of the story collection Remote Feed, the novels The Normals (2004) and & Sons (2013). His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, GQ, and Bomb. He lives in New York with his wife and three children. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
A contemporary New York variation on The Brothers Karamazov, featuring a J. D. Salinger–like writer in the role of Father, and a protagonist who turns out to be as questionable a tour guide as the notoriously unreliable narrator of Ford Madox Ford’s classic The Good Soldier.... a big, ambitious book about fathers and sons, Oedipal envy and sibling rivalry, and the dynamics between art and life, talent and virtue. The novel is smart, funny, observant and...does a wonderful job of conjuring up its characters’ memories of growing up in New York City in layered, almost Proustian detail.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

A witty and ultimately tragic take on the perennial subject of how the sins of the fathers are visited on their sons. There are echoes of Turgenev here, to say nothing of Jonathan Franzen and John Irving. But the music is entirely Gilbert’s, and at the end of this bravura performance you'll want to give him a standing ovation.
New York Newsday

Six months from now, Gilbert’s should be among the half-dozen or so names cited by critics and serious readers when they’re asked who produced 2013’s most dazzlingly smart, fully realized works of fiction.
Washington Post

This great big novel is also infused with warmth and wisdom about what it means to be a family.
Boston Globe

[& Sons is] about the emotional bonds between fathers, sons and brothers—the overwhelming love that can’t be adequately expressed and the burden of unspoken expectations.... Gilbert is an inventive, emotionally perceptive writer.
Associated Press

& Sons is a work of pure genius...full of genuine poignancy and gut-punch pathos.... [Gilbert’s] acts of empathy—at its core, every author’s task—are so daring and truly moving that you’ll have to discover their slow and beautiful unfolding for yourselves.... This is a book to return to as the decades pass, and, as they pass, to pass down, so that the pages might accumulate many shades of ink and so aid other fathers in communicating and other sons in finding their fathers, in that wonderful, silent, deeply flawed way—and meanwhile, to take its place on the shelf of American classics.
Buffalo News

A thought-provoking and engrossing read.... I found myself falling into [the characters’] lives, caring for them, worrying for them and ultimately missing them as the novel came to a close.
Chicago Tribune

Very nearly a masterwork. Gilbert is an assured, versatile and often very funny writer.
Dallas Morning News

Gilbert has great narrative gifts and a wonderful eye for the madness of families and the madness of writers.... & Sons is a novel that creates an imaginary author who is so real and flawed that the reader feels he understands American literature itself a little better after reading his story.
Los Angeles Times

If you read only a few books this year, this one should be one of them.
Huffington Post

Clear the sand from your beach-book-overloaded mind for this smart, engrossing saga about a reclusive famous author and his late-life attempt to make amends to the many people he’s let down. Perfect for fans of Jonathan Franzen or Claire Messud.
Entertainment Weekly

[A] throwback literary novel.... Its rueful, poetic vision of faded WASP grandeur is frequently heartbreaking.
People

Throughout & Sons, Gilbert provides lengthy excerpts from [his] novel-within-a-novel, and, as far as the reader can tell, Ampersand is caustic, comic, and clever, like Gilbert’s own novel.... Gilbert has a rich theme, and plenty of talent. He has a wonderfully sharp eye for the emotional reticence of the men of A. N. Dyer’s generation and class, for the ways in which their more open, more voluble children must become expert readers of patriarchal gaps and silences, in order to make sense of what he finely calls "these heavily redacted men."... Gilbert often writes superbly, his sentences crisp, witty, and rightly weighted.... Some of [his metaphors] realign the visual world, asking us, as Nabokov’s best metaphors do, to estrange in order to reconnect.... Every page proposes something clever and well turned. Gilbert is bursting with little achievements.... This is a writer capable of something as beautifully simple, and achingly deep, as this description of Richard and Jamie, as they see their mother approaching them in the pub: "The brothers straightened, reshaped as sons."
James Wood - New Yorker

When someone uses the term "instant classic," I typically want to grab him and ask, "So this is, what, like the new Great Expectations? You sure about that?" But David Gilbert’s novel & Sons, seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak, made me reconsider my stance on such a label... This is the book I’d most like to lug from one beach to another for the rest of summer, if only I hadn’t torn through it in two very happy days this spring.... Gilbert’s portrait of [New York City] and its literary set is as smart and savage in its way as Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, half love letter, half indictment, and wholly irresistible.
NPR

In her iconic essay Goodbye to All That, Joan Didion famously described New York City as "the mysterious nexus of all love and money and power, the shining and perishable dream itself."... David Gilbert’s layered & Sons probes that nexus from the inside, limning the emotional decay of two prominent Manhattan families and literary masterpiece that cages them.... Vivid, inventive.
Oprah Magazine

A Franzenish portrait of a biting, aging New York writer, David Gilbert’s novel is perceptive, witty, and—like all great books about remote fathers and their sons—prone to leaving male readers either cursing or calling their dads
New York Magazine

Gilbert’s finely wrought prose...teems with elaborate word plays and tests the reader’s perceptiveness at every turn.
Vanity Fair

If the stylish brilliance of recent novels by Rachel Kushner, Jess Walter, and Peter Heller has been hinting at a new golden age of American prose, then David Gilbert’s ambitious, sprawling, and altogether masterful second novel, & Sons, confirms it.... By turns challenging and multilayered, weird and hilarious...& Sons is more than worth the effort.
Daily Beast

Brilliant...weaves together the frayed threads of fame, fatherhood, family and friendship into a meditation on the blessing and curse of creativity.... Thoughtful, farcical, acerbic and original, Gilbert’s crisp writing and sinuous mind could grab and hold any reader
Bloomberg

The book’s central figure is an aging, Salinger-esque writer, A. N. Dyer, who, as his health declines, grapples with complexities involving family, friendships and his influential life’s work. Gilbert could have dealt with Dyer’s books as a necessary afterthought, tossing off some titles and quickly setting down to the real business of regret and death and endlessly messy human relationships. Instead, Gilbert really got into it. & Sons conjures a career’s worth of drool-worthy fictional fiction that’s so convincingly evoked, I almost recall writing a paper on it in freshman English class.
New York Times Magazine

[A] big, rich book.... With wit and heart, Gilbert illuminates the complicated ways that fathers and sons misunderstand, disappoint, and love one another and how their behavior affects the women in their lives.
Real Simple

& Sons is an often funny, always elegant, lingering gaze back at a world in which writers are still gods at the very center of culture.
Esquire

The opening scene of Gilbert’s finely textured new novel isn’t supposed to be a puffed-up affair, but it might as well be: A.N. Dyer, one of New York’s hermetic literary giants, is scheduled to deliver the eulogy for his childhood friend Charlie Topping. What follows...is a vivid and often amusing portrait of the New York’s Upper East Side literary scene, as relayed by the dearly departed’s son, Philip.... There’s a lot to digest and reflect on in this ambitious and crowded narrative—the complicated bond between fathers and sons, the illusive nature of success and the price of fame.
Publishers Weekly

This large-scale novel explores the dysfunctional family of A.N. Dyer, a famous New York writer who recalls J.D. Salinger.... The narrator is the son of Dyer's deceased friend, a mysterious, creepy character who seems to harbor a grudge against Dyer's family. Letters between Dyer and the narrator's father...reveal behavior by Dyer that has had tragic consequences. Vedict: Like Jonathan Franzen, Gilbert works on an expansive canvas as he examines the tragedies and comedies of a modern American family.—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Library Journal

[C]harming, often funny... [with] the "& sons" of the title, suggesting that literature might be a family business, but more pointedly that, in a household run with distant dictatorial benevolence, as if in a company, there's going to be trouble. So it is with [famous author A.N.] Dyer's boys, gathered as Dad feels his own mortality approaching, who are a hot mess of failure coupled with ambition.... Gilbert tantalizes with a big question: Will Dad, before he kicks the bucket, share some of his fortunes in any sense other than the monetary and bring his sons into the fold? Read on for the answer, which takes its time, most enjoyably, to unfold.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. First of all, thank you for reading the book. Want to get that out of the way. A big thanks. One of the scariest things a person can tell me is, Oh, hey, I’m reading your book. It makes me want to crawl directly into the nearest hole. Funny choice of career. Here I’ve published a book with a big time publisher—dream come true—and the knowledge that someone might actually read my book makes me cringe to the point of splitting in two. I’m cringing now. The other scary thing you can tell me is, Oh, hey, I read your book, particularly if you tweak the verb with a raised eyebrow, like a hairy umlaut. I might smile in return, and I might say, Oh Great, that’s great, but in reality I’m performing a private Seppuku ceremony, a thousand doubts the blade. Anyway, discuss vis-a-vis A.N. Dyer and ask yourself, Why would anyone want to be a writer?

2. It took me six years to write this book, which seems a ridiculous amount of time. I mean, it’s a kind of a long book, but six years long? At best three years, maybe three and a half while also maintaining a full time gig with Doctors Without Borders. Now A.N. Dyer hasn’t written a truly new book in something like twenty years (forgive the vagueness, but it’s been a year since I actually read this book), why do you think he’s stopped writing? I have my ideas, obviously. I think it has something to do with the break-up of his marriage—duh—but also with the birth of his third son, the young Andy. Has this boy perhaps taken on the role of fiction? What is Andy’s relationship with fiction in terms of his relationship with his father? Did I just answer my own question? I don’t think I’m very good at this.

3. You know when you go to the theater and you read the Playbill and there are those bios for the actors and the director and the playwright – I love reading those bios – did you know that those bios are actually written by the actors and the director and the playwright? You probably did, but from some reason I didn’t, or not until maybe ten years ago. I just assumed there was a national bio database, very official, probably housed in a suburb of D.C., that fact checked and sourced and confirmed all this professional information. Yes, yes, Patty St. John did indeed play Fastrada in the Tacoma Players 2007 production of Pippin. It wasn’t until I started seeing those personalized messages that suddenly became popular—Ms. St. John would like to express her gratitude to her Chihuahua Chekov for teaching her how to be human—that I realized, Wait a sec, these things are actually self-constructed. At first I was shocked. It seemed dubious. And kind of braggy too. How much of this is truly true? But then I found myself digging into these credits, not only to suss out a career but also to suss out a person, and suddenly a deeper appreciation began to emerge from those handmade bios. A trajectory. I mean, how do we compose our lives for public consumption? What do we say? And where are the divergences, the betraying tells? Who is composing who? Or is it whom? And does David Gilbert live in New York City or does he live in Brooklyn or in Queens? Is that a question?

4. I don’t normally like books about writers. A writer writing about a writer writing, well, that sentence alone is tedious. I want to read about someone who does something. Like I wish someone would write the great American novel about scuba diving. That would be cool. Shipwrecks. Sharks. Those giant clams and your foot is suddenly caught. There has to be treasure too. We as a nation deserve a fabulous piece of scuba diving literature. But another book about a writer? And an old privileged white male writer at that? I almost feel as if I should apologize. That said, what interested me was the tension between fiction and life and how we twist our own stories to suit our will. I remember in 5th grade English class the teacher mentioning in Huck Finn the theme of Appearance Versus Reality, underlined twice on the chalkboard, and I was blown away by the notion—yes, yes, appearance versus reality! It was my Matrix moment. My teenage anthem. Like Jake with Chinatown, it explained all things without explaining a thing. It is, after all, the mother of all themes and introduces by far the most interesting element of any decent piece of writing, the subtext. So: what is the subtext of & Sons? Sorry, that’s a terrible question.

5. Okay, how about this: who is telling the story? And how is he telling the story? Is this an act of autobiography or an act of fiction and is there a difference between the two? I mean, we have the one narrator and then we have each chapter divided into three separate character-driven parts (and here I have to acknowledge Richard Powers since I essentially stole that structure from him ((a really useful structure by the way, if you’re ever looking for structure)), and Philip Roth’s Zuckerman books in the way Zuckerman jumps into other people’s heads yet always remains distinctly individual). I guess the question is: how good a writer is Philip Topping? Also, a follow-up: what writer is the biographer of your life? (For me, it’s Charles Schulz.)

6. Why all the Wizard of Oz allusions? Seriously. I think a lot of readers assume that the writer has relative control of his/her text but I can tell you that that simply is not true. I mean, that’s not true either, and no need to bring up Derrida or any of the deconstructionists, please God no, though during the Eighties I used to say Paul-De-Man instead of You’re Da Man (and got just as many laughs), but in all seriousness, I wrote a draft of this book and looked over it and saw all of these Wizard of Oz references, which I then burnished since it seemed so odd and unexpected and must mean something. So tell me about Dorothy? And Kansas and Oz? Who is the Wicked Witch?

7. Is this tedious?

8. Why did I write this book? Finally a question for me. I wrote this book because I have a son and a father and I myself am a son and a father and this funhouse mirror effect has been interesting, to say the least. Raising children is an act of love as well as an act of fiction in which the characters slowly free themselves from the supposed author. I remember being scared about having a boy. There seemed so much pressure involved. How would I teach someone how to be a man when I had no idea how to be a man myself? My own father is a wonderful guy, very impressive, an intimidating figure to me growing up as well as bit distant. He himself was the product of a strict family, raised by a step-father after his own father’s early death. Anyway, my Dad had a successful career in banking, and I remember when I was in my early thirties and just starting my own family, I was at an event and my father had to get up and say a few words and he was as always confident and charming, a commanding presence, and this old friend of his was sitting next to me and she leaned over and said,

It really is amazing, seeing your dad in these situations, so comfortable and at ease, considering how painfully shy he was as a boy. I mean, he could barely look you in the eye and had a bit of stammer. Amazing, the transformation.

Now this surprised me. I’ve always known him as a reserved and self-contained man, a bit unknowable, but never as a shy and awkward boy, and so I remember imagining: what if I could meet him when he was younger, say seventeen, how would my impressions change? That was the impetus behind & Sons. Hence this follow-up question: What if you could meet your father when he was five, or ten, or fifteen, at the height of his vulnerability? How would your feelings for the man change? We all reinvent ourselves with our children.

8. Let’s talk about the book within the book, Ampersand. Go ahead, I’m listening.

9. Okay, the women in the book—what women, I know. But hey, the book’s called & Sons, what did you expect? That said, there are women, in particular Isabel Dyer and Eleanor Topping, and they do play their part. How do these women function within this world of boys (notice I didn’t use the word men)? Does it ring true? My mother disagrees. I really wanted to make Richard’s wife Candy a bigger character and there was a scene in an early outline where she bonded with A.N. Dyer (much to the frustration of Richard), but I couldn’t quite find the narrative space for its inclusion. I’m curious, did I get away with my impersonation of Alice Munro in that Isabel chapter? I’m a fan of her stories and I loved trying to write in her particular style, not just overtly but covertly (and setting some action on a train). That said, is there a deeper purpose to my impersonation? What does it say about the fluid nature of authorship?

10. The novel has a prologue and an epilogue, though thankfully not tagged as prologue and epilogue since I myself always skip prologues and epilogues. I’ve never understood their purpose. Just start the book and end the book. I’ve never read a prologue and said, Wow, now that’s a great prologue. And an epilogue is like that awkward encounter with a friend after you say goodbye and depart down the street in the same direction. Oh, yeah, hay (awkward laugh). That said, I am guilty of writing a prologue and epilogue (italicized, no less). For me to stoop to this shame, there must be a reason…I hope.

11. Does Phillip Topping work as a narrator? I mean, yeah, he’s kind of unreliable, (unreliable narrator is like subtext 101), but do you believe him? I know, I know, I just said he’s unreliable, but how much of what he says is believable. The same with A.N. Dyer. I know, I know, A.N. Dyer is being filtered through Phillip, his biggest fan, who at the same time is trying to channel A.N. Dyer—so many layers of fiction. I guess the question is: who is the dog and who is the tail?

12. Do you like the letters? Regardless, they look great. The Random House interior designers did an incredible job to create that sense of reality. That was very important to me, to maintain a tight grip on the real, just like all the locations in New York and beyond are very real places, the same with the schools. That reality was key. Why do you think I cared so much? Sometimes I think of A.N. Dyer as a spider who has spun his web in the corner of these realities, a beautiful and intricate construction, lovely to behold, and not once does he think of the poor creatures who blindly fly into these traps and find themselves stuck and immobilized, a sudden character in one of his dramas. What stories do you tell yourself about your own life that you know are untrue, those exaggerations that have become fact? How of much of who were are is what we steal? And if fiction can bring a family together, do we care about the truth?

13. If you called someone up and told them to come find you in front of your favorite work of art, where would you be standing?

14. With Richard in the beginning, when he’s at the movie studio and feels as if his dreams are about to come true, Richard playing the fantasy forward and then discovering, too late for his ego, that he has misread the situation, can you relate to this mortifying situation? I certainly can. I once thought a girl was madly in love with me but actually she was in love with my best friend—wait, is that me or a movie I saw? How much of our memory is collage?

15. Dream Snap is an anagram of Ampersand? Do those kinds of games interest you? If they do, play on.

16. When I started & Sons I wrote a single word on a Post-It note and stuck it to the wall in front of my desk. What was that word? Five dollars to anyone who guesses right.
(Questions from author's website.)

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10:04
Ben Lerner, 2014
Faber and Faber
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780865478107

Summary
In the last year, the narrator of 10:04 has enjoyed unlikely literary success, has been diagnosed with a potentially fatal medical condition, and has been asked by his best friend to help her conceive a child.

In a New York of increasingly frequent superstorms and social unrest, he must reckon with his own mortality and the prospect of fatherhood in a city that might soon be underwater.

A writer whose work Jonathan Franzen has called “hilarious...cracklingly intelligent...and original in every sentence,” Lerner captures what it’s like to be alive now, during the twilight of an empire, when the difficulty of imagining a future is changing our relationship to both the present and the past. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 4, 1979
• Where—Topeka, Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University
• Awards—Believer Book Award; Terry Southern Prize
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Ben Lerner has been a Fulbright Fellow, a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, a Howard Foundation Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. His first novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, won the 2012 Believer Book Award, and excerpts from 10:04 have been awarded The Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize. He has published three poetry collections: The Lichtenberg Figures, Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path. Lerner is a professor of English at Brooklyn College. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Mr. Lerner is among the most interesting young American novelists at present for several reasons, one being that he's akin to a young Brooklynite version of the Norwegian novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard. That is, in his books, little happens, yet everything happens. Small moments come steeped in vertiginous magic…In 10:04, he's written a striking and important novel of New York City, partly because he's so cognizant of both past and present. He's a walker in the city in conscious league with Walt Whitman, but also with writers up through Teju Cole…
Dwight Garner - New York Times

[F]requently brilliant…. Lerner writes with a poet's attention to language, and manages to make his preoccupation with identity more than solipsistic. His failure to make the Lerner who is experiencing things coincide with the Lerner who represents himself on the page and in the social world starts to feel, if not quite heroic, then certainly a matter that concerns all of us, as we obsess over our profile pictures and work out at the gym.
Hari Kunzru - New York Times

Just how many singular reading experiences can one novelist serve up?... 10:04 is a mind-blowing book; to use Lerner’s own description, it’s a book that’s written "on the very edge of fiction."... Lerner obviously loves playing with language, stretching sentences out, folding them in on themselves, and making readers laugh out loud with the unexpected turns his paragraphs take.... 10:04 is a strange and spectacular novel. Don't even worry about classifying it; just let Lerner’s language sweep you off your feet.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR

Ingenious.... Lerner packs so much brilliance and humor into each episode. Some, like the narrator’s blunders while making his donation to a hospital fertility specialist, are worthy of Woody Allen in their comic neurosis. Others yield sparkling essayistic reflections on the blurred lines between art and reality.... This brain-tickling book imbues real experiences with a feeling of artistic possiblity, leaving the observable world "a little changed, a little charged."
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal

[Lerner’s] concerns wrap around the modern moment with terrifying rightness.... 10:04 describes what it feels like to be alive.
John Freeman - Boston Globe

At 240 pages, his new novel does not announce itself as a magnum opus. But given Lerner’s considerable humor, rigorous intelligence, and shred breed of conscience—his bighearted spirit and formal achievement—it is. A generous, provocative, ambitious Chinese box of a novel, 10:04 is a near-perfect piece of literature, affirmative of both life and art, written with the full force of Lerner’s intellectual, aesthetic, and empathetic powers, which are as considerable as they are vitalizing.
Maggie Nelson- Los Angeles Times

Lerner writes rich, ruminative fiction.... Like Whitman, and like W. G. Seabld and Teju Cole, Ben Lerner is a courageous chronicler of meditative ambulation, of the mind reflecting on its own vibrant thinking processes before they congeal into inert thoughts.
Steven G. Kellman - San Francisco Chronicle

Lerner explores the connections between contemporary life, art, and literary writing.... Lerner’s insistence on showing off his skill...sometimes results in overwrought constructions that detract from the narrative momentum, but readers who can overlook the sluggish start will be rewarded with engaging streams of thought and moments of tenderness.
Publishers Weekly

There's plenty of dry wit in 10:04 and some laugh-out-loud moments too.... But as in his first novel, Lerner's chief tone is somber.... At times he seems to strain to make scraps of experience...relevant to his themes, but few novelists are working so hard to make experience grist for the mill. Provocative and thoughtful, if at times wooly and interior
Kirkus Reviews

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The 100-Year-Old Man: Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson, 2009 (Eng. transl. 2012)
Hyperion Books (in U.S.)
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401324643

Summary
A reluctant centenarian much like Forrest Gump (if Gump were an explosives expert with a fondness for vodka) decides it’s not too late to start over.

After a long and eventful life, Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his last stop. The only problem is that he's still in good health, and in one day, he turns 100. A big celebration is in the works, but Allan really isn't interested (and he'd like a bit more control over his vodka consumption). So he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey, involving, among other surprises, a suitcase stuffed with cash, some unpleasant criminals, a friendly hot-dog stand operator, and an elephant (not to mention a death by elephant).

It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has a larger-than-life backstory: Not only has he witnessed some of the most important events of the twentieth century, but he has actually played a key role in them. Starting out in munitions as a boy, he somehow finds himself involved in many of the key explosions of the twentieth century and travels the world, sharing meals and more with everyone from Stalin, Churchill, and Truman to Mao, Franco, and de Gaulle. Quirky and utterly unique, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has charmed readers across the world. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 6, 1961
• Where—Vaxjo, Sweden
• Education—University of Gothenburg
• Awards—Swedish Booksellers Award; Prix Escapades;
M-Pionier Preis (German)
• Currently—Gotland, Sweden

Par-Ola Jonas Jonasson is a Swedish journalist and writer, best known as the author of the international best-seller The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.

The son of an ambulance driver and a nurse, Jonasson was born and raised in Vaxjo in Southern Sweden. After studying Swedish and Spanish at the University of Gothenburg, Jonasson worked as a journalist for the Vaxjo newspaper, Smalandsposten, and for the Swedish evening tabloid, Expressen, where he remained until 1994.

In 1996, he founded OTW, a successful media company, which grew to 100 employees. But by the end of 2003, with years of seven-day weeks, Jonasson was suffering from backpains and stress. After 20 years in the media industry, he decided to change his life's direction. He sold his business and, in 2005, moved to a remote part of Sormland on the south coast of Sweden, with his cat Molotov.

He married in 2007 and moved with his wife to Ticino, Switzerland, where he concentrated on the book he had long wished to complete. The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared was published in Sweden in 2009. He is working on his second comic novel, "about a South African woman who lives in Soweto and turns the world upside down." Rights for this second book, An Alphabet Who Knew How to Count (the working title), have been sold for translation into over 30 languages.

Film rights for The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared were acquired by the Swedish production companies Nice Entertainment and FLX 2.0 for a movie to be directed by Felix Herngren and starring the Swedish comedian Robert Gustafsson.

Now divorced, Jonasson lives with his five-year-old son on the Swedish island of Gotland. (From Wikipedia.)

Watch a delightful video on YouTube.

Book Reviews
Imaginative, laugh-out-loud....a brilliant satire on the foibles of mankind.
Telegraph (UK)

A mordantly funny and loopily freewheeling debut novel about ageing disgracefully.
Sunday Times (UK)

Scandi-crime’s signature darkness is here dispelled by Allan Karlsson, the eponymous centenarian, who with unlikelyprightliness hops out of the window of his old people’s home one afternoon.... Fast-moving and relentlessly sunny.... Like Allan, the plot is pleasingly nimble and the book’s endearing charm offers a happy alternative to the more familiar Nordic noir.

Guardian (UK)

Jonasson’s laugh-out-loud debut (a bestseller in Europe) reaches the U.S. three years after its Swedish publication, in Bradbury’s pitch-perfect translation. The intricately plotted saga of Allan Karlsson begins when he escapes his retirement home on his 100th birthday by climbing out his bedroom window. After stealing a young punk’s money-filled suitcase, he embarks on a wild adventure, and through a combination of wits, luck, and circumstance, ends up on the lam from both a smalltime criminal syndicate and the police. Jonasson moves deftly through Karlsson’s life—from present to past and back again—recounting the fugitive centenarian’s career as a demolitions expert and the myriad critical junctures of history, including the Spanish Civil War and the Manhattan Project, wherein Karlsson found himself an unwitting (and often influential) participant. Historical figures like Mao’s third wife, Vice President Truman, and Stalin appear, to great comic effect. Other characters—most notably Albert Einstein’s hapless half-brother—are cleverly spun into the raucous yarn, and all help drive this gentle lampoon of procedurals and thrillers.
Publishers Weekly

[D]eadpan humor.... Allan Karlsson, the centenarian who sneaks out of his nursing home, is an expert on explosives who has led an outsize life...[and] inadvertently played a significant role in many world events.... Chapters alternate between Allan's big adventures in the past and in the present, where he gets mixed up with a zany bunch of Swedes and a former circus elephant as they try to avoid both cops and gangsters. Verdict: his quirky novel is a sly, satirical look back at international relations...through the eyes of an old man who has seen it all. —Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal

Desperate to avoid his 100th birthday party, Allan Karlsson climbs out the window of his room at the nursing home and heads to the nearest bus station...[where a] decision to steal a suitcase from a fellow passenger sends [him] on a strange and unforeseen journey... [It's] just another chapter in a life full of adventures for Allan, who has become entangled in the major events of the twentieth century.... [R]eaders will be treated to a new and charmingly funny version of world history and get to know a very youthful old man whose global influence knows no age limit.... —Carol Gladstein
Booklist

A Swedish debut novel that will keep readers chuckling. Allan Karlsson has just turned 100, and the Old Folks' Home is about to give him a birthday party that he absolutely doesn't want. So he leaves out his window and high-tails it to a bus station, with no particular destination in mind.... Coincidence and absurdity are at the core of this silly and wonderful novel. Looking back, it seems there are no hilarious, roll-on-the-floor-laughing scenes. They will just keep readers amused almost nonstop, and that's a feat few writers achieve. A great cure for the blues, especially for anyone who might feel bad about growing older.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Publishers Weekly called this book, a "gentle lampoon of procedurals and thrillers." With a detective, a band of criminals and escapees on the run, it seems a valid description. Are these the terms in which you would talk about this novel? How else would you describe it?

2. What do you consider justice for Allan Karlsson?

3. Many readers have spoken about the humour and optimism of Allan Karlsson. How do these characteristics weave through the novel? What parts do you find particularly funny...and what makes them funny?

4. The One Hundred Year Old Man is a novel with the topic of ageing at its core. What are society's expectations of how the elderly should act? Talk about the ways—obvious and not-so-obvious—in which Allan defies the usual stereotypes. What are your own experiences, either as an older person yourself...or as someone who worries about an older friend or family member? Does society do a good job in terms of how we treat our older population? Have you read other novels that explore (and shatter) a strongly held societal belief?

5. History and politics sit lightly within the framework of this novel. When it comes to international relations, what worldview would you say the author seem to hold?

6. A definition of "satire" is "a literary composition in which vices, abuses and follies, etc are held up to scorn, derision
or ridicule" (Macquarie Dictionary). Do you think this novel is a satire—and what is being satirized?

(LitLovers adapted these questions from Allen & Ulwin, the book's Australian publisher.)

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11/22/63
Stephen King, 2012
Gallery Books : Simon & Schuster
849 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451627299

Summary
Winner, 2012 Thriller Award for Best Novel

Dallas, 11/22/63: Three shots ring out. President John F. Kennedy is dead.

Life can turn on a dime—or stumble into the extraordinary, as it does for Jake Epping, a high school English teacher in a Maine town. While grading essays by his GED students, Jake reads a gruesome, enthralling piece penned by janitor Harry Dunning: fifty years ago, Harry somehow survived his father’s sledgehammer slaughter of his entire family.

Jake is blown away...but an even more bizarre secret comes to light when Jake’s friend Al, owner of the local diner, enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession—to prevent the Kennedy assassination. How? By stepping through a portal in the diner’s storeroom, and into the era of Ike and Elvis, of big American cars, sock hops, and cigarette smoke... Finding himself in warmhearted Jolie, Texas, Jake begins a new life. But all turns in the road lead to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald. The course of history is about to be rewritten...and become heart-stoppingly suspenseful.

In Stephen King’s “most ambitious and accomplished” (NPR) novel, time travel has never been so believable. Or so terrifying. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 21, 1947
• Where—Portland, Maine, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Maine
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in Bangor, Maine

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books. King has published 50 novels, including seven under the pen-name of Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has written nearly two hundred short stories, most of which have been collected in nine collections of short fiction. Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.

Early life
King's father, Donald Edwin King, who was born circa 1913 in Peru, Indiana, was a merchant seaman. King's mother, Nellie Ruth (nee Pillsbury; 1913–1973) was born in Scarborough, Maine. The two were married in 1939 in Cumberland County, Maine.

Stephen Edwin King was born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the family under the pretense of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes," leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted older brother, David, by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Stratford, Connecticut. When King was eleven years old, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged. King was raised Methodist.

As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works, but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing.

King's primary inspiration for writing horror fiction was related in detail in his 1981 non-fiction Danse Macabre, in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause." King makes a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories entitled The Lurker in the Shadows that had belonged to his father. The cover art—an illustration of a yellow-green Demon hiding within the recesses of a Hellish cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes, the moment in his life which "that interior dowsing rod responded to." King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book."

Education and early career
King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC's horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt (he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow). He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper that his brother published with a mimeograph machine, and later began selling stories to his friends which were based on movies he had seen (though when discovered by his teachers, he was forced to return the profits). The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber", serialized over three published and one unpublished issue of a fanzine, Comics Review, in 1965. That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.

From 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. That same year his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, titled "Steve King's Garbage Truck", took part in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen, and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor," to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. The Fogler Library at the University of Maine now holds many of King's papers.

After leaving the university, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, being unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been published in the collection Night Shift. In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine whom he had met at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops. That fall, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels. It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem, which would plague him for more than a decade.

Writing, 1970-2000
In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King threw an early draft of the novel in the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. His advance for Carrie was $2,500, with paperback rights earning $400,000 at a later date. King and his family moved to southern Maine because of his mother's failing health. At this time, he began writing a book titled Second Coming, later titled Jerusalem's Lot, before finally changing the title to Salem's Lot (published 1975). In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he stated, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!" Soon after the release of Carrie in 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died. King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.

After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Phillip (his third and last child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. He has kept his primary residence in Maine ever since.

In 1985 King wrote his first work for the comic book medium, writing a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison. The following year, King wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.

On June 19, 1999 at about 4:30 pm, King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Smith, distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was hit from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding, reckless, or drinking.

King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston. His injuries—a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip—kept him at CMMC until July 9. His leg bones were so shattered doctors initially considered amputating his leg, but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator. After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became worse. Soon it became nearly unbearable.

King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, much to King's disappointment, as he dreamed of beating it with a baseball bat once his leg was healed. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to completely destroy the vehicle himself with a pickaxe.

During this time, Tabitha King was inspired to redesign his studio. King visited the space while his books and belongings were packed away. What he saw was an image of what his studio would look like if he died, providing a seed for his novel Lisey's Story.

In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable and reduced his stamina. He has since resumed writing, but states on his website that:

I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be.

Writing, 2000's
In 2000, King published a serialized novel, The Plant, online, bypassing print publication. At first it was presumed by the public that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but he later stated that he had simply run out of stories. The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, now free. Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and has said he sees e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012." But he also warns: "Here's the thing—people tire of the new toys quickly."

In August 2003 King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop of King," a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly given to Michael Jackson. In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phone user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones. In 2007, Marvel Comics began publishing comic books based on King's Dark Tower series, followed by adaptations of The Stand in 2008 and The Talisman in 2009.

In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a novella, N., which was later released as a serialized animated series that could be seen for free, or, for a small fee, could be downloaded in a higher quality; it then was adopted into a limited comic book series.

In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindle and available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill, which later was released as an audiobook Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". On November 10 that year, King's novel, Under the Dome, was published. It is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since 1986's It. It debuted at No. 1 in The New York Times Bestseller List.

Writing, 2010s
On February 16, 2010, King announced on his website that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade Billy, an original novella issued first by independent small press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The following month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work. King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issue story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.

King's next novel, 11/22/63, published in 2011, was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel. The eighth Dark Tower volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012. King's next novel is the upcoming sequel to The Shining (1977), titled Doctor Sleep, scheduled for 2013, and King is currently working on Joyland, a novel about "an amusement-park serial killer," according to an article in The Sunday Times (April 8, 2012).

Awards
Alex Award
Balrog Award
Black Quill Award
Bram Stocker AWards (14)
British Fantasy Society Awards (6)
Deutscher Phantastik Pries (5)
Horror Guild Awards (6)
Hugo Award
International Horror Guild Awards (2)
Locus Awards (5)
Mystery Writers of America Awards (2, incl.,Grand Master)
National Book Foundation, Medal of Distringuished Contribution to American Letters
O. Henry Award
Quill Award
Shirely Jackson Award
Thriller Award
World Fantasy Awards (4)
World Horror Convention, World Horror Grandmaster Award

Personal life
King and his wife own and occupy three different houses, one in Bangor, one in Lovell, Maine, and they regularly winter in their waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico, in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen, and three grandchildren.

Shortly after publication of The Tommyknockers, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping evidence of his addictions taken from the trash including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana, on the rug in front of him. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since. The first novel he wrote after quitting drugs and alcohol was Needful Things.

Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both King's sons are published authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hillstrom King, who writes under the professional name Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be adapted into a feature film by director Neil Jordan. King's daughter Naomi is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida with her same-sex partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.

King is a fan of baseball, and of the Boston Red Sox in particular; he frequently attends the team's home and away games, and occasionally mentions the team in his novels and stories. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down," which also appears in the collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. In 2004, King co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series. In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the Sox's opening day game. (From Wikipedia. See complete article.)

Book Reviews
King pulls off a sustained high-wire act of storytelling trickery…The pages of 11/22/63 fly by, filled with immediacy, pathos and suspense. It takes great brazenness to go anywhere near this subject matter. But it takes great skill to make this story even remotely credible. Mr. King makes it all look easy, which is surely his book's fanciest trick.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

11/22/63 is a meditation on memory, love, loss, free will and necessity. It's a blunderbuss of a book, rife with answers to questions: Can one man make a difference? Can history be changed, or does it snap back on itself like a rubber band? Does love conquer all? (The big stuff)…It all adds up to one of the best time-travel stories since H. G. Wells. King has captured something wonderful. Could it be the bottomlessness of reality? The closer you get to history, the more mysterious it becomes. He has written a deeply romantic and pessimistic book. It's romantic about the real possibility of love, and pessimistic about everything else.
Errol Morris - New York Times Book Review

a tale richly layered with the pleasures we've come to expect: characters of good heart and wounded lives, whose adventures into the fantastic are made plausible because they are anchored in reality, in the conversations and sense of place that take us effortlessly into the story…We are…reminded again that in Stephen King, we have proof that (as JFK himself once put it) "life is unfair." He is not only as famous and wealthy a writer as any of his time; his work suggests that if a time traveler found a portal to the 22nd century and looked for the authors of today still being read tomorrow, Stephen King would be one of them.
Jeff Greenfield - Washington Post

High school English teacher Jake Epping has his work cut out for him in King’s entertaining SF romantic thriller. Al Templeton, the proprietor of Al’s Diner in Lisbon Falls, Maine, has discovered a temporal “rabbit hole” in the diner’s storage room that leads to a point in the past.... Al confesses that he spent several years in this bygone world, in an effort to prevent President Kennedy’s assassination, but because he contracted lung cancer, he was unable to fulfill his history-changing mission. “You can go back, and you can stop” the assassination, he tells Jake. Jake...is inclined to honor his dying friend’s request to save JFK...[and]once over the initial hurdles, Jake is working under a pseudonym as a high school teacher in Jodie, Tex., an idyllic community north of Dallas...[and] zeroing in on a certain former U.S. Marine who defected to the Soviet Union and has recently returned to the U.S. with his Russian wife....Those folks [who claim Oswald acted alone] may have a problem with this suspenseful time-travel epic, but the rest of us will happily follow well-meaning, good-hearted Jake Epping, the anti-Oswald if you will, on his quixotic quest. —Peter Cannon
Publishers Weekly

In King's latest...the horror master ventures into si-fi. Maine restaurant owner Al tells high school English teacher Jake Epping that there's a time portal to the year 1958 in his diner. Al has terminal cancer and asks Jake to grant his dying wish: go back in time and prevent the 1963 assassination of JFK. Jake's travels take him first to Derry, ME—the fictional (and creepy) setting of King's 1986 blockbuster It—to try to stop the horrific 1958 murder of a family. Later, he heads to Texas, where he bides his time—teaching in a small town, where he falls for school librarian Sadie Dunhill—and keeps tabs on the thuggish Lee Harvey Oswald. It all leads to an inevitable climax at the Book Depository and an outcome that changes American history. Verdict: Though this hefty novel starts strong, diving energetically into the story and savoring the possibilities of time travel, the middle drags a bit—particularly during Jake's small-town life in Texas. Still, King remains an excellent storyteller, and his evocation of mid-20th-century America is deft. Alternate-history buffs will especially enjoy the twist ending. —David Rapp
Library Journal

King [turns] in a sturdy, customarily massive exercise in time travel that just happens to involve the possibility of altering history. Didn't Star Trek tell us not to do that? Yes, but no matter: ... King follows his own rules. In this romp, Jake Epping, a high-school English teacher (vintage King, that detail), slowly comes to see the opportunity to alter the fate of a friend who, in one reality, is hale and hearty but in another dying of cancer, no thanks to a lifetime of puffing unfiltered cigarettes. Epping discovers a time portal tucked away in a storeroom—don't ask why there—and zips back to 1958.... A different world indeed: In this one, Jake...sees an opportunity to unmake the past by inserting himself into some ugly business involving Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby, various representatives of the military-industrial-intelligence complex and JFK in Dallas in the fall of 1963. It would be spoiling things to reveal how things turn out; suffice it to say that any change in Reality 2 will produce a change in Reality 1, not to mention that Oswald may have been a patsy, just as he claimed—or maybe not. King's vision of one outcome of the Kennedy assassination plot reminds us of what might have been—that is, almost certainly a better present than the one in which we're all actually living. "If you want to know what political extremism can lead to," warns King in an afterword, "look at the Zapruder film." Though his scenarios aren't always plausible in strictest terms, King's imagination, as always, yields a most satisfying yarn.
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 11/22/63:

1. How would you describe Jake Epping—what kind of man is he? How does his ex-wife see him? How do others see him. How do you see him?

2. Why does Jake agree to go back in time—what are his reasons? At this stage in your own life, would you be willing to travel back to the past? What conditions would you require to do so?

2. Why does King inject the Derry, Maine, subplot into the main plot? Is the Dunning episode necessary to the story—or does it drag down the novel's pace?

3. Describe the world of 1958 in which 2011 Jake finds himself. What is appealing about the era...and what is unappealing?

4. Once in Texas, what does Jake, now George Amberson, come to learn about Lee Harvey Oswald? What kind of character is Oswald? When Oswald arrives on the scene, why doesn't Jake/George just take him out? Why does he delay?

5. Follow-up to Question 4: What makes Jake/George (and the author) conclude that Oswald acted alone? Do you think he did? Have you done any previous reading/research that suggests Oswald was not a lone gunman? (see LitLovers review of Conspiracy by Anthony Summers.)

6. Jake/George has come to believe that life is not random:

Coincidences happen, but I’ve come to believe they are actually quite rare. Something is at work, O.K.? Somewhere in the universe (or behind it), a great machine is ticking and turning its fabulous gears.

What does Jake/George mean? Do you believe in a "great machine," an over-arching fate, or God who oversees and intervenes in our lives. Do "things happen for a reason"? What are your thoughts?

7. What is the nature of time as presented in 11/22/63? Consider the following:

    • Time doesn't want to be changed: time is "obdurate." Why?
    • Harmonies crop up, similarities in names and events. Why?
    • The butterfly effect—what is it?
    • The Yellow Card Man—is he a sentinel?
    • Time is like a string; changing events tangles the strings.

8. Follow-up to Question 7: What does the novel, ultimately, seem to suggest about the hiuman desire to alter the past?

9. Follow-up to Questions 7 & 8: How does the novel present the notion of history? Is history shaped by individuals whose actions, discoveries, and intentions alter the course of events? Or is history created by the interconnectedness of a multitude of events, generated by forces bigger than any single individual?

10. King has a talent for taking supernatural events and locating them in everyday, mundane settings. How does he do that in 11/22/63? Does he pull it off...or does he falter?

11. 14. Why does Sadie sense that there's something odd about Jake/George? What are some of the ways that George's knowledge of the future betray him? Why does he withhold the truth from Sadie for so long? How would you react if someone told you he/she came from the future?

12. How would you classify this book? Historical fiction? Science fiction? Alternate history? Romance? Thriller? Realism? Is it suspenseful—did you find yourself rushing to turn the page? Were you expecting George to succeed—or fail—in his mission?

13. SPOILER ALERT: Talk about Jake/George's decision to return to 2011. Why does he make the choice he does? Do you wish he had chosen differently?

14. SPOILER ALERT: Talk about the dystopian world Jake returns to in 2011. What were the series of events that led up to the conditions he finds?

15. If you've read other Stephen King books, or seen the movies, how does this book compare with his others? Has he jumped his usual genre...or expanded it? Does that fact that King's normal genre is fantasy-horror make him especially equipped as an author to write a book like 11/22/63?

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

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13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Mona Awad, 2016
Penguin Books
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143128489

Summary
Growing up in the suburban hell of Misery Saga (a.k.a. Mississauga), Lizzie has never liked the way she looks—even though her best friend Mel says she’s the pretty one.

She starts dating guys online, but she’s afraid to send pictures, even when her skinny friend China does her makeup: she knows no one would want her if they could really see her.

So she starts to lose

With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed, miles logged, pounds dropped. She fights her way into coveted dresses. She grows up and gets thin, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her husband, her reflection in the mirror.

But no matter how much she loses, will she ever see herself as anything other than a fat girl?

In her brilliant, hilarious, and at times shocking debut, Mona Awad simultaneously skewers the body image-obsessed culture that tells women they have no value outside their physical appearance, and delivers a tender and moving depiction of a lovably difficult young woman whose life is hijacked by her struggle to conform.

As caustically funny as it is heartbreaking, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl introduces a vital new voice in fiction. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Mona Awad received her MFA in fiction from Brown University. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Walrus, Joyland, Post Road, St. Petersburg Review, and many other journals. She is currently pursuing a PhD in creative writing and English literature at the University of Denver. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Simultaneously tart and tender, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is stunning.... The way food and body image define Elizabeth’s life is depressing and sad. But the book is neither. There is so much humor here—much of it dark, but spot on, like Dolores in Wally Lamb’s She’s Come Undone or Lena Dunham in Girls.... As you watch Lizzie navigate fraught relationships—with food, men, girlfriends, her parents and even with herself—you’ll want to grab a friend and say: "Whoa. This. Exactly."
Washington Post

Heartbreaking…[rife] with beauty and humor.... As addictive as potato chips and as painful as the prospect of eating nothing but 4-ounce portions of steamed fish for the rest of your life.
Chicago Tribune

Awad explores the sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking ways that a person’s struggle with body image can seep into every part of her existence.... 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is not really about how Lizzie March looks…[it's] about how she sees herself.
Wall Street Journal

Awad is an incredibly skilled writer, with a rare ability to construct tiny moments of both acute empathy and astonishing depth…and] a profoundly sensitive understanding of the subject matter.... It’s impossible not to be deeply affected by [her] prose.... A real narrative achievement.
Globe and Mail (Canada)

Absorbing…. Subtle but poignant.... This sort of intrafeminine aggression will be familiar to most women, whatever side of the body war they’ve been on. But it is is a side of experience that hasn’t been much explored by literary novelists.
Guardian (UK)

With dark humor and heartbreaking honesty, Awad cuts away at diet culture and the pressure on women to make thinness and beauty their priority.
San Francisco Chronicle

Awad’s satiric edge is on display in her debut novel.
Los Angeles Times

It's as if the writer has eavesdropped on your most pathetic, smallest thoughts.... Awad's writing is heartbreaking and witty, while her prose is insightful and sharp-elbowed in its caustic edge.... [Lizzie is] a vulnerable, funny and fierce narrator.
Salt Lake Tribune

[Lizzie's struggle] is a valuable addition to the canon of American womanhood.
Time

In this dark, honest debut, Awad sharply observes…the struggles of growing up, growing out, and trying to slim down, at any cost.
Marie Claire

The nuance Awad adds to conceptions of weight and body image is applied also to her realizations of female friendships. Lizzie’s relationships with other women are at once petty and kind, jealous and admiring.
Huffington Post

[A]ssured and terrific.... Awad artfully revisits themes related to body mass, femininity, cultural values, and resistance, finding virtually no reasons to be optimistic.... Lizzie’s witticisms, while abundant, are…a profoundly somber indictment of…gendered cultural norms.
Publishers Weekly

Touching.... Behind the title of Awad’s sharp first book, a unique novel in 13 vignettes, is brazen-voiced Lizzie, who longs for, tests, and prods the deep center of the cultural promise that thinness, no matter how one achieves it, is the prerequisite for happiness.
Booklist

(Starred review.) [P]ainfully raw—and bitingly funny.... [I]n Lizzie, Awad has created a character too vivid, too complicated, and too fundamentally human to be reduced to a single moral. Lizzie…gets under your skin, and she stays there. Beautifully constructed; a devastating novel but also a deeply empathetic one.
Kirkus Reviews

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1984
George Orwell, 1949
~ 300 pp. (varies by publisher)

Summary
In 1949, on the heels of another literary classic, Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote 1984, his now legendary and terrifying glimpse into the future. His vision of an omni-present and ultra-repressive State is rooted in the ominous world events of Orwell's own time and is given shape and substance by his astute play on our own fears.

As the novel opens, we learn that in year 1984, the world has been divided into three states: Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia, all of which, it is said, are almost continually in battle with one another. This world structure has come about following a nuclear war which took place sometime in the 1950's. In the state of Oceania, a revolution has resulted in the rise of an all-seeing figurehead known only as Big Brother, and a secretive group of individuals referred to as The Party. Under this regime, basic freedoms of expression—even thought—are strictly forbidden. History and memory are actively erased and rewritten so as to support the omnipotence and infallibility of The Party and its pronouncements. To this end, the State even employs its own language, Newspeak, and its own thought process, Doublethink.

It's against this background that we are introduced to Winston Smith, a low-level Party member (not to be confused with the elite group which surrounds Big Brother) who works in the Ministry of Truth. His job here, paradoxically, is to destroy and rewrite news articles and State facts and figures so as to align them with the most current views of The Party. A resident of Airstrip One—formerly London, England—Smith lives in a world devoid of even the simplest liberties. In this repressive society, where thoughts themselves can be ascertained and monitored, Winston finds himself alone and in quiet "revolution" against Big Brother. Boldly, he even goes as far as to write his own thoughts down on paper— a crime worthy of abduction by the Thought Police.

Early in the novel, Winston meets Julia, another worker at the Ministry of Truth, whom he has been watching from afar. Secretly, the two begin a love affair. This liaison inspires Winston to indulge his ever-growing obsession with revolution, and he and Julia begin to discuss, however implausible, ideas for the overthrow of The Party. Winston's eventual (and inevitable) capture at the hands of the Thought Police leads to his purification and re-education by inner Party members

Orwell's strict attention to detail and realistic description of a world thirty-five years ahead of his own add validity to 1984, and make its larger conclusions all the more frightening. Even today, the novel remains a bleak and shadowy forewarning of what might someday occur. (From Penguin Classics—cover image, top-right.)

Author Bio
• Aka— Eric Arthur Blair
• Birth— June 25, 1903
• Where—Motihari, Bihar, India
• Death—January 21, 1950
• Where—London England
• Education—Eton, U.K.

Eric Arthur Blair (George Orwell) was born in 1903 in India, where his father worked for the Civil Service. The family moved to England in 1907 and in 1917 Orwell entered Eton, where he contributed regularly to the various college magazines. From 1922 to 1927 he served with the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, an experience that inspired his first novel, Burmese Days (1934). Several years of poverty followed.

He lived in Paris for two years before returning to England, where he worked successively as a private tutor, schoolteacher and bookshop assistant, and contributed reviews and articles to a number of periodicals. Down and Out in Paris and London was published in 1933.

In 1936, he was commissioned by Victor Gollancz to visit areas of mass unemployment in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and The Road to Wigan Pier (1937) is a powerful description of the poverty he saw there. At the end of 1936 Orwell went to Spain to fight for the Republicans and was wounded, and Homage to Catalonia is his account of the civil war. He was admitted to a sanatorium in 1938 and from then on was never fully fit. He spent six months in Morocco and there wrote Coming Up for Air.

During the Second World War he served in the Home Guard and worked for the BBC Eastern Service from 1941 to 1943. As literary editor of the (London) Tribune he contributed a regular page of political and literary commentary, and he also wrote for the Observer and later for the Manchester Evening News.

His unique political allegory, Animal Farm, was published in 1945, and it was this novel, together with 1984 (1949), which brought him world-wide fame.

George Orwell died in London in January 1950. A few days before, Desmond MacCarthy had sent him a message of greeting in which he wrote: "You have made an indelible mark on English literature. . .you are among the few memorable writers of your generation." (From Wikipedia and Penguin Classics—cover image, top-right.)

Book Reviews
(Older works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a work of pure horror, and its horror is crushingly immediate....The English language is transformed into something called Newspeak, a devastating bureaucratic jargon whose aim is to reduce the vocabulary to the minimum number of words so that ultimately there will be no tools for thinking outside the concepts provided by the state.... [The novel]... is a great examination into and dramatization of Lord Action's famous apothegm, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Mark Schorer - New York Times (6/12/1949)

Discussion Questions
1. The world within which Winston lives is replete with contradictions. For example a, major tenet of the Party's philosophy is that War is Peace. Similarly, the Ministry of Love serves as, what we would consider, a department of war. What role do these contradictions serve on a grand scale? Discuss other contradictions inherent in the Party's philosophy. What role does contradiction serve within the framework of Doublethink? How does Doublethink satisfy the needs of The Party?

2. In the afterword, the commentator describes 1984 as "a warning." Indeed, throughout the text, Orwell plants both subtle and overt warnings to the reader. What do you think are some of the larger issues at hand here?

3. Describe the role that O'Brien plays in Winston's life. Why do you think that initially, Winston is drawn to O'Brien? Why does he implicitly trust him, despite the enormous dangers involved?

4. Discuss the significance and nature of Winston's dreams. Deconstruct the dream wherein O'Brien claims that they "shall meet in a place where there is no darkness" (page 22), and the dream in which Winston's mother and sister disappear (page 26). What are the underpinnings of these dreams? What deeper meanings do they hold? Why do you think the author devotes as much time as he does to Winston's dreams?

5. Discuss Winston as a heroic figure. What qualities does he posses that could define him as one?

6. Compare and contrast some of the other characters in Winston's world: Parsons, Syme, O'Brien. How does Winston view each one? How do they differ from Winston? What opinion do you think each one has of Winston?

7. On pages 147-148, Winston reflects on the omnipresence of The Party: "He thought of the telescreen with its never-sleeping ear. They could spy upon you night and day, but if you kept your head you could still outwit them….Facts at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive, but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make?" What, in essence, is Winston saying about the lone individual in relation to The State? Does this contention remain true throughout the novel?

8. Early on in the novel, we learn of Winston's belief in the proles as a liberating force. What accounts for Winston's almost blind faith in the proles? What are some of the characteristics of the proles that, in Winston's eyes, make them the ultimate means for overthrowing Big Brother?

9. From her first appearance as "the dark-haired girl," through to the end of the novel, Julia is a key figure in 1984. Trace the path of Julia in relation to Winston's life; in what ways does she influence him? Did you trust her, initially? Overall, do you feel she had a positive or negative impact upon him?

10. After his first formal meeting with O'Brien, Winston receives a book, ostensibly written by Emmanuel Goldberg. In reading passages from this book, Winston is further enlightened as to "how" the current society came into being. Focus on these passages, and in particular, on the theory of the High, Middle and Low classes (page 179). If true, what does this theory hold for the proles? Is Winston's plan for the proles now altered? Why or why not?

11. During Winston's interrogation, O'Brien explains that whereas preceding totalitarian regimes had failed, The Party was truly successful in its consolidation of power (page 226). How, according to O'Brien, does the The Party as an oligarchy differ from Nazism or Russian Communism? How does he define the role of the martyr, both in terms of The Party and the other totalitarian systems?

12. Following his capture in Mr. Charrington's spare room, Winston undergoes a process of "philosophical cleansing" and re-education against which he valiantly, but unsuccessfully fights. Discuss Winston's "capitulation" at the hands of O'Brien. How is Winston brought to "love Big Brother?" In sacrificing Julia, how has Winston, in essence, signaled his own end?

13. How would you describe the author's tone in 1984? Does it add to or detract from the character's discourse?

14. Discuss the role of sex and intimacy in 1984. What specific function does the Party's directive on sexual interaction serve?

15. In the final analysis, how accurate was Orwell in his vision of the future? In what ways does our contemporary society compare to his idea of society in 1984? Are there examples in which he was correct? What is most opposite? Do you see a potential for aspects of Orwell's "vision" to come true?

16. During his final encounter with O'Brien, Winston argues that, if all else fails, the inherent nature of the individual—the "spirit of man"—is strong enough to undermine a society such as that created by The Party. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Is Winston's belief applicable to the world we live in today? Can you cite examples in our own recent history that support or dismiss Winston's belief in the resiliency and righteousness of the human spirit?

17. Prior to meeting her, Winston fantasizes about Julia in violent, humiliating ways. Later, he describes in his diary an encounter with a middle-aged, toothless prostitute. How do you account for these thoughts? How does Winston's understanding of women change after his first liaison with Julia?

18. Given Winston's own acknowledgment that he is under constant surveillance, and that it would only be a matter of time before the Thought Police caught him, no one in his world could be trusted. Prior to his capture, which character or characters did you envision as betraying Winston? How did you foresee his ultimate demise? Did you, on the contrary, feel that by some chance he would overcome the forces aligned against him, and fulfill his wish to conquer The Party?

19. Imagine yourself as Winston Smith at the beginning of 1984. What would you do to undermine The Party? Knowing what you know now, how would you extricate yourself from the fate that awaits you?

20. Refer back to Winston's conversation with the old man at the pub (page 78). Why is Winston so determined in his approach to the old man? What is Winston hoping to learn from him?
(Questions from Penguin Modern Classics.)

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The 19th Wife
David Ebershoff, 2008
Random House
514 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812974157

Summary
Faith, I tell them, is a mystery, elusive to many, and never easy to explain.

Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense.

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds—a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.

And as Ann Eliza’s narrative intertwines with that of Jordan’s search, readers are pulled deeper into the mysteries of love and faith. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Pasadena, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; University of Chicago;
Keio University (Tokyo)
• Awards—Rosenthal Foundation Award from American
Academy of Arts & Letters; Lambda Literary Award
• Currently—lives in New York City

David Ebershoff is the author of two novels, Pasadena and The Danish Girl , and a short-story collection, The Rose City. His fiction has won a number of awards, including the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Lambda Literary Award, and has been translated into ten languages to critical acclaim.

Ebershoff is editor-at-large at Random House, where he edits a wide range of writers including novelists David Mitchell, Charles Bock, Gary Shteyngart, Phil LaMarche, poet Billy Collins, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi, journalist Azadeh Moaveni, and historians Hugh Thomas and Ronald C. White, Jr. Ebershoff was Jane Jacobs's editor on her final two books and was Norman Mailer's editor for the last five years of his life. Working with Truman Capote's estate, he oversees the Capote publications for Random House, and was the editor of The Complete Stories of Truman Capote, Summer Crossing, and Portraits and Observations. He was formerly the publishing director of Random House's classics imprint, the Modern Library. He also writes for Conde Nast Traveler.

Ebershoff has taught creative writing at New York University and Princeton and is currently an adjunct assistant professor in the graduate writing program at Columbia University. For many years he was the publishing director of the Modern Library, and he is currently an editor-at-large for Random House. He lives in New York City. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
[Ebershoff's] great collage of a novel mixes the early history of the Mormon Church with the story of a modern-day murder in a breakaway Mormon cult. Readers of Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer's bestseller about the violent beginnings of Mormonism in the early 19th century and a double murder carried out by Mormon fundamentalists in 1984, will recognize this mingling of old and new. But Ebershoff has produced a different kind of book. For one thing, he's made up his modern-day adventure and fictionalized the historical record to shape his own ends. And more important, he's produced a novel that poses engaging challenges for the faithful in any denomination without discounting the essential value of faith. The result is a book packed with historical illumination, unforgettable characters and the deepest questions about the tenacity of belief.
Ron Charles - Washington Post

Despite the high hurdles Ebershoff has erected, the novel flows surprisingly well…In a less talented writer's hands, The 19th Wife could have turned into a Rube Goldberg contraption. But in the end the multiplicity of perspectives serves to broaden Ebershoff's depiction not only of polygamy, but also of the people whose lives it informs. And this gives his novel a rare sense of moral urgency.
Louisa Thomas - New York Times

This ambitious third novel tells two parallel stories of polygamy. The first recounts Brigham Young's expulsion of one of his wives, Ann Eliza, from the Mormon Church; the second is a modern-day murder mystery set in a polygamous compound in Utah. Unfolding through an impressive variety of narrative forms—Wikipedia entries, academic research papers, newspaper opinion pieces—the stories include fascinating historical details. We are told, for instance, of Brigham Young's ban on dramas that romanticized monogamous love at his community theatre; as one of Young's followers says, "I ain't sitting through no play where a man makes such a cussed fuss over one woman." Ebershoff demonstrates abundant virtuosity, as he convincingly inhabits the voices of both a nineteenth-century Mormon wife and a contemporary gay youth excommunicated from the church, while also managing to say something about the mysterious power of faith.
The New Yorker

This sweeping epic is a compelling and original work set in 1875, when one woman attempts to rid America of polygamy. Ebershoff intertwines his tale with that of a 20th-century murder mystery in Utah, allowing the two stories to twist and turn into a marvelous literary experience. With such a sprawling tale to relate, a few narrators (Kimberly Farr, Rebecca Lowman, Arthur Morey and Daniel Passer) divide up the roles and deliver a solid, professional reading, true to Ebershoff's prose.
Publishers Weekly

Ebershoff (Pasadena, 2002, etc.) takes a promising historical premise and runs with it-perhaps a couple of dozen pages too long. He juxtaposes the world of modern polygamous families down on the remote Utah-Arizona line with the life of a junior wife of 19th-century Mormon patriarch Brigham Young. Junior in terms of both age and pecking order, Annie Young didn't much like the gig; she renounced life as a plural wife and broke from the church to publish a book about the horrors of polygamy. Her story inspired much antipathy among Young's anti-Mormon neighbors; Ebershoff borrows elsewhere from history to recapitulate a San Francisco newspaper's condemnation of Brigham Young as "a confidence man in the grand tradition of the hoodwinkers of the West." Meanwhile, in the present, a young Mormon man begins to examine the life he is falling away from, returning to the fictitious town of Mesadale, with its "few hundred houses now, warehouses for a family of seventy-five." (That would be Colorado City, Ariz., in real life-a place that hnineteeas recently made national news for its polygamous customs.) Things are not as placid and well ordered as they seem in the red-rock plateau country. Young Jordan's mom, one of several wives, has apparently shot dear old dad as he was simultaneously gambling and recruiting new companionship online. As for Jordan—well, he's a mess, doing decidedly unsaintly things in order to keep body and soul together. Many histories intertwine in these pages, and many voices are heard from, ranging from the stately cadences of Victorian steel-nib prose to the most modern lingo. Apostasy and self-discovery ensue. Reminiscent of Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose in scope and ambition, though the narrative sometimes drags.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The first part of the novel, “Two Wives,” contains prefaces to two very different books. What did you think when you started reading The 19th Wife? Which story interested you the most?

2. Ann Eliza Young says, “Faith is a mystery.” How does Ebershoff play with this metaphor? What are the mysteries in The 19th Wife? What does the novel say about faith?

3. What are your impressions of Ann Eliza Young, and how do those impressions change over the course of the novel? Do you trust her as a narrator?

4. Brigham Young was one of the most dynamic and complex figures in nineteenth-century America. How does the novel portray him? Do you come to understand his deep convictions? In the story of his marriage to Ann Eliza, he essentially gets the last word. Why?

5. What kind of man is Chauncey Webb? And Gilbert? What do they tell you about polygamy?

6. Jordan is an unlikely detective. What makes him a good sleuth? What are his blind spots?

7. Many of the people who help Jordan–Mr. Heber, Maureen, Kelly, and Tom–are Mormons. What do you think Ebershoff is saying by this?

8. Like many mysteries, Jordan’s story is a quest. What is he searching for?

9. Why do you think Ebershoff wrote the novel with so many voices? How do the voices play off one another? Who is your favorite narrator? Who is your least favorite?

10. Why do you think Ebershoff wrote a fictional memoir by Ann Eliza Young, and why are some chapters missing? As he says in his Author’s Note, the real Ann Eliza Young actually wrote two memoirs: Wife No. 19, first published in 1875, and a second book, Life in Mormon Bondage, which came out in 1908. Based on your reading of The 19th Wife, what kind of memoirist do you think the real Ann Eliza Young was?

11. One reviewer has said The 19th Wife is “that rare book that effortlessly explicates and entertains all at once.” Do you agree? How does the novel manage this balance?

12. Were you surprised by how the stories of Ann Eliza and Jordan come together? Did you predict it?

13. Does Jordan’s story end as you hoped it would? Does it end as Jordan hoped it would?

14. What do you think ultimately happened to Ann Eliza Young?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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1Q84
Haruki Murakami, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
1184 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307476463

Summary
The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —"Q is for 'question mark. A world that bears a question." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

As Aomame’s and Tengo’s narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 12, 1949
• Where—Kyoto, Japan
• Education—Waseda University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near Tokyo

Haruki Murakami is a contemporary Japanese writer. Murakami has been translated into 50 languages and his best-selling books have sold millions of copies.

His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered critical acclaim and numerous awards, both in Japan and internationally, including the World Fantasy Award (2006) and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award (2006), while his oeuvre garnered among others the Franz Kafka Prize (2006) and the Jerusalem Prize (2009). Murakami's most notable works include A Wild Sheep Chase (1982), Norwegian Wood (1987), The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1994-1995), Kafka on the Shore (2002), and 1Q84 (2009–2010). He has also translated a number of English works into Japanese, from Raymond Carver to J. D. Salinger.

Murakami's fiction, often criticized by Japan's literary establishment as un-Japanese, was influenced by Western writers from Chandler to Vonnegut by way of Brautigan. It is frequently surrealistic and melancholic or fatalistic, marked by a Kafkaesque rendition of the recurrent themes of alienation and loneliness he weaves into his narratives. He is also considered an important figure in postmodern literature. Steven Poole of The Guardian praised Murakami as "among the world's greatest living novelists" for his works and achievement.

In recent years, Haruki Murakami has often been mentioned as a possible recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nonetheless, since all nomination records are sealed for 50 years from the awarding of the prize, it is pure speculation. When asked about the possibility of being awarded the Nobel Prize, Murakami responded with a laugh saying "No, I don't want prizes. That means you're finished.

Recognition / Awards
1982 - Noma Literary Prize for A Wild Sheep Chase.
1985 - Tanizaki Prize for Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
1995 - Yomiuri Prize for The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
2006 - World Fantasy Award for Kafka on the Shore.
2006 - Franz Kafka Prize
2007 - Kiriyama Prize for Fiction
2007 - honorary doctorate, University of Liege
2008 - honorary doctorate, Princeton University
2009 - Jerusalem Prize
2011 - International Catalunya Prize
2014 - honorary doctorate, Tufts University

Controversy
The Jerusalam Award is presented a biennially to writers whose work deals with themes of human freedom, society, politics, and government. When Murakami won the award in 2009, protests erupted in Japan and elsewhere against his attending the award ceremony in Israel, including threats to boycott his work as a response against Israel's recent bombing of Gaza. Murakami chose to attend the ceremony, but gave a speech to the gathered Israeli dignitaries harshly criticizing Israeli policies. Murakami said, "Each of us possesses a tangible living soul. The system has no such thing. We must not allow the system to exploit us."

Murakami donated his €80,000 winnings from the Generalitat of Catalunya (won in 2011) to the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, and to those affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Accepting the award, he said in his speech that the situation at the Fukushima plant was "the second major nuclear disaster that the Japanese people have experienced... however, this time it was not a bomb being dropped upon us, but a mistake committed by our very own hands." According to Murakami, the Japanese people should have rejected nuclear power after having "learned through the sacrifice of the hibakusha just how badly radiation leaves scars on the world and human wellbeing." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/19/2014.)

Book Reviews
A book that...makes you marvel, reading it, at all the strange folds a single human brain can hold.... A grand, third-person, all encompassing meganovel. It is a book full of anger and violence and disaster and weird sex and strange new realities, a book that seems to want to hold all of Japan inside of it.... Murakami has established himself as the unofficial laureate of Japan—arguably its chief imaginative ambassador, in any medium, to the world: the primary source, for many millions of readers, of the texture and shape of his native country.... I was surprised to discover, after so many surprising books, that he managed to surprise me again.
Sam Anderson - New York Times Magazine

Murakami is clearly one of the most popular and admired novelists in the world today, a brilliant practitioner of serious, yet irresistibly engaging, literary fantasy.... Once you start reading 1Q84, you won’t want to do much else until you’ve finished it.... Murakami possesses many gifts, but chief among them is an almost preternatural gift for suspenseful storytelling.... Despite its great length, [his] novel is tightly plotted, without fat, and he knows how to make dialogue, even philosophical dialogue, exciting.... Murakami’s novels have been translated into a score of languages, but it would be hard to imagine that any of them could be better than the English versions by Jay Rubin, partnered here with Philip Gabriel.... There’s no question about the sheer enjoyability of this gigantic novel, both as an eerie thriller and as a moving love story.... I read the book in three days and have been thinking about it ever since.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post

[1Q84] is fundamentally different from its predecessors. We realize before long that it is a road. And what the writer has laid down is a yellow brick road. It passes over stretches of deadly desert, to be sure, through strands of somniferous poppies, and past creatures that hurl their heads, spattering us with spills of kinked enigma. But the destination draws us: We crave it, and the craving intensifies as we go along (unlike so many contemporary novels that are sampler menus with neither main course nor appetite to follow). More important, the travelers we encounter, odd and wildly disparate as they are, possess a quality hard to find in Murakami’s previous novels: a rounded, sometimes improbable humanity with as much allure as mystery. It is not just puzzlement they present, but puzzled tenderness; most of all in the two leading figures, Aomame and Tengo. Converging through all manner of subplot and peril, they arouse a desire in us that almost mirrors their own . . . Murakami makes us want to follow them; we are reluctant to relinquish them. Who would care about the yellow brick road without Scarecrow’s, Woodman’s and Lion’s freakiness and yearning? What is a road, particularly Murakami’s intricately convoluted road, without its human wayfarers?
Richard Eder - Boston Globe

Profound.... A multilayered narrative of loyalty and loss.... A fully articulated vision of a not-quite-nightmare world.... A big sprawling novel [that] achieves what is perhaps the primary function of literature: to reimagine, to reframe, the world.... At the center of [1Q84’s] reality...is the question of love, of how we find it and how we hold it, and the small fragile connections that sustain us, even (or especially) despite the odds.... This is a major development in Murakami’s writing.... A vision, and an act of the imagination.
David L. Ulin - Los Angeles Times

Fascinating.... A remarkable book in which outwardly simple sentences and situations snowball into a profound meditation on our own very real dystopian trappings.... One of those rare novels that clearly depict who we are now and also offer tantalizing clues as to where literature may be headed.... I’d be curious to know how Murakami’s yeoman translators Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel divided up the work...because there are no noticeable bumps in the pristine and deceptively simple prose.... More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world, and he’s not afraid to incorporate elements of surrealism or magical realism as tools to help us see ourselves for who we really are. 1Q84 is a tremendous accomplishment. It does every last blessed thing a masterpiece is supposed to—and a few things we never even knew to expect.
Andrew Ervin - San Francisco Chronicle

Do you miss the girl with the dragon tattoo? Do you long for the thrill of following her adventures again through three volumes of exciting, intelligent fiction? If so, I have good news for you. She’s got a sort of soul sister in one of the two main characters in Haruki Murakami’s wonderful novel 1Q84.... With more than enough narrative and intellectual heft to make it enjoyable for anyone with a taste for moving representations of modern consciousness in the magical realist mode, this story may easily carry you away to a new world and keep you there for a long time.... The deep and resonant plot...unfolds at a leisurely pace but in compelling fashion by luring us along with scenes of homicidal intrigue, literary intrigue, religious fanaticism, physical sex, metaphysical sex and asexual sex. And music.... Murakami’s main characters find themselves drawn toward each other as irresistibly, magnetically, hypnotically, soulfully and physically as any characters in Western fiction. Given the plain-spoken but appealing nature of the prose (translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel), most of you will feel that same power as an insinuating compulsion to read on, despite the enormous length, hoping against hope for a happy ending under a sky with either two moons or one. Two moons—two worlds—a girl with—900 pages—1Q84 is a gorgeous festival of words arranged for maximum comprehension and delicious satisfaction.
Alan Cheuse - NPR

1Q84 is one of those books that disappear in your hands, pulling you into its mysteries with such speed and skill that you don’t even notice as the hours tick by and the mountain of pages quietly shrinks.... I finished 1Q84 one fall evening, and when I set it down, baffled and in awe, I couldn’t help looking out the window to see if just the usual moon hung there or if a second orb had somehow joined it. It turned out that this magical novel did not actually alter reality. Even so, its enigmatic glow makes the world seem a little strange long after you turn the last page (Grade: A)
Rob Brunner - Entertainment Weekly

A 932-page Japanese novel set in Tokyo in which the words "sushi" and "sake"’ never appear but there are mentions of linguine and French wine, as well as Proust, Faye Dunaway, The Golden Bough, Duke Ellington, Macbeth, Churchill, Janaeek, Sonny and Cher, and, give the teasing title, George Orwell? Welcome to the world of Haruki Murakami.... A symmetrical and multi-layered yarn, as near to a 19th-century three-decker as it is possible to be.... The label of fantasy-realism has been stuck to it, but it actually has more of a Dickensian or Trollopian structure.... Explicit, yet subtle and dream-like, combining viciousness with whimsy...this is Murakami’s unflagging and masterful take on the desire and pursuit of the Whole.
Paul Theroux - Vanity Fair

Murakami’s new novel is the international literary giant at his uncanny, mesmerizing best.... The spell cast by Murakami’s fiction is formed in the tension between his grounded accounts of everyday life and the otherworldly forces that keep intruding on that life, propelling the characters into surreal adventures.... Translation is at the center of what Murakami does; not a translation from one tongue to another, but the translation of an inner world into this, the outer one. Very few writers speak the truths of that secret, inner universe more fluently.
Laura Miller - Salon

(Starred review.) Murakami’s trademark plainspoken oddness is on full display in this story of lapsed childhood friends Aomame and Tengo, now lonely adults in 1984 Tokyo, whose destinies may be curiously intertwined.... Murakami’s fans know that his focus has always been on the quiet strangeness of life, the hidden connections between perfect strangers, and the power of the non sequitur to reveal the associative strands that weave our modern world.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) At the core of this work is a spectacular love story about a girl and a boy who briefly held hands when they were both ten. That said, with the fiercely imaginative Murakami as author, the story’s exposition is gloriously labyrinthine. —Terry Hong
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Unquestionably Murakami’s most vividly imagined parallel world.... Gradually but inexorably, the tension builds.... When Murakami melds fantasy and realism, mystery and epic, it is no simple genre-bending exercise; rather, it is literary alchemy of the highest order. —Bill Ott
Booklist

(Starred review.) Ambitious, sprawling and thoroughly stunning . . . Orwellian dystopia, sci-fi, the modern world (terrorism, drugs, apathy, pop novels)—all blend in this dreamlike, strange and wholly unforgettable epic.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. 1Q84 is a vast and intricate novel. What are the pleasures of reading such a long work, of staying with the same characters over such a long period of time?

2. Murakami has said he is a fan of the mystery writer Elmore Leonard. What elements of the mystery genre does 1Q84 employ? How does Murakami keep readers guessing about what will happen next? What are some of the book’s most surprising moments?

3. Why would Murakami choose to set his story in 1984, the year that would serve as the title for George Orwell’s famous novel about the dangers of Big Brother?

4. The taxi driver in Chapter 1 warns Aomame that things are not what they seem, but he also tells her: "Don’t let appearances fool you. There’s always only one reality" (p. 9). Does this statement hold true throughout the novel? Is there only one reality, despite what appears to be a second reality that Aomame and Tengo enter?

5. Aomame tells Ayumi: "We think we’re choosing things for ourselves, but in fact we may not be choosing anything. It could be that everything's decided in advance and we pretend we’re making choices. Free will may be an illusion" (p. 192). Do the events in the novel seem fated or do the characters have free will?

6. When Tamaru bids goodbye to Aomame, he says: "If you do go somewhere far away and I never see you again, I know I’ll feel a little sad. You’re a rare sort of character, a type I’ve seldom come across before" (p. 885). What type of person is Aomame? What qualities make her extraordinary?

7. The dowager insists, and Aomame agrees, that the killing they do is completely justified, that the men whom they kill deserve to die, that the legal system can’t touch them, and that more women will be victims if these men aren’t stopped. Is it true that Aomame and the dowager have done nothing wrong? Or are they simply rationalizing their anger and the desire for vengeance that arises from their own personal histories?

8. Tengo realizes that rewriting Air Chrysalis is highly unethical and that Komatsu is asking him to participate in a scam that will very likely cause them both a great deal of trouble. Why does he agree to do it?

9. How does rewriting Air Chrysalis change Tengo as a writer? How does it affect the course of his life?

10. How do the events that occur on the night of the huge thunderstorm alter the fates of Aomame, Tengo, Fuka-Eri, and the dowager? Why do Aomame and the dowager let go of their anger after the storm?

11. At first, Ushikawa is a creepy, totally unlikable character. How does Murakami make him more sympathetic as the novel progresses? How do you respond to his death?

12. Near the end of the novel, Aomame declares: "From now on, things will be different. Nobody else’s will is going to control me anymore. From now on, I’m going to do things based on one principle alone: my own will" (p. 885). How does Aomame arrive at such a firm resolve? In what ways is the novel about overcoming the feeling of powerlessness that at various times paralyzes Aomame, Ayumi, Tengo, Fuka-Eri, and all the women who are abused by their husbands? What enables Aomame to come into her own power?

13. What does the novel as a whole seem to say about fringe religious groups? How does growing up in the Society of Witnesses affect Aomame? How does growing up in Sakigake cult affect Fuka-Eri? Does Leader appear to be a true spiritual master?

14. What is the appeal of the fantastic elements in the novel—the little people, maza and dohta, the air chrysalis, two moons in the sky, alternate worlds, etc.? What do they add to the story? In what ways does the novel question the nature of reality and the boundaries between what is possible and not possible?

15. What makes the love story of Tengo and Aomame so compelling? What obstacles must they overcome to be together? Why was the moment when Aomame grasped Tengo’s hand in grade school so significant?

16. In what ways does 1Q84 question and complicate conventional ideas of authorship? How does it blur the line between fictional reality and ordinary reality?

17. References to the song "Paper Moon" appear several times in the novel. How do those lyrics relate to 1Q84?

18. What role does belief play in the novel? Why does Murakami end the book with the image of Tengo and Aomame gazing at the moon until it becomes "nothing more than a gray paper moon, hanging in the sky" (p. 925)?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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21 Aldgate
Patricia Friedberg, 2010
Rainbow Books
Digital
ISBN-13: 9781568251424

Summary
A story of love and war. When young Clara Simon suddenly quit her steady job in Ernest Maxwell Abbott's law firm over his increasingly shabby treatment of Jewish clients, she soon realized the seriousness of her actions. Giving up any job in struggling, post-WWI London meant taking a chance.

Clara knew her family at 21 Aldgate would not be supportive. With that in mind she did the only thing a Londoner could do: she looked for a quiet place to have a cup of tea and think over her hasty decision. A coincidental meeting with a former Abbott employee resulted in the suggestion of a job offer in Chelsea.

Clara, reluctant to consider venturing into affluent Chelsea, finally agreed to meet with the important French artist, Paul Maze, who needed an assistant to help write his memoir of his work as a field artist during WWI. Her experiences in his employ left her profoundly changed by the ghosts of war, the Nazis—and by Paul Maze.

A story of class distinction, a people and their traditions, a family and its fate, a country and its fight against Fascism, and a woman with a secret she must take to her grave. Set in 1930s and 1940s in London, England, France and Germany in the chaotic time between World War I and into World War II.

Based on true-life characters and events, 21 Aldgate is a story about a place in time that no longer exists—except in rapidly fading memories. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 4, 1935
• Raised—London, England, UK
• Education—London School of Journalism; Marquette University (USA)
• Currently—lives in Bradenton, Flordia, USA, and London, England

Patricia Fridberg was born in London, attended The Henrietta Barnett School and continued her studies at The London School of Journalism. At nineteen she married a South African doctor furthering his studies in London and immediately following the wedding, the young couple left for Southern Africa and the then, Rhodesias, both North and South, first to Wankie, renamed Hwange and later in Salisbury, renamed aafter independence Harare, Zimbabwe.

While living in Wankie, Rhodesia she worked as Clerk of the Court in the Office of the Native Commissioner where she dealt with tribal and European law. The Friedbergs briefly returned to England where their first child was born, before relocating in Africa in the city of Salisbury (Harare) in Rhodesia where Patricia wrote for the local newspaper and joined the newly formed TV station RTV (Rhodesian Television).

Her experiences as Clerk of the Court in Hwange allowed her to travel freely into the rural/bush taking along a photographer. From those interviews she produced a number of Tribal Documentaries and wrote articles for the Rhodesian Herald.

Political unrest intensified in Rhodesia and for the safety of their children the family reluctantly left to settle in the United States, first in Baltimore, and then in Milwaukee. In the years that followed she travelled extensively with her husband, a Professor of Cardiology, who lectured in major cities in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa.

Patricia attended a playwriting course at Marquette University where her first play, "Masquerade" won the playwriter’s award.

She was moderator at WMTJ TV (NBC affiliate) Milwaukee’s, then weekly show, "People of the Book” and interviewed major celebrities, politicians, including the Israeli ambassador, Golda Meir, U.N. representatives and various personalities in the fields of art and music.

In Florida Patricia wrote for the Longboat Observer, became a collector of art and held monthly Salons for writers and artists. Her thoughts often returning to the African years, she wrote the film script "Journey from the Jacarandas" a feature film which began filming in Zimbabwe but was interrupted and unfinished due to civil disobedience and government sanctions.

Beginning with her novel 21 Aldgate and the recently released memoir Letters from Wankie, she is now completing the trilogy with Journey From the Jacarandas. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Anyone with a tie to London's East End is likely to enjoy Patricia Friedberg's latest novel. Endorsed by historian Sir Martin Gilbert, 21 Aldgate is set in the pre-WWII Jewish East End and Chelsea. It is the story of a young Jewish woman who goes to work for the French artist Paul Maze, and the relationship that ensues. Mrs Friedberg, a great grandmother, has already been in touch with a production company about developing it into a film. .
Jewish Chronicle

Discussion Questions
1. What did you think 21 Aldgate is about?

2. How does it compare to other books of the same genre?

3. Which part of the story held your interest most?

4. Which of the characters would you like to meet? Why?

5. With which (if any) of the characters did you identify?

6. Some of the characters had to make a choice that had moral implications, would you have made the same decision? Why or Why not?

7. How does the setting figure into the book? Did you feel you were experiencing the time and place in which the story was set?

8. What are some of the book's themes? How important are they?

9. How are the book's images symbolically significant? Do the images help to develop the plot and help to define the characters?

10. Did the book end the way you expected?
(Questions used with permission of author.)

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Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions

2666
Roberto Bolano, trans., Natasha Wimmer, 2004
Macmillan Picador
912 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312429218

In Brief
Winner, 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award

Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolano’s life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa—a fictional Juárez—on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared (From the publisher.)

More
Roberto Bolano is a master of digression. Among the countless stories that he tells in 2666, his 900-page cinderblock of a novel, there is not one that feels incomplete. (Considering that Bolano died in 2003 before he finished the final book of the five-part sequence, that’s quite a feat.) In his hands, narrative tangents, followed to their logical (or illogical, as the case may be) conclusions, fill in the spaces opened up by the boundlessly layered story lines.

To call 2666 ambitious is to understate its scale. Comprising five almost autonomous books, the novel is a chronicle of the 20th century, unafraid to confront its more gruesome turns in its sweep across history. The binding link, insofar as there is one, is the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa, modeled on Ciudad Juárez, where for the better part of the 1990s there were hundreds of brutal murders, with the bodies of young women turning up in dumps and deserts at the city’s margin. The fourth, and longest, of the books takes up the matter of the murders directly, taking readers sequentially through each of the killings, along with the sexual abuse, mutilation, and police incompetence that accompanied them. They vary in their specifics, but the broad template is the same. Bolano writes with the blank neutrality of a police report:

In September, the body of Ana Muñoz Sanjuán was found behind some trash cans on Calle Javier Paredes, between Colonia Félix Gómez and Colonia Centro. The body was completely naked and showed evidence of strangulation and rape, which would later be confirmed by the medical examiner.

(From Barnes & Noble Review.)

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About the Author

• Birth—April 28, 1953
• Where—Santiago, Chile
• Reared—in Chile and Mexico City, Mexico
• Died—July 15, 2003
• Where—Blanes, Spain
• Awards—Herralde Prize, Romulo Gallegos Prize (both for
Savage Detectives, 1998)

Bolano was born in Chile and raised in Mexico. He later emigrated to Spain, where he died aged 50. His early years were spent in southern and coastal Chile; by his own account he was a skinny, nearsighted and bookish but unpromising child. He suffered from dyslexia as a child, and was often bullied at school, where he felt an outsider. As a teenager, though, he moved with his family to Mexico, dropped out of school, worked as a journalist and became active in left-wing political causes.

He returned to Chile just before the 1973 coup that installed Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power, and, like many others of his age and background, was jailed.

For most of his youth, Bolano was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain, where he finally settled down in the early 1980s in the small Catalan beach town of Blanes.

Bolano was a heroin addict in his youth and died of chronic hepatitis, caused by Hepatitis C, with which he was infected as a result of sharing needles during his "mainlining" days. He had suffered from liver failure and was on a transplant list.

He was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland." (In his last interview, published by the Mexican edition of Playboy magazine, Bolano said he regarded himself as a Latin American, adding that "my only country is my two children and perhaps, though in second place, some moments, streets, faces or books that are in me.") Bolano named his only son Lautaro, after the Mapuche leader Lautaro, who resisted the Spanish conquest of Chile, as related in the sixteenth-century epic La araucana.

A key episode in Bolano's life, mentioned in different forms in several of his works, occurred in 1973, when he left Mexico for Chile to "help build the revolution." After Augusto Pinochet's coup against Salvador Allende, Bolano was arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist and spent eight days in custody. He was rescued by two former classmates who had become prison guards. Bolano describes his experience in the story "Dance Card." According to the version of events he provides in this story, he was neither tortured nor killed, as he had expected, but...

In the small hours I could hear them torturing others; I couldn't sleep and there was nothing to read except a magazine in English that someone had left behind. The only interesting article in it was about a house that had once belonged to Dylan Thomas.... I got out of that hole thanks to a pair of detectives who had been at high school with me in Los Angeles.

In the 1970s, Bolano became a Trotskyist and a founding member of infrarrealismo, a minor poetic movement. Although deep down he always felt like a poet, in the vein of his beloved Nicanor Parra, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections.

After an interlude in El Salvador, spent in the company of the poet Roque Dalton and the guerrillas of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, Bolano returned to Mexico, living as a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible—a professional provocateur feared at all the publishing houses even though he was a nobody, bursting into literary presentations and readings, his editor, Jorge Herralde, recalled. His erratic behaviour had as much to do with his leftist ideology as with his chaotic, heroin-addicted lifestyle.

Bolano finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, bellhop and garbage collector—working during the day and writing at night.

In an interview Bolano stated that his decision to shift to fiction at the age of 40 was because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. He continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a 20-year collection of his verse was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs.

As regards his native country, which he visited just once after going into exile, Bolano had conflicted feelings. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment. "He didn't fit into Chile, and the rejection that he experienced left him free to say whatever he wanted, which can be a good thing for a writer," said the Chilean novelist and playwright Ariel Dorfman.

Six weeks before he died, Bolano's fellow Latin American novelists hailed him as the most important figure of his generation at an international conference he attended in Seville. He counted among his closest friends novelists Rodrigo Fresan and Enrique Vila-Matas. According to Fresan:

Roberto emerged as a writer at a time when Latin America no longer believed in utopias, when paradise had become hell, and that sense of monstrousness and waking nightmares and constant flight from something horrid permeates 2666 and all his work. His books are political, but in a way that is more personal than militant or demagogic, that is closer to the mystique of the beatniks than the Boom.

Bolano was extraordinarily prolific, but Jorge Herralde reports that not much remains unpublished: a volume of poetry tentatively called The Unknown University and one more collection of short stories.

Bolano joked about the "posthumous", saying the word "sounds like the name of a Roman gladiator, one who is undefeated", and he would no doubt be amused to see how his stock has risen now that he is dead.

Rodrigo Fresan has observed that "Roberto was one of a kind, a writer who worked without a net, who went all out, with no brakes, and in doing so, created a new way to be a great Latin American writer."

Although Bolano espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and enfant terrible writer all his life, he only began publishing fiction regularly in the late 1990s, after he quit his addiction to heroin. He immediately became a widely respected figure in Spanish and Latin American letters. In rapid succession, he published a widely acclaimed series of works, the most important of which are the novel Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), the novella Nocturno de Chile (By Night in Chile), and, posthumously, the novel 2666. His two collections of short stories Llamadas telefónicas and Putas asesinas were awarded literary prizes. (From Wikipedia.)

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Critics Say . . .
Make no mistake, 2666 is a work of huge importance ... a complex literary experience, in which the author seeks to set down his nightmares while he feels time running out. Bolano inspires passion, even when his material, his era, and his volume seem overwhelming. This could only be published in a single volume, and it can only be read as one.
El Mundo

Think of David Lynch, Marcel Duchamp (both explicitly invoked here) and the Bob Dylan of "Highway 61 Revisited," all at the peak of their lucid yet hallucinatory powers. Bolano's references were sufficiently global to encompass all that, and to interweave both stuffy academia and tawdry gumshoe fiction into this book's monumentally inclusive mix.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

2666 is as consummate a performance as any 900-page novel dare hope to be: Bolano won the race to the finish line in writing what he plainly intended, in his self-interrogating way, as a master statement. Indeed, he produced not only a supreme capstone to his own vaulting ambition, but a landmark in what's possible for the novel as a form in our increasingly, and terrifyingly, post-national world.... By writing across the grain of his doubts about what literature can do, how much it can discover or dare pronounce the names of our world's disasters, Bolano has proven it can do anything, and for an instant, at least, given a name to the unnamable.
Jonathan Lethem - New York Times Book Review

Last year's The Savage Detectives by the late Chilean-Mexican novelist Bolano (1953-2003) garnered extraordinary sales and critical plaudits for a complex novel in translation, and quickly became the object of a literary cult. This brilliant behemoth is grander in scope, ambition and sheer page count, and translator Wimmer has again done a masterful job. The novel is divided into five parts (Bolano originally imagined it being published as five books) and begins with the adventures and love affairs of a small group of scholars dedicated to the work of Benno von Archimboldi, a reclusive German novelist. They trace the writer to the Mexican border town of Santa Teresa (read: Juarez), but there the trail runs dry, and it isn't until the final section that readers learn about Benno and why he went to Santa Teresa. The heart of the novel comes in the three middle parts: in "The Part About Amalfitano," a professor from Spain moves to Santa Teresa with his beautiful daughter, Rosa, and begins to hear voices. "The Part About Fate," the novel's weakest section, concerns Quincy "Fate" Williams, a black American reporter who is sent to Santa Teresa to cover a prizefight and ends up rescuing Rosa from her gun-toting ex-boyfriend. "The Part About the Crimes," the longest and most haunting section, operates on a number of levels: it is a tormented catalogue of women murdered and raped in Santa Teresa; a panorama of the power system that is either covering up for the real criminals with its implausible story that the crimes were all connected to a German national, or too incompetent to find them (or maybe both); and it is a collection of the stories of journalists, cops, murderers, vengeful husbands, prisoners and tourists, among others, presided over by an old woman seer. It is safe to predict that no novel this year will have as powerful an effect on the reader as this one.
Publishers Weekly

This sprawling, digressive, Jamesian "loose, baggy monster" reads like five independent but interrelated novels, connected by a common link to an actual series of mostly unresolved murders of female factory workers in the area of Ciudad Juárez (here called Santa Teresa), a topic also addressed in Margorie Agosín's Secrets in the Sand. The first part follows four literary critics who wind up in Mexico in pursuit of the obscure (and imaginary) German writer Benno von Archimboldi, a scenario that recalls Bolano's The Savage Detectives. The second and third parts, respectively, focus on Professor Almafitano and African American reporter Quincy Williams (also called Oscar Fate), whose attempts to expose the murders are thwarted. The fourth, and by far the longest, section consists mostly of detached accounts of the hundreds of murders; culled from newspaper and police reports, they offer a relentless onslaught of the gruesome details and become increasingly tedious. The last section returns to Archimboldi. Boasting Bolano's trademark devices—ambiguity, open endings, characters that assume different names, and an enigmatic title, along with splashes of humor—this posthumously published work is consistently masterful until the last half of the final part, which shows some haste. The book is rightly praised as Bolano's masterpiece, but owing to its unorthodox length it will likely find greater favor among critics than among general readers. In fact, before he died, the author asked that it be published in five parts over just as many years; it's a pity his relatives refused to honor his request.
Lawrence Olszewski - Library Journal

Life and art, death and transfiguration reverberate with protean intensity in the late (1953–2003) Chilean author's final work: a mystery and quest novel of unparalleled richness. Published posthumously in a single volume, despite its author's instruction that it appear as five distinct novels, it's a symphonic envisioning of moral and societal collapse, which begins with a mordantly amusing account ("The Part About the Critics") of the efforts of four literary scholars to discover the obscured personal history and unknown present whereabouts of German novelist Benno von Archimboldi, an itinerant recluse rumored to be a likely Nobel laureate. Their searches lead them to northern Mexico, in a desert area notorious for the unsolved murders of hundreds of Mexican women presumably seeking freedom by crossing the U.S. border. In the novel's second book, a Spanish academic (Amalfitano) now living in Mexico fears a similar fate threatens his beautiful daughter Rosa. It's followed by the story of a black American journalist whom Rosa encounters, in a subplot only imperfectly related to the main narrative. Then, in "The Part About the Crimes," the stories of the murdered women and various people in their lives (which echo much of the content of Bolano's other late mega-novel The Savage Detectives) lead to a police investigation that gradually focuses on the fugitive Archimboldi. Finally, "The Part About Archimboldi" introduces the figure of Hans Reiter, an artistically inclined young German growing up in Hitler's shadow, living what amounts to an allegorical representation of German culture in extremis, and experiencing transformations that will send him halfway around the world; bring him literary success, consuming love and intolerable loss; and culminate in a destiny best understood by Reiter's weary, similarly bereaved and burdened sister Lotte: "He's stopped existing." Bolano's gripping, increasingly astonishing fiction echoes the world-encompassing masterpieces of Stendhal, Mann, Grass, Pynchon and Garcia Marquez, in a consummate display of literary virtuosity powered by an emotional thrust that can rip your heart out. Unquestionably the finest novel of the present century—and we may be saying the same thing 92 years from now.
Kirkus Reviews

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Book Club 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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Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions

2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club Series, #2)
James Patterson, 2002
Grand Central Publishing
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446612791

In Brief
2nd Chance reconvenes the Women's Murder Club, four friends (a detective, a reporter, an assistant district attorney, and a medical examiner) who used their networking skills, feminine intuition, and professional wiles to solve a baffling series of murders in 1st to Die.

This time, the murders of two African Americans, a little girl and an old woman, bear all the signs of a serial killer for Lindsay Boxer, newly promoted to lieutenant of San Francisco's homicide squad. But there's an odd detail she finds even more disturbing: both victims were related to city cops.

A symbol glimpsed at both murder scenes leads to a racist hate group, but the taunting killer strikes again and again, leaving deliberate clues and eluding the police ever more cleverly. In the meantime, each of the women has a personal stake at risk—and the killer knows who they are. (From the publisher.)

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About the Author

• Birth—March 22, 1947
• Where—Newburgh, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Manhattan College; M.A., Vanderbilt Univ.
• Awards—Edgar Award, Best First Mystery Novel, 1977
• Currently—lives in Palm Beach, Florida

James Patterson had been working as a very successful advertising copywriter when he decided to put his Masters degree in English to a somewhat different use. Inspired by bestselling hair-raising thrillers like The Day of the Jackal and The Exorcist, Patterson went to work on his first novel. Published in 1976, The Thomas Berryman Number established him as a writer of tightly constructed mysteries that move forward with the velocity of a bullet. For his startling debut, Patterson was awarded the prestigious Edgar Award for Best First Mystery Novel—an auspicious beginning to one of the most successful careers in publishing.

A string of gripping standalone mysteries followed, but it was the 1992 release of Along Came a Spider that elevated Patterson to superstar status. Introducing Alex Cross, a brilliant black police detective/forensic psychologist, the novel was the first installment in a series of bestselling thrillers that has proved to be a cash cow for the author and his publisher.

Examining Patterson's track record, it's obvious that he believes one good series deserves another...maybe even a third! In 2001, he debuted the Women's Murder Club with 1st to Die, a fast-paced thriller featuring four female crime fighters living in San Francisco — a homicide detective, a medical examiner, an assistant D.A., and a cub reporter. The successful series has continued with other numerically titled installments. Then, spinning off a set of characters from a previous novel (1998's When the Wind Blows), in 2005 he published Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment. Featuring a "flock" of genetically engineered flying children, the novel was a huge hit, especially with teen readers, and spawned a series of vastly popular fantasy adventures.

In addition to continuing his bestselling literary franchises, Patterson has also found time to co-author thrillers with other writers — including Peter de Jonge, Andrew Gross, Maxine Paetro, and Howard Roughan — and has even ventured into romance (Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas, Sam's Letters to Jennifer) and children's literature (santaKid). Writing at an astonishing pace, this prolific author has turned himself into a one-man publishing juggernaut, fulfilling his clearly stated ambition to become "the king of the page-turners."

Extras
From a Barnes & Noble interview:

• Patterson's Suzanne's Diary For Nicholas was inspired by a diary his wife kept that tracked the development of their toddler son.

• Two of Patterson's Alex Cross mysteries (Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls) have been turned into films starring Morgan Freeman; in 2007, a weekly television series premiered, based on the bestselling Women's Murder Club novels.

• When asked what book most influenced his life, here is is response:

Probably the novel that most influenced me as a young writer is A Hundred Years of Solitude—simply because as I read it, I realized that I could never do anything half as good. So why not try mysteries? Gabriel García Márquez's magical mystery tour begins with one of the most engaging lines in fiction: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." What follows is an exhilarating recounting of a century in the imaginary Colombian town of Macondo—the comedies and tragedies, joy and suffering, sublime and ridiculous. An entire town, for example, is affected with insomnia at one point in the novel. A woman literally rises to heaven while drying her laundry. And eventually, the firing squad, fires. Some have called this the great American novel—only it was written by a South American."

(Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

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Critics Say . . .
Patterson's best novel in years.
New York Post

A fast-paced thriller by the page-turningest author in the game right now.
San Francisco Chronicle

Inspiring heroines. juicy subplots. briskly paced. Patterson chalks up another suspenseful outing for his Women's Murder Club.
People

It's been a long time since we've seen a bestselling author of Patterson's clout credit an assistant author on the cover, and good for Patterson for that. The credit is deserved. This is Patterson's richest, most engaging novel since When the Wind Blows and, as the second in his "Women's Murder Club" series (after 1st to Die), yet more evidence that this prolific writer can roam beyond Alex Cross with style and success. Like all Pattersons, the narration mixes first- and third-person: the first here is voiced, as before, by San Francisco homicide detective Lindsay Boxer, while the third-person sections cover the doings of the other three members of Boxer's informal club, a reporter, a pathologist and a prosecutor, as well as the villain's shenanigans. The basic story line is vintage Patterson, i.e., a serial killer (here, one known as Chimera) goes on a calculated rampage until stopped by the good guys or in this case, gals. As the victims—a young girl shot dead, an elderly black woman hanged, two cops—pile up, it becomes clear to Boxer and others that they're up against a racist who hates black cops. Is the killer a cop himself? The story ripples with twists and some remarkably strong scenes, particularly Boxer's in-prison interview with a crazed con. But what makes this Patterson stand out above all is the textured storytelling arising from its focus on Boxer's personal issues. In the first novel, Patterson personalized Boxer by dealing with her rare blood disease; here, it's the emotionally powerful introduction of Boxer's long-lost father into her life that galvanizes the plot, particularly as Patterson ties the man into Chimera's rampage. Prime Patterson; first-rate entertainment.
Publishers Weekly

The second adventure in the "Women's Murder Club" places San Francisco homicide detective Lindsay Boxer on the trail of another serial killer. While the murders seem like unrelated hate crimes, a pattern emerges with the discovery of the "chimera" icon and a white powdery substance left at the scenes. Reporter Cindy Thomas researches the icon, assistant district attorney Jill Bernhardt combs likely cases filed, medical examiner Claire Washburn provides forensic clues, and Lindsay chases down the most likely suspect. When that suspect dies, and the killings continue, Lindsay, Claire, and Cindy narrowly miss becoming victims. Written in Patterson's no-nonsense style...the story is suspenseful, grim, and not altogether predictable. Recommended for fiction collections. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence
Library Journal

This novel solidifies the new series and helps guarantee that readers will flock just as eagerly to the "Women's Murder Club" books as they do to the Alex Cross novels. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist

A murder outside San Francisco's La Salle Heights Church brings back the "Women's Murder Club," extending a series that could rival Kinsey Millhone for sales, if not for ingenuity, warmth, or humanity. How could the killer have sprayed the sidewalk with casual gunfire and yet managed to hit young Tasha Catchings, and only her, twice? wonders Lt. Lindsay Boxer. He must have been aiming at her instead of the rest of Aaron Winslow's church choir—presumably for the same reason he strung up Estelle Chipman in her Oakland basement and disguised the murder as suicide. Since the killer, whoever he is and whatever his motives are, is running rings around the SFPD, Lindsay calls in "the Margarita Posse": her best friend Claire Washburn, the city's Chief Medical Examiner; ADA Jill Bernhardt; and Cindy Thomas, the Chronicle's lead crime reporter. In no time at all, the Women's Murder Club—"three of the sharpest law-enforcement minds in the city"— have swung into action. One of them gets shot at, one gets pregnant, and one gets to date Aaron Warner. Meantime, the killer dubbed Chimera is continuing to take blood-soaked revenge for a 20-year-old injustice involving a figure from Lindsay's past, her long-estranged ex-cop father Marty Boxer, in a way that another author might make morally agonizing. Patterson, not one to stop and smell the roses, keeps up the pace by showing Chimera taunting Lindsay and attacking her and her buds, the SFPD running to and fro to counter the latest threat, and the body count rising en route to a showdown introduced by the killer's cool assessment that there's "no one to kill right away." Lots of slam-bang action, though, except for Lindsay, the alleged action heroines mostly have it happen to them instead of dishing it out.
Kirkus Reviews

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Book Club 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 2nd Chance:

1. What makes Lindsay Boxer and her "Murder Club" believe initially that the murders are racially-based hate crimes? What changes to indicate a different motive...and a different type of killer?

2. Talk about how the reappearance of her father affects Lindsay, both personally and professionally. How does he complicate her investigation—what is his connection to it?

3. What is the meaning of the chimera icon? (What is a chimera?) What does Cindy Thomas uncover in her research?

4. How would you describe the characters of the four women in the Murder Club? Is there one you like better, found more interesting or admirable, than the others?

5. If you're a crime/detective story fan, how do these four female crime solvers differ from their male counterparts in other books? What do these (or any?) women bring to detective work that men may not?

6. Patterson uses different narrators for the book: a first-person voice for Lindsay, and a 3rd-person narrator for others. Why might he use this double narrative technique? What does it accomplish? Is his approach effective?

7. How does Patterson depict the killer? He lets us into both the killer's and Lindsay's minds. Do you detect any similarities in their thought processes?

8. Patterson is known for his highly suspenseful crime books. How does he build suspense in 2nd Chance? Does he do it successfully—in other words, were you on the edge of your seat and turning the pages with anticipation? Was the outcome predictable...or were you surprised?

9. Does 2nd Chance inspire you to read Patterson's other books in the Women's Mystery Club series? Or, if you have read others, how does this one stack up?

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

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36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
Knopf Doubleday
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307456717

Summary
From the author of The Mind-Body Problem: a witty and intoxicating novel of ideas that plunges into the great debate between faith and reason.

At the center is Cass Seltzer, a professor of psychology whose book, The Varieties of Religious Illusione, has become a surprise best seller. Dubbed “the atheist with a soul,” he wins over the stunning Lucinda Mandelbaum—“the goddess of game theory.”

But he is haunted by reminders of two people who ignited his passion to understand religion: his teacher Jonas Elijah Klapper, a renowned literary scholar with a suspicious obsession with messianism, and an angelic six-year-old mathematical genius, heir to the leadership of an exotic Hasidic sect.

Hilarious, heartbreaking, and intellectually captivating, 36 Arguments explores the rapture and torments of religious experience in all its variety. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 23, 1950
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard; Ph,D., Princeton
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in Boston and Truro, Massachusetts

Rebecca Goldstein is an American novelist and professor of philosophy. She has written five novels, a number of short stories and essays, and biographical studies of mathematician Kurt Gödel and philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

Goldstein, born Rebecca Newberger, grew up in White Plains, New York, and did her undergraduate work at Barnard College. She was born into an Orthodox Jewish family. She has one older brother who is an Orthodox Rabbi and a younger sister.

After earning her Ph.D. from Princeton University, she returned to Barnard to teach courses in various philosophical studies. There she published her first novel, The Mind-Body Problem (1983), a serio-comic tale of the conflict between emotion and intelligence, combined with an examination of Jewish tradition and identity. Goldstein said she wrote the book to "...insert 'real life' intimately into the intellectual struggle. In short I wanted to write a philosophically motivated novel."

Her second novel, The Late-Summer Passion of a Woman of Mind (1989), was also set in academia, though with a far darker tone. Her third novel, The Dark Sister (1993), was something of a departure: a postmodern fictionalization of family and professional issues in the life of William James. Mazel followed in 1995. Properties of Light (2000) is a ghost story about love, betrayal, and quantum physics. Her latest novel is 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction (2010). Goldstein has published a collection of short stories, Strange Attractors (1993), that also treated "interactions of thought and feeling," to quote the cover jacket.

Recently Goldstein has turned to biography with her books Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (2005) and Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (2006). The books reflect her continuing interests in the relationship between the life of the mind and the demands of everyday existence, and in Jewish perspectives and history.

In addition to Barnard, Goldstein has taught at Columbia and Rutgers. She has been a visiting scholar at Brandeis University, and taught for five years as a visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Goldstein lives in Boston and Truro. She divorced her first husband, physicist Sheldon Goldstein, and married[2] Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker. She is the mother of the novelist Yael Goldstein Love and the poet Danielle Blau.

Awards
2011 Humanist of the Year: American Humanist Association
Gugggenheim Fellow, 2006
Koret International Jewish Book Award in Jewish Thought
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
MacArthur Fellow, 1996
National Jewish Book Award, 1995, for Mazel
Edward Lewis Wallant Award, 1995, for Mazel
National Jewish Book Award for Strange Attractors
(Author bio from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
A big, ambitious novel that is nominally about God, although it unfolds on an extremely earthly plane. Overcomplicated yet dazzling, sparked by frequent flashes of nonchalant brilliance, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God affirms Ms. Goldstein's rare ability to explore the quotidian and the cosmological with equal ease...the pleasures to be found in 36 Arguments for the Existence of God are scattershot. But there are a great many of them, and this novel's bracing intellectual energy never flags. Though it is finally more a work of showmanship than scholarship, it affirms Ms. Goldstein's position as a satirist and a seeker of real moral questions at a time when silly ones prevail.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

Amid the multitude of bestselling books by atheists and apologists preaching to their respective choirs, here finally is an answer to prayer and reason: a brainy, compassionate, divinely witty novel by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein called 36 Arguments for the Existence of God.... Goldstein can make Spinoza sing and Godel comprehensible, and in her cerebral fiction she dances across disciplines with delight, writing domestic comedy about Cartesian metaphysics and academic satire about photoelectric energy. 36 Arguments radiates all the humor and erudition we've come to expect from Goldstein.... In the end, the novel's thesis seems awfully close to what Cass preaches: Whether or not God exists, in moments of transcendent happiness we all feel a love beyond ourselves, beyond anything. Goldstein doesn't want to shake your faith or confirm it, but she'll make you a believer in the power of fiction.
Ron Charles - Washington Post

An “atheist with a soul” is in for a lot of soul-searching in MacArthur genius Goldstein's rollicking latest (Mazel). Cass Seltzer, a university professor specializing in “the psychology of religion,” hits the big time with a bestselling book and an offer to teach at Harvard—quite a step up from his current position at Frankfurter University. While waiting for his girlfriend to return from a conference, Cass receives an unexpected visit from Roz Margolis, whom he dated 20 years earlier and who looks as good now as she ever did. Her secret: dedicating her substantial smarts to unlocking the secrets of immortality. Cass's recent success and Roz's sudden appearance send him into contemplation of the tumultuous events of his past, involving his former mentor, his failed first marriage and a young mathematical prodigy whose talent may go unrealized, culminating in a standing-room-only debate with a formidable opponent where Cass must reconcile his new, unfamiliar life with his experience of himself. Irreverent and witty, Goldstein seamlessly weaves philosophy into this lively and colorful chronicle of intellectual and emotional struggles.
Publishers Weekly

Goldstein is entrancing and unfailingly affectionate toward her brilliant yet bumbling seekers in this elegant yet uproarious novel about the darkness of isolation and the light of learning, the beauty of numbers and the chaos of emotions, the “longing for spiritual purity” and love in all its wildness. —Donna Seamen
Booklist

Madcap novel of ideas, careening between the hilarious and the ponderous. Goldstein (Betraying Spinoza, 2009, etc.), whose fiction and biographies alike reflect her background in philosophy, has certainly chosen a timely topic. Protagonist Cass Seltzer soared from academic obscurity to bestselling renown with The Varieties of Religious Illusion, in which he attempts to refute every basis for belief in God without belittling those who accept them, thus distinguishing himself in the contemporary debate over faith and reason as "the atheist with a soul." For the prior two decades, Cass had "all but owned the psychology of religion, but only because nobody else wanted it." His book's success brings him a write-your-own-ticket offer from Harvard and an even greater reward: the love of the beautiful, formidably intelligent Lucinda Mandelbaum, whose work in the field of game theory he can barely understand. His success also brings him the enmity of his mentor, Jonas Elijah Klapper, who might be a genius but is definitely a messianic crackpot. "The Klap" kept another protege from receiving his doctorate for more than 13 years and once proposed that Seltzer switch his dissertation topic to "the hermeneutics of the potato kugel." Within the novel, intellectual slapstick collides with romantic farce, as the lovesick professor discovers that "romantic infatuation can be a form of religious delusion, too." It builds to a public debate over God's existence that isn't going to make anyone forget Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor and concludes with the titular "36 arguments" that Seltzer's book refutes, filled with such hair-splitting redundancy that one suspects his was one of those bestsellers boughtin great numbers by people who never actually got around to reading it. Always smart and intermittently very funny, but the shifts in tone, leaps in chronology and changes of focus can induce whiplash.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. This novel takes the reader straight to the heart of one of the major debates of the present day, the clash between faith and reason. Why do you think Goldstein decided to write about this topic in novel form rather than nonfiction?

2. A reviewer in Booklist described this novel as being about “love in all its wildness.” How is this novel about love? What kinds of love?

3. Do the events in the novel prove Cass right in his claim that the religious impulse spills over into nonreligious contexts? How do the various episodes bear out Cass’s belief?

4. Do you consider Cass to be, in some sense, a religious man? Is he a spiritual man? Is there a difference?

5. Does Azarya make the right decision, given that his father has died? Had his father not died, do you think his decision would have been different? Should it have been? Do you see Azarya as a hypocrite, a saint, or something in between?

6. Did you guess who was sending the e-mails?

7. Why do you think the author chose to make Azarya a mathematical prodigy?

8. In your opinion, who wins the debate, Cass Seltzer or Felix Fidley? Who has the better arguments? Why does the debate come to focus on the issue of morality?

9. Is Lucinda’s decision concerning Cass understandable? What kind of woman is she? Is she a sympathetic character?

10. Religion is an immensely serious topic and yet the author chose to write her novel in a mostly comic vein. Why do you think she did that? What role does humor play? Do you find her humor to be sometimes cruel?

11. There are various “tribes” in the novel: the Onuma that Roz studies, the tribe of students around Klapper, the Valdeners. How do these tribes compare with each other?

12. Why does Goldstein tell her tale in the third person, rather than Cass’s first-person voice? Are there times when she leaves his perspective and enters the minds of other characters?

13. Many of the characters are struggling to find meaning in their lives as they decide which paths to take. Do any of them succeed?

14. Which of the thirty-six arguments is the most convincing? Why do you think the author included the appendix?

15. Why does Thomas Nagel’s idea of the View from Nowhere resonate so deeply with Cass? Have you ever experienced anything like the ecstatic sense of getting outside of yourself that Cass describes throughout the novel? Did you know what Cass was talking about with his distinction Cass here/Jesse there?

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431 Superior
D.M. Pratt, 2013
Dog Ear Publishers
180 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781457523212

Summary
What do you get when you take a dance mom and a nine-to-five IT dad and drop them in the middle of a Vegas vacation—away from their six daughters? You get an idea for a new career that will take this fun-loving couple into a different world...with a whole lot of exposure.

When Nate and Lucy decide to open a sex club in their hometown—complete with performers, mazes, prototype sex machines, naughty baked goods, and theme nights—they have no idea how it will turn their lives upside down, let alone how they’ll explain it to the kids.

Join Nate and Lucy as they discover the ups and downs—and ins and outs—of running one of “those” clubs in suburban Michigan while juggling their own relationship and managing a blended family. 431 Superior is a hilarious romp through the lives of a fortyish couple who take a giant leap of faith, while granting us a peek into the lives of those who share more than their opinions.

Author Bio
• Birth—August 13, 1972
• Where—Toledo, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Adrian College
• Currently—Commerce Twp, Michigan

D.M. Pratt took a break from writing children’s stories in order to write 431 Superior, which she hopes her children never read.

She lives in her favorite state of denial, and also in her favorite setting, Michigan, with her husband, four daughters, and two stepdaughters. While they may be suspiciously similar to the main characters in the book, D.M. is quick to point out that she and her husband can only wish to be as daring and fun as Nate and Lucy. So if you run into them on the street, please don’t give them any funny looks or invite them to one of “those” parties. (From the author.)

Book Reviews
One of the great strengths of the book is how it presents sexual adventures and experimentation in a healthy, loving, and positive light. The sexual scenes were graphic without being pornographic, exciting without being repulsive, and sprinkled with humor and a dose of self-deprecation. Nate and Lucy do not take themselves too seriously. They are human and fallible and they face all the not-so-romantic aspects of marriage with love and laughter. The sexual content could easily tip over into the cheesy or distasteful realm, but in this book, they come across as entertaining and titillating. I have a long history of editing and feel qualified to honestly say “Well done.”
Editor - Dog Ear Publishing

431 Superior is professionally written and fun to read. Period. Your target audience will fall in love with the characters and enjoy their sexual antics. With the humor and lighthearted fun, you’ve got a highly appealing book.
Editor - Dog Ear Publishing

Discussion Questions
1. Nate and Lucy came up with a career idea that was far out of their comfort zone to help pay for their kids’ education. How far would you go to do the same? Would you risk losing friends and alienating neighbors and family if you thought it would be a successful way to help your kids?

2. Nate and Lucy tried to keep their job from their kids as long as possible. Do you agree with this? How do you think they handled the situation when the kids started to find out?

3. What do you think of their club idea? Do you think it would work in your neighborhood?

4. Would you ever go to a club like this? What if you were out of town and no one knew?

5. Some readers think Nate and Lucy’s relationship is too ideal to be real. What do you think? Is a relationship like theirs realistic?

6. Nate and Lucy take a lot of risks just to get alone time together. Does this make them courageous and fun, or do they risk too much?

7. Their plan to use negative publicity to promote their club worked in the book. Would this work in the real world?

8. In the book, the business takes off almost too easily. Only one angry group tries to shut them down by burning them down. What are some other obstacles someone might encounter in the real world?

9. What do you think of Nate and Lucy? Would you want to be friends with them, or would you dislike and avoid them?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)

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4321
Paul Auster, 2017
Henry Holt & Company
800 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627794466

Summary
Paul Auster’s greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel—a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself: a masterpiece.

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born.

From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives.

Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other.

Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 3, 1947
• Where—Newark, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York

Paul Benjamin Auster is an American writer and director whose writing blends absurdism, existentialism, crime fiction, and the search for identity and personal meaning. Those modes can be found in The New York Trilogy (1987), Moon Palace (1989), The Music of Chance (1990), The Book of Illusions (2002), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), and most recently 4321 (2017). Auster's books have been translated into more than forty languages.

Early life
Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Jewish middle-class parents of Polish descent: Queenie (nee Bogat) and Samuel Auster. He grew up in Newark and South Orange and graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, all in New Jersey.

Career
After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, he moved to Paris where he earned a living translating French literature. After returning to the U.S. in 1974, he began to publish poems, essays, and eventually novels of his own, as well as continuing to translate French writers, such as Stephane Mallarme and Joseph Joubert.

Following his well regarded debut, a memoir entitled The Invention of Solitude (1982), Auster gained renown for a series of three loosely connected detective stories published collectively as The New York Trilogy (1987). Instead of conventional detective stories organized around a mystery, Auster takes on existential issues and questions of identity, space, language, and literature. In the process, he creates his own distinctively postmodern (and critique of postmodernism) form. Comparing the two works, Auster said,

I believe the world is filled with strange events. Reality is a great deal more mysterious than we ever give it credit for. In that sense, [Manhattan] Trilogy grows directly out of The Invention of Solitude.

The search for identity and personal meaning has permeated Auster's later publications, many of which concentrate heavily on the role of coincidence and random events (The Music of Chance, 1990) or increasingly, the relationships between people and their peers and environment (Moon Palace, 1989; The Book of Illusions, 2002).

Auster's heroes often find themselves obliged to work as part of someone else's inscrutable and larger-than-life schemes. In 1995, Auster wrote and co-directed the films Smoke (which won him the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay) and Blue in the Face. His more recent works—Oracle Night (2003), The Brooklyn Follies (2005), the novella Travels in the Scriptorium (2006), and 4321 (2017)—have been met with critical acclaim.

Work with PEN
In addition to being a PEN-Faulkner winner, Auster served on the PEN American Center Board of Trustees, from 2004-2009, and as Vice President from 2005-2007.

In a 2012 interview, Auster announced his refusal to visit Turkey in protest over the country's treatment of journalists. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan retorted: "As if we need you! Who cares if you come or not?" Auster then pointed out that...

According to the latest numbers gathered by International PEN, there are nearly one hundred writers imprisoned in Turkey, not to speak of independent publishers such as Ragip Zarakolu, whose case is being closely watched by PEN Centers around the world.

Reception
In a 2003 Washington Post article, Michael Dirda, French critical theorist, praised Auster's "limpid, confessional style," and his penchant for placing his heroes in a world of...

...mounting uneasiness, vague menace and possible hallucination. His plots...keep readers turning the pages, but sometimes end by leaving them uncertain about what they've just been through.

In a 2008 issue of The New York Review of Books, Dirda wrote that Auster had "established one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature."

James Wood of The New Yorker, has been less effusive in his praise for Auster. In a 2009 issue of the magazine, Wood wrote:

Auster is a compelling storyteller, but his stories are assertions rather than persuasions. They declare themselves.... Because nothing is persuasively assembled...one [is left] largely untouched. (The disassembly is also grindingly explicit, spelled out in billboard-size type.)

Cultural historian Morris Berman believes that while Americans concern themselves with Auster's literary qualities, Europeans find his view of American society far more stirring:

[T]he theme of Paul Auster’s novels is that American society is incoherent, that it lacks a true identity.... [B]y and large Americans don’t...don’t read him. [But] Auster is tremendously popular in Europe, he’s been translated into more than twenty languages: those are the bulk of his sales. Americans are not interested in this kind of perception.

Personal life
Auster was married to the writer Lydia Davis. They have one son together, Daniel Auster. In 1981, he married writer Siri Hustvedt (the daughter of professor and scholar Lloyd Hustvedt), and the two live in Brooklyn. Together they have one daughter, Sophie Auster.

Recognition
Auster has won more than 20 literary awards, prizes, and honors from the U.S. (8), Ireland (8), France (4), Spain (2), and Belgium (1). Included among them are film awards, his election to the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a fellowship, and an honorary doctorate. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/7/2017.)

Book Reviews
An epic bildungsroman.... Original and complex.... A monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes.
Tom Perrotta - New York Times Book Review

A multitiered examination of the implications of fate...in which the structure of the book reminds us of its own conditionality.... A signifier of both possibility and its limitations.
Washington Post

At the heart of this novel is a provocative question: What would have happened if your life hadtaken a different turn at a critical moment?... Ingenious.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Auster presents four lovingly detailed portrayals ofthe intensity of youth – of awkwardness and frustration, but also of passion forbooks, films, sport, politics and sex.... [Trying] to think of comparisons [to the novel]...[nothing] is exactly right.... What he is driving at is not only the role of contingency and the unexpected, but the "what-ifs" that haunt us, the imaginary lives we hold in our minds that run parallel to our actual existence
Guardian (UK)

Draws the reader in fromthe very first sentence and does not let go until the very end.... An absorbing, detailed account – four accounts!—of growing up in the decades following World War II.... Auster’sprose is never less than arresting.... In addition to being a bildungsroman, 4321 is a “künstlerroman,” a portrait of the artist as a young man whose literary ambition is evident even in childhood.... I emerged from...this prodigious book eager for more.
San Francisco Chronicle

Leaves readers feeling they know every minute detail of [Ferguson’s] inner life, as if they were lifelong companions and daily confidants.... It’s like an epic game of MASH: Will Ferguson grow up in Montclair or Manhattan? Excel in baseball or basketball? Date girls or love boys too? Live or die?... A detailed landscape...for readers who like taking the scenic route.
Time

Auster pays tribute to what Rose Ferguson thinks of as a "dear, dirty, devouring New York, the capital of human faces, the horizontal Babel of human tongues."... Sprawling...occasionally splendid.
New Yorker

A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read.... An incredibly moving, true journey.
NPR

Almost everything about Auster’s new novel is big. The sentences are long and sinuous; the paragraphs are huge, often running more than a page; and the book comes in at nearly 900 pages. In its telling, however, the book is far from epic, though it is satisfyingly rich in detail.
Publishers Weekly

Like life itself, fiction is full of endless possibilities, something the multi-award-winning Auster exploits to the fullest in his new work.... Archibald Isaac Ferguson['s]...life splinters off into four different yet parallel paths, with each path offering widely swinging variations.
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Auster has been turning readers’ heads for three decades, bending the conventions of storytelling.... He now presents his most capacious, demanding, eventful, suspenseful, erotic, structurally audacious, funny, and soulful novel to date...[a] ravishing opus.
Booklist

Auster, as he often does, has something more complex in mind. Indeed, his subject in these pages is identity: not how it gets fixed but rather all the ways it can unfurl.... With this novel, Auster reminds us that not just life, but also narrative is always conditional, that it only appears inevitable after the fact
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for 4321...and then take off on your own:

1. Of the three (longer) lives of Archibald Ferguson—a journalist, a memoirist, a novelist—which do you prefer? Which engaged you more, which has a perferable outcome in your estimation?

2. To what degree, in terms of an irreducible identity, are the Archies similar? Are they sometimes too similar, making it hard to distinguish one life from another? Or do you find each Archid distinct from the other?

3. Archie's "sole ambition" is to "become the hero of his own life." Does he achieve this goal in any of his incarnations? What does that ambition say about someone?

4. Talk about the role of chance in Archie's lives. To what degree does accident, as opposed to fate or a sense of inevitablity, determine his various lives—and, by implication, our own lives. Consider, for instance, his belief that the 1969 draft lottery was "a blind draw of numbers that would determine "whether your were free or ot free." And that the "whole shape of your future life [was] to be scrlpted by the hands of General Pure Dumb Luck." Where else does chance come determine the shape of life.

5. Follow-up to Question 4: Consider, also, the Manhattan Archie who deliberately sabotages his own class standing in a desire to upend any plans that God might have for him. Where do you stand on the issue of self-determination, action, or God's will?

6. What about Amy Schneiderman and her varous incarnations? She and Archie have a romantic attachment in only one of the lives, and yet he pines for her in the others. What is Amy's powerful draw for Archie?

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

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The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle *
Stuart Turton, 2018
Sourcebooks (US); Bloomsbury (UK)
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492657965

Summary
Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.
We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.
Understood? Then let's begin…

Evelyn Hardcastle will die.

Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others…

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave readers guessing until the very last page. (From the publisher.)

A television adaptation of the novel is in the works.

* The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, was published in 2018 by Bloomsbury in the UK. The book has been retitled in the US as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and published by Sourcebooks.

Author Bio
Stuart is the author of a high-concept crime novel and lives in London with his amazing wife, and drinks lots of tea.

What else?

When he left university he went travelling for three months and stayed away for five years. Every time his parents asked when he’d be back he told them next week, and meant it.

Stuart is not to be trusted. In the nicest possible way.

He’s got a degree in English and Philosophy, which makes him excellent at arguing and terrible at choosing degrees. Having trained for no particular career, he has dabbled in most of them. He stocked shelves in a Darwin bookshop, taught English in Shanghai, worked for a technology magazine in London, wrote travel articles in Dubai, and now he’s a freelance journalist. None of this was planned, he just kept getting lost on his way to other places.

He likes a chat. He likes books. He likes people who write books and people who read books. He doesn’t know how to write a biography, so should probably stop before we start talking about his dreams or something. It was lovely to meet you, though. (From DHH Literary Agency .)

Book Reviews
With time loops, body swaps and a psychopathic footman, this is a dazzling take on the murder mystery. Stuart Turton, a debut novelist, has drawn on half a dozen familiar tropes from popular culture and reworked them into something altogether fresh and memorable.… And what a pleasure it is to give oneself up to the book, to be met with discoveries and thrilling upsets at every turn in the labyrinth. Not only is nothing what it seems, it’s not even what it seems after it’s been revealed to be not what it seems.
Carrie O'Grady - Guardian (UK)

Turton’s complex debut blends mystery with Groundhog Day and Quantum Leap.… This is a complicated, twisting plot that may delight some looking for a puzzle but may leave others exasperated at the overly abstruse rules and kitchen-sink concept.
Publishers Weekly

[I]ngenious and original …[and] completely immersive…. Readers may be scratching their heads in delicious befuddlement as they work their way through this novel, but one thing will be absolutely clear: Stuart Turton is an author to remember.
Booklist

[D]izzying literary puzzle…. [A] fiendishly clever and amusing novel with explosive surprises, though in the absence of genuine feeling, it tends to keep its audience at arm's length.… [R]eaders may be hard-pressed to keep up with all its keenly calibrated twists and turns.
Kirkus Reviews

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 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey, 1989
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743269513

Summary
Using a balance of theory and practical examples, Stephen R. Covey's incredibly successful book offers a pathway to wisdom and power.

Covey's guide (for both personal and professional life) describes seven principles of life management. It offers a revolutionary program for breaking the patterns of self-defeating behavior that keep us from achieving our goals and reaching our fullest potential. It describes how to replace the old patterns with a principle-focused approach to problem-solving.

The book presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity—principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 24, 1932
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—B.S., University of Utah; M.B.A., Harvard; Ph.D.,
   Brigham Young University
• Awards—International Entrepreneur of the Year Award,
   Sikh's International Man of Peace Award,
• Currently—lives in Provo, Utah

Stephen R. Covey writes in his blockbuster self-improvement tome, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, about the "social band-aid" effect of much recent success literature, the tendency to create personality-based solutions to problems that go deeper. "Success became more a function of personality, of public image, of attitudes and behaviors, skills and techniques, that lubricate the processes of human interaction," he wrote. Covey acknowledges the importance of the "personality ethic," but he sought to go deeper and emphasize the "character ethic," something Covey saw as a fading concept. He went back further and found inspiration in figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Thoreau, and Emerson.

Indeed, everything old is new again in Covey's works. The author himself would admit that nothing he is saying is terribly new; but Covey's synthesis of years and years of thinking about effectiveness resulted in a smash personal growth title —one that continues to be a top seller nearly 15 years after its first publication. The title, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, makes it sounds like a quick-fix path to power, but Covey's philosophy is rooted in exactly the opposite notion: There are no quick fixes, no shortcuts. He is writing about habits, after all, which can be as tough to institute as they can be to break. His list: Be proactive; begin with the end in mind; put first things first; think win-win; seek first to understand, then to be understood; synergize; sharpen the saw.

Covey's subsequent titles are based in some way or another on this seminal book. First Things First offers a time-management strategy and a new way of looking at priorities. Principle-Centered Leadership is an examination of character traits and an "inside-out" way of improving organizational leadership. Covey, a Mormon, also wrote two religious contemplations of human effectiveness and interaction, The Spiritual Roots of Human Relations and The Divine Center. These were Covey's first two titles; his esteem for spirituality is not absent from subsequent work but appears as just one more tool that can be applied in self-improvement.

Like Spencer Johnson's Who Moved My Cheese?, 7 Habits has been able to achieve astonishing sales success by espousing ideas applicable beyond an office setting. Covey's books are about self-improvement more than they are about corporate management, which has enabled him to create a successful version of the philosophy for families (entitled, of course, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families) in addition to attracting people who just want to be more efficient in their lives, or bolster that diet.

Most attractive about Covey is his versatility in conveying his ideas. His books are structured in appealing, number-oriented groupings ("Three Resolutions," "Thirty Methods of Influence," four quadrants of importance in time management) and big umbrellas of ideas, but within these pockets Covey draws from a wide range of resources: anecdotes, business school exercises, historical wisdom, and diverse metaphors. Sometimes, Covey uses himself as an example. He knows as well as anyone that practicing what he preaches is tough; but he keeps trying, which makes him an inspiring testimonial for his own books

Extras
• Covey is married to Sandra Merrill Covey. They have nine children.

• Covey is co-chair of FranklinCovey, a management resources firm based in Provo, Utah. He has also been a business professor at Brigham Young University, where he earned his doctorate.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has sold more than 12 million copies in 33 languages and 75 countries throughout the world. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People played a major role in the development of Saturn's operating systems and philosophy. Our commitment to quality and to our customers has its roots in The 7 Habits.
Skip LeFauve

Stephen Covey has written a remarkable book about the human condition, so elegantly written, so understanding of our embedded concerns, so useful for our organizational and personal lives, that it's going to be my gift to everyone I know.
Warren Bennis

I've never known any teacher or mentor on improving personal effectiveness to generate such an overwhelmingly positive reaction....This book captures beautifully Stephen's philosophy of principles. I think anyone reading it will quickly understand the enormous reaction I and others have had to Dr. Covey's teachings.
John Pepper

Picture someone going through the best experience they've ever had in terms of training—that's what they say. People credit The 7 Habits with changing their lives, with getting back on track personally and professionally.
Ken M. Radziwanowski

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 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

1. Talk about the difference, as Stephen Covey describes it, between Personality and Character ethics. Does that distinction have relevance to your life? According to Covey, what is the disadvantage of relying solely on the Personality ethic?

2. Discuss the "absolute" principles that Covey believes exist in all human beings, those basic assumptions underlying the Character Ethic.

3. What does the experiment using drawings of a younger and older woman tell us about individual perception? Talk about how personal conditioning colors perspective in your own experiences. How difficult is it to achieve objectivity—in life generally...and in your own life?

4. What is Covey's "inside-out" approach to effectiveness?

5. Discuss Covey's definition of "habits" and the role they play in our lives. What are habits, as Covey defines them?

6. Talk about the stages that habits help us move through—Dependence...Independence...Interdependence. Why is Independence not the optimal model to follow in personal or professional environments?

Now move on to the 7 specific habits:

7. Be Proactive: What does it mean to be proactive? What qualities are needed to be proactive? Can you discern in your own life the difference between what you can influence and what you cannot? How proactive are you in your job...in your daily life?

8. Begin With the End In Mind: How do you define your own personal principles? Have you established a mission statement? What would (or does) it consist of? If you haven't already, develop your personal mission statement.

9. Put Things First: What are the key roles you take on in life? How can you integrate those into your mission statement?

10. Think Win/Win: What is win/win, and why does Covey believe it is important? Give an example from your own experience where you achieved (or not) a win/win situation?

11. Understand/Understood: why does Covey consider this principle so important? What does he mean by it...and how is it relevant to your life?

12. Synergize: What does synergy mean and how does it apply to personal effectiveness? How does it differ from the Win/Win principle? Can you think of how synergy might work in your own life—personal or professional?

13. Sharpen the Saw: How does this habit relate to personal renewal? What does Covey mean by achieving "balance"? How does one maximize producing vs. the capacity to produce? Can you apply this principle to your own situation?

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

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A Bridge Across the Ocean
Susan Meissner, 2017
Penguin Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451476005

Summary
Wartime intrigue spans the lives of three women—past and present—in the latest novel from the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life.

February, 1946.
World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Resistance spy.

Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom.

When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark.

Present day.
Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides—and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 9, 1961
• Where—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—Point Loma Nazarene University
• Currently—lives in San Diego, California

Susan Meissner is an American writer born and raised in San Diego, California. She began her literary career at the age of eight and since then has published more than a dozen novels (though that part came a bit later in her life).

Early years and career
Susan attended Point Loma Nazarene University, married a U.S. Air Force man, raised four children, and spent five years overseas and several more in Minnesota. Those were the years she put her novel-writing itch on hold. In 1995, however, she took a part-time reporting job at her county newspaper, became a columnist three years later, and eventually editor of a local weekly paper. One of the things she is most proud of that her paper was named the Best Weekly Paper in Minnesota in 2002.

That was the same year Susan's latent novel-writing itch resurfaced, and she began working on her first novel, Why the Sky is Blue. In a little more than a year, the book was written, published, and in the bookstores. She's been noveling ever since—with a string of 12 books under her name. Historical Fiction is one of her favorite genres.

Booklist placed A Fall of Marigolds on its "Top Ten" list of women's fiction for 2014. In 2008, Publishers Weekly named The Shape of Mercy as one of the year's 100 Best Novels.

Personal
Susan lives with her husband and four children in San Diego where her husband is a pastor and Air Force Reserves chaplain. She teaches in writing workshops. In addition to writing books, she enjoys spending time with her family, making and listening to music, reading, and traveling. (Based on the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Although the stories of Annaliese and Simone are captivating and well-researched, readers may find themselves wishing Meissner had devoted more of the book to the women on the ship and less to Brette and her ability to see ghosts. An interesting World War II narrative is dragged down by a less-engaging present-day story.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. A Bridge Across the Ocean opens with a spectral encounter aboard the RMS Queen Mary on the first day of her maiden voyage, followed by Brette’s unwanted meeting with a ghost in the present day at a baby shower. What was your initial reaction to these two scenes? Have you ever experienced something that had no earthly explanation? If you had Brette’s strange ability, what do you think you would do with it?

2. Which of the three war brides—Annaliese, Simone, or Phoebe—did you most connect with emotionally? Why?

3. Talk for a moment about the friendship between Annaliese and Katrine. What do you think drew them together? Have you ever had or do you have a friend like these two had in each other? What do you think Katrine would have thought of Annaliese’s decision to board the Queen Mary the way that she did?

4. Would you have made all the same life-changing choices that Simone and Annaliese made?

5. When Katrine falls in love with John, Annaliese remarks that they’ve only known each other a short while. Katrine says that it seems like longer, “as if to suggest Annaliese surely knew that love didn’t take note of calendar pages.” Do agree or can you relate? Why do you think Simone and Everett also fell in love over a stretch of just weeks?

6. Early in the book, Aunt Ellen tells Brette that the Drifters are “afraid of what they can’t see, just like us. It’s as if there’s a bridge they need to cross. And it’s like crossing over the ocean, Brette. They can’t see the other side. So they are afraid to cross it.” Have you ever faced a figurative bridge you had to cross where you couldn’t see the other side? What did you do?

7. As Simone prepares to leave her old life behind to board the Queen Mary, she reflects on the people who stood in as parental figures when she desperately needed them: Madame Didion, Henri and Collette, the older British couple who helped her prepare for the sailing. How do you think these people made their mark on Simone? Why do you think Simone thought it best not to stay in contact with Phoebe after they immigrated to America? Was it the right choice?

8. Were Brette’s fears about passing on her special ability completely understandable? Would you have had the same fears? Would you have had children anyway, if you were Brette?

9. When Annaliese is about to be detained on the ship and Simone decides to intervene and help her, she says to Annaliese: “If I do nothing when I know I can help you, I can never again be the girl that I was, I will only ever be that other girl, the one the war tried to make of me.” What do you think she means here? What is at stake for her?

10. Discuss the idea that the ship is an entity with a soul. What was your reaction to this revelation? Do you have a special fondness for a place that feels like it is more than just a mere location?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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A Burning
Megha Majumdar, 2020
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525658696

Summary
An electrifying debut novel about three unforgettable characters who seek to rise—to the middle class, to political power, to fame in the movies—and find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India.

Jivan is a Muslim girl from the slums, determined to move up in life, who is accused of executing a terrorist attack on a train because of a careless comment on Facebook.

PT Sir is an opportunistic gym teacher who hitches his aspirations to a right-wing political party, and finds that his own ascent becomes linked to Jivan's fall.

Lovely—an irresistible outcast whose exuberant voice and dreams of glory fill the novel with warmth and hope and humor—has the alibi that can set Jivan free, but it will cost her everything she holds dear.

Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning has the force of an epic while being so masterfully compressed it can be read in a single sitting.

Majumdar writes with dazzling assurance at a breakneck pace on complex themes that read here as the components of a thriller: class, fate, corruption, justice, and what it feels like to face profound obstacles and yet nurture big dreams in a country spinning toward extremism. An extraordinary debut. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Kolkata, India
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; M.S., Johns Hopkins University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York

Megha Majumdar was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She moved to the United States to attend college at Harvard University, followed by graduate school in social anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She works as an editor at Catapult, and lives in New York City. A Burning is her first book. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Megha Majumdar's propulsive debut novel… is a book to relish for its details… descriptions of life, of stench and bodies, of stifled ambitions and stoked resentments…. What we describe helplessly as our fate is, very often, other people's choices acting upon us—choices that remain largely unknown…. The interplay of choice and circumstance has always been the playing field of great fiction, and on this terrain, a powerful new writer stakes her claim.
New York Times - Parul Sehgal

[W]hile engaging, the book occasionally reads more like straightforward social commentary than a fully realized fictional world. What rescues it… are the detailed and personal voices of its narrators, particularly the women at its heart.… A Burning is heartbreaking, a damning indictment of a society depicted as utterly corrupt and racist. Even with its flaws, the book is an engaging and fast read.
Clea Simon - Boston Globe

[A] gripping thriller with compassionate social commentary.… Majumdar's powerful debut is carefully crafted for maximum impact, carving out the most urgent parts of its characters for the whole world to see. This novel rightfully commands attention.
USA Today

In her captivating debut novel A Burning, Megha Majumdar presents a powerful corrective to the political narratives that have dominated in contemporary India.
Time

Remarkable…. Early buzz is already comparing A Burning to the work of modern literary stars… but the voice—or voices—here are entirely Majumdar’s own.
Entertainment Weekly

Combines fast-paced plotting with the kind of atmospheric detail one might find in the work of Jhumpa Lahiri or Daniyal Mueenuddin.… A highly compelling read
Vogue

[A]udacious…. Majumdar expertly weaves the book’s various points of view and plotlines in ways that are both unexpected and inevitable. This is a memorable, impactful work.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review) And what has burned? A train, torched…with more than 100 left dead.… [T]he author offers fresh, brisk, striking language while remaining relentless in her depiction of Jivan's fate and of the kind of rampant suspicion and finally hatred that burns us all.
Library Journal

(Starred review) Kolkata-born and Harvard- and Johns Hopkins–educated book editor Majumdar presents an electrifying debut that serves as a barometer measuring the seeming triviality of human life and the fragility of human connections.
Booklist

[S]harply observes class and religious divisions in India.… Majumdar has a gift for capturing… scenes in just a few well-chosen images….But Jivan’s storyline feels a bit thin…. The novel’s brilliant individual vignettes far outshine a rather flimsy overarching plot.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In A Burning, Jivan’s social media usage ultimately leads her to become a victim of the state. Consider her statement: "If the police didn’t help ordinary people like you and me, if the police watched them die, doesn’t that mean . . . that the government is also a terrorist?" (pp. 5–6). How does this messaging reverberate throughout the novel? How is social media used both as a tool of activism and as a tool of repression in our current society? Have you ever felt at risk expressing your opinions on social media?

2. Why do you think Lovely dreams of becoming a movie star? How does this ambition relate to the instances of disrespect she faces in public, as well as to the ceremonies at which she is welcomed?

3. Shortly after her arrest, Jivan states: "A woman like me is never believed" (p. 22). Discuss the import of this statement for the overall narrative. What assumptions are made about Jivan based on her religion? Her socioeconomic standing? How does she try to defy societal expectations throughout her life?

4. Consider your initial impression of PT Sir. How would you describe his day-to-day life before he attends the rally? How did the rally change his point of view on political engagement?

5. Consider the two interstitial chapters that are written from the vantage point of Jivan’s mother and father. Why do you think the author chose to include these two brief scenes? How do they contribute to the emotional impact of the narrative? Describe Jivan’s relationship with her parents.

6. Discuss Jivan’s choice to involve a journalist in sharing her story. What are her initial impressions of Purnendu? Describe her childhood and the incidents that Purnendu chose to highlight. What does the tone of the final article imply about truth and narrative?

7. Consider the conditions of Jivan’s imprisonment. How does she conduct herself in her day-to-day life? Describe her relationship with the other incarcerated women. How does Jivan’s decision to bribe Americandi weigh on her conscience?

8. Throughout A Burning, there are scenes and moments in which a culture of violence against women is brought to the forefront. How do women in the novel navigate this expectation of violence and misogyny? How do they resist it?

9. Education plays an integral role in A Burning. How is the education system described? Consider PT Sir’s role within it and Jivan’s experience in his school. How does the act of learning English become a form of empowerment for her? For Lovely

10. Discuss "Interlude: The Villagers Visit the Beef-Eater." How did this scene affect you as a reader? Consider how anti-Muslim rhetoric and action is depicted in the novel. What does the state’s indifference to this violence imply about the relationship between justice and power?

11. At several points in the novel, Jivan discusses her aspirations to become middle class. Describe the conditions of her childhood and how they are depicted in the narrative. What are some of Jivan’s earliest moments of class consciousness? What does being "middle-class" mean to her at different points in her life?

12. On page 98, Lovely states: "In this life, everybody is knowing how to give me shame. So I am learning how to reflect shame back on them also." When does Lovely feel most comfortable in her identity? At what points does she seem to feel the most shame in the novel?

13. At several points in the novel, the reader witnesses characters become morally flexible as they strive to achieve personal goals. Who, in your opinion, is the most morally reprehensible?

14. What was the most surprising aspect of the novel? How did your understanding of various characters change over the course of the novel?

15. A Burning is a novel that meditates on issues of power and agency. How does power change PT Sir? Lovely? At what moment is Jivan most empowered? Did you find that this book helped you think about injustice, power, and agency in your own life and community? How so?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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A Game of Thrones (Song of Ice and Fire, 1)
George Martin, 1996
Bantam Press
694 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553103540

Summary
Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall.

To the south, the king’s powers are failing—his most trusted adviser dead under mysterious circumstances and his enemies emerging from the shadows of the throne.

At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the frozen land they were born to. Now Lord Eddard Stark is reluctantly summoned to serve as the king’s new Hand, an appointment that threatens to sunder not only his family but the kingdom itself.

Sweeping from a harsh land of cold to a summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, A Game of Thrones tells a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens. Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; a child is lost in the twilight between life and death; and a determined woman undertakes a treacherous journey to protect all she holds dear.

Amid plots and counter-plots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, allies and enemies, the fate of the Starks hangs perilously in the balance, as each side endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Unparalleled in scope and execution, A Game of Thrones is one of those rare reading experiences that catch you up from the opening pages, won’t let you go until the end, and leave you yearning for more. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
George R. R. Martin is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of many novels, including the acclaimed series A Song of Ice and Fire—A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, and A Dance with Dragons—as well as Tuf Voyaging, Fevre Dream, The Armageddon Rag, Dying of the Light, Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), and Dreamsongs Volumes and II.

He is also the creator of The Lands of Ice and Fire, a collection of maps from A Song of Ice and Fire featuring original artwork from illustrator and cartographer Jonathan Roberts, and The World of Ice & Fire (with Elio M. García, Jr., and Linda Antonsson). As a writer-producer, Martin has worked on The Twilight Zone, Beauty and the Beast, and various feature films and pilots that were never made. He lives with the lovely Parris in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
We have been invited to a grand feast and pageant: George R.R. Martin has unveiled for us an intensely realized, romantic but realistic world.
Chicago Sun-Times

The major fantasy of the decade…compulsively readable.
Denver Post

(Starred review.) [T]riumphant…[with] superbly developed characters, accomplished prose and sheer bloody-mindedness. Although the romance of chivalry,…tournaments, derring-do and handsome knights abound, these trappings merely give cover to dangerous men and women who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals.
Publishers Weekly

[I]ntrigue, action, romance, and mystery in a family saga…it promises to repay reading and rereading, from first volume to last, on account of its literacy, imagination, emotional impact, and superb world-building. Roland Green
Booklist

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, feel free to use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Game of Thrones...then take off on your own:

1. One of the most compelling elements of George R.R.Martin's epic saga of Song of Ice and Fire is his characterization. He has crafted characters who come alive on the page—they are distinct, complex, and fully inhabited with their own memories and desires. Which characters are you particularly drawn to, admire most, or find particularly intriguing? Talk about the Stark family, especially Ned and Cat and also their children.

2. The book opens with Ned Stark beheading a young man for desertion. What do you think of his undertaking the execution himself? Why was no mercy shown?

3. (Follow-up to Question 1) Consider in particular how the Stark children grow and develop from when you first meet them in the beginning of the novel to the end.

4. King Robert makes a grand entrance into Winterfell. What were your initial impressions of the King and his retinue, including Cersei, Jamie, and Tyrion Lanister? What is the first indication of young Prince Joffrey's true nature? How would you describe him?

5. Metaphorically, what does it suggest that winter is approaching and is to last for decades.

6. Daenerys Targaryen has one of the most fascinating trajectories in the book (and in the entire series). Trace her development, from being under the thrall of her brother to her marriage to Khal Drogo. What are her initial feelings toward her husband and how do those feelings change? What does her survival of the funeral pyre and the birth of the dragons suggest, symbolically, about Daenerys?

7. Tyrion gradually becomes a central figure. How would you describe him and his position in the Lannister family?

8. Jon Snow also grows as a character when he goes to the Wall. How does he win the trust and admiration of the men? What does it suggest about the kind of young man he is? His loyalty is torn between his vows as a member of the Night Watch and his love for Robb Stark. What do you think of his decision to desert?

9. Originally, it seems readers are meant to take the side of the Stark family. But as the story develops, do you find yourself sympathizing with some members of the Lannister family...or other characters you might not have expected to like?

10. (Follow-up to Question 9) Martin uses multiple viewpoints, allowing characters to be explored from different perspectives. Does that make a difference in how you have come to view them? In other words, is there a straight-line "good and evil" axis in this story?

11. What is the significance of the title? Why is winning the throne "a game"? What does the book suggest about the desire for power? Does anyone wish to use it for good? Or is the desire for power simply a matter of self-aggrandizement?

12. Talk about the medieval world Martin creates. How would you describe its culture, class divisions, living conditions, treatment of people, and the tournaments and trappings of chivalry for the wealthy? Does it feel real, if not realistic? Much of the writing is similar in style to historical fiction, but Martin has also added a layer of supernaturalism. Do the fantastic elements enhance the tale for you? Or do you find them unnecessary?

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

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A Good Girl's Guide to Murder
Holly Jackson, 2020
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781984896360

Summary
An addictive, twisty crime thriller with shades of Serial and Making a Murderer about a closed local murder case that doesn't add up, and a girl who's determined to find the real killer—but not everyone wants her meddling in the past.

Everyone in Fairview knows the story.

Pretty and popular high school senior Andie Bell was murdered by her boyfriend, Sal Singh, who then killed himself. It was all anyone could talk about. And five years later, Pip sees how the tragedy still haunts her town.

But she can't shake the feeling that there was more to what happened that day. She knew Sal when she was a child, and he was always so kind to her. How could he possibly have been a killer?

Now a senior herself, Pip decides to reexamine the closed case for her final project, at first just to cast doubt on the original investigation. But soon she discovers a trail of dark secrets that might actually prove Sal innocent … and the line between past and present begins to blur. Someone in Fairview doesn't want Pip digging around for answers, and now her own life might be in danger.

This is the story of an investigation turned obsession, full of twists and turns and with an ending you'll never expect. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Holly Jackson started writing stories at a young age, completing her first (poor) attempt at a novel when she was fifteen. She graduated from the University of Nottingham, where she studied literary linguistics and creative writing, with a master's degree in English.

She enjoys playing video games and watching true-crime documentaries so she can pretend to be a detective. She lives in London. A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is her debut novel. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Jackson sprinkles the fast-paced narrative with Pip’s notes, project logs, and interview transcripts—as well as several cleverly placed red herrings—…[and] caps her suspenseful, well-plotted mystery with a few twists readers likely won’t see coming (Ages 14–up).
Publishers Weekly

Jackson wonderfully crafts the mystery so that readers can create their own hypotheses as Pip puts the pieces together—but they won't find out the truth until she does.… A wonderful addition to any library collection (Gr. 9–up). —Amanda Borgia, Uniondale Public Library, NY
SchoolLibrary Journal

Fans of true crime will be hooked by the hunt for a killer, but there’s more to this Guide than just a whodunit. It’s a story of families, community and the ways a crisis can turn them against one another in the blink of an eye.
BookPage

Pip's sleuthing is both impressive and accessible.… Jackson's debut is well-executed and surprises readers with a connective web of interesting characters and motives.… A treat for mystery readers who enjoy being kept in suspense (Young Adult).
Kirkus Reviews

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

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Good Marriage
Kimberly McCreight, 2020
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062367686

Summary
A riveting novel from the bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, in which a woman’s brutal murder reveals the perilous compromises some couples make—and the secrets they keep—in order to stay together.

Lizzie Kitsakis is working late when she gets the call.

Grueling hours are standard at elite law firms like Young & Crane, but they’d be easier to swallow if Lizzie was there voluntarily. Until recently, she’d been a happily underpaid federal prosecutor. That job and her brilliant, devoted husband Sam—she had everything she’d ever wanted.

And then, suddenly, it all fell apart.

No. That’s a lie. It wasn’t sudden, was it? Long ago the cracks in Lizzie’s marriage had started to show. She was just good at averting her eyes.

The last thing Lizzie needs right now is a call from an inmate at Rikers asking for help—even if Zach Grayson is an old friend. But Zach is desperate: his wife, Amanda, has been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their Brooklyn brownstone.

And Zach’s the primary suspect.

As Lizzie is drawn into the dark heart of idyllic Park Slope, she learns that Zach and Amanda weren’t what they seemed—and that their friends, a close-knit group of fellow parents at the exclusive Brooklyn Country Day school, might be protecting troubling secrets of their own.

In the end, she’s left wondering not only whether her own marriage can be saved, but what it means to have a good marriage in the first place. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Kimberly McCreight attended Vassar College and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. After several years as a litigation associate at some of New York City’s biggest law firms, she left the practice of law to write full-time.

Her work has appeared in such publications as Antietam Review, Oxford Magazine, Babble, and New York Magazine online. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband and two daughters. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
The characters look as if their lives are perfect, but their greatest skill is their ability to conceal the adultery, substance abuse and financial ruin percolating underneath…. McCreight is particularly adept at parsing the small but telling details of life among Park Slope’s elite.
New York Times Book Review

A murder mystery filled with dirty secrets and moneyed mayhem.
People

(Starred review) [E]xpertly blends domestic drama with a gripping murder mystery.… McCreight’s page-turner presses readers to question everything they think makes a “good” marriage. This will stay with the reader long after the finish.
Publishers Weekly

[W]ill make you question the very concept of marriage and how even the most insignificant secret could tear down the walls that couples put up to keep their secrets…. [W]hat could have been a standard mystery [is elevated]… to top-notch thriller status.
Bookreporter.com

McCreight expertly weaves multiple plot threads with a few sly red herrings, paving the way to a series of surprising, and satisfying, reveals. A smartly plotted and altogether successful union of legal thriller and domestic suspense.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What makes a good marriage

2. What does being "happily married" mean?

3. Do you believe in white lies?

4. Do you thin you ever completely know a person?

(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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A Long Way Home
Saroo Brierley, 2013 (2014, int'l.)
Penguin Publishers
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425276198

Summary
The miraculous and triumphant story of Saroo Brierley, a young man who used Google Earth to rediscover his childhood life and home in an incredible journey from India to Australia and back again

At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. Unable to read or write or recall the name of his hometown or even his own last name, he survived alone for weeks on the rough streets of Calcutta before ultimately being transferred to an agency and adopted by a couple in Australia.

Despite his gratitude, Brierley always wondered about his origins. Eventually, with the advent of Google Earth, he had the opportunity to look for the needle in a haystack he once called home, and pore over satellite images for landmarks he might recognize or mathematical equations that might further narrow down the labyrinthine map of India. One day, after years of searching, he miraculously found what he was looking for and set off to find his family.

A Long Way Home is a moving, poignant, and inspirational true story of survival and triumph against incredible odds. It celebrates the importance of never letting go of what drives the human spirit: hope. (From the publisher.)

The 2016 film version, Lion, stars Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel, and Rooney Mara. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Dev Patel for Best Supporting Actor.

Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—Ganesh Talai, Madhya Pradesh, India
• Raised—Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
• Education—Australian International Hotel School (Canberra)
• Currently—lives in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

Saroo Brierley is an Indian-born Australian businessman and memorist. At age 5, Saroo was separated from his biological mother and eventually adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, he reunited with his biological mother.

His autobiographical account, A Long Way Home, was published in 2013 in Australia and internationally a year later. It generated significant international media attention and was adapted to film in 2016. The film, entitled Lion, stars Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara. It received six Oscar nominations, including one for Dev Patel for Best Supporting Actor.

Background
Saroo Brierley was born Sheru Munshi Khan in Ganesh Talai, a suburb within Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh. When he was young, his father left his mother, throwing the family into poverty. His mother worked in construction to support herself and her children but often made too little money to feed them all. Nor could she afford to send them to school.

At age 5, Saroo and his older brothers Guddu and Kallu began begging at the railway station for food and money. Guddu sometimes obtained work sweeping the floors of train carriages. One evening, Guddu said he was going to ride the train from Khandwa to the city of Burhanpur, 70 kilometres (43 mi) to the south. Saroo asked to go along, and Guddu agreed. By the time the train reached Burhanpur, Saroo was so tired he collapsed onto a seat on the platform. Guddu told him to wait, promising to be back shortly.

Guddu did not return, however, and Saroo eventually became impatient. He noticed a train parked in the station and, thinking his brother was on it, boarded an empty carriage. He found there were no doors to the adjoining carriages. Hoping his brother would come for him, he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the train was travelling across unfamiliar country. Many hours passed, and although the train occasionally stopped at small stations, Saroo was unable to open the door to escape. The rail journey finally ended at the huge Howrah railway station in Kolkata (then Calcutta), nearly 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) from his home. When someone opened the door to his carriage, Saroo fled, having no idea where he was.

He survived by scavenging scraps of food in the street and sleeping underneath the station's seats. Finally, he ventured out into the city, and after days of homelessness on Kolkata's streets, a teenager took him to a police station and reported that the boy was probably lost. Eventually, he was moved to the Indian Society for Sponsorship and Adoption (ISSA). The staff there attempted to locate his family, but Saroo did not know enough for them to trace his hometown. He was officially declared a lost child and subsequently adopted by the Brierley family of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

His mother
In the meantime, his mother, Kamla Munshi, searched for her two sons. A few weeks after her sons failed to return home, police informed her that Guddu's body had been found near the railway tracks, a kilometre (0.6 miles) from Burhanpur station. He had been struck by a train. She then confined her energy to looking for Saroo, travelling to different places on trains and visiting a temple every week to pray for his return.

Search for his family
Saroo grew up in Hobart with his Australian parents, who later adopted another Indian boy, Mantosh. Saroo learned English and soon forgot Hindi. He studied business and hospitality at the Australian International Hotel School in Canberra.

As an adult, he spent many hours over many months conducting searches using the satellite images on Google Earth, painstakingly following railway lines radiating out from Howrah railway station. He relied on his vague memories of the main features around Burhanpur railway station although he knew little of the name of the station except that it began with the letter B.

Late one night in 2011, he came upon a small railway station that closely matched his childhood recollection of where he had become trapped in an empty carriage; the name of this station was Burhanpur, very close to a phonetic spelling of the name he remembered from his childhood. He followed the satellite images of the railway line north and found the town of Khandwa. He had no recollection of the name, but the town contained recognizable features, including a fountain near the train tracks where he used to play. He was able to trace a path through the streets to what appeared to be the place where he and his family had lived.

Following up on a lead, Saroo contacted a Facebook group based in Khandwa. The Facebook group reinforced his belief that Khandwa might be his hometown.

In 2012, Saroo travelled to Khandwa in India and asked residents if they knew of any family that had lost a son 25 years ago. He showed photographs of himself as a child in Hobart. Local people soon led him to his mother. There he learned that his brother Guddu had been killed the very day that Saroo had fallen asleep on the train waiting for him.

Sarro was also reunited with his sister Shekila and his surviving brother Kallu, who were now a schoolteacher and factory manager, respectively. With Saroo and Guddu gone, their mother was able to afford to send them to school. The reunion was extensively covered by Indian and international media.

Today
Saroo continues to live in Hobart. He and his Indian family are now able to communicate regularly, taking advantage of a computer at the home of one of Kallu's neighbors. He bought his mother a house so she no longer has to work.

Saroo has returned to India and visited his family over a dozen times. He also traveled first class on the Kolkata Mail, a train service from Mumbai to Kolkata, to re-trace his journey of a quarter century earlier. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/17/2017.)

Book Reviews
Amazing stuff.
New York Post

So incredible that sometimes it reads like a work of fiction.
Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)

A remarkable story.
Sydney Morning Herald Review (Australia)

I literally could not put this book down…[Saroo's] return journey will leave you weeping with joy and the strength of the human spirit.
Manly Daily (Australia)

We urge you to step behind the headlines and have a read of this absorbing account.… With clear recollections and good old-fashioned storytelling, Saroo…recalls the fear of being lost and the anguish of separation.
Weekly Review (Australia)

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available by the publisher; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for A Long Way Home…then take off on your own:

1. What propels Saroo Brierley as an adult to search for his birth home, especially as he writes, "I am not Indian…and I have family bonds [in Australia] that cannot be broken (p. 252)? If that is the case, why the drive to find his Indian roots?

2. What role does memory play in shaping our self-identity? What are the memories Saroo has of his early childhood, and how have those memories, many of them traumatized, shaped Saroo's sense of himself? How did Saroo continue to "work" his mind in order to keep his childhood memories alive for 25 years?

3. Discuss Saroo's ordeal on the streets of Kolkata. Also, what about the railway worker who took him in for a time. Why does Saroo run away from the man's seeming kindness?

4. Talk about the genuine kindness of other people Saroo encounters in Kolkata: the ISSA orphanage and Mrs. Saroj Sood, in particular.

5. Describe Sue and John Brierley as parents and the kind of family they provided for Saroo and his brother Mantosh. What were Sue's experiences in her early years? To what degree did her background as a refugee influence her desire to adopt two Indian children?

6. What are some of the darker aspects of this book surrounding poverty. Consider this passage from the book:

Today there are perhaps a hundred thousand homeless kids in Kolkata, and a good many of them die before they reach adulthood.… No one knows how many Indian children have been trafficked into the sex trade, or slavery, or even for organs, but all these trades are thriving, with too few officials and too many kids..

7. Talk about Kamala as a single mother and her struggles to keep her family fed. Is her experience typical of Indian village women? Also, consider her insistence on remaining in the same home in hopes that her son might someday return to her. What does that suggest about the kind of woman Kamala is and the strength of her optimism and her faith?

8. Discuss Saroo's use of technology to locate his family—Facebook and Google Earth, in particular. Would this story have had a different outcome absent the internet?

9. What was your experience reading A Long Way Home? Did you find it one-dimensional, too focused on Saroo's experiences? Or did you find that the story captured the multiple experiences of Saroo and his two families? Was the story engaging, suspenseful, heart-rending? Was there one part of the story you found more interesting than the other: the story of Saroo as a lost child in Kolkata...or the story of his five-year-long search for his birth family.

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

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A Place for Us
Fatima Farheen Mirza, 2018
Crown/Archetype
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524763558

Summary
A deeply moving and resonant story of love, identity and belonging

A Place for Us unfolds the lives of an Indian-American Muslim family, gathered together in their Californian hometown to celebrate the eldest daughter, Hadia’s, wedding—a match of love rather than tradition.

It is here, on this momentous day, that Amar, the youngest of the siblings, reunites with his family for the first time in three years. Rafiq and Layla must now contend with the choices and betrayals that lead to their son’s estrangement—the reckoning of parents who strove to pass on their cultures and traditions to their children; and of children who in turn struggle to balance authenticity in themselves with loyalty to the home they came from.

In a narrative that spans decades and sees family life through the eyes of each member, A Place For Us charts the crucial moments in the family's past, from the bonds that bring them together to the differences that pull them apart.

And as siblings Hadia, Huda, and Amar attempt to carve out a life for themselves, they must reconcile their present culture with their parent's faith, to tread a path between the old world and the new, and learn how the smallest decisions can lead to the deepest of betrayals.

A deeply affecting and resonant story, A Place for Us is truly a book for our times: a moving portrait of what it means to be an American family today, a novel of love, identity and belonging that eloquently examines what it means to be both American and Muslim—and announces Fatima Farheen Mirza as a major new literary talent. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1991
• Where—San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Riverside; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—N/A

Fatima Farheen Mirza was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Her mother is of a British-Indian family, growing up in Birmingham, England; her father is from Hyderabad, India. Mirza did her undergradute work at the University of California-Riverside and received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. A Place for Us is her first novel. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Read the author interview in The Guardian.

Book Reviews
Ambitious.… [A] family epic that is textured and keenly felt… Mirza draws Amar’s lifelong struggle with the concept of unconditional devotion so poignantly that readers will find it exceedingly relatable. But so too is the mysterious whisper in his ear urging him always to return, no matter how far he strays, back home.
Lauren Christenson - New York Times Book Review

Absolutely gorgeous.… Mirza writes about family life with the wisdom, insight and patience you would expect from a mature novelist.… In prose of quiet beauty and measured restraint, Mirza traces those twined strands of yearning and sorrow that faith involves. She writes with a mercy that encompasses all things.… Each time I stole away into this novel, it felt like a privilege to dwell among these people, to fall back under the gentle light of Mirza’s words.
Ron Charles - Washington Post

An affecting, authentic and artful debut by Fatima Farheen Mirza.… Mirza's writing is poignantly beautiful.…By the end of the novel, readers may wish that some characters had spoken up at critical junctures and that other characters had swallowed the words that irreparably altered the course of events. That we become so invested is a testament to Mirza's talent.
Associated Press

A Place for Us is a stunning novel about love, compassion, cruelty and forgiveness—the very things that make families what they are…[Mirza’s] writing is gorgeous, unadorned but beautiful.… [A] miracle of a book. A Place for Us is a major accomplishment, a work of real beauty and fierce originality.
Michael Schaub - NPR.org

In polished prose that zeroes in on domestic detail and, at its loveliest, recalls Jhumpa Lahiri, Mirza delivers a portrait of a family straining to hold its center amid rebellions both quiet and explosive.
Time

The book dives into the lives of a Muslim-American family, opening on the eve of the eldest daughter's marriage, and examines the intricacies of a family straddling two very different cultures.
Vanity Fair

A rich portrait of a fractured Muslim family…With unwavering compassion, this beautiful heartbreaker unravels the mystery of who may be to blame for Amar’s estrangement.
People

This is a richly detailed, immersive saga that hooks you from the jump and keeps you absorbed even as you spend decades with its characters. A Place for Us is a tender examination of identity and familial roles, of faith, and of what it means to be home.
Marie Claire

Bonds of faith and family strengthen and strangle in this promising but flawed debut, set in a close-knit Indian Muslim community in California.… Mirza displays a particular talent for rendering her characters' innermost emotional lives, signaling a writer to watch.
Publishers Weekly

[A]n American Muslim family in California…. Because of the structure, the time line of events is at times confusing. What Mirza does best is show how family dynamics can shape one's life and how seemingly inconsequential events can have a large impact over time. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal

[T]he warring forces are not two families but one, split by the tension between reverence and rebellion. The author's passion for her subject shines like the moon in the night sky, a recurrent image in this ardent and powerful novel.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. How did you interpret the title of A Place for Us? Does this "place" refer to family, culture, community, or religion?

2. Through the nuances of her writing, Fatima Farheen Mirza depicts complex, multidimensional characters. How were different sides to her characters’ personalities revealed? How do you reconcile Amar’s behavior with Amira with the anger and resentment he holds toward his family?

3. Did your opinion of Rafiq change or develop as the narrative progressed? Did you become more sympathetic or understanding of the father portrayed early on in the novel when, in the final section, the novel switches to his first-person perspective?

4. Layla at one stage advises Hadia to be mindful of the ways she treats and teases Amar, for his childhood experiences will impact the rest of his life. Layla warns, "One day the joke will not be funny. If you always leave him out, if you always tease him and hurt his feelings, soon you will not know how to be any other way with him, and it will affect his personality. Your relationship. For his whole life, and the rest of yours." Can you recall any moments from Amar’s early years that affected his personality or the course of his adult life?

5. From a young age, Amar fears that he has a "black stain" on his soul. What do you think was the root cause of this fear? Why do you think he questions his own inherent goodness, and how does self-doubt affect his behavior?

6. Hadia comes to see the watch she received from Rafiq, an heirloom that was her grandfather’s, as a symbol of the competition between herself and Amar. How might the watch also be symbolic of their complex relationships with their father?

7. How did you interpret other recurring images or symbols in A Place for Us, for instance, the moon, Layla’s garden, or the black box that Amar received as a birthday gift?

8. In his late teenage years, Amar strives to prove himself as a worthy partner for Amira Ali, deserving of her parents’ approval. Where else did you see characters behave in certain ways, compromising their desires and making major life decisions, to please their family and community? How did this affect their personal happiness?

9. When her children speak English instead of Urdu, Layla fears that they will gradually lose touch with their heritage. As they moved toward adulthood, how did Hadia and Huda depart from certain aspects of their culture? What others did they uphold? You might consider rituals, customs, or gender roles.

10. At Hadia’s wedding, Amira mentions that her brother, Abbas, had been a "moral compass" for her parents. What lessons did you see children teach their parents (and grandparents) in A Place for Us?

11. Toward the end of the novel, Rafiq admits with regret that, as a result of his rigid religious practice and strict adherence to rules, he had failed to impart to his family an understanding of God’s kindness and mercy. How do you think his relationship with Amar would have changed or improved if he had come to this realization when his children were young?

12. Were you angry with Amar for leaving his parents and sisters, or were his actions justified? Did you blame Rafiq, Layla, or even Hadia, for contributing to Amar’s decision to move away from home and cut off communication with the family?

13. In the final section, Rafiq expresses his fear that his grandchildren will experience the effects of racist hate and violence, which Amar had been exposed to in school. Do you think that A Place for Us, depicting the personal lives of a Muslim family in America, has an important social message?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Abortionist's Daughter
Elisabeth Hyde, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307276414

Summary
Elisabeth Hyde has taken a powerful moral predicament and constructed around it a richly layered, compulsively readable novel about a murder in a small Colorado town, about the choices we make and the way their unintended consequences ripple through our lives.

Two weeks before Christmas, Diana Duprey, an outspoken abortion doctor, is found floating in her pool, a bruise the size of a golf ball visible through her dark curls. A national figure, Diana inspired passion and ignited tempers, never more so than on the day of her death.

Her husband, Frank, an attorney in the D.A.'s office for more than twenty years, had fought bitterly with her on the day of her murder. Yet to reveal the nature of their fight would cost him not only his career but something greater still-a relationship he will go to any lengths to protect. Diana's daughter, Megan, a college freshman, had also quarreled with Diana that day, and her role in her mother's murder will prove more significant than she ever could have anticipated. The Reverend Stephen O'Connell, founder of the town's pro-life coalition, obviously had issues with Diana, but his anger extended beyond the political to the personal-namely, Dr. Duprey's involvement with his own troubled teenager. Meanwhile, the detective on the case grapples to make sense of it all. His investigation implicates many in this town and reveals a series of gross miscalculations, each one challenging what we know, or think we know, about community, fidelity, justice, and love.

A riveting and provocative page-turner: a novel of stunning economy and momentum by a writer poised for wide discovery. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Elizabeth Hyde is the author of three previous novels, including Crazy as Chocolate. Born and raised in New Hampshire, she has since lived in Vermont, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle. In 1979 she received her law degree and practiced briefly with the U.S. Department of Justice. She has taught creative writing in the public schools as well as through Naropa University. She currently lives with her husband and three children in Colorado. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Hyde thoughtfully explores the illusion of choice and spins a tale rife with tragic consequences.... What a pleasure it is to read this well-crafted novel with complicated characters and interesting ideas.
Boston Sunday Globe

What works best in this novel is not the issue of abortion (duly presented and dissected from both sides) nor the revelation of the murderer but the family backstories, which reveal Hyde at her best. The dialogue between Megan and her mother is biting, edgy and dismayingly real. "Have fun killing babies," Megan tosses off as a parting zinger the last time she sees her mother. So, too, are the flashback scenes between Frank and his wife, a couple on the brink of divorce. Their fights have at times escalated to brief flurries of violent behavior.
Anita Shreve - The Washington Post

The Abortionist’s Daughter explores the subtleties of belief , in the ways in which even seeming extremists can amend and alter their convictions without losing them.... Political controversy aside, this is a mystery that works, one whose turns are neither obvious nor illogical...and Hyde’s ability to grapple with loaded issues without putting the story second is impressive.
The Austin Chronicle

Dr. Diana Duprey-abortion clinic director, wife of local Colorado DA Frank Thompson and mother of 19-year-old college freshman Megan-has plenty of enemies, so when her body is found floating in the exercise pool of her garden tour-featured house, the list of suspects is long. Aside from abortion opponents and distraught parents, there were the arguments overheard between Frank and Diana, and Megan and Diana shortly before. The coroner, a woman with whom Frank had had an affair, won't do the autopsy, and a man harboring a grudge against Frank takes her place. Meanwhile, Megan finds herself attracted to Huck Berlin, the policeman assigned to the case, and Huck finds Megan in various compromising positions. Former U.S. attorney Hyde (Crazy as Chocolate) describes Megan's contradictory, confused emotions without oversimplification ("Have fun killing babies" were Megan's inadvertent last words to her mother). Hyde also jumps back in time, delving into Diana's work at the clinic and her feelings about it, as well as the lives and feelings of her clients. Rather than generating suspense, the murder provides a frame for the turbulence in and around a woman propelled by idealism and strongly held beliefs. Look for this book to get play as South Dakota's challenge to Roe v. Wade wends through the courts.
Publishers Weekly

On a chilly December evening, Colorado abortion clinic founder Dr. Diana Duprey is found dead beside her home pool. Who killed her? The clues are few but the suspects are legion-Diana's high-profile career had inflamed feelings on both sides of the Roe v. Wade aisle. Among the suspects are the minister whose pro-life group regularly picketed her clinic; the woman who left hate messages on her voice mail; her daughter, with whom she'd argued that morning; and her husband, whose litany of resentment and rejection grew daily. The police have a tough time sifting through the sensational publicity and intricate interrelationships of these small-town, high-powered people to answer this fundamental question. Hyde's (Crazy as Chocolate) latest novel deftly probes the many daily pains inflicted in relationships and delicately examines the sacrifices of her characters as they rebuild their lives amid swirls of ethical dilemmas. This is an exceptionally well-written book that pulls the reader nicely along right up until the surprise ending. Recommended for all fiction collections. —Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp. Lib., El Segundo, CA.
Library Journal

Who killed the opinionated abortion provider? Hyde (Crazy as Chocolate, 2002, etc.) opens with a heap of backstory baggage. Dr. Diana Duprey, when not performing controversial terminations at her Center for Reproductive Choice, dominates a family. Diana's marriage to Frank, a quietly seething attorney working in the DA's office, is unraveling; her Down's syndrome son Ben is dead; and sexually explicit pictures of her 19-year-old daughter Megan are circulating on the web. When the doctor's body is found in her lap pool, the blame is directed at Frank, sententious pro-choice campaigner Steven O'Connell, Megan's creepy ex-boyfriend Bill (who took the nude pictures) and pro-life activists who have been bombarding the doctor with hate mail. As events move forward, implausibilities stack up. For example, O'Connell had sought help from Duprey in a standoff concerning his son's girlfriend's pregnancy and her intention to have the baby, against her parent's wishes. Frank, after a violent argument with Diane on the night of the murder, had visited a porn merchant and bribed him to take the pictures of Megan down from his website. An attraction develops between Megan and Huck, one of the detectives assigned to the investigation, which gets Huck dropped from the case. Sensational, like the book's title, but not quite on target.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. While the book centers on the murder of Diana Duprey, Elisabeth Hyde has chosen to name it The Abortionist’s Daughter? Why do you think she chose this title? Did the title affect your reading of the book?

2. Discuss the marriage of Diana and Frank. How did their personalities impact their interactions? Do you think that they had a strong marriage? Why or why not?

3. At the time of Diana’s death, her relationship with Megan is strained at best. Do you think that their inability to communicate is a standard mother-daughter issue or do you think that it is caused by something more?

4. Although Ben has died many years before the events of the novel, his death continues to affect Frank, Diana, and Megan. Discuss how. How does Hyde make Ben’s continued presence felt in the Thompson household?

5. The last think that Megan says to Diana is “have fun killing babies.” Why do you think that Megan chose to attack her mother in this way? Does Megan disagree with her mother’s decision to perform abortions?

6. Although Frank Thomson has been a prosecuting attorney for more than twenty years and should know better, he cleans his house while it is a crime scene. What are his possible reasons for doing this? What did you think about his decision to clean up?

7. When Megan is driving to her house after learning of her mother’s death, Hyde writes, “The Big Thing that they’d always lived under the shadow of had happened. It was real. It didn’t seem real, but it was” (p. 28). Diana continued performing abortions despite the knowledge that doing so put her life at risk. What do you think motivated her decision to do so?

8. What do you think that Megan saw in Bill when she decided to date him? What do you think of Bill? Does your opinion change during the course of the novel?

9. Early into their relationship, Bill and Megan begin to have unprotected sex. Why do you think that Megan is so willing when she, of all people, should know better? Do you think that she is rebelling against her mother?

10. Diana continues to see Bill after he and Megan are no longer dating. What are her motivations for doing so? Why is it so important for Bill to keep in contact with Diana?

11. It seems like all of the characters in the novel have something to hide. How does this affect the investigation? In your opinion, who is hiding the most shocking secret?

12. Why does Huck hold a grudge against Frank Thompson? Is he justified in doing so? Does Huck’s grudge alter his conduct during the investigation?

13. Both Huck and Megan have much to lose by being in a relationship. Explain. Why do you think that they become involved? What do you think that they see in each other?

14. Discuss Huck’s relationship with Carolyn? How did they end up together? Were you surprised when their relationship ended? Why or why not?

15. When we first encounter Megan, she’s on drugs and has just had a juvenile fight with her mother. How much do you think that she grows during the course of the novel. Do you think that this is the direct result of her mother’s death, or do you think that there are other reasons as well? What are they?

16. Many of the characters in the novel end up making gross miscalculations. Discuss what some of these miscalculations are. In your opinion, which one ranks the worst? Why?

17. Were you able to figure out who killed Diana? What were the clues that lead you to this discovery? How did the motives of each of the suspects compare throughout the book?

18. Rose experiences pressure about her pregnancy from nearly everyone she knows. Why is her decision so significant to the other characters in the novel? What does she ultimately decide, and why?

19. While the issue of abortion certainly plays an important role in The Abortionist’s Daughter, Hyde addresses other hot button issues. What are they? Do you feel any differently about any of them after reading this book? How so?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Above All Things
Tanis Rideout, 2012
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399160585

Summary
[A] breathtaking debut novel of obsession and divided loyalties, which brilliantly weaves together the harrowing story of George Mallory’s ill-fated 1924 attempt to be the first man to conquer Mount Everest, with that of a single day in the life of his wife as she waits at home in England for news of his return.

A captivating blend of historical fact and imaginative fiction, Above All Things moves seamlessly back and forth between the epic story of Mallory’s legendary final expedition and a heartbreaking account of a day in the life of Ruth Mallory.

Through George’s perspective, and that of the newest member of the climbing team, Sandy Irvine, we get an astonishing picture of the terrible risks taken by the men on the treacherous terrain of the Himalaya. But it is through Ruth’s eyes that a complex portrait of a marriage emerges, one forged on the eve of the First World War, shadowed by its losses, and haunted by the ever-present possibility that George might not come home.

Drawing on years of research, this powerful and beautifully written novel is a timeless story of desire, redemption, and the lengths we are willing to go for honour, glory, and love.. (From the British edition.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Belgium
• Raised—Bermuda; Kingston, Ontario, Canada
• Education—M.F.A., University of Guelph-Humber
• Awards—Poet Laureate for Lake Ontario
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario

Born in Belgium, Tanis Rideout grew up in Bermuda and Canada, particularly Kingston, Ontario where she became involved with the thriving music scene. She received her MFA from the University of Guelph-Humber.

Rideout has often been referred to as the "Poet Laureate of CanRock." She has performed on CBC Radio, BookTelevision, ZeD and Citytv. She has toured extensively in North America. Her work has appeared in a range of quarterlies and magazines including A Room of One's Own, Black Heart Magazine, grey borders, Spire, Pontiac Quarterly, Fireweed, echolocation, Witual and Chart, and has been short-listed for a number of prizes, including the Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award, and has received a grant from the Toronto Arts Council.

In the spring of 2005 Rideout joined Sarah Harmer to read her poetry on Harmer’s I Love the Escarpment Tour to draw attention to damage being done to the Niagara Escarpment by ongoing quarrying; as a result, she appears in the 2006 June award-winning documentary Escarpment Blues. In August 2006 she was named the Poet Laureate for Lake Ontario by the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper and joined Gord Downie (of Canadian band The Tragically Hip) on a tour to promote environmental justice on the lake.

In 2010 Rideout won second prize in the CBC Literary Awards for her poems about Marilyn Bell. Her first novel Above All Things was released in Canada in 2012 and 2013 in the US and UK. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Timeless romance, an unflinching love story that touches the very core of the human condition. Rideout leaves readers holding the book close to their chest, knowing that the purpose of life, above all else, is love.
Telegraph (UK)

Rideout's debut is provocative, challenging, captivating and polished—quite possibly perfect.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

A must-read for Everest buffs with a sensitive side, and for those who want to understand the anatomy of climbing accidents. It is also the perfect summer read for anyone lured by the romance of adventure, as the story goes well beyond the vast summit of Everest into much trickier terrain: the unmapped topography of the heart.
Toronto Globe and Mail

[Rideout's] graceful turns of phrase, her realistic knack of winging us back and forth between Cambridge and Everest, and her powerful portraits of Mallory and his climbing team allow Above All Things to reach its own spectacular literary summit.
Toronto Star

This vivid, assured, and confident debut novel scales great heights of obsession and desire, both on the face of Mount Everest and in the loving bond between doomed explorer George Mallory and his wife, Ruth. Against the backdrop of Mallory’s disastrous third expedition to attempt the summit in 1924, the explorer’s tenacity and motives get thoughtful treatment...while Ruth, waiting for news and caring for their three children, is torn between understanding and resentment.... The inevitable, terrible end remains in sight for the reader throughout, as compelling as the mountain peak that Mallory pursued at all costs. But Ruth’s reactions, from her own sense of foreboding to her surprising fortitude in the face of deep loss, reassuringly ground the novel with the sense, as another doomed climber mused, of how “time keeps passing when we’re away.”
Publishers Weekly

Having published widely in journals and been short-listed for various awards, Rideout here reimagines George Mallory's assault on Everest from the perspective of his wife. In 1924, as Mallory readies his third expedition, lovely young Ruth says, "Tell me about this mountain that's stealing you away from me."
Library Journal

Canadian Rideout's debut novel about Mallory's disastrous last climbing attempt is the story of a love triangle: a man, a woman and a mountain. After two failures, George has promised his wife, Ruth, that he is done with Everest, but in 1924, he leaves Ruth with their three small children in Cambridge.... Ruth supported his earlier attempts, but now she is jealous of his time away climbing.... Although a large portion of the novel takes place in Cambridge, where Ruth waits for letters from George...[it] cannot compete with the drama on Everest itself.... A plodding quality slips in, the sense that Rideout is following the historical dots, but she does a terrific job describing both the extreme physical conditions and the dreamlike consciousness George and Sandy drift into as their memories of home intertwine with their moment-to-moment climb.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The novel is told in three different narratives: that of Ruth, of George, and of Sandy. What do you think the reader gains by being able to see the viewpoints of these three main characters? What does each of these perspectives bring to the telling of the story?

2. George and Sandy’s stories are told in the past tense though Ruth’s is told in present tense. Why do you think that is? Ruth’s story is told over the course of one day, whereas George and Sandy’s are told over a period of time. How do these different time frames enhance the novel?

3. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Mallory replied, “because it’s there.” In your opinion, why did George attempt Everest the first time? Do you think his reasoning was different for his final, fated attempt? Why do people embark on similar endeavours, such as running marathons, skydiving, rock climbing, etc.? Have you or would you ever consider a challenge like these?

4. The question of climbing with or without oxygen was a serious issue in the early twentieth century—an ethical and moral question. Today, nearly everyone who climbs the mountain uses oxygen and much more sophisticated equipment and clothing. Do you think this changes the value of climbing Everest?

5. In reading a telegram meant for her husband, Ruth finds out that George has agreed to return to Everest. Do you think it would have changed things between them if he had told her himself? How do you think he should have told her? Have you ever discovered terrible news by reading something you shouldn’t have?

6. Ruth makes a great many sacrifices to support George. What does it mean to be a supportive wife or husband? Do you think George acted selfishly? How do you support someone in something if it requires sacrificing so much for yourself?

7. While in New York George has a brief affair with another woman. Do you think Ruth knew about this affair? Should George have told her? What does this say about their marriage? Do you think this betrayal is more or less significant than George’s return to Everest against Ruth’s wishes?

8. George is determined to conquer Everest for himself, but also for his country. In the end, the mountain overcomes him. What does this mean to George? For those at home in England? How would you characterize George’s relationship with Everest?

9. George decided to go on the expedition against Ruth’s wishes and so she must stay at home and anxiously wait for his return. Do you think Ruth is a strong woman? In what ways is she at the mercy of her love for her husband? Do you feel sympathy for her? Do you think there are any contemporary parallels to her staying at home with her husband away, out to conquer the world, so to speak?

10. Many explorers, astronauts, adventurers, etc., take tremendous risks at the edge of their pursuits for numerous reasons. Do you think George is justified in his pursuit of his obsession? Is it fair to his wife and children? At what point must one consider the needs of others more than one’s own? How does pride influence—or skew—the clarity of George’s decision making?

11. As the youngest and most inexperienced member of the expedition, Sandy has to rely on the experience and knowledge of those around him. Do you think George should have chosen a more veteran climber? If so, why? How much confidence does George have in Sandy? Have you ever been in a position to take on a challenging task that you were not fully prepared for? Did you rise to the occasion?

12. What do you make of the relationship between Will and Ruth? George asks Will to look after Ruth, and Will agrees. Do you think George made a mistake? What do you think Ruth’s feelings are for Will?

13. Ruth had a whole lifetime in front of her in the aftermath of George’s death as well as the burden of raising three small children by herself. How do you imagine her life to have been during the months and years following the death of her husband?

14. Consider the extravagance (i.e., champagne) of what the climbers brought with them up the mountain. Meanwhile, when the little coolie boy died, no one seemed to bat an eye. What do you think about this? Were the white men’s achievements done at the expense of the indigenous people?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner, 1936
Knopf Doubleday
313 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679732181

Summary
The story of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who came to Jefferson in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, "who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—September 25, 1897
• Where—New Albany, Mississippi, USA
• Death—July 6, 1962
• Where—Byhalia, Mississippi
• Awards—Nobel Prize, 1950; 2 Pulitizer prizes; others

William Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. His family was rooted in local history: his great-grandfather, a Confederate colonel and state politician, was assassinated by a former partner in 1889, and his grandfather was a wealth lawyer who owned a railroad. When Faulkner was five his parents moved to Oxford, Mississippi, where he received a desultory education in local schools, dropping out of high school in 1915. Rejected for pilot training in the U.S. Army, he passed himself off as British and joined the Canadian Royal Air Force in 1918, but the war ended before he saw any service. After the war, he took some classes at the University of Mississippi and worked for a time at the university post office. Mostly, however, he educated himself by reading promiscuously.

Faulkner had begun writing poems when he was a schoolboy, and in 1924 he published a poetry collection, The Marble Faun, at his own expense. His literary aspirations were fueled by his close friendship with Sherwood Anderson, whom he met during a stay in New Orleans. Faulkner's first novel, Soldier's Pay, was published in 1926, followed a year later by Mosquitoes, a literary satire. His next book, Flags in the Dust, was heavily cut and rearranged at the publisher's insistence and appeared finally as Sartoris in 1929. In the meantime he had completed The Sound and the Fury, and when it appeared at the end of 1929 he had finished Sanctuary and was ready to begin writing As I Lay Dying. That same year he married Estelle Oldham, whom he had courted a decade earlier.

Although Faulkner gained literary acclaim from these and subsequent novels—Light in August (1932), Pylon (1935), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), The Unvanquished (1938), The Wild Palms (1939), The Hamlet (1940), and Go Down, Moses (1942)—and continued to publish stories regularly in magazines, he was unable to support himself solely by writing fiction. he worked as a screenwriter for MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox, and Warner Brothers, forming a close relationship with director Howard Hawks, with whom he worked on To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, and Land of the Pharaohs, among other films. In 1944 all but one of Faulkner's novels were out of print, and his personal life was at low ebb due in part to his chronic heavy drinking. During the war he had been discovered by Sartre and Camus and others in the French literary world. In the postwar period his reputation rebounded, as Malcolm Cowley's anthology The Portable Faulkner brought him fresh attention in America, and the immense esteem in which he was held in Europe consolidated his worldwide stature.

Faulkner wrote seventeen books set in the mythical Yoknapatawpha County, home of the Compson family in The Sound and the Fury. "No land in all fiction lives more vividly in its physical presence than this county of Faulkner's imagination," Robert Penn Warren wrote in an essay on Cowley's anthology. "The descendants of the old families, the descendants of bushwhackers and carpetbaggers, the swamp rats, the Negro cooks and farm hands, the bootleggers and gangsters, tenant farmers, college boys, county-seat lawyers, country storekeepers, peddlers--all are here in their fullness of life and their complicated interrelations." In 1950, Faulkner traveled to Sweden to accept the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature. In later books—Intruder in the Dust (1948), Requiem for a Nun (1951), A Fable (1954), The Town (1957), The Mansion (1959), and The Reivers (1962)—he continued to explore what he had called "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself," but did so in the context of Yoknapatawpha's increasing connection with the modern world. He died of a heart attack on July 6, 1962. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Absalom is the stor of Thomas Sutpen, who in 1833 strives to create a dynasty out of a swamp, and who ultimately self-destructs....Absalom! Absalom! is about the South, taking on one of Faulkner's major themes: the region's destruction, or self-destruction, through human will, racism, slavery, and miscegenation. This is a stunning work—exciting, even breath-taking—and challenging. It is, after all Faulkner. But it's the story that Gone with the Wind never told...
A LitLovers LitPick (Feb. '09)

[Absalom, Absalom!] represents an entirely new departure into complexity for Faulkner. He nas been complex before, but never uncommunicative. Occasionally there are passages of great power and beauty in this book, which remind us that Faulkner is still a writer with a unique figt of illuminating dark corners of the human soul.... For the rest, Absalom, Absalom! must be left to those hardy souls who care for puzzles.
Harold Strauss - New York Times Book Review (11/1/1936)

The critics...now tell us that his style is florid, that his plots are hard to follow, that he sometimes shows bad taste in his choice of material.... On the other hand, I can think of no other living American author who writes with the same intensity or who carries us so completely into a world of his own. There is no American author or our time who has undertaken and partly completed a more ambitious series of novels and stories.... Faulkner has been writing a sort of human comedy that was partly inspired by his reading of Balzac.
Malcolm Cowley - New York Times (10/29/1944)

Faulkner…belongs to the full-dressed post-Flaubert group of Conrad, Joyce, and Proust.
Edmund Wilson

For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must return to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.
Ralph Ellison

For all the range of effect, philosophical weight, originality of style, variety of characterization, humor, and tragic intensity, [Faulkner's works] are without equal in our time and country.
Robert Penn Warren

Discussion Questions
1. Any reader bewildered by the opening pages of Absalom, Absalom! will realize immediately that its greatest challenge lies in its complex narrative structure, and as with The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying, you must learn how to read it as you go. How many narrators are there, and what is their relationship to one another? What are the sources of their authority as tellers of the Sutpen story? What, so far as you can make out, "happened, " as opposed to what is conjectured by the various narrators? Why might Faulkner have chosen such a challenging narrative form, despite the difficulties it presents for his readers?

2. At the center of the novel is the gigantic figure of Sutpen--a man who drives himself to extraordinary lengths in the pursuit of his "design." Sutpen means different things to different people: to Rosa, he is a monster, but one she would have married, whereas to Colonel Compson, he is a human being with sympathetic characteristics. How does your view of Sutpen change as the web of his story emerges? How do you come away from the novel feeling about him? Is he evil? innocent? superhuman? mad? heroic? Does Sutpen's history, which he has told to Colonel Compson, justify his behavior?

3. Why do the various tellers of the story interpret and embroider the tale so differently? What is Faulkner telling us about the human need to order and interpret the past? How does each teller affect your response? Whose version of events do you find most attractive, most compelling? Whose version makes most sense to you? Is "truth" largely irrelevant?

4. Faulkner's original title for the novel was "Dark House, " and as in much of his work,we see in Absalom, Absalom! strong elements of the gothic literary convention: a ruined and possibly haunted house, a demonic hero, family secrets, hints of incest, a melodramatic plot, an overwhelming mood of decadence and decay. Yet in its depth and intensity, the novel clearly transcends the often trivial melodrama of much gothic fiction. How does Faulkner's use of gothic elements contribute to the novel's dramatic effect?

5. Consider Faulkner's brilliant development of the character of Charles Bon, the son that Sutpen has cast off. In both Quentin and Shreve's retelling and in Miss Rosa's, he is a figure of romance, while in Mr. Compson's version he is an opportunist, using both Judith and Henry to revenge himself upon his father. Which of these perspectives is more satisfying to you, and why? Why is the element of doubt about Bon's motivation--even about the extent of his knowledge about his origin--so crucial to Faulkner's plan?

6. The book's title is taken from the biblical story of Absalom, son of King David, told in the second book of Samuel--a dynastic tale of incest, rebellion, revenge, and violent death. How is your perspective on the novel enlarged after reading the Absalom story? How does the biblical tale inflect the novel's themes of incest, dynastic hopes and failures, rivalry between father and son? How does David's grief at the death of Absalom (2 Samuel 18:33) compare with Thomas Sutpen's seeming lack of feeling for his sons--or for anyone else?

7. Charles Bon is at heart of the incest plot, and it is the dual threat of incest and miscegenation that ruins Sutpen's great design. How do incest and miscegenation mirror each other? What is it that makes these two forms of mixing blood--endogamy and exogamy--so taboo? Do you agree that it is the thought of miscegenation, rather than incest, that Henry can't endure? Why do rage, self-loathing, and masochism play such a large role in the stories of Charles Bon's two direct descendants, Charles Etienne St. Valery Bon and Jim Bond?

8. What do you think of Mr. Compson's theory of the incestuous triad formed by Henry, Bon, and Judith, described as follows: "The brother... taking that virginity in the person of the brother-in-law, the man whom he would be if he could become, metamorphose into, the lover, the husband; by whom he would be despoiled, choose for despoiler, if he could become, metamorphose into the sister, the mistress, the bride" [p. 77]? Does Faulkner assume that a strong incestuous component is part of the psychology of every family? Or only of extremely unusual families like the Sutpens?

9. The concept of racial hierarchy is at odds with the domestic intimacy in which blacks and whites lived together in the South. During the Civil War, Judith, Clytie, and Rosa live together as sisters, eating the same food, working side by side. But when Rosa returns to the house in 1909, she warns Clytie not to touch her: "Let flesh touch with flesh, and watch the fall of all the eggshell shibboleth of caste and color too" [p. 112]. How does the novel expose the mental convolutions by which people tried to maintain the notion of an essential difference--a species difference--between black skin and white, even among members of the same family? What, in these circumstances, do you think of Clytie's loyalty and her efforts to protect Henry?

10. To what degree do you see the self-destructiveness displayed by just about all of the figures in this novel as Faulkner's deliberate allegory of the South?

11. Many critics have commented that Faulkner takes his stylistic eccentricity to its most involuted and exaggerated extremes in Absalom, Absalom!, making inordinate demands upon the reader's attention and patience. An anonymous reviewer for Time called this book "the strangest, least readable, most infuriating and yet in some respects the most impressive novel that William Faulkner has written." What use does Faulkner make of repetition, circularity, accumulation, and confusion? Are there aesthetic and intellectual reasons he takes his rhetoric and syntax to such exhaustive lengths, or do you feel that his style is too self-indulgent?

12. Absalom, Absalom! is a novel about the meaning of history, and about the extreme pressure of the past, particularly in the South, upon the inhabitants of the present. More importantly, it is about the doubtful process of coming to know, reconstruct, and come to grips with history. Mr. Compson says to Quentin, "We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales... we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting... performing their acts of simple passion and violence, impervious to time and inexplicable" [p. 80]. Why does Quentin, who is unrelated to Sutpen, seem to understand the tale as bearing directly upon his own identity and fate? If history is "a dead time" [p. 71], as Mr. Compson calls it, why does it command so much mesmerized attention in this novel?

13. Absalom, Absalom! shares certain characteristics with classical tragedy, and Faulkner uses Mr. Compson to make the connection clear. He alludes to Aeschylus's great play Agamemnon with his discussion on pages 48-49 of the name of Sutpen's daughter by a slave, suggesting that Sutpen might have meant to call her Cassandra rather than Clytemnestra. Elsewhere, Mr. Compson sees the story as a dramatic tableau, with "fate, destiny, retribution, irony--the stage manager" [p. 57]. Aristotle noted that a certain blindness, a character flaw he called hamartia, was common to tragic heroes. Whatare the flaws in Sutpen that contribute to his tragedy? If Sutpen is a character who stands for pure, unswerving will, what role does fate play in the story?

14. Why does Faulkner have Quentin tell his story to Shreve McCannon, a Canadian, in a room at Harvard in January, 1910? Why does this reconstruction of a uniquely Southern tale take place on Yankee soil? What is the meaning of the relationship between story and setting, as contained in the following phrase: "that fragile pandora's box of scrawled paper which had filled with violent and unratiocinative djinns and demons this snug monastic coign, this dreamy and heatless alcove of what we call the best of thought" [p. 208]? What do you make of the book's final line, in which Quentin hysterically insists that he doesn't hate the South?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Absolute Power
David Baldacci, 1996
Hachette Books
704 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446566568

Summary
Can the President of the United States get away with murder?

The fictional answer to this question has set the literary world on fire and transformed David Baldacci into a household name and overnight success.

Going beyond the classic works of John Grisham and Robert Ludlum, Absolute Power combines the highest levels of political intrigue with big-money law, cutting-edge forensics, and the riveting search for a truth hidden within the power of the Oval Office. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 5, 1960
• Where—Richmond, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University; J.D. University of Virginia
• Currently—lives in Vienna, Virginia

David Baldacci is an American author with more than 30 bestselling novels under his belt, several of which have been adapted to film and TV. All told, his thrillers have sold over 110 million copies in 80 countries and 45 languages. Baldacci has also written five books for young readers, including two #1 bestsellers, The Finisher and The Keeper.

Early life and education
David Baldacci was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He first began writing stories as a child when his mother gave him a notebook in which to record them. He graduated from Henrico High School and went on to get a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University and a law degree from the University of Virginia.

Career
On finishing law school, Baldacci spent nine years practicing law in Washington, D.C. He continued to write stories and later screenplays without much success, eventually turning to novels. Absolute Power took him three years—and as soon as it was published, in 1996, it became an instant international bestseller.

Personal
Along with his wife Michelle, Baldacci is co-founders of the Wish You Well Foundation, which works to combat illiteracy in the United States. In 2008 the Foundation partnered with Feeding America to launch Feeding Body & Mind, a program to address the connection between literacy, poverty and hunger. More than a million new and gently used books have been collected and distributed through food banks as a result of the program's efforts.

Baldacci resides in Vienna, Virginia, with his wife. The couple has two children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/14/2016.)

Book Reviews
The novel's lack of suspense may result from the fact that Jack, its apparent hero, remains at the periphery of the story until it is nearly over. Absolute Power is also not helped by the lamentable familiarity of many of its characters, from the thief with a deep sense of honor to the former public defender who can't quite make the materialistic leap to corporate law.... Mr. Baldacci, a Washington-based attorney, brings an insider's savvy to his tale of unfolding political scandal, but tighter plotting would have helped him even more.
Jean Hanff Korelitz - New York Times

For any thriller to truly thrill, the plot, action and characters must cohere in a way that doesn't prompt that "oh-yeah-right" feeling—at least not too often. With this much anticipated first novel, Absolute Power, David Baldacci manages that trick. The latest lawyer-turned-novelist sensation delivers a well-paced, intricate book that just might catapult him into the front ranks of commercial fiction writers.... Deftly rendered by Baldacci, the story keeps the pages turning—fast.
USA Today

[A] sizzler of a first novel.... Baldacci doesn't peer too deeply into his characters' souls, and his prose is merely functional...but he's also a first-rate storyteller who grabs readers by their lapels right away and won't let go.
Publishers Weekly

Baldacci's first novel could stand some polishing in plot and story structure. Here's the premise: the wick-dipping president gets into a drunken knife fight with his mistress; the Secret Service rescues him but kills her; and scandal will erupt unless all witnesses are eliminated. —Gilbert Taylor
Booklist

Expect to see lots of this first-time novelist.... Absolute Power is already catching fire.... [A] page-turning thriller.... Baldacci combines all the needed elements: power, money, sex, intrigue, thwarted love, a few heroes, and more than a few villains. —Rebecca S. Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Library Journal

Discussion Questions
The questions below were graciously submitted to LitLovers by Angela Scott, aka "Library Princess."

1. The President shows that he is utterly ruthless and has no regrets in walking over anyone in his way or to protect himself. Do leaders need to have some of these qualities to be successful? Do you think he means to protect the presidency or just himself?

2. What is the relationship between Kate and Luther? Is it believable? What is your opinion of Kate when she agrees to turn in her father?

3. Luther suspects that Kate has turned on him. Why do you think he goes anyhow, especially before finishing taking care of the business with the president?

4. What do you think of Jack Graham's character? Throughout the book, he takes the high ground when it comes to the law, yet he proves fallible by placing himself in situations with the ex-girlfriend while he is still technically engaged.

5. What do you think was Luther’s motivation? He could have sent the letter opener anonymously to a news agency, but he doesn’t. Instead he is set on a personal vendetta. Why do think this is so?

6. Good things can turn bad. Discuss the Secret Service agents, Burton and Collins. Throughout the novel, they go from heroes, by saving the president’s life, to assassins in the cover up. Do they ever really have the chance to say no?

7. How do you feel about the role women play in the story? Are they realistic? What do you think of Gloria Russell? Christina Sullivan? Kate Whitney? Do you see them as mostly victims?

8. How does the title “Absolute Power” fit the book? Do you feel the president has the right to absolute power? How much power is too much?

9. If you've seen the movie with Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman, what do you make of the differences between book and film?

(Questions courtesy of Angela Scott. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution to Angela and LitLovers. Thanks.)

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The Abstinence Teacher
Tom Perrotta, 2007
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN: 9780641990151

Summary
Stonewood Heights is the perfect place to raise children: it has the proverbial good schools, solid values and a healthy real estate market. It’s the kind of place where parents are involved in their children’s lives–coaching sports, driving carpool, taking an interest in their development at every level.

The Abstinence Teacher focuses on two divorced parents who each play key roles in the lives of other people’s children: Ruth Ramsey is the human sexuality teacher at the local high school who believes that "pleasure is good, shame is bad, and knowledge is power."

Her younger daughter’s soccer coach is Tim Mason, a former stoner and rocker whose response to hitting rock bottom was to reach out and be saved. Tim is a member of The Tabernacle, the local evangelical Christian church that wants to take its message outside the doors of its own sanctuary, and sees a useful target in Ruth Ramsey.

Adversaries in a small-town culture war, Ruth and Tim instinctively distrust one another. But when a controversy on the playing field forces the two of them to actually talk to each other, an uneasy friendship begins to develop. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 13, 1961
• Where—Summit, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.A., Syracuse University
• Awards—Fellowship, Bread Loaf Writer's Conference
• Currently—Belmont, Massachusetts

Tom Perrotta is the author of several works of fiction, including Joe College, Election, Little Children and The Leftovers. Both Election and Little Children were adapted to film: Election, in 1999, starred Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick; Little Children, in 2006, starred Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly.

Perrotta has taught expository writing at Yale and Harvard University and has been called "one of our true genius satirists" by Mystic River author, Dennis LeHane. Newsweek hailed him as "one of America's best-kept literary secrets...like an American Nick Hornby." Perrotta lives with this wife and two children in Belmont, Massachusetts. (Adapted from the publisher.)

More
That Tom Perrotta struggled into his early 30s to find success should come as no surprise to fans of his work. A Yale grad, Perrotta studied writing under Thomas Berger and Tobias Wolff before moving on to teach creative writing at Yale and Harvard. It was during this period that he began work on the stories that would comprise his first release, Bad Haircut. He had finished two more novels (including Election, which would prove to be his breakthrough book) before Bad Haircut was finally picked up by a publisher in 1994.

It wasn't until a chance introduction with a screenwriter that Perrotta finally moved into the public eye. The result of that encounter was the publication of Election (1998), which was made into the much-beloved film starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon. At last, Perrotta was able to call himself a working novelist.

The theme of ordinary people trapped in lives they never imagined runs throughout Perrotta's novels. Success for his characters is always just out of reach, and the world is always just outside of their control. Characters that seem destined for success serve as foils to the true protagonists, constant reminders of the unfairness of life.

Which is not to say that Perrotta's novels are depressing. On the contrary, his razor-sharp observations of the human condition are often side-splittingly funny, and the compassion he exhibits in his writing makes even the most ostensibly unlikable characters sympathetic. Perotta does not create caricatures; his novels work because he has a basic understanding that life is complex, and everyone has a story if you take the time to listen.

Extras
When asked in a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview what book most influenced his career as a writer, here is his response:

I read The Great Gatsby in high school and was hypnotized by the beauty of the sentences and moved by the story about the irrevocability of lost love. I've reread it several times since then and have discovered lots of other layers—Nick's idolization of Gatsby, the perverse Horatio Alger narrative of Gatsby's rise in the world, Fitzgerald's keen eye for the hard realities of social class in America—and I still maintain that even if there's no such thing as a perfect novel, Gatsby's about as close as we're going to get. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
As formulaic as this plot might sound, Mr. Perrotta uses it not to construct a conventional screwball romance but to create a sad-funny-touching story that looks at the frustrations and perils of life in suburbia through darkly tinted, not rose-colored glasses—a story similar in tone and setting to his last novel, Little Children.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

Tom Perrotta is a truth-telling, unshowy chronicler of modern-day America: the strong, silent type on paper…What does the author think of Pastor Dennis and his flock? As in Orhan Pamuk's Snow, a novel that devotes hundreds of pages to a heated battle between religious fanatics and educated secularists in a Turkish town without explicitly taking sides, Perrotta does not spell it out. Instead, he gives space and speeches to proselytizers and scoffers alike, letting readers form their own conclusions. Religion is no less controversial a subject to weave into fiction in this country than it is in Turkey. In any case, Perrotta has never been one to cast stones.
Lisl Schillinger - New York Times Book Reivew

A virtuoso set of overlapping character studies.
Washington Post

Perrotta is that rare writer equally gifted at drawing people’s emotional maps...and creating sidesplitting scenes. Suburban comedies don’t come any sharper.
People

Tom Perrotta knows his suburbia, and in The Abstinence Teacher he carves out an even larger chunk of his distinct terrain. Set in the northeastern suburb of Stonewood Heights, Perrotta's sixth book takes on the war between the liberals and the evangelists. When single mother Ruth Ramsay, the sex ed teacher at the local high school, tells her class that oral sex can be enjoyable, the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth church begins its crusade. Believable or not, the school agrees to an abstinence curriculum and in marches JoAnn Marlowe with her blonde hair and pumps to instill in Ruth the tenets of the new program. Gone are the days of rolling a condom over a cucumber; now Ruth is required to promote restraint, which she does wearily and halfheartedly. These are heady days, when students rat out their teachers and the local soccer coach—Ruth's daughter is on his team—is a divorced ex-druggie and active Tabernacle member. When Tim leads the team in prayer, Ruth wrenches her daughter from the circle and the hostility between the opposing camps grows. Who is bad and who is good? Ruth's youthful promiscuity rises slowly to the surface, while Tim's struggle to stay sober makes him constantly confront his past. He's lost his wife and daughter—also on the soccer team—to his addictions, but now he's clean and married to a Tabernacle girl. His Jesus-loving ways, however, are in direct conflict with his desires, rendering him the most complex and likable character. When he loses his own battle with abstinence at a poker party, the finest scene in the novel culminates with his keying Jesus across the hood of an SUV parked in the drive. Ruth would gladly have sex if it would only come her way, and she also drinks on school nights. A less well-drawn complement to Tim, Ruth is a tolerant liberal with a newly toned body who plays therapist to her gay friends, but who can't accept that her children are interested in Jesus.The lesson is that everybody must give up something. Even Ruth's ex-lover, once a pudgy trumpet player, no longer eats to maintain his abs of steel. So what is lost when we cannot succumb to our desires? Who then do we become? The book is rife with Perrotta's subtle and satiric humor (the Tabernacle is seen as a place of diversity, while the punks, Deadheads and headbangers of Tim's past are all predictably the same), but these questions get lost as the plot winds down. Issues of sex and religion that have shaken the town become, in the end, the story of what Ruth and Tim's newly forged relationship will soon become.
Publishers Weekly

Evangelical Christians and proponents of sex education (other than abstinence) usually don't see eye to eye, which certainly holds true in this novel by the author of Little Children. Ruth Ramsey is a tenured teacher who happily and quite successfully teaches sex ed to students at the Stonewood Heights high school. She firmly believes in providing kids with frank yet solid information so that they can make good choices. Ruth is also the divorced parent of two daughters, one a talented and avid soccer player. It is at a Saturday game that Ruth meets Tim Mason, a member of the Tabernacle, a local evangelical Christian church. This particular congregation has already had some run-ins with Ruth over her teaching methods, and Ruth is concerned when she discovers Tim leading the girls in prayer after a particularly exhilarating game. Perrotta deals with these timely issues by having characters from the different camps forced to confront one another. What results from these civilized exchanges, which feel so human in their complexity and confusion, is a more personal, inside view of how such tensions play out. Recommended for most collections and especially for Perrotta fans.
Library Journal

Sex education, soccer and Christian fundamentalism make strange bedfellows in Perrotta's shrewd yet compassionate fifth novel. Neither as dark as Little Children (2004) nor as scathingly funny as Election (1998), like them it displays the author's wide-ranging empathy. Readers will certainly sympathize with Ruth Ramsey, the high-school teacher whose unwary response to a provocative classroom question about oral sex leads to her being saddled with a not-so-covertly Christian sex-ed curriculum. But Perrotta encourages us to respect all his characters, including the ones who belong to the Tabernacle of the Gospel Truth, source of the threatened lawsuit that's forced Ruth to tout the joys of abstinence. Among the believers is Tim Mason, a former rock musician and substance abuser who cleaned up with the help of the Tabernacle's Pastor Dennis, both a warm, nurturing shepherd to his flock and an unforgiving purveyor of hard-line doctrine. Ruth's older daughter Maggie plays on the soccer team Tim coaches, and she's outraged when he spontaneously leads them in a prayer after a hard-fought victory. That's about all the plot there is, as Ruth attempts to recruit other parents for a letter of protest and discovers that even in the affluent Northeastern suburb of Stonewood Heights the Christian right is a force to be reckoned with. Tim is beginning to have his doubts about his faith and especially about his marriage to Carrie, a sweet, much-younger woman who can't eradicate either his lustful memories of his ex-wife or his burgeoning attraction to Ruth. Perrotta makes gentle fun of Carrie dutifully leafing through a copy of Hot Christian Sex: The Godly Way to Spice Up Your Marriage, but also of Ruth's gay pal Gregory making elaborate dioramas of Parisian cafes featuring French Resistance Fighter GI Joes clad in black turtlenecks and berets. Confusion and regret are as much the subjects here as religious controversy. Ruefully humorous and tenderly understanding of human folly: the most mature, accomplished work yet from this deservedly bestselling author.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. There are numerous references to Ruth and Tim’s past sexual experiences scattered throughout the novel. How do these anecdotes color the debate about sex education at the center of the narrative?

2. Is Ruth the victim of a witch hunt, or a teacher who went too far and deserved to be reined in by her community?

3. Is Tim Mason’s faith genuine? Or is it, as his mother suggests, a crutch, something temporary that he needed to fight his addictions? What remains of his faith at the end of the novel?

4. Is Ruth right to be upset when Tim asks the girls to pray after the soccer game? How is this different from Ruth teaching sexuality in a way that some Christian parents might find offensive?

5. In order to keep her job, Ruth is forced to teach a curriculum she does not believe in. Discuss a time when you felt you had to sacrifice your beliefs or principles.

6. Ruth doesn’t challenge her daughter Eliza or hold back her permission when she wants to go to church with her friend from school. Can you think of other examples in The Abstinence Teacher when a character restrains him or herself from something they are very tempted to do?

7. Can you think of something Ruth’s daughters might want to do that would horrify Ruth even more than organized church-going?

8. What do you make of the Abstinence Refresher course taught by JoAnn? Do stories of sexual regret reinforce the idea that young people should refrain from sex until marriage? Or do they simply remind us that making mistakes—both sexual and otherwise—is an essential part of growing up?

9. Both Ruth and Tim struggle with inner conflicts that make it difficult for them to fulfill their public roles. How does this influence their encounters? Do you think there’s any future for them as a couple?

10.If Ruth, Tim and their families lived in a 1950’s version of Stonewood Heights, how would their stories play out differently? What about a 1970’s version?

11. How do you think private beliefs can best be balanced with public interests like education? Who should have a say in how a community’s children are taught? What happens when the community is bitterly divided?

12. Did you feel differently about Evangelical Christianity after reading The Abstinence Teacher? Why or why not?

14. Despite some studies questioning their effectiveness, abstinence programs continue to be implemented. Why do you think that is?

15. Ruth Ramsay is both a parent and a teacher in the public school system of Stonewood Heights. Do you think her own experience as a parent makes her a better human sexuality teacher?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Absurdistan
Gary Shteyngart, 2006
Random House
333 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812971675

Summary
Absurdistan is not just a hilarious novel, but a record of a particular peak in the history of human folly. No one is more capable of dealing with the transition from the hell of socialism to the hell of capitalism in Eastern Europe than Shteyngart, the great-great grandson of one Nikolai Gogol and the funniest foreigner alive.

Meet Misha Vainberg, aka Snack Daddy, a 325-pound disaster of a human being, son of the 1,238th-richest man in Russia, proud holder of a degree in multicultural studies from Accidental College, USA (don’t even ask), and patriot of no country save the great City of New York. Poor Misha just wants to live in the South Bronx with his hot Latina girlfriend, but after his gangster father murders an Oklahoma businessman in Russia, all hopes of a U.S. visa are lost.

Salvation lies in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as minister of multicultural affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century.

With the enormous success of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Gary Shteyngart established himself as a central figure in today’s literary world—“one of the most talented and entertainingwriters of his generation,” according to the New York Observer. In Absurdistan, he delivers an even funnier and wiser literary performance. Misha Vainberg is a hero for the new century, a glimmer of humanity in a world of dashed hopes.. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 5, 1972
• Where—Leningrad, USSR
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College (Ohio); M.F.A.,
Hunter College (NYC)
• Awards—Stephen Crane Award; National Jewish
Book Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.

Background
Shteyngart spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Vladimir Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia; (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). He comes from a Jewish family and describes his family as typically Soviet. His father worked as an engineer in a LOMO camera factory; his mother was a pianist.

In 1979 when Gary was 7, the Shteyngart family immigrated to the United States, where he was brought up with no television in his family's New York City apartment and where English was not the household language. He did not shed his thick Russian accent until the age of 14.

Later Shteyngart traveled to Prague, an experience that inspired his first novel, set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City; Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a degree in politics; and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.

Writing career
Shteyngart took a trip to Prague which inspired his first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), which is set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He has published two more novels: Absurdistan (2006) and Super Sad True Love Story (2010). His fourth book, Little Failure (2014), is a memoir recounting his family's emigration to the U.S. in 1979.

His other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, Granta, Travel and Leisure, and The New York Times.

Shteyngart's work has received numerous awards. The Russian Debutante's Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian. In 2002, he was named one of the five best new writers by Shout NY Magazine. Absurdistan was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Revieww and Time magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers. Super Sad True Love Story won the 2011 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic literature.

Personal
Shteyngart now lives in New York City. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University. During the Fall of 2007, he also had a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany.

Shteyngart is married to Esther Won who is of Korean descent. In October 2013, they became parents to Johnny Won Shteyngart. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2014.)

Book Reviews
Compared with most young novelists his age, who tend toward cutesy involution, Shteyngart is a giant mounted on horseback. He ranges more widely, sees more sweepingly and gets where he's going with far more aplomb. His Absurdistan, to Americans, may seem amusingly far away at first, but the longer one spends there, hunkered down with Misha in a hotel room high above the rocket fire, the closer and more recognizable it gets. Absurdsvanï is far, but Absurdistan is near.
Walter Kern - New York Times

The novel is grounded in a noble literary lineage. You can hear echoes of Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, with its glorification of size and appetites. Misha is a man of leisure on the order of Goncharov's Oblomov, who spends most of his time in bed. Although it's not written with as much compassion as A Confederacy of Dunces (justifiably so — do we need to sympathize with the oligarchy?), Absurdistan exhibits a similar sense of humor mixed with sharp insights into the absurdity of the modern world.
Josip Novakovich - Washington Post

Misha Vainberg, the rich, arrogant and very funny hero of Shteyngart's follow-up to The Russian Debutante's Handbook, compares himself early on to Prince Myshkin from Dostoyevski's The Idiot: "Like the prince, I am something of a holy fool... an innocent surrounded by schemers." Readers will more likely note his striking resemblance to John Kennedy Toole's Ignatius Reilly. A "sophisticate and a melancholic," Misha is an obese 30-year-old Russian heir to a post-Soviet fortune. After living in the Midwest and New York City for 12 years, he considers himself "an American impounded in a Russian body." But his father in St. Petersburg has killed an Oklahoma businessman and then turned up dead himself, and Misha, trying to leave Petersburg after the funeral, is denied a visa to the United States. The novel is written as his appeal, "a love letter and also a plea," to the Immigration and Naturalization Service to allow him to return to the States, which lovingly and hilariously follows Misha's attempt to secure a bogus Belgian passport in the tiny post-Soviet country of Absurdistan. Along the way, Shteyngart's graphic, slapstick satire portrays the American dream as experienced by hungry newborn democracies, and covers everything from crony capitalism to multiculturalism. It's also a love story. Misha is in love with New York City and with Rouenna Sales, his "giant multicultural swallow" from the South Bronx, despite the pain they have caused him: a botched bris performed on Misha at age 18 by New York City's Hasid-run Mitzvah Mobile, and Rouenna running off with his stateside rival (and Shteyngart's doppelganger), Jerry Shteynfarb (author of "The Russian Arriviste's Hand Job") while Misha is stuck in Russia. The ruling class of Absurdistan is in love with the corrupt American company Halliburton, which is helping the rulers in a civil war in order to defraud the U.S. government. Halliburton, in turn, is in love with Absurdistan for the money it plans to make rebuilding Absurdistan's "inferstructure" and for the plentiful hookers who spend their nights and days by hotel pools looking for "Golly Burton" employees to service. And everyone is in love with America-or at least its money. Everything in Shteyngart's frustrated world-characters, countries, landscapes-strives for U.S.-style culture and prosperity, a quest that gives shape to the melancholy and hysteria of Shteyngart's Russia. Extending allegorical tentacles back to the Cold War and forward to the War on Terror, Shteyngart piles on plots, characters and flashbacks without losing any of the novel's madcap momentum, and the novel builds to a frantic pitch before coming to a breathless halt on the day before 9/11. The result is a sendup of American values abroad and a complex, sympathetic protagonist worthy of comparison to America's enduring literary heroes.
Publishers Weekly

Set in Russia in the summer of 2001, this riotously original novel stars one Misha Vainburg, the dissipated, American-educated, 325-pound son of Boris Vainburg, a Russian Jewish dissident-turned-oligarch after the fall of the Soviet Union and the "1,238th richest man in Russia." After spending some time in St. Petersburg, Misha longs to return to America to join Rouenna, his streetwise New York girlfriend. Barred from getting a visa because his father killed an American businessman, Misha journeys to the Caspian republic of Absurdistan, from which he hopes to emigrate after getting Belgian citizenship. Upon his arrival, he faces a phony civil war, concocted to gain American economic support. With the borders closed, and stuck in the midst of a war that's increasingly real, Misha finds himself growing up in unexpected ways. Richly satiric and filled with trenchant one-liners, this tale often reads like a Russian version of A Confederacy of Dunces (with a bit of The Idiot and The Mouse That Roared thrown in). Highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. —Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA.
Library Journal

Disappointing follow-up to The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2001) sends another Soviet-born Jewish protagonist to another global hot spot. This time, Shteyngart's not-so-heroic hero is 30-year-old, 325-pound Misha Vainberg, son of a St. Petersburg gangster who's just been offed on the Palace Bridge. Misha would like to go back to the U.S., where he spent the 1990s happily attending college and sampling New York's multicultural delights. But now, in 2001, he can't get an American visa-there's that small matter of the Oklahoma businessman whom beloved papa iced. His only way out is a trip to the Republic of Absurdistan, where the millions he negotiated as a settlement with Papa's killer (another mobster) can buy him a Belgian passport and a ticket back to Western materialism. So Misha heads for Absurdistan, a chaotic Caucasian region populated by two warring ethnic groups plus plenty of visiting employees of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root: It seems there's oil somewhere in them thar hills. This sticky situation degenerates into civil war as nasty as it is ludicrous. (The sardonic chapter entitled "Why the Sevo and Svani Don't Get Along" says it all about the stupidity of ancient grudges.) Shteyngart's eye for the comic horrors of modern life remains acute: Prostitutes at the Absurdistan Hyatt offer discounts for "Golly Burton," and the local alleged reformers are appalled by the death of a protestor at the G8 summit "just as our struggle for democracy was gaining some market share in the global media." Ugly ethnic conflict, however, makes a dicier foundation for humor than the wide-open Eastern Europe of Shteyngart's first novel (referred to here as The Russian Arriviste's Hand Job). He now seems to be aiming for a tougher statement here with the brutal murder of a local democrat, but his characters are too grotesque to prompt much sympathy. And yet again, an author relies on the fact that 9/11 is approaching to pump up his climax's suspense; at least Shteyngart spares us an actual rehash. Leaves a very sour aftertaste—but that's probably the point.
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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Abundance
Sena Jeter Naslund, 2006
HarperCollins
560 pp.
ISBN-13 9780061208300

Summary
Marie Antoinette was a child of fourteen when her mother, the Empress of Austria, arranged for her to leave her family and her country to become the wife of the fifteen-year-old Dauphin, the future King of France.

Coming of age in the most public of arenas—eager to be a good wife and strong queen—she warmly embraces her adopted nation and its citizens. She shows her new husband nothing but love and encouragement, though he repeatedly fails to consummate their marriage and in so doing is unable to give what she and the people of France desire most: a child and an heir to the throne.

Deeply disappointed and isolated in her own intimate circle, and apart from the social life of the court, she allows herself to remain ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises, even as poor harvests, bitter winters, war debts, and poverty precipitate rebellion and revenge. The young queen, once beloved by the common folk, becomes a target of scorn, cruelty, and hatred as she, the court's nobles, and the rest of the royal family are caught up in the nightmarish violence of a murderous time called "the Terror."

With penetrating insight and with wondrous narrative skill, Sena Jeter Naslund offers an intimate, fresh, heartbreaking, and dramatic reimagining of this truly compelling woman that goes far beyond popular myth—and she makes a bygone time of tumultuous change as real to us as the one we are living in now. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.A., Birmingham-Souther College; Ph.D.
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—Harper Lee Award; Alabama Writer of the Year
• Currently—Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Sena Jeter Naslund grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where she attended public schools and received a B.A. from Birmingham-Southern College. She has also lived in Louisiana, West Virginia, and California. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. In addition to two other novels and two collections of short stories, her short fiction has appeared in the Paris Review, Georgia Review, Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review and many others.

For 12 years she directed the Creative Writing Program at the University of Louisville, where she teaches and holds the title Distinguished Teaching Professor. Concurrently, she is a member of the M.F.A. in Writing faculty of Vermont College. She is cofounder and editor of the literary magazine the Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-lis Press, housed at Spaulding University, and has taught at the University of Montana and Indiana University. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation.

In 1999, Naslund published Ahab's Wife, which rose quickly on the best seller lists. Abundance followed in 2006.

Extras
• Naslund is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Kentucky Arts Council.

• She has taught literature since 1972, directing the creative writing program at University of Louisville, where she was awarded its first-ever Distinguished Teaching Professor honor. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Fictionalizing a life that is already so surreal is usually a vain endeavor (Shakespeare is one of the few who regularly pulled it off); so it's best in reading Naslund's romance to think of it as a kind of Forever Amber punted across the channel from Restoration England to Versailles.
Liesl Schillinger - The New York Times

Naslund broke on to the bestseller list in 1999 with Ahab's Wife, a spectacular novel spun from a single reference in Moby-Dick . Marie Antoinette would seem to offer Naslund the same rich material for historical reenactment and feminist revision, but it turns out there's a limit to how much you can defend a sweet, spoiled, sheltered woman—even an exquisitely dressed one. Naslund adds to this difficulty by using Marie to narrate this very long novel in the first person—a choice that leaves us trapped, literally and figuratively, in the Hall of Mirrors.
Ron Charles - The Washington Post

Appropriately, Burney begins her performance in the adorable upper registers of the 14-year-old Marie Antoinette, shipped to France by her mother, the Empress of Austria, to marry the 15-year-old Dauphin and peacefully conjoin France and Austria. Unfortunately, Burney continues in this insipid tone throughout her reading, which is understandable as Naslund (Ahab's Wife) portrays Marie as Little Mary Sunshine until the moment of her death by guillotine at age 38. Her love affair with a Swedish diplomat is strictly platonic and her inability to empathize with the French people is laid to her paternalistic advisers. All this may or may not be historically true, but it leaves listeners with Marie's diary-style descriptions of her personal and court life: the Dauphin's sexual limitations, the birth of her children, her clothes and hairstyles, girlish friendships and expensive banquets. The abridgment reinforces this focus by cutting little early on, then skipping quickly from one incident to another as the revolution evolves. Naslund's writing is clear and vivid, but offers little for those seeking a deeper understanding of the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
Publishers Weekly

Lush with description and deep with historical detail, Naslund's (Ahab's Wife) latest novel weaves the epic of Marie Antoinette in all her misunderstood glory. Beginning with the ceremony that transforms the Hapsburg archduchess into the dauphine, the story captures a young girl's becoming the product of her circumstances. From her struggles to be diplomatic with her new family and subjects, to her marriage left unconsummated for years, Marie recalls her life in intelligent and mature observations. And when the first tremors of the French Revolution are felt, we see her struggle with her wishes to keep her children and husband safe. Immersing us in the life of the French court at its most vulnerable and decadent time, Naslund's marvelous work is more detailed and has more depth than Carolly Erickson's The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette. Highly recommended for all public libraries. —Anna M. Nelson, Collier Cty. P.L., Naples, FL.
Library Journal

The French queen traditionally portrayed as a vain, heartless epicurean tells her own story in the industrious and versatile Kentucky author's fourth novel. Scrupulously researched and vividly presented, it's the highborn beauty's account of her journey from Austria in 1770 (regretfully leaving her indulgent mother, Archduchess Maria Teresa), at age 14, to wed Louis Auguste, the 15-year-old Dauphin who, a few years hence, will ascend to the throne of France as Louis XVI. Determined to avoid "mistakes" in her unfamiliar surroundings and new role, Marie maintains correspondence with her mother, seeks friends and mentors among various ladies of the court and men of the world-and patiently endures prolonged virginity, as her husband, more interested in hunting than in his beautiful consort, waits years to consummate their marriage. Marie's ingenuous sweetness is charming, but Naslund perhaps tips the scales unduly in portraying her as a woman of pure benevolence who never foresees the march of world-changing events, as revolutions break out in America and elsewhere, and "bread riots" trouble the peace of Paris while she and Louis enjoy their coronation. Still, it's an irresistible story, and Naslund handles its big moments-indulgent spectacles at the palace of Versailles, the notorious Affair of the Diamond Necklace (in which Marie is falsely accused of adultery with a dissolute cardinal) and the beginning of the end as the royal family's flight to Varennes ends in their capture by Revolutionary forces-with impressive assurance. The last 125 pages pass with blinding speed—exactly as events must have been experienced by victims of "the Terror"—and the numerous foreshadowings sprinkled throughout the text are cruelly fulfilled. Naslund has done her homework, and imagined her complex, bewitching protagonist in persuasive depth and detail. The result is an exemplary historical novel.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Sena Jeter Naslund has divided her novel into five "acts," like a Shakespearean play. Does Marie Antoinette achieve the stature of a tragic protagonist at the end of the novel? If she is ennobled through suffering by the end of the novel, what has been her tragic flaw? What are her admirable qualities?

2. Recount the dramatic evolution of Marie Antoinette's character, from her arrival in France at the age of fourteen to her death just shy of thirty-eight. What prompts Marie Antoinette's transformation from callow moralist and pliant dauphine in early chapters to empathic mother and brave stoic in the novel's culmination at the Conciergerie?

3. The specter of imprisonment haunts the entirety of Abundance. From her arrival at Versailles as a girl, when she first perceives the vast chateau "hold[ing] out her arms" as if to embrace and/or seize her, Marie Antoinette exists in a perpetual state of enclosure. Discuss Naslund's extended treatment of this idea, which one could argue is among the novel's overriding themes. Is Marie Antoinette's life in France tantamount to that of the proverbial bird in a gilded cage? Consider, for example, Louis XVI's casual observation that "the whole estate of Versailles is enclosed. The walls are just too far away for you to take much notice of them."

4. Is Marie Antoinette, in fact, a victim—a virtual prisoner from the moment she surrenders her clothing and jewels (not to mention her dog) in the middle of the Rhine in the first chapter? Why or why not? What is it about the author's writing technique that discourages us from providing simple, pat answers to this kind of question? Explore, for instance, Marie Antoinette's nuanced and gradually maturing narrative voice, as well as Naslund's employment of such literary devices as foreshadowing, irony, symbolic imagery, and paradox.

5. Revisit the pivotal last chapter of "Act Four," which renders the eruption of revolution in stark counterpoint to the queen's blissful, penultimate encounter with Fersen. In particular, consider Marie Antoinette's poignant musings on the revolutionaries' freshly coined slogan, "liberté, equalité, fraternité." What do these words mean to Marie Antoinette? What is Naslund up to here? And what does Marie Antoinette's tidy, almost petulant dismissal of the Third Estate's grandly ideological, tri-colored rhetoric reveal about her own ideology?

6. Discuss the interconnectedness of female identity and performance in Abundance. What does it mean, for instance, that Marie Antoinette feels most engaged and alive when she is playing a role on the stage—Rosine in The Barber of Seville? Consider also the idea that Marie Antoinette's entire life is tantamount to a single, elaborately sustained performance, one sparked by her mother's exhortation to play the role of "an angel," blessing the people of France with peace.

7. How does the texture of this identity/performance theme shift once Marie Antoinette is faced with the prospect of fleeing? To flee, in Marie Antoinette's estimation, is to abandon her "role." Explore also the implications of Marie Antoinette's reaction to the disguises her friends wear in order to hide their wealth: "How can I play my role—that is to say—how can one maintain her identity, without the proper costume?"

8. Throughout Abundance, Naslund saturates Marie Antoinette's first-person narrative with a rich palette of bold colors, from the brilliant "blue silk of Austria" and the bountiful "red velvet" of France to the ominous black of the raven's wings and the ever-shifting, silver-and-gold gleamings of refracted light, both natural and artificial. Discuss the ways in which Naslund employs color to signify mood, underscore theme, and intimate character at different points in the novel.

9. In what specific ways has Naslund's rendering of late-eighteenth-century France come to inform, challenge, or even contradict altogether your previous understandings of the particular causes of the French Reign of Terror?

10. What did you know about Marie Antoinette before reading Naslund's novel? About the Reign of Terror? What surprised you most as you read?

11. How do Naslund's references to and subtle demonstrations of the prevailing philosophies of the day—including the outmoded optimism of Gottfried Leibniz ("This is the best of all possible worlds"); the measured, conservative skepticism of David Hume; the proto-civil libertarianism of the secular Voltaire; and the radical and prescient revolutionary ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau—color and shape the novel's inexorable march toward the Reign of Terror? To which philosopher would you align Marie Antoinette's world-view? What about her husband?

12. What kind of a man does Louis Auguste become? And what kind of king? Describe his politics and character, as far as they can be gleaned through Marie Antoinette's narration. Compare this portrait of Louis XVI's reign to other histories and accounts you've read about the period.

13. Imagine a companion volume to Abundance: this one recounts essentially the same events as the original, but it is told in Louis XVI's voice instead of Marie Antoinette's. How would this alternate novel be different in terms of perspective, language, and overall tone? How does he feel about himself? How does he experience the pleasures of hunting, working at his smithy or with locks, reading, eating? What situations are difficult for him? How does he understand his relationships to his parents, his grandfather, his brothers, his wife?

14. Discuss the nature of Marie Antoinette's relationship with her mother. Revisit their correspondence through the first three acts of the novel. To what degree is the dauphine a mere pawn to her mother's political machinations (by way of the hemorrhoidal Count Mercy d'Argenteau)? At what point does Marie Antoinette begin to recognize her own agency and seize her own autonomy?

15. The Empress of Austria has been called one of the shrewdest, most influential politicians in the history of Europe. How does this political acumen manifest itself in Abundance?

16. What does it mean to have power in the world of this novel? How is power variously seized, employed, abused, and/or deflected at different points in Abundance—whether by Louis XV, his three sisters, Louis XVI, the Empress of Austria, the Third Estate, or Marie Antoinette herself? Who ultimately wields his or her power most successfully?

17. What is your interpretation of the precise nature of the love that blooms between Marie Antoinette and Axel von Fersen? "We are the perfect friends," Marie Antoinette tells us, though her rapturous description of Fersen as "the most handsome, the most kind and good and loving—ah, yes, above all, loving—man in the world" all but demands us to wonder whether there is more to their bond than an ideal, platonic bond sealed by a bittersweet "transcendence of separation"—or, conversely, whether it is the very chasteness of their relationship that allows it to maintain such perfection. What is the effect here of Naslund's enigmatic prose?

18. What role do pamphleteers play in the years of Louis XVI's reign? Consider the potency of rumor and hearsay in the world of Naslund's narrative, from the notorious "sunrise orgy" to the legendary affair of the necklace.

19. What role does religion play in the life of Marie Antoinette? How do the Roman Catholic Church and the idea of the "divine right" of kings to rule interface with the French Revolution?

20. How has the press—or the Fourth Estate, as dubbed by Thomas Carlyle in his 1837 account of the French Revolution—evolved over the last two centuries, from anonymous pamphleteers to 24-hour news channels and tabloid journalism? What parallels might be drawn? Is it useful and valuable to underscore such connections and portents—or simply reductive? If possible, fashion arguments for both sides of this question.

21. Consider other historical novels you've read recently (e.g.: E. L. Doctorow's The March). How does Naslund's work—as simultaneously sweeping and intimate as it is—complement, complicate, and/or depart from the standard trappings and concerns of the historical fiction genre? In recommending this book to a friend, how would you describe it? How would you compare this novel and its protagonist to the main characters in Naslund's Ahab's Wife and Four Spirits?

22. Abundance features an epigraph from Germaine de Staël's Reflections on the Trial of the Queen that exhorts "women of all countries, of all classes of society" to recognize the fundamental universality of "the Fate of Marie Antoinette." How does Naslund's choice of epigraph presage and/or belie the tone and texture of her portrait of the queen? And how does it speak to the social conditions endured by women of the age?

23. What is the significance of the title of this novel? Why do you suppose Naslund chose it? Discuss the various meanings of abundance—moral, material, biological, political, and otherwise.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Academy Street
Mary Costello, 2014 (U.S., 2015)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
150 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250081674

Summary
Tess Lohan is the kind of woman we meet and fail to notice every day. A single mother. A nurse. A quiet woman, who nonetheless feels things acutely―a woman with tumultuous emotions and few people to share them with.

Academy Street is Mary Costello’s luminous portrait of a whole life. It follows Tess from her girlhood in western Ireland through her relocation to America and her life there, concluding with a moving reencounter with her Irish family after forty years of exile.

The novel has a hypnotic pull and a steadily mounting emotional force: It speaks of disappointments but also of great joy, capturing, in sentence after sentence, the rhythm and intensity of inner life. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Galway, Ireland
• Education—B.A., St. Patrick's College, Dublin
• Awards—Bord Gais Irish Book of the Year Award
• Currently—lives in Dublin

Mary Costello is originally from Galway but lives in Dublin. Her stories have been published in New Irish Writing, The Stinging Fly and in several anthologies including Town and Country – New Irish Short Stories.

She taught for many years and is now writing fulltime. Her first book, a collection of short stories entitled The China Factory, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and the Irish Books Award. Stories from the collection were broadcast on RTE and BBC radio.

Academy Street, Costello's first novel, came out in 2014 (U.S., 2015). It won the Bord Gais Irish Book of the Year Award and was a finalist for the Costa First Novel Award, the International Dublin Literary Ward, and the EU Prize for Literature. In 2011 and 2013, she received an Arts Council bursary. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
To have spent a couple of days luxuriating in the shimmering prose of Academy Street was like heaven for me. Though at times Tess Lohan is quiet as a mouse, motherless from an early age, living in fear of her moody, sorrowful father’s wrath, her inner life, even as a child, is rich. READ MORE.
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers

Costello's concern, in this slim novel traversing seven decades, is to bear witness to the intensity of experience that Tess knows from the inside out…the writing becomes charged with all the strangeness and vitality of her character.
Belinda McKeon - New York Times Book Review

[Costello] has a gift for relating even life's most calamitous events in matter-of-fact prose, and in doing so laying bare their true devastation.… Costello is also a master of storytelling shorthand. She understands that what makes a milestone memorable is not its central ceremony but what happens on the margins.
Maria Crawford - Financial Times

Mary Costello is a very gifted writer and this is a beautifully written novel.
Neil Donnelly - Irish Independent

A remarkable debut with a transcendent, quiet power.
Judges - 2014 Costa First Novel Award

Costello works wonders on the page, employing precise prose to craft a resonant narrative out of a rather ordinary lifetime. Though a fateful incident near the novel’s end feels somewhat exploitative…Tess’s overall story—full of struggles and meekness—proves there is often beauty to be found in the mundane.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) Darkly beautiful…. [Recalls] Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.… Costello renders her homely, knowing heroine with craft and compassion in this sad, slim, rich novel.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Memory plays an important role in Academy Street, and near the beginning of the novel, Tess takes a walk through the grounds of her family’s estate and picks up a rotting apple. The smell takes her back to "the apple room and the apples laid out on newspapers on the floor, turning yellow." Why is memory such an important theme in the novel, and what is it about scent that can bring one back to precise memories?

2. Shortly after the death of her mother, Tess has several interactions with a "tinker girl." What is the significance of this girl and her exchanges with Tess? Why do you think the author included this character?

3. While Tess is mourning her mother, she seeks comfort from Captain, the family dog. Tess feels that "he understands something about her, maybe everything, and her heart begins to open." Why do you think Tess seems to experience more comfort from a dog than one of her family members? And what does it say about Tess’s character that she feels this way? Have you ever had a similar experience with an animal?

4. Shortly before Tess leaves for New York, she finds herself in the kitchen with her father. She offers to cut his hair, and she says that it is in this moment that "she sees for the first time all he has endured." What does this dramatic scene represent for each character?

5. On the day Tess meets David for the first time, she reads a book about Vincent Van Gogh and is moved by the kindness of his brother, Theo. When she is walking down the street to meet her friends she begins to cry for no apparent reason. After, she feels as if she sees things clearly and sees "beauty everywhere." What do you make of this transformation and its significance to the novel?

6. Soon after Tess begins to fall in love with David, she runs into a bag lady on the street "with crazed eyes" and "wild hair" who shouts obscenities at Tess. This incident "shook her to her core." What is it about this particular incident that unsettles Tess so deeply?

7. Was Tess’s decision to sleep with David out of character? Why or why not?

8. When Tess becomes pregnant with Theo, it is the early 1960s and it is not socially acceptable for a woman to be pregnant out of wedlock. Tess describes how she takes to wearing a wedding ring and seats herself near "earnest-looking" men. What would you have done in Tess’s position? And while times have certainly changed, do you think it is truly socially acceptable for single women to have children in our times?

9. Why does Tess have such a hard time writing a reply to the letter Claire sends her after Claire finds out Tess is pregnant?

10. Do you think Tess should have made more of an effort to involve David in Theo’s life after he was born?

11. Tess meets Boris, the older Russian man from the park, for a second time when he is hospitalized. He tells her "There is, in some of us, an essential loneliness.… It is in you." Do you agree with his assessment of Tess? Why or why not?

12. When Theo is about nine or ten, Tess takes him to a friend’s birthday party, and he does not want to leave. Tess is struck by the feeling that he now feels that he’s been denied certain things, and we learn that she never baked Theo a birthday cake and did not take him to the fun places that other children are often taken. Why does Tess deny her son these experiences? Does this make her selfish?

13. Tess and Wilma have a very close relationship, and once, when they are discussing Greek mythology, Tess finds herself sexually attracted to Wilma. Why would the author include this scene, and what does it reflect about the two’s relationship?

14. When Tess learns that the twin towers were hit by planes and Theo was inside, she describes the moment as "the calamity she had always been waiting for. It was almost a relief when it arrived…" Why does Tess feel this way? Do you think it’s an unusual response?

15. Shortly after Theo’s death, Tess presses her fingers into the throat of her cat’s neck until the cat becomes frightened and runs away. What does this scene tells us about the nature of grief?
(Questions written by Kianoosh Hashemzadeh and issued by the publisher.)

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The Accident
Chris Pavone, 2014
Crown Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385348454

Summary
As dawn approaches in New York, literary agent Isabel Reed is turning the final pages of a mysterious, anonymous manuscript, racing through the explosive revelations about powerful people, as well as long-hidden secrets about her own past.

In Copenhagen, veteran CIA operative Hayden Gray, determined that this sweeping story be buried, is suddenly staring down the barrel of an unexpected gun. And in Zurich, the author himself is hiding in a shadowy expat life, trying to atone for a lifetime’s worth of lies and betrayals with publication of The Accident, while always looking over his shoulder.

Over the course of one long, desperate, increasingly perilous day, these lives collide as the book begins its dangerous march toward publication, toward saving or ruining careers and companies, placing everything at risk—and everyone in mortal peril. The rich cast of characters—in publishing and film, politics and espionage—are all forced to confront the consequences of their ambitions, the schisms between their ideal selves and the people they actually became.

The action rockets around Europe and across America, with an intricate web of duplicities stretching back a quarter-century to a dark winding road in upstate New York, where the shocking truth about the accident itself is buried.

Gripping, sophisticated, layered, and impossible to put down, The Accident proves once again that Chris Pavone is a true master of suspense. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Cornell University
• Awards—Edgar Award; Anthony Award
• Currently—lives in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island, New York

Chris Pavone’s (Pah-VOH-nee) first novel, The Expats, was a New York Times and international bestseller, with nearly 20 foreign editions and a major film deal. It received both the 2013 Edgar Award and Anthony Award for Best First Novel. Pavone's second novel, The Accident, was published in 2014 and was also an instant New York Times bestseller.

Chris grew up in New York City and attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn and then Cornell University. He worked at a number of publishing houses over nearly two decades, mostly as an editor. He is married and the father of twin schoolboys, and they all live in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
With The Accident, [Pavone] matches The Expats's nail-biting level of excitement…The Accident is a thriller about publishing, and if that sounds like an oxymoron, Mr. Pavone is very good at rendering it wildly dramatic…Call Mr. Pavone a reliable new must-read in the world of thrillers
Janet Maslin - New York Times

Marvelous.... The deft plot globetrots and en route provides glamorous locales as well as twisty turns in suspense.
New York Daily News

Smart and stylish.... Thrill-a-minute.... The Accident never stumbles as it confidently and most entertainingly barrels forward toward shocking revelations and a bombshell of a finish.
Chicago Tribune

A propulsive A-train of a thrill ride and worthy successor to Pavone’s debut.
Los Angeles Times

The thriller-of-the-year.... Pavone’s characters seem genuine, with some flaws in the good guys and some virtues in the bad guys.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

A fast-paced, dangerous ride.... That intricate plot [propels you] forward, twisting and turning right up to its final, ultimately satisfying conclusion.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Tantalizing.... With terrific surprises and high-quality writing in this engaging thriller.
Associated Press

A sly globetrotting spy thriller that gives new meaning to publish or perish.
Family Circle

A high-wire thriller featuring a Wolfe-ian cast of characters.
Vogue.com

A fast-paced, airport-ready thriller.... Pavone writes well about the politics of modern publishing.
Entertainment Weekly

(Starred review.) The contents of "The Accident," a manuscript submission by an anonymous author, shock New York literary agent Isabel Reed, the heroine of Pavone's high-wire thriller.... [A] cast of distinctive characters.... Despite the far-fetched conceit, Pavone makes the story credible, and the suspense is palpable.
Publishers Weekly

Pavone's second novel (after his Edgar Award-winning thriller The Expats) follows several people in the publishing industry as they handle a manuscript that promises tremendous personal gain but, as some soon learn, at risk of death.... [An] enengaging thriller, driven by compelling portraits of desperate characters, each of whom will come to wonder if the manuscript in hand is worth the cost. —Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson
Library Journal

(Starred review.) New York literary agent Isabel Reed plows through an anonymous manuscript in one night and immediately knows two things: The manuscript, a biography of a media mogul, will be a blockbuster, and people will die if word of its existence leaks. [M]any readers will read this one through the night. —Thomas Gaughan
Booklist

The action here involves a manuscript entitled "The Accident," which threatens to bring down a media empire owned by Charlie Wolfe, who now aspires to a political career..... Almost everyone physically connected with the manuscript starts getting killed in Charlie's desperate attempt to quash this expose of his past. Pavone knows the formula for a best-seller and keeps the reader turning the pages.
Kirkus Reviews

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The Accidental
Ali Smith, 2005
Knopf Doubleday
306 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400032181

Summary
Whitebred Award, 2005

Amber—thirtysomething and barefoot—shows up at the door of the Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer. She talks her way in. She tells nothing but lies. She stays for dinner." "Eve Smart, the author of a best-selling series of biographical reconstructions, thinks Amber is a student with whom her husband, Michael, is sleeping. Michael, an English professor, knows only that her car broke down.

Daughter Astrid, age twelve, thinks she's her mother's friend. Son Magnus, age seventeen, thinks she's an angel." As Amber insinuates herself into the family, the questions of who she is and how she's come to be there drop away.

Instead, dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives through the searing lens of Amber's perceptions. When Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not—they discover when they return home to London—from their profoundly altered lives. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Inverness, Scotland, UK
• Education—University of Abderdeen; Cambridge University
• Awards—Whitbread Award
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, England

Ali Smith is a Scottish writer who won the Whitbread Award in 2005 for her novel, The Accidental. To date, she has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times and the Orange Prize twice.

She was born to working-class parents, raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at the University of Aberdeen and then at Newnham College, Cambridge, for a PhD that she never finished.

She worked as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde until she fell ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She then became a full-time writer and now writes for The Guardian, Scotsman, and Times Literary Supplement. She lives in Cambridge, England, with her partner filmmaker Sarah Wood.

Works
Smith is the author of several works of fiction, including the novel Hotel World (2001), which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize in 2001. She won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award in 2002. ♦ The Accidental (2007) won the Whitbread Award and was also short-listed for both the Man Booker and Orange Prize. ♦ Her 2011 novel, There But For The, was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize and named as a Best Book of the Year by both the Washington Post and Boston Globe. ♦ How to Be Both (2014) was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Her story collections include Free Love, which won the Saltire Society Scottish First Book Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award, and The Whole Story and Other Stories.

In 2007 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

In 2009, she donated the short story "Last" (previously published in the Manchester Review Online) to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the "Fire" collection. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/20/2014.)

Book Reviews
Astrid's trippy, half-hostile, half-vulnerable take on the world; the terror, guilt and self-hatred Magnus feels after a practical joke on one of his schoolmates goes horribly awry; Michael's preening professorial detachment and air of entitlement; and Eve's paralyzing worries about her family and her newly successful writing career — all are rendered with knowing authority and poise, and served up in wonderfully supple, jazzy prose. Ms. Smith can do suicidal teenage angst and middle-aged ennui, a 12-year-old's sardonic innocence and an aging Lothario's randy daydreams with equal aplomb. And in riffing on the stream of consciousness form, pioneered by such high-brow litterateurs as Joyce and Woolf, she manages to make it as accessible and up to the minute (if vastly more entertaining) as talk radio or an Internet chat room.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

In winning the prestigious Whitbread, the Scottish-born, 43-year-old Smith beat out the likes of Salman Rushdie and Nick Hornby. Good for the judges. Smith is a dazzling talent, fearlessly lassoing different styles and ideas and playfully manipulating them. Though The Accidental is not a conventionally funny novel, readers may find themselves laughing—in surprise and delight—at the way Smith takes a literary trope and riffs on it until she's turned it inside out, the way a great jazz musician might. (When Amber obliquely tells the story of her childhood through the recitation of scenes from classic movies, the tour-de-force passage gets at the unique symbology of cinema in a way that eludes even our most erudite film critics.)
Jeff Turrentine - Washington Post

The awkwardness of the novel's moralizing is all the more disconcerting given its fine, lustrous texture on the page. Smith is a wizard at observing and memorializing the ebb and flow of the everyday mind—Astrid musing that "hurtling sounds like a little hurt being, like earthling, like something aliens from another planet would land on earth and call human beings who have been a little bit hurt." The close-up is Smith's forte. Her long shots need a little work.
Laura Miller - New York Times Book Review

Smith’s book, which has just won Britain’s Whitbread Novel Award, concerns an attractive stranger who shows up on the doorstep of an unhappy family and is unquestioningly taken in. The visitor, armed with a perfect combination of candor, free-spiritedness, and rough love, proceeds to manipulate each of her hosts. Just as abruptly, and, perhaps, predictably, she disappears. We never learn much about her—her only purpose, it seems, was to jolt the family members out of their respective messes—and her righteous self-assurance can get tiresome. But the novel is saved by its skillful and touching rendering of the mental state of each family member. Smith’s well-honed, even obsessive prose gives a feeling of eavesdropping on her characters’ innermost thoughts.
The New Yorker

While the Smarts are a happy, prosperous British family on the surface, underneath they are as friable as a Balkan republic. Eve suffers from a block about writing yet another of her popular Genuine Article books (a series of imaginary reconstructions of obscure, actual figures from the past). Michael, her English professor husband, is a philanderer whose sexual predation on his students has reached critical mass. Teenaged Magnus, Eve's son by first husband Adam, is consumed by guilt around a particularly heinous school prank. And Astrid, Eve and Adam's daughter, is a 12-year- old channeling the angst of a girl three years older. Into this family drops one Amber MacDonald, a mysterious stranger who embeds herself in the family's summer rental in Norfolk and puts them all under her bullying spell. By some collective hallucination—one into which Smith (Hotel World) utterly and completely draws the reader—each Smart sees Amber as a savior, even as she violates their codes and instincts. So sure-handed are Smith's overlapping descriptions of the same events from different viewpoints that her simple, disquieting story lifts into brilliance. When Eve finally breaks the spell and kicks Amber out, it precipitates a series of long overdue jolts that destroys the family's fraught equilibrium, but the shock of Smith's facility remains.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
1. Why has Ali Smith chosen The Accidental as her title? What accidents occur in the novel? Are these events really accidents? What are their consequences?

2. What effects does Smith create by telling the story through each family member’s point of view? How would the novel have been different if told through a single omniscient narrator?

3. In describing her Genuine Articles, Eve Smart claims that “fiction has the unique power of revealing something true” [p. 82]. How is it that fiction can often deliver deeper truths than nonfiction? What truths does The Accidental reveal?

4. Having dinner with his family, Magnus thinks that “Everybody at this table is in broken pieces which won’t go together, pieces which are nothing to do with each other, like they all come from different jigsaws, all muddled together into the one box by some assistant who couldn’t care less in a charity shop or wherever the place is that old jigsaws go to die” [p. 138]. In what ways are Astrid, Eve, Michael, and Magnus broken? What has broken each of them? Why don’t they fit together?

5. How does Smith capture the angst of early adolescence so vividly in the character of Astrid? What kind of girl is she? What are her most engaging eccentricities? Why does she feel so casually hostile toward the rest of her family? Why is she so captivated by Amber?

6. How is Amber so easily able to ingratiate herself with the Smarts? What makes her such a compelling person for all of them?

7. Amber often tells the truth so directly that she is thought to be joking, as when she comes down to dinner with Magnus announcing that she found him in the bathroom trying to hang himself. Everyone laughs but in fact she is telling exactly what happened. What is the significance of this irony—that the truth, plainly stated, is impossible for the Smarts to believe?

8. Who is Amber? Is she a con artist, a pathological liar, a psychic, a soothsayer, a malevolent force of nature, a witch, an angel? What profound effects, good and bad, does she have on each member of the Smart family?

9. Remembering Bergman’s films, Eve asks: “Did dark times naturally result in dark art?” [p. 178]. Do they? Is The Accidental itself a dark novel about a dark time? If so, how so?

10. Why has Smith chosen Smart as the name of the family in the novel? In what ways are they smart and not so smart?

11. Amber appears to bring catastrophe to the Smart family. In what ways could it be argued that she has been good for them? What do they discover about themselves because of her? Have the Smarts unconsciously drawn Amber to them?

12. Magnus tries hard to suppress his feelings about contributing to a fellow student’s suicide. He “understands that if he ever let it be known that he feels anything at all, things will fly apart, the whole room will disintegrate, as if detonated” [p. 151]. In what ways is this refusal to feel, to know and acknowledge painful truths, a central theme in The Accidental? Do things fly apart when Magnus begins to feel the consequences of his actions?

13. What does The Accidental say about family life? In what ways are the Smarts both a typical and an atypical family?

14. Why does Smith choose to end the novel with Eve’s journey to America? What is likely to happen in the future to the Smart family?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Accidental Empress
Allison Pataki, 2015
Howard Books
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476790220

Summary
The little-known and tumultuous love story of "Sisi" the Austro-Hungarian Empress and captivating wife of Emperor Franz Joseph.

The year is 1853, and the Habsburgs are Europe’s most powerful ruling family. With his empire stretching from Austria to Russia, from Germany to Italy, Emperor Franz Joseph is young, rich, and ready to marry.

Fifteen-year-old Elisabeth, "Sisi," Duchess of Bavaria, travels to the Habsburg Court with her older sister, who is betrothed to the young emperor. But shortly after her arrival at court, Sisi finds herself in an unexpected dilemma: she has inadvertently fallen for and won the heart of her sister’s groom. Franz Joseph reneges on his earlier proposal and declares his intention to marry Sisi instead.

Thrust onto the throne of Europe’s most treacherous imperial court, Sisi upsets political and familial loyalties in her quest to win, and keep, the love of her emperor, her people, and of the world.

With Pataki’s rich period detail and cast of complex, bewitching characters, The Accidental Empress offers a captivating glimpse into one of history’s most intriguing royal families, shedding new light on the glittering Hapsburg Empire and its most mesmerizing, most beloved "Fairy Queen." (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1984
• Raised—Garrison, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois

Allison Pataki is an American author and journalist and the daughter of former governor of New York, George Pataki (served 1995-2006). She was raised in Garrison, New York, across the Hudson River from West Point Military Academy, and later majored in English at Yale University. She met her husband David Levy during her sophomore, and the two married in June 2012.

Pataki has written several historical novels: The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America (2014), The Accidental Empress (2015), Sisi: Empress on Her Own (2016), and Where the Light Falls: A Novel of the French Revolution (2017), which she co-authored with her brother Owen.

In 2015, Pataki co-founded reConnect Hungary, an educational and social immersion program for young adults of Hungarian heritage, who are born in the U.S. or Canada, to gain a better understanding of their Hungarian heritage.

In addition to historical fiction, Allison has written for ABCNews.com, The Huffington Post, FoxNews.com, Travel Girl, and other media outlets. In 2016 she wrote an article for the New York Times detailing her family's experience with traumatic brain injury and the road to recovery. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/15/2017.)

Book Reviews
Intricately plotted, Pataki's latest is engrossing and incredibly real (four stars.}
Romantic Times

Sisi's story is still popular in Austria but is less well known outside of it, and this novel offers an engrossing introduction to this colorful 19th-century personality. Even historical fiction readers who have grown weary of "royal marriage" plots will find much to savor here in the striking depictions of the Viennese court and intriguing descriptions of the political maneuvers between Austria and Hungary. Highly recommended for fans of both Michelle Moran and Philippa Gregory. —Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL
Library Journal

A love match alters the course of the Habsburg dynasty in Pataki's second novel.... The plot doesn't stray far from the conventions of novels about royalty, exposing all the unsurprising human disappointments lurking behind the gilded façade. Still, Pataki deserves kudos for choosing her subject matter well—Sisi's life is ideal fictional fodder.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Though Sisi was often referred to as "The Fairy Queen," this is not your typical fairy tale, in which a girl falls in love with a prince and the two of them live happily ever after. Could Sisi and Franz Joseph have had a happy marriage? Why or why not? How does Pataki’s novel take up the notion of "happily ever after" as it relates to the lives and marriages of the novel’s characters?

2. When Sophie learns of her son’s intention to marry Sisi, the archduchess has this to say: "She is not fit. It is as simple as that. She is too young—a child really, too giddy. Unable to fulfill the role and all of its obligations." What was it about Sisi that made her, in Sophie’s eyes, "not fit" for the role of empress and wife? Was Sophie at all correct? Why did Sophie prefer that her son marry Helene?

3. As eager as she is to marry Franz Joseph, Sisi quickly becomes overwhelmed and intimidated by the amount of work that goes into preparing for her new role as empress. How would you feel in Sisi’s situation? Would you be excited to undergo such an extreme transformation?

4. On their wedding day, Franz Joseph turns to Sisi and says: "Reprasentazions-pflicht. Keeping up the front. That’s what this is. We play our roles today." In what ways does Sisi resist this requirement of life at the Habsburg Court? Why does this job requirement bother Franz Joseph less? Would Sisi’s life have been easier if she had just accepted "how things are done," as Sophie and Franz Joseph so often urge her to?

5. While Sisi bristles at many of the customs and rules of her new life at the Habsburg Court, perhaps nothing upsets her more in her first few days than when she discovers that Sophie has had her red slippers thrown away. Discuss this moment. Why do these "tattered red slippers" matter so much to Sisi? What other moments were difficult for Sisi in her adjustment to life at court?

6. Consider the character of Ludovika. What does the duchess’s presence at court mean to Sisi? Discuss the various mother figures in the novel. How does Sisi’s relationship with her mother compare to her relationships with her own daughters?

7. What is the most difficult aspect of Sisi’s life as empress?

8. Franz Joseph often finds himself in the middle of the conflicts between Sisi and Sophie. How does he do at navigating the tense dynamic? What might he have done differently? Were you in any way sympathetic to Franz Joseph, with the various pressures he shouldered in his roles as emperor, husband, son, and father?

9. Sisi feels dislike for Andrassy before she even knows him. How and why does her impression of Andrassy change over the course of the novel? Did your impression of Andrassy change throughout the book?

10. Throughout the novel, Pataki has chosen to intersperse the chapters with scenes from the Budapest coronation of 1867. Why did the author choose this final scene, in particular, to intersect the rest of the novel? What did this one moment mean for Sisi as empress? As a wife? As a mother? As an individual?

11. Compare Sisi’s relationship to Andrassy with her relationship to Franz Joseph. How are the two men different? In what ways are they similar? How does Sisi behave differently with each of them?

12. Sisi grows more and more consumed by her physical appearance as the novel progresses. Discuss this aspect of her personality. Does her beauty regimen become a true obsession, or is it more of a diversion? Does it make Sisi less sympathetic of a character to see her becoming so vain?

13. Sisi was an avid horseback rider, considered by many to be the best horsewoman in the world during her lifetime. At one point in the novel Sisi tells Andrassy: "I’ve never found a horse that could run fast enough." Discuss what riding means to the character of Sisi throughout the novel. Through what other diversions does Sisi escape?

14. If you could pick one character from The Accidental Empress with whom to spend a day, which character would it be and why?

15. Consider the two epigraphs at the opening of the novel. Why did the author choose those two quotes? What other quotes are significant throughout the novel?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Accidental Tourist
Anne Tyler, 1985
Random House
352pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345452009

Summary
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary.

He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog-obedience trainer who up-ends Macon’s insular world–and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.

(From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 25, 1941
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Duke University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize (see below)
• Currently—lives in Baltimore, Maryland

Anne Tyler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published 20 novels, the best known of which are Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1983), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the third won it.

She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. She is recognized for her fully developed characters, her "brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail" (New York Times), and her "rigorous and artful style" and "astute and open language" (also, New York Times). While many of her characters have been described as quirky or eccentric, she has managed to make them seem real through skillfully fleshing out their inner lives in great depth.

Her subject in all her novels has been the American family and marriage: the boredom and exasperating irritants endured by partners, children, siblings, parents; the desire for freedom pulling against the tethers of attachments and conflicted love; the evolution over time of familial love and sense of duty. Tyler celebrates unremarkable Americans and the ordinary details of their everyday lives. Because of her style and subject matter, she has been compared to John Updike, Jane Austen, and Eudora Welty, among others.

Childhood
The eldest of four children, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father, Lloyd Parry Tyler, was an industrial chemist and her mother, Phyllis Mahon Tyler, a social worker. Both her parents were Quakers who were very active with social causes in the Midwest and the South. Her family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in 1948 in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina near Burnsville.

The Celo Community settlement was founded by conscientious objectors and members of the liberal Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends, with community labor needs shared by the residents. Tyler lived there from age 7 through 11 and helped her parents and others with caring for livestock and organic farming. While she did not attend formal public school in Celo, lessons were taught in art, carpentry, and cooking in homes and in other subjects in a tiny school house. Her early informal training was supplemented by correspondence school.

Her first memory of her own creative story-telling was of crawling under the bed covers at age 3 and "telling myself stories in order to get to sleep at night." Her first book at age 7 was a collection of drawings and stories about "lucky girls...who got to go west in covered wagons." Her favorite book as a child was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. Tyler acknowledges that this book, which she read many times during this period of limited access to books, had a profound influence on her, showing how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same."

This early perception of changes over time is a theme that reappears in many of her novels decades later, just as The Little House itself appears in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Tyler also describes reading Little Women 22 times as a child. When the Tyler family left Celo after four years to move to Raleigh, NC, 11-year-old Anne had never attended public school and never used a telephone. This unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view "the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise."

Raleigh, North Carolina
It also meant that Tyler felt herself to be an outsider in the public schools she attended in Raleigh, a feeling that has followed her most of her life. She believes that this sense of being an outsider has contributed to her becoming a writer:

I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do [to become a writer]. In my case, it was emerging from the commune…and trying to fit into the outside world.

Despite her lack of public schooling prior to age 11, Anne entered school academically well ahead of most of her classmates in Raleigh. With access now to libraries, she discovered Eudora Welty, Gabriel García Márquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others. Welty remains one of her favorite writers, and she credits Welty with showing her that books could be about the everyday details of life, not just about major events.

During her years at N. B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, she was inspired and encouraged by a remarkable English teacher, Phyllis Peacock. Peacock had previously taught the writer Reynolds Price, under whom Tyler would later study at Duke University. She would also later teach the writer Armistead Maupin. Seven years after high school, Tyler would dedicate her first published novel to "Mrs. Peacock, for everything you’ve done."

Education
Tyler won a full scholarship to Duke University, which her parents urged her to go accept it because they also needed money for the education of her three younger brothers. At Duke, Tyler enrolled in Reynolds Price's first creative writing class, which also included a future poet, Fred Chappell. Price was most impressed with the sixteen-year-old Tyler, describing her as "frighteningly mature for 16," "wide-eyed," and "an outsider." Years later Price would describe Tyler as "one of the best novelists alive in the world,… who was almost as good a writer at 16 as she is now."

While an undergraduate, Tyler published her short story "Laura" in the Duke literary journal Archive, for which she won the newly created Anne Flexner award for creative writing. She wrote many short stories, one of which impressed Reynolds Price so that he later stated that it was the "most finished, most accomplished short story I have ever received from an undergraduate in my thirty years of teaching." "The Saints in Caesar’s Household" was published in Archive also and won her a second Anne Flexner award. This short story led to her meeting Diarmuid Russell, to whom Price had sent it with kudos. Russell, who was an agent for both Reynolds Price and for Tyler’s "crowning influence" Eudora Welty, later became Tyler’s agent.

Tyler majored in Russian Literature at Duke—not English—and graduated in 1961, at age 19, having been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. With her Russian Literature background she received a fellowship to graduate school in Slavic Studies at Columbia University although she left after a year without her master's degree. She returned to Duke where she got a job in the library as a Russian bibliographer. It was there that she met Taghi Modarressi, a resident in child psychiatry in Duke Medical School and a writer himself, and they were married a year later (1963).

Early writing
While working at the Duke library—before and after marrying Modarressi—Tyler continued to write short stories, which appeared in The New Yoker, Saturday Evening Post, and Harpers. She also started work on her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, eventually published 1964, followed by The Tin Can Tree in 1965. Years later she disowned both of these novels, as well as many of the short stories she wrote during this period, going so far as to say she "would like to burn them." She feels that most of this early work suffers from the lack of thorough character development and her failure to rework material repeatedly.

After the birth of two children (1965 and 1967), followed by a move from Montreal, Canada, to Baltimore in the U.S., Tyler had little time or energy for writing. She published nothing from 1965 to 1970. By 1970, however, she began writing again and published three more novels by 1974—A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, and Celestial Navigation. In her own opinion, her writing improved considerably during this period; with her children entering school, she was able to devote more time—and focus more intensely—than at any time since her undergraduate days.

National recognition
With Celestial Navigation, Tyler began to get wider recognition. Morgan's Passing (1980) won her the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction and was nominated for both the American Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

With her next novel (her ninth), Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Tyler truly arrived as a recognized artist in the literary world. (She considers Homesick her best work.) Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985. It was also made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt and Geena Davis. The popularity of this well-received film further increased the growing public awareness of her work. Her 11th novel, Breathing Lessons, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was Time magazine’s "Book of the Year." It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie, as eventually were four other of her novels.

Since her Pulitzer Prize with Breathing Lessons, Tyler has written 9 more novels, all of favorably reviewed, many Book of the Month Club Main Selections and New York Times Bestsellers.

Analysis
In Tyler’s own words, the characters are the driving forces behind the stories and the starting point for her writing:

I do make a point of writing down every imaginable facet of my characters before I begin a book, trying to get to know them so I can figure out how they’ll react in any situation…..My reason for writing now is to live lives other than my own, and I do that by burrowing deeper and deeper….till I reach the center of those lives.

The magic of her novels starts with her ability to create those characters in the reader’s mind through the use of remarkably realistic details. The late Canadian author Carol Shields, writing about Tyler's characters, observes:

Tyler has always put her characters to work. Their often humble or eccentric occupations, carefully observed and threaded with humor, are tightly sewn to the other parts of their lives, offering them the mixed benefit of tedium and consolation, as well as a lighted stage for the unfolding of their dramatic selves. She also allows her men and women an opportunity for redemption.

Tyler has clearly spelled out the importance of her characters to her stories: "As far as I’m concerned, character is everything. I never did see why I have to throw in a plot, too."

Stylistically, Tyler's writing is difficult to categorize or label. Novelist Cathleen Schine describes how her "style without a style" manages to pull the reader into the story:

So rigorous and artful is the style without a style, so measured and delicate is each observation, so complex is the structure and so astute and open the language, that the reader can relax, feel secure in the narrative and experience the work as something real and natural.

The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar point: "One does not so much read a Tyler novel as visit it.

While Tyler herself does not like to think of her novels in terms of themes, numerous reviewers and scholars have noted the importance of family and marriage relationships to her characters and stories. Reviewing Noah's Compass, New York Times' Mitchiko Kakutani noted that

The central concern of most of this author’s characters has always been their need to define themselves in terms of family—the degree to which they see themselves as creatures shaped by genetics, childhood memories and parental and spousal expectations, and the degree to which they are driven to embrace independent identities of their own.

Tyler is not without her critics. The most common criticism is that her works are "sentimental," "sweet," and "charming and cosy." Even Kakutani has also occasionally bemoaned a "cloying cuteness," noting that "her novels—with their eccentric heroes, their homespun details, their improbable, often heartwarming plots—have often flirted with cuteness." In her own defense, Tyler has said,

For one thing I think it is sort of true. I would say piss and vinegar for [Philip] Roth and for me milk and cookies. I can’t deny it…. [However] there’s more edge under some of my soft language than people realize.

Also, because almost all of Tyler’s work covers the same territory—family and marriage relationships—and are located in the same setting, she has come under criticism for being repetitive and formulaic.

Tyler’s advice to beginning writers:

They should run out and buy the works of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who studied the meaning of gesture in personal interactions. I have cause to think about Erving Goffman nearly every day of my life, every time I see people do something unconscious that reveals more than they’ll ever know about their interiors. Aren’t human beings intriguing? I could go on writing about them forever."

(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/10/2015.)

Book Reviews
(Pre-internet works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon or Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

Bittersweet...evocative.... It’s easy to forget this is the warm lull of fiction; you half-expect to run into her characters at the dry cleaners.... Tyler [is] a writer of great compassion.”
The Boston Globe

Tyler has given us an endlessly diverting book whose strength gathers gradually to become a genuinely thrilling one.
Los Angeles Times

A delight . . . a graceful comic novel about getting through life,
Wall Street Journal

Discussion Questions
1. Would you characterize yourself as an accidental tourist in your own life? Do you know anyone you might consider an accidental tourist?

2. What kind of traveler are you? Would you find Macon's guides helpful?

3. Macon has come up with a technique to avoid contact with others on airplanes. Public transportation can lead to an awkward intimacy with strangers. How do you handle such situations? Does Macon's approach work for you?

4. There was no memorial service for Ethan in Baltimore. Whose idea do you think that was? Do you agree with Garner, Macon's neighbor, who chastises him for not having one?

5. Macon's style of mourning offends many people, including his wife. Do their complaints have any merit?

6. According to Macon, "it was their immunity to time that made the dead so heartbreaking." Discuss the meaning of this statement.

7. What is the significance of Macon and Susan's conversation about Ethan? What do they each gain from it?

8. Why doesn't Macon repair his house after it is seriously damaged by water?

9. The loss of a child can be devastating to a marriage. How do you think a relationship survives such a cataclysmic event?

10. Macon believes he became a different person for Sarah. How much do we change in the name of love? How much should we change?

11. Do you think Sarah ever really understood Macon?

12. Macon realizes that while he and Sarah tried too hard to have a child, once they had Ethan, it made their differences that much more glaring. Do you think they would have remained together if Ethan had lived?

13. Maconremarks that "he just didn't want to get involved" with Muriel and her messy life, but somehow he has. Does this ring true? Did Muriel simply overwhelm him?

14. Initially, Macon and Alexander are very wary of each other. Discuss the nature of Macon and Alexander's relationship and what they have to offer each other.

15. Rose decides to love Julian despite her brothers' obvious disapproval. What do you think drives her to make such a difficult decision?

16. Julian describes Rose's retreat back to the Leary house as though she'd worn herself a groove or something in that house of hers, and she couldn't help swerving back into it. Do you think Rose has made a mistake?

17. Do you find yourself as fascinated by the Learys as Julian is? Why or why not?

18. When Rose declares that she and her siblings are the most conventional people she knows, Macon cannot explain why he disagrees with her. Can you?

19. Do you think the Learys' will ever purchase an answering machine? Do you think Julian might slip one in the house?

20. Do you or does anyone you know suffer from geographic dyslexia?

21. Why does Sarah return to Macon? Do you think they could have worked it out or had they used each other up?

22. Macon does not think he has ever taken steps in his life and acted. Do you think this insight is accurate, or is it a product of the helplessness he feels in the wake of his son's death?

23. Do you think Macon has made the right decision in the end? Will the relationship work out?

24. Do you think any of the couples in this novel stand a chance?

25. In the end, Macon comforts himself with the thought that perhaps the dead age, and are part of the flow of time. Does this idea comfort you?

26. If you could learn more about a particular character in this novel, which would it be and why?

27. Would your group recommend this novel to other reading groups? How does this novel compare to other works the group has read?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Accidents of Providence
Stacia Brown, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780547840116

Summary
London, 1649: King Charles has been beheaded for treason, Cromwell is in power, the Levelers are demanding rights for the people, and a new law targeting unwed mothers presumes anyone who conceals the death of her illegitimate child is guilty of murder.

Glovemaker Rachel Lockyer is locked in a secret affair. But while her lover is imprisoned in the Tower, a child is found buried in the woods. Rachel is arrested. So comes an investigation, a trial, and an extraordinary cast of characters all brought to reckon for this one life. Spinning within is a remarkable love story and evidence that miracles come to even the commonest lives.

Accidents of Providence, by Stacia M. Brown, depicts the life of an ordinary woman living in early modern London during the Interregnum, the kind of person often overlooked by the history books and films centered in the period.

More
Even in her own time, Rachel Lockyer is hardly noticed by others: she is an unmarried woman who struggles to support herself, living on the margins of society, and she cannot easily be slotted into one of the few roles available to women. But the novel opens up her life to us allowing us to glimpse her inner self, her passions and her humanity. When she falls in love with William Walwyn (a real historical figure), she finds herself swept up in the tide of history and a victim of Puritanical laws. These laws dismiss her worth and her humanity as much as the politicians who would use her as a symbol or the historians who would forget her story altogether.

At the center of this story is the mystery of what happened to her infant daughter, a child whose illegitimate birth is a crime in itself, and whose death puts Rachel in the middle of a debate over morality, law, love, and betrayal. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Stacia Brown grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. She earned graduate degrees in religion and historical theology from Emory University in Atlanta. A historian by training, she was a Woodruff Fellow at the Candler School of Theology, a W.M. Keck Foundation Fellow at the Huntington Library, and a Fellow of the Hambidge Center. Before moving to Atlanta, Stacia worked as a swing-shift monitor for a 250-bed homeless shelter in San Francisco. She lives and works in Decatur, Georgia. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Dangerous Liaisons: A 17th century heroine for our times...[A] delightfully seditious heroine...Brown introduces a wonderful cast of supporting characters.... For all its period detail, this debut seems remarkably modern in its depiction of love and politics—proof that a historical novel can be educational and entertaining, and nothing like homework.
Oprah Magazine

(Starred review.) Debut novelist Brown has woven an absorbing tale...her story reveals a rich knowledge of the era with memorable characters, sharp, period-worthy dialog, and a poignant love story...This is the best kind of historical fiction—a combination of love story and murder mystery, wtih a sprinkling of intriguing historical snippets and wonderful writing.
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Brown's first novel is a heart-poundingly vivid, intellectually provocative account of the legal case against a fictional woman condemned to death for secretly burying her dead, illegitimate newborn in Cromwell's England. In 1649....aging and ailing criminal investigator Thomas Bartwain reluctantly builds his case against Rachel Lockyer, an unmarried glovemaker's apprentice, for breaking the 1624 "Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children." ... Events in the plot are based on historical incidents, and one of the book's many joys is the way fictional...and historical figures...weave seamlessly together; everyone's motives and reactions are richly complex. A romping good read that is character-driven yet intellectually provocative on issues of law, religion and morality—historical fiction at its best.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What do we know about Rachel Lockyer? “They knew her less for who she was than for who and what she was not. She was not a matron. She was not a mother. She was not well educated. She was not much of a Christian” (p. 39). Was she any of the things others thought she wasn’t? What did Rachel believe in? By what standards did she define herself? By what sort of standards do you define yourself and others?

2. Why was the 1624 Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children created? What are the details of it? What are its flaws and its loopholes? Was it right for Rachel to be prosecuted according to its writ?

3. Criminal Investigator Thomas Bartwain firmly believes that “The law is itself the end. The law is beautiful; the law is order. If we have not law, we have nothing” (p. 94). Yet by the end of the novel he admits that “the law is wrong” (p. 179). In the course of reaching this conclusion Bartwain is influenced by a variety of experiences. Beyond his assessment of Rachel’s case, he had some meaningful conversations with his wife, a distracting and distressing battle with the mice in his house, and increasingly severe physical ailments. What do you think most influenced his change of opinion? What do you think was his role in the novel?

4. Compare the infant-murder trials of early modern England to the witch hunts of colonial North America. What were their religious roots? Did they emphasize punishment for sin, or for the concealment of sin? What does that distinction mean?

5. “You are a mother when you have lost something. When you have felt the change and cannot hold it,” Mary tells Rachel (p. 183). When do you believe someone becomes a mother? Was Rachel a mother? How does her experience of motherhood differ from the other women in the book?

6. On page 72, Rachel and Walwyn have an argument about the punishment of a boy convicted of stealing food. Rachel doesn’t seem to think it’s as “barbaric” as Walwyn claims. Did her attitude on this issue—and other political issues the Levelers take up—surprise you? What did you think of Rachel’s political views in general and how they, and her place in this tumultuous political period, were presented?

7. Rachel’s friendship with Elizabeth Lilburne, her place in Mary du Gard’s home and work, and her relationship with her mother all place her within reach of support from other women. Does she get this support? In what ways? Does this story make you think further about the level of responsibility we should feel for each other’s lives and welfare? For the lives of the children in our communities?

8. On page 176, in a final desperate attempt to save her, Walwyn offers his life in exchange for Rachel’s. Why does Bartwain believe Walwyn’s life is “worth more”? When do you think one person’s life is worth more than another’s? Would your opinions be different if you lived during the period in which this book is set?

9. Rachel Lockyer has few connections to the world around her: her only strong family tie was to her brother Robert. How do you think Robert’s death (described in chapter eight) affected her later decisions? What about her estranged relationship from her mother? How does Rachel’s position in the community—her work as a tradeswoman, her unmarried status—affect how she is perceived by the other characters in the book? By her accusers and the public?

10. How would you characterize the romantic and married relationships in the book? What is the status of wife and woman in this period? What is the author telling us about the period through these relationships, and how do they differ from such relationships in contemporary America? Is this a feminist book?

11. Were you frustrated by Rachel’s refusal to explain what had happened or to defend herself to Bartwain or in court? Why do you think she kept silent?

12. “You saved me,” Walwyn tells Rachel. “You are wholly good” (p. 152). How did Walwyn and Rachel save each other? Do you believe Rachel is good? Can anyone be “wholly” good?

13. Mary du Gard plays a small but vital role in Rachel’s saga. The novel begins and ends with her perspective. Why do you think the author chose to have Mary bookend the story?

14. Are there parallels between the birth and death of Rachel’s child (p. 209) and her own “death”? If so, do you draw any significance from those parallels? What do you make of the role of miracles in this story, religiously, politically, and mythically?

15. “…for whatever green shoots might by some accident of providence have thrust their spindly arms up from the barren soil overnight” (p. 73). Did you notice “accidents of providence” in the book? Is this an apt title? What does it mean for providence to admit to accidents, here and in your own life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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According to Queeney
Beryl Bainbridge, 2001
De Capo Press
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780349114477

Summary
Bainbridge’s brilliantly imagined, universally acclaimed, Booker Prize-longlisted novel portrays the inordinate appetites and unrequited love touched off when the most celebrated man of eighteenth-century English letters, Samuel Johnson, enters the domain of a wealthy Southwark brewer and his wife, Hester Thrale.

The melancholic, middle-aged lexicographer plunges into an increasingly ambiguous relationship with the vivacious Mrs. Thrale for the next twenty years. In that time Hester’s eldest daughter, the neglected but prodigiously clever Queeney, will grow into young womanhood.

Along the way, little of the emotional tangle and sexual tension stirring beneath the decorous surfaces of the Thrale household will escape Queeney’s cold, observant eye. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 21, 1932
• Where—Liverpool, England, UK
• Death—July 2, 2010
• Where—London, England
• Awards—Whitbread Prize (twice); James Tait Black Memorial
Prize; David Cohen Prize for Literature

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge, DBE was an English novelist. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996; she was nominated five times for the Booker Prize. She was described in 2007 as "a national treasure". In 2008, The Times newspaper named Bainbridge among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

Beryl Bainbridge was born in Liverpool and raised in nearby Formby. Her parents were Richard Bainbridge and Winifred Baines. Although she gave her date of birth in Who's Who and elsewhere as 21 November 1934, she was actually born in 1932 and her birth was registered in the first quarter of 1933. When German former prisoner of war Harry Arno Franz wrote to her in November 1947, he mentioned her 15th birthday.

She enjoyed writing, and by the age of 10 she was keeping a diary. She had elocution lessons and, when she was 11, appeared on the Northern Children's Hour radio show, alongside Billie Whitelaw and Judith Chalmers. Bainbridge was expelled from Merchant Taylors' Girls' School because she was caught with a "dirty rhyme" (as she later described it), written by someone else, in her gymslip pocket. That summer, she fell in love with a former German POW who was waiting to be repatriated. For the next six years, the couple corresponded and tried to get permission for the German man to return to Britain so that they could be married. But permission was denied and the relationship ended in 1953.

In the following year (1954), Beryl married artist Austin Davies. The two divorced soon after, leaving Bainbridge a single mother of two children. She later had a third child by Alan Sharp, a daughter who is the actress Rudi Davies. In 1958, she attempted suicide by putting her head in a gas oven. Bainbridge spent her early years working as an actress, and she appeared in one 1961 episode of the soap opera Coronation Street playing an anti-nuclear proteste.

Writing
To help fill her time, Bainbridge began to write, primarily based on incidents from her childhood. Her first novel, Harriet Said..., was rejected by several publishers, one of whom found the central characters "repulsive almost beyond belief". It was eventually published in 1972, four years after her third novel (Another Part of the Wood). Her second and third novels were published (1967/68) and were received well by critics although they failed to earn much money. Seven more novels were written and published during the 1970s, of which the fifth, Injury Time, was awarded the Whitbread prize for best novel in 1977.

In the late 1970s, she wrote a screenplay based on her novel Sweet William. The movie Sweet William, starring Sam Waterston, was released in 1979.

From 1980 onwards, eight more novels appeared. The 1989 novel, An Awfully Big Adventure was adapted into a film in 1995 starring Alan Rickman and Hugh Grant.

In the 1990s, Bainbridge turned to historical fiction. These novels continued to be popular with critics, but this time, were also commercially successful. Among her historical fiction novels are Every Man for Himself, about the 1912 Titanic disaster, for which Bainbridge won the 1996 Whitbread Awards prize for best novel, and Master Georgie, set during the Crimean War, for which she won the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Her final novel, According to Queeney, is a fictionalized account of the last years of the life of Samuel Johnson as seen through the eyes of Queeney Thrale, eldest daughter of Henry and Hester Thrale; it received wide acclaim.

From the 1990s, Bainbridge also served as a theatre critic for the monthly magazine The Oldie. Her reviews rarely contained negative content, and were usually published after the play had closed.

Honours/Awards
In 2000, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE). In June 2001, Bainbridge was awarded an honorary degree by the Open University as Doctor of the University. In 2003, she was awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature together with Thom Gunn. In 2005, the British Library acquired many of Bainbridge's private letters and diaries.

Last years
Following what Bainbridge claimed was her 71st birthday (it was in reality her 73rd), her grandson Charlie Russell produced a documentary, Beryl's Last Year, about her life. The documentary detailed her upbringing and her attempts to write a final novel (Dear Brutus, which she decided to leave unfinished); it was broadcast in the United Kingdom on 2 June 2007 on BBC Four.

In 2009, Beryl Bainbridge donated the short story Goodnight Children, Everywhere to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Her story was published in the "Air" collection. Bainbridge was the patron of the People's Book Prize.

Bainbridge died on 2 July 2010, aged 77, in a London hospital after her cancer recurred. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Ms. Bainbridge has wrought a Johnson so intellectually scintillating and emotionally unpredictable that her novel becomes a study not so much of character as of the mysteriousness of character....[Johnson] is a brilliant creation, and when, at the end of this luminous little novel, Ms. Bainbridge brings us to his end, we feel two losses simultaneously, the personal one and the loss to civilization.
Richard Bernstein - New York Times

Dialogue and descriptions subtly and skillfully convey a sense not only of the period but also the personalities.
Merle Rubin - Los Angeles Times

A dark, often hilarious and deeply human vision ... a major literary accomplishment.
Margaret Atwood - Globe and Mail (Canada)

As she has proved time and again, most recently in Every Man for Himself and Master Georgie, few novelists now alive can match Bainbridge for the uncanny precision with which she enters into the ethos of a previous era. This time it is the period of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and the strange relationship he built in his later years with wealthy Southwark brewer Henry Thrale and his vivacious but moody wife, Hester. Some of it is seen through the eyes of Mrs. Thrale's eldest daughter, the Queeney of the title, but such is Bainbridge's virtuosity with points of view that she can move into Dr. Johnson's or Mrs. Thrale's heads at will. This brief novel for each scene is pared down to its essentials is more a sketch of a way of life and feeling than a full-blown narrative. The great lexicographer is brought to life more vividly than by any chronicler since James Boswell. We see him enjoying the Thrales' hospitality, indulging in mostly imaginary dalliances with his hostess and sparring with the likes of Garrick and Goldsmith. He accompanies the Thrales and their hangers-on on a European journey that is freighted with woe, and also proudly escorts them on a pilgrimage to his hometown of Lichfield. The tension between the bizarre manners of the day and the unexpressed passions burning within is beautifully caught, and Queeney's skeptical commentary lends just the right distance. If in the end the impression is more of a study in the difficulties of friendship and the ravages of time, the extraordinary craft more than compensates for a lack of narrative drive.
Publishers Weekly

In recent years, Bainbridge's novels have shifted from pure fiction to the ironic treatment of historical figures or events: The Birthday Boys (1991) considered Scott's Antarctic expedition; Every Man for Himself (1996), the sinking of the Titanic; and Master Georgie (1998), the Crimean War. Beginning and ending in 1784 with the death (and autopsy report) of Dr. Samuel Johnson, her latest work ranges over his last 20 years, when Hester Thrale, the wife of a wealthy brewer, was pivotal in his life a relationship that continues to interest Johnson scholars. The viewpoint is not exclusively "according to Queeney," Mrs. Thrale's precocious oldest daughter, but her caustic assessment matters. Latin tutor and family friend Johnson was gentle and kind to Queeney, but here the eminent man of letters is portrayed as slovenly, eccentric, unstable, and ill. Bainbridge's novel is interesting as an experiment in writing about a figure from the past, but the fiction is often submerged beneath the history. For comprehensive collections of British literature. —Ruth H. Miller, Univ. of Southern Indiana Lib., Evansville
Library Journal

(Starred review.) The Grand Cham of 18th-century English letters is the primary subject of Bainbridge's majestically deft new novel: the best yet in her series of dazzling historical reconstructions of British history (Master Georgie, 1998, etc.). James Boswell's great "Life "gave us the partial lowdown on scholar-lexicographer Samuel Johnson's tenure as permanent honored guest of the family of prosperous Southwark brewmaster Henry Thrale—and the Great Man's courtly friendship with his host's charming wife Hester, a self-made bluestocking and the mistress of an ineffably fashionable salon that also embraced eminences like author Oliver Goldsmith and actor David Garrick. Bainbridge's conceit is that Johnson—a middle-aged widower (bereft of his much older wife) whose teeming brain waged continual warfare with his "lower' faculties—was both sustained and tormented by the sophisticated mixed signals emitted by the intellectually flirtatious matron, a fascination mirrored in his avuncular friendship with the Thrales' precociously gifted eldest daughter, the eponymous "Queeney." The latter's perspective on her mercurial parent's outwardly platonic relationships is conveyed in letters in which Queeney replies to a female acquaintance's importunate queries, some 20 years following Johnson's domination of her mother's circle. Testimony from several other characters (many servants) is skillfully integrated into the swiftly moving narrative, and Bainbridge also offers brief glimpses of Johnson's own tempestuous demeanor, dictated by his vulnerability to gout, depression, sudden and impulsive emotional outbursts, and the occasional "loathsome descent into sensuality." The tale is told with its author's customary masterly economy, graced by Bainbridge's tone-perfect imitations of period speech (even illiterate nursemaids speak—quite believably—like Jane Austen characters) and genius for suggestive imagery ("a glimpse of gray river beneath a rind of weeping sky"). Absolutely wonderful. Grateful thanks, too, to Carroll & Graf, which has stepped in where many "major" publishers have faltered, bringing us the otherwise neglected recent work of British masters like the late Anthony Burgess and the irresistible, indispensable Beryl Bainbridge.
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 According to Queeney:

1. Why might Bainbridge have opened her novel with the autopsy of Johnson? Why not set that scene at the end? What was she hoping to achieve, do you suppose?

2. Elsewhere than in this novel, Johnson admitted that Hester Thrale "soothed 20 years of a life radically wretched." It is their relationship that is at the center of the book. What is the nature of that relationship? Would you say their attraction is based more on need than love (then again, are the two mutually exclusive)? What do the two need from each other...is one more needy than the other? In what way do they satisfy one each other...or do they?

3. How would you describe Hester? How is she revealed through Queeney's remarks?

4. What torments Samuel Johnson—physically and spiritually? Bainbridge hints at his sadomasochism. Where is it in evidence?

5. In Mrs. Thrale's Anecdotes, Johnson said that "Melancholy & otherwise insane People are always sensual; the misery of their Minds naturally enough forces them to recur for Comfort to their Bodies." What exactly does he mean...and do you agree with that observation? Can Johnson find comfort within his own body?

6. How do you account for the cruel letter Johnson wrote to Hester upon her soon to be marriage to Gabriel Piozzi?

7. How are the entries from Johnson's Dictionary related to the chapters they head.

8. Bainbridge strives to hold close to her source material without being obvious. Does she achieve that goal—is she able to meld the historical with the fictional? Or is there some awkwardness in writing?

9. What do you make of Queeney—one of the most intriguing characters in the book. (She has also intrigued Patrick O' Brian includes her in parts of his Master and Commander series.) What makes Queeney so interesting...and why is she such a difficult child, especially toward her mother?

10. The book's title is "According to Queeney," which suggests that we're getting a truthful picture of the great Samuel Johnson. That truth is based on a first-hand witness—who happens to be a young girl. Is Queeney's account objective? Is she to be believed, especially when some of her accounts contradict what comes before? What might Bainbridge be getting at regarding the fallibility of memory?

11. There are mysteries within this story. Point out some of the unexplainable events that take place...things for which there are no answers...and how Johnson struggles to maintain rationality throughout. What might Bainbridge be saying about the attempt to pin life down to some sort of scientific, rational exactitude.

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

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The Accursed
Joyce Carol Oates, 2013
HarperCollins
669 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062231703

Summary
A major historical novel from "one of the great artistic forces of our time" (The Nation)—an eerie, unforgettable story of possession, power, and loss in early-twentieth-century Princeton, a cultural crossroads of the powerful and the damned.

Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the twentieth century: a tranquil place to raise a family, a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at the edges of the town, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent. A powerful curse besets the elite families of Princeton; their daughters begin disappearing. A young bride on the verge of the altar is seduced and abducted by a dangerously compelling man–a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince who might just be the devil, and who spreads his curse upon a richly deserving community of white Anglo-Saxon privilege. And in the Pine Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying underworld opens up.

When the bride's brother sets out against all odds to find her, his path will cross those of Princeton's most formidable people, from Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House and retired to town for a quieter life, to soon-to-be commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, president of the university and a complex individual obsessed to the point of madness with his need to retain power; from the young Socialist idealist Upton Sinclair to his charismatic comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era, Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain–all plagued by "accursed" visions.

An utterly fresh work from Oates, The Accursed marks new territory for the masterful writer. Narrated with her unmistakable psychological insight, it combines beautifully transporting historical detail with chilling supernatural elements to stunning effect. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 16, 1938
• Where—Lockport, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Syracuse Univ.; M.A., Univ. of Wisconsin
• Awards—National Book Award for Them, 1970; 14 O. Henry
Awards; six Pushcart Prizes
• Currently—lives in Princeton, New Jersey

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most influential and important storytellers in the literary world. She has often used her supreme narrative skills to examine the dark side of middle-class Americana, and her oeuvre includes some of the finest examples of modern essays, plays, criticism, and fiction from a vast array of genres. She is still publishing with a speed and consistency of quality nearly unheard of in contemporary literature.

A born storyteller, Oates has been spinning yarns since she was a little girl too young to even write. Instead, she would communicate her stories through drawings and paintings. When she received her very first typewriter at the age of 14, her creative floodgates opened with a torrent. She says she wrote "novel after novel" throughout high school and college— a prolificacy that has continued unabated throughout a professional career that began in 1963 with her first short story collection, By the North Gate.

Oates's breakthrough occurred in 1969 with the publication of Them, a National Book Award winner that established her as a force to be reckoned with. Since that auspicious beginning, she has been nominated for nearly every major literary honor—from the PEN/Faulkner Award to the Pulitzer Prize—and her fiction turns up with regularity on the New York Times annual list of Notable Books.

On average Oates publishes at least one novel, essay anthology, or story collection a year (during the 1970s, she produced at the astonishing rate of two or three books a year!). And although her fiction often exposes the darker side of America's brightest facades—familial unrest, sexual violence, the death of innocence—she has also made successful forays into Gothic novels, suspense, fantasy, and children's literature. As novelist John Barth once remarked, "Joyce Carol Oates writes all over the aesthetical map."

Where she finds the time for it no one knows, but Oates manages to combine her ambitious, prolific writing career with teaching: first at the University of Windsor in Canada, then (from 1978 on), at Princeton University in New Jersey. For all her success and fame, her daily routine of teaching and writing has changed very little, and her commitment to literature as a transcendent human activity remains steadfast.

Extras
• When not writing, Oates likes to take in a fight. "Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost," she says in highbrow fashion of the lowbrow sport.

• Oates's Black Water, which is a thinly veiled account of Ted Kennedy's car crash in Chappaquiddick, was produced as an opera in the 1990s. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)

Praise for Oates from the UK
• One of the female frontrunners for the title of Great American Novelist.— Maggie Gee, Sunday Times

• A writer of extraordinary strengths...she has dealt consistently with what is probably the great American theme— the quest for the creation of self...Her great subject, naturally, is love.—Ian Sansom, Guardian

• Her prose is peerless and her ability to make you think as she re-invents genres is unique. Few writers move so effortlessly from the gothic tale to the psychological thriller to the epic family saga to the lyrical novella. Even fewer authors can so compellingly and entertainingly tell a story.—Jackie McGlone, Scotland on Sunday

• Novelists such as John Updike, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer slug it out for the title of the Great American Novelist. But maybe they're wrong. Maybe, just maybe, the Great American Novelist is a woman. —The Herald

Book Reviews
Some novels are almost impossible to review, either because they're deeply ambiguous or because they contain big surprises the reviewer doesn't wish to give away. In the case of The Accursed, both strictures apply. What I wish I could say is simply this: "Joyce Carol Oates has written what may be the world's first postmodern Gothic novel: E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime set in Dracula's castle. It's dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix and full of crazy people. You should read it. I wish I could tell you more.... The book is too long, but what classic Gothic isn’t? It sprawls, there’s no identifiable protagonist or unity of scene, and yet these many loosely wrapped Tales of Princeton are feverishly entertaining. Oates’s hypnotic prose has never been better displayed than it is in the book’s final fabulism.... I could tell you who wins...but it’s a secret.
Stephen King - New York Times Book Review

The Accursed is…spectacular—a coalescence of history, horror and social satire that whirls around for almost 700 mesmerizing pages…The delights of this macabre novel gather thick as ghouls at midnight in the cemetery. I've never been so aware of Oates's weird comedy…With its vast scope, its mingling of comic and tragic tones, its omnivorous gorging on American literature, and especially its complex reflection on the major themes of our history, The Accursed is the kind of outrageous masterpiece only Joyce Carol Oates could create.
Ron Charles - Washington Post

The Accursed is a unique, vast multilayered narrative; a genre bending beast of a book, utterly startling from start to finish, compulsive and engaging, the writing crackling with energy and wit. This is an elaborately conceived work.
New York Review of Books

Oates’ atmospheric prose beautifully captures the flavor of gothic fiction.... In Oates’ hands, this supernatural tale becomes a meditation on the perils of parochial thinking. It demands we think—with monsters—about our failure to face the darkest truths about ourselves and the choices we’ve made.
NPR

(A 4-star review.) A brilliant Gothic mystery that has the punch of historical fiction. Currents of race, class and academic intrigue swirl under the surface, but it’s the demonic curse that propels the action... Oates casts a powerful spell. You’ll close The Accursed and want to start it all over again.
People

(Starred review. ) [A] thrilling tale in the best gothic tradition, a lesson in master craftsmanship. Distilled, the plot is about a 14-month curse manifesting in Princeton, N.J., from 1905 to 1906, affecting the town's elite, including the prominent Slades of Crosswicks and Woodrow Wilson, the president of Princeton University. After Annabel Slade is strangely drawn out of the church during her wedding, an escalating series of violence and madness based in secrets and hypocrisy is unleashed in the community. This story has vampires, demons, angels, murder, lynching, beatings, rape, sex, parallel worlds.... The story sprawls, reaches, demands, tears, and shrieks in homage to the traditional gothic, yet with fresh, surprising twists and turns.
Publishers Weekly

Historical fiction with a spooky Oatesian twist: at the turn of the 20th century, strange things start happening in peaceful, polished Princeton, NJ. Folks dream about vampires, the daughters of the town's classiest families start vanishing, and a bride-to-be runs away with a vaguely menacing European, presumably a prince and possibly the Devil. As her brother gives chase, he encounters characters from former President Grover Cleveland and future President Woodrow Wilson to authors like Upton Sinclair, all cursed with dark visions. Do these visions hint at personal or collective anguish?
Library Journal

A lush, arch, and blistering fusion of historical fact, supernatural mystery, and devilish social commentary... A diabolically enthralling and subversive literary mash-up.
Booklist

(Starred review.) Oates finishes up a big novel begun years before—and it's a keeper. If the devil were to come for a visit...where would he turn up first?.... Princeton, N.J., long Oates' domicile, ...on "the disastrous morning of Annabel Slade's wedding." No slashing ensues, no pea-green vomiting; instead, the good citizens of Princeton steadily turn inward and against each other, the veneer of civilization swiftly flaking off on the edge of the wilderness within us.... It just could be that the devil's civilization is superior to that of America.... The Curse is the one of past crimes meeting the future, perhaps; it is as much psychological as real, though Oates takes pains to invest plenty of reality in it. Carefully and densely plotted...it requires some work and has a wintry feel to it, it's oddly entertaining, as a good supernatural yarn should be.
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 get a discussion started for The Accursed:

1. How would you define The Accursed? Is it a vampire story, social commentary, satire, fictional history, gothic tale? What elements of those different genres can you identify in this book?

2. M.W. van Dyck, II is The Accursed's intrusive narrator—interjecting frequently, inserting digressive footnotes, and passing judgment. Is he a reliable narrator—are we to take his word for events in the book? Or are we meant to be skeptical? How would you describe him?

3. How are we to view the events that take place in this novel? Are we to suppose that they "happen" to the fictional characters in the course of the story? Or are we to gather they are the result of the characters' subconscious? Are they dreams? In other words, is this realistic fiction...or fantasy?

4. What is the Curse? What is its foundation? What, metaphorically, is Oates suggesting by the Curse? Who is cursed...and why?

5. The Accursed asks us to ponder the nature of evil? What is "evil" in the scope of the novel? Which of the book's characters are evil? What do you consider evil? Who or what are our real life demons? Are they personal demons or collective (societal)?

6. Follow-up to Questions 5 & 6: Talk about Winslow Slade. What did you think of him initially...and what did you come to understand about him by the novel's end, particularly in light of his final sermon?

7. Discuss the era's attitudes toward—and treatment of—women, African Americans, Jews, workers, and immigrants? Were you shocked at those private and public utterances—views held at the turn of the 20th-century (not so terribly distant from our own time), even by prominent people, whom we admire to this day?

8. Socialism, much "accursed" in American history, even in this day, is a prominent subject in The Accursed. What does it have to do with events of the novel? In other words, why does Oates spend so much ink writing about the socialist movement? Is she sympathetic or opposed to it? What is your understanding of socialism and its vilification?

9. Is there a hero in The Accursed? Are there more than one? Whom do you find admirable? What characters, male or female, if any, do you come to care about in this book?

10. Talk about the women—in particular Adelaide Burr, Annabel Slade, Wilhelmina Burr, Mrs. Peck. What do you think of them?

11. Speaking of Mrs. Peck—what do you think of her offer to Woodrow Wilson—and his refusal? Why does he refuse her help? Who is Mrs. Peck?

12. How are the various historical figures presented in this book—Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Upton Sinclair, Mark Twain, Jack London, and Teddy Roosevelt? Is Oates's treatment of them at variance with what you might have expected?

13. Reviewers cite the book's frequent humor. What parts of this book do you find funny?

14. This is a very "literary" book, with references and parallels to literature: Emily Dickinson, Sherlock Holmes, Grimms Brothers fairly tales, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker, to name a few. Can you identify some of them? Why might the author incorporate so many allusions into her work?

15. In the chapter "Ratiocination Our Salvation," Josiah Slade and Pearce van Dyck debate the use of Sherlock Holmes's method of observation and logic to solve the mystery of the Crosswick Curse. For van Dyck, Holmes's ratiocination is "the solution to our human folly; for young Slade, Holmes is merely fiction...and the so-called "puzzles [come] with ready-made solutions" from Conan Doyle. "They're not true mysteries," Slade argues. Van Dyck counters, "But I think they are. They are the distillations of the sprawling, messy, impenetrable mysteries that surround us." Later in the novel, however, Slade begins to think more seriously about van Dyck's approach.

Here's the discussion question: Do life's mysteries have logical solutions—does Joyce Carol Oates believe they do? What does her novel suggest? What do you think? Is all of life open to reason and logic? Or are there life events too mysterious to be explained by human understanding? (See our LitCourse 2 on the history of the novel and realistic fiction. It includes a Holmes short story for it's course reading.)

16. Could this book have used a tougher editor?

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

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Accused (Rosato & Associates, 12)
Lisa Scottoline, 2013
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250054531

Summary
New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Lisa Scottoline revolutionized crime fiction when she introduced her all-female law firm of Rosato & Associates, thrilling readers with her twisty, fast-paced plots and capturing their hearts with her cast of strong and relatable female characters.

Now Bennie Rosato, Mary DiNunzio, Judy Carrier, and Anne Murphy are back with all cylinders firing in Accused.

Mary Dinuzio has just been promoted to partner and is about to take on her most unusual case yet, brought to the firm by a thirteen-year-old genius with a penchant for beekeeping. Allegra Gardner’s sister Fiona was murdered six years ago, and it seemed like an open-and-shut case: the accused, Lonnie Stall, was seen fleeing the scene; his blood was on Fiona and her blood was on him; most damningly, Lonnie Stall pleaded guilty.

But Allegra believes Lonnie is innocent and has been wrongly imprisoned. The Gardner family is one of the most powerful in the country and Allegra’s parents don’t believe in reopening the case, so taking it on is risky. But the Rosato & Associates firm can never resist an underdog. Was justice really served all those years ago? It will take a team of unstoppable female lawyers, plus one thirteen-year-old genius, to find out. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 1, 1955
• Where—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Edgar Award
• Currently—lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Lisa Scottoline is the New York Times bestselling author and Edgar award-winning author of some two dozen novels and several nonfiction books. She also writes a weekly column with her daughter Francesca Serritella for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled "Chick Wit" which is a witty and fun take on life from a woman's perspective.

These stories, along with many other never-before-published stories, have been collected in four books including their most recent, Have a Nice Guilt Trip, and the earlier, Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim, Best Friends, Occasional Enemies, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog, which has been optioned for TV, and My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space.

Lisa reviews popular fiction and non-fiction, and her reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer. Lisa has served as President of Mystery Writers of America and has taught a course she developed, "Justice and Fiction" at The University of Pennsylvania Law School, her alma mater.

Lisa is a regular and much sought after speaker at library and corporate events. Lisa has over 30 million copies of her books in print and is published in over 35 countries. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets, and she wouldn't have it any other way.

Lisa's books have landed on all the major bestseller lists including the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, and Look Again was named "One of the Best Novels of the Year" by the Washington Post, and one of the best books in the world as part of World Book Night 2013.

Lisa's novels are known for their emotionality and their warm and down-to-earth characters, which resonate with readers and reviewers long after they have finished the books. When writing about Lisa’s Rosato & Associates series, Janet Maslin of the New York Times applauds Lisa's books as "punchy, wisecracking thrillers" whose "characters are earthy, fun and self-deprecating" and distinguishes her as having "one of the best-branded franchise styles in current crime writing."

Recognition
Lisa's contributions through her writing has been recognized by organizations throughout the country. She is the recipient of the Edgar Award, the Mystery Writer's of America most prestigious honor, the Fun, Fearless, Fiction Award by Cosmopolitan Magazine, and named a PW Innovator by Publisher's Weekly.

Lisa was honored with AudioFile's Earphones Award and named Voice of the Year for her recording of her non-fiction book, Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. The follow up collection, My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space has garnered both Lisa and her daughter, Francesca, an Earphones Award as well. In addition, she has been honored with a Distinguished Author Award from Scranton University, and a "Paving the Way" award from the University of Pennsylvania, Women in Business.  

Personal
Lisa's accomplishments all pale in comparison to what she considers her greatest achievement, raising, as a single mom, her beautiful (a completely unbiased opinion) daughter, an honors graduate of Harvard, author, and columnist, who is currently working on her first novel.

Lisa believes in writing what you know, and she puts so much of herself into her books. What you may or may not learn about Lisa from her books is that...
♦ she is an incredibly generous person
♦ an engaging and entertaining speaker
♦ a die-hard Eagles fan
♦ a good cook.
♦ She loves the color pink, her Ipod has everything from U2 to Sinatra to 50 Cent, she is proud to be an American, and nothing makes her happier than spending time with her daughter.   

Dogs
Lisa is also a softie when it comes to her furry family. Nothing can turn Lisa from a professional, career-minded author, to a mushy, sweet-talking, ball-throwing woman like her beloved dogs. Although she has owned and loves various dog breeds, including her amazing goldens, she has gone crazy for her collection of King Charles Spaniels.

Lisa first fell in love with the breed when Francesca added her Blehneim Cavalier, Pip, to the mix. This prompted Lisa to get her own, and she started with the adorable, if not anatomically correct (Lisa wrote a "Chick Wit" column about this), Little Tony, her first male dog. Little Tony is a black and tan Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

But Lisa couldn't stop at just one and soon added her little Peach, a Blehneim King Charles Cavalier. Lisa is now beyond thrilled to be raising Peach’s puppies, Daniel Boone and Kit Carson, and for daily puppy pictures, be sure to follow Lisa on Facebook or Twitter. Herding together the entire pack is Lisa’s spunky spit-fire of a Corgi named Ruby. The solitude of writing isn't very quiet with her furry family, but she wouldn't have it any other way.

Cats
Not to be outshined by their canine counterparts, Lisa's cats, Vivi and Mimi, are the princesses of the house, and have no problem keeping the rest of the brood in line. Vivi is a grey and white beauty and is more aloof than her cuddly, black and white partner, Mimi.   When Lisa’s friend and neighbor passed, Lisa adopted his beloved cat, Spunky, a content and beautiful ball of fur.

Chickens
Lisa loves the coziness of her farmhouse, and no farm is complete without chickens. Lisa has recently added a chicken coop and has populated it with chicks of different types, and is overjoyed with each and every colorful egg they produce. Watching over Lisa's chicks are her horses, which gladly welcomed the chicks and all the new excitement they bring. (Author bio adapted from the author's website.)

Visit the author's website.
Follow Lisa on Facebook.

Book Reviews
Her new novel, Accused, which just came out, is Scottoline in top form. The book continues her series of mystery-thrillers about Rosato and Associates, an all-female law firm. (Scottoline knows from whence she speaks: she practiced law herself, having graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania law school.)
Time

Mary DiNunzio faces two daunting changes in bestseller Scottoline’s intriguing 12th novel featuring the all-woman Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates (after 2010’s Think Twice).... Myriad legal and ethical problems complicate the case [at hand].... Mary follows her heart and gut into danger in this welcome series return after three stand-alones.
Publishers Weekly

Scottoline returns to the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Associates, with Mary DiNunzio now a partner. Thirteen-year-old Allegra Gardner wants to hire the firm, and she has the trust fund to do it. The murder of her sister, Fiona, six years ago still haunts Allegra.... Mary’s naivete and belief in justice are heartwarming and believable, and all the characters are recognizable without being cliched. This is a long-awaited (since Think Twice, 2010), solid entry into a terrific series. —Stacy Alesi
Booklist

After a three-year break to write barn-burning crossover thrillers, Scottoline returns to...Rosato & Associates, with an utterly characteristic spin on that old chestnut, the jailed innocent wrongfully convicted of murder.... Mary's sleuthing...is surprisingly sober, methodical and uninteresting.... [L]ess thrills and more detection than most of the firm's cases: a showcase for a heroine who aptly describes herself as "Nancy Drew with a J.D."
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In Accused, 13-year-old Allegra comes to Rosato & Associates looking for help. How do you feel about Mary taking on the case despite the parents’ objections? Of the four lawyers, why was Mary the right one for Allegra? As a society, do we take teens seriously enough and listen closely enough to what they have to say?

2. Mary and Bennie each have a different business style. For Mary, business is personal. How is that both beneficial and detrimental to Mary in her career? Do you relate more to Bennie or Mary’s business philosphy? Who would you rather have as your lawyer?

3. Mary is showing signs that she is reluctant to get married. What do you think is holding her back? How much of it can you contribute to pre-wedding jitters, or do you think there is more to it? Do you think it’s a problem when the wife makes more than her husband, or are we past that as a society? is Mary making too much of their power and financial imbalance—or is she making too little of it? Do you think their marriage will happen—and will it succeed? Why or why not?

4. Judy and Mary’s friendship gets tested when Mary becomes Judy’s boss. How do you think this changes their relationship? What advice would you give to Mary on how to handle the situation? Have you ever worked for a friend? Is it a good idea, or a bad idea? Why?

5. Do you think Lonnie was treated fairly by the justice system? How do you feel about Lonnie pleading guilty on the advice of his lawyer? Do you think it was the right thing for him to do given the facts of the case and the situation he was in? How big a part do you think race and social class played in the case?

6. How do you think Fiona’s death affected each family member? Who do you think handled it the best? Who handled it the worst? Do you think Allegra’s parents are still in denial, and in what ways do you think the death of a child changes a family, specifically the dynamics of the family?

7. The wedding dress! What do you think Mary should have done about the battle over her wedding dress? How much of a say do you think parents should have in their children’s weddings? Does it make a difference if the parent’s are paying for the wedding? In what ways do you think a bride shoud cater to her requests of her family, and which things should she do according to her plans, no matter what anyone else wants or thinks?

8. Allegra is a 13-year-old genius. Doesn’t everyone want a genius for a child? Why or why not? Children are bullied and ostracized for so many reasons, both good and bad. What message should parents send their children about trying to fit in? How do children balance the fine line between embracing who they are, yet, fitting in with their peers?

9. Allegra’s parents took a very strong stand, even though it went against their own daughter. What do you think of them as parents? Did you agree or disagree with them? Why? What do you think motivated them to try and stop Mary from investigating the murder? Did you like them, or dislike them? Why?

10. This is Lisa’s first Rosato & Associates book in several years, and she was thrilled that so many readers were anxiously awaiting their return. What do you think it is about the characters that readers relate to? Which of the characters would you like to hear more from?
(Questions from author's website. )

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The Address
Fiona Davis, 2017
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524741990

Summary
Fiona Davis, author of The Dollhouse, returns with a compelling novel about the thin lines between love and loss, success and ruin, passion and madness, all hidden behind the walls of The Dakota—New York City’s most famous residence.

After a failed apprenticeship, working her way up to head housekeeper of a posh London hotel is more than Sara Smythe ever thought she’d make of herself.

But when a chance encounter with Theodore Camden, one of the architects of the grand New York apartment house The Dakota, leads to a job offer, her world is suddenly awash in possibility—no mean feat for a servant in 1884.

The opportunity to move to America, where a person can rise above one’s station. The opportunity to be the female manager of The Dakota, which promises to be the greatest apartment house in the world. And the opportunity to see more of Theo, who understands Sara like no one else …and is living in The Dakota with his wife and three young children.

In 1985, Bailey Camden is desperate for new opportunities. Fresh out of rehab, the former party girl and interior designer is homeless, jobless, and penniless.

Two generations ago, Bailey’s grandfather was the ward of famed architect Theodore Camden. But the absence of a genetic connection means Bailey won’t see a dime of the Camden family’s substantial estate. Instead, her "cousin" Melinda—Camden’s biological great-granddaughter—will inherit almost everything.

So when Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her lavish Dakota apartment, Bailey jumps at the chance, despite her dislike of Melinda’s vision. The renovation will take away all the character and history of the apartment Theodore Camden himself lived in… and died in, after suffering multiple stab wounds by a madwoman named Sara Smythe, a former Dakota employee who had previously spent seven months in an insane asylum on Blackwell’s Island.

One hundred years apart, Sara and Bailey are both tempted by and struggle against the golden excess of their respective ages — for Sara, the opulence of a world ruled by the Astors and Vanderbilts; for Bailey, the free-flowing drinks and cocaine in the nightclubs of New York City — and take refuge and solace in the Upper West Side’s gilded fortress.

But a building with a history as rich — and often tragic — as The Dakota’s can’t hold its secrets forever, and what Bailey discovers in its basement could turn everything she thought she knew about Theodore Camden—and the woman who killed him—on its head.

With rich historical detail, nuanced characters, and gorgeous prose, Fiona Davis once again delivers a compulsively readable novel that peels back the layers of not only a famed institution, but the lives—and lies—of the beating hearts within. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1966-67
• Where—Canada
• Raised—New Jersey, Utah, and Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., College of William and Mary; M.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York

Fiona Davis was born in Canada and raised in New Jersey, Utah, and Texas. She began her career in New York City as an actress, where she worked on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional theater. After 10 years, she changed careers, working as an editor and writer and specializing in health, fitness, nutrition, dance and theater.

She’s a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and is based in in New York City. She loves nothing better than hitting farmer’s markets on weekends in search of the perfect tomato, and traveling to foreign cities steeped in history, like London and Cartagena. The Dollhouse (2016) is her first novel; her second is The Address (2017) (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
A delicious tale of love, lies and madness.
People Magazine

[C]ompelling, historically minded fiction with unexpected — and entertaining — twists and turns…the novel delights.
Ms. Magazine

Lively and detail rich…with a thread of mystery that makes it easy to enjoy, hard to put down.
Family Circle

Spanning over 100 years, Fiona Davis’ mystery is packed with deceit.
Us Weekly

Davis overlays the two histories beautifully.… But while the setting is captivating, the facts…tend toward the melodramatic. Readers interested in Gilded Age New York will appreciate this light historical drama, but predictable moments and a convenient resolution will leave others wanting.
Publishers Weekly

With her nimble writing style, Davis makes pithy commentary on gender, social and economic inequality in both eras.… This thought-provoking book makes you wonder what Edith Wharton would have made of these Camdens and pseudo-Camdens. Thankfully, Davis is here to tell us.
BookPage

Though her characters lack depth…the historical asides…are fun to read. The writing is only serviceable, but this jam-packed narrative unfolds at a brisk clip — even if, in the end, the convoluted plot turns have a dizzying effect.
Kirkus Reviews

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

1. Whose story and/or character engaged you more, Sara Smythe's or Baily Camden's … and why? What similarities do you find between the two young women? Overall, are the characters well developed?

2. What does the novel reveal about the position women occupied at the end of the 19th century?

3. How well do you think Fiona Davis deals with the sections regarding Sara's mental illness and its treatment in the 19th century? How well does she handle Bailey's in the 20th?

4. Talk about the changes within the Dakota from in 1884 to 1985. Is the author's inclusion of historical and architectural detail of interest to you …or does it bog down the pace?

5. Do you find that the shifting back and forth between timeframes enhances … or detracts from your reading experience? Discuss the differences and/or similarities between the Gilded Age and the "greed is good" age.

6. Bailey disapproves of Melinda's desire to update her apartment within the Dakota. What in particular does Bailey dislike? Should residents living in an older building honor its historical integrity, or do they have a right to update, even remake, their living spaces? What do you think?

7. How surprised were you by the various plot twists in the novel. What about the twist at the end, caught off guard … or saw it coming?

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

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Adele
Leila Slimani, 2019
Penguin Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143132189

Summary
From the bestselling author of The Perfect Nanny—one of the 10 Best Books of the Year of The New York Times Book Review—her prizewinning novel about a sex-addicted woman in Paris

She wants only one thing: to be wanted.

Adele appears to have the perfect life: She is a successful journalist in Paris who lives in a beautiful apartment with her surgeon husband and their young son.

But underneath the surface, she is bored—and consumed by an insatiable need for sex.

Driven less by pleasure than compulsion, Adele organizes her day around her extramarital affairs, arriving late to work and lying to her husband about where she's been, until she becomes ensnared in a trap of her own making.

Suspenseful, erotic, and electrically charged, Adele is a captivating exploration of addiction, sexuality, and one woman's quest to feel alive. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Where—Rabat, Morocco
• Education—Ecole superieure de commerce de Paris-Europe
• Awards—Prix Goncourt (France); La Mamounia (Moroccan)
• Currently—lives in Paris, France

Leïla Slimani is a Franco-Moroccan writer and journalist, who was awarded the 2016 Prix Goncourt for her novel Chanson douce. The novel was published in 2018 in the U.S. as The Perfect Nanny.

Life and work
Slimani was born in Rabat, Morocco, and left at the age of 17 for Paris to study political science and media studies at the Sciences Po and Ecole superieure de commerce de Paris-Europe (ESCP). After her graduation she began to work as a journalist for the magazine Jeune Afrique.

Slimani's first novel, Dans le jardin de l’ogre ("In the Garden of the Ogre"), published in 2014, won the Moroccan La Mamounia literary award. Two years later, Chanson douce was released, becoming a bestseller even before it was awarded the Prix Goncourt. That novel made Slimina the most-read author in France in 2016.

Slimani holds French and Moroccan citizenships. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/31/2018.)

Book Reviews
Although the misery is universal, this story is uniquely, and often amusingly, French.… Possibly because of the book's Frenchness, nothing about Adele's behavior is pathologized until the very last pages. She submits only belatedly to therapy. Nobody tells her that she has a disease or ought to spend some time leafing through the D.S.M. Instead, Slimani approaches Adele's habits as a study in the art of tending a secret.… Adele has glanced at the covenant of modern womanhood—the idea that you can have it all or should at least die trying—and detonated it.
Molly Young - New York Times Book Review

Bold, stylish and deeply felt.
Wall Street Journal

Written in prose of elegant but never bloodless neutrality.… [Adele] leads readers through the labyrinth of desire into an understanding of solitude, isolation and the search for authenticity as our common fate.
Independent (UK)

Displays an undeniable literary power.
L’Express (France)

A slim, compelling read, Adele examines topics ranging from marriage and motherhood to adultery, but the overarching theme is the notion of freedom.… The plot of Adele recalls Kundera’s masterwork [The Unbearable Lightness of Being].
Vanity Fair

The feverish spark of obsession licks at the corner of nearly every page.
Entertainment Weekly

Sensational.… In her novels, home and hearth are a furnace, not a haven. Families are groups in which power struggles are conducted in close quarters, and with gloves off.
Time

Exposes the dark desires of a seemingly normal woman.… Adele—and the reader—must come to terms with what it is we demand of women in modern times, and how those punishing requirements lead so many of us to crack and try and get autonomy through unorthodox means.
Nylon

[F]ascinating…. Though some readers might feel the novel waits too long to explore why its protagonist feels compelled to behave the way she does, this is nevertheless a skillful character study. Slimani’s ending is the perfect conclusion to this memorable snapshot of sex addiction.
Publishers Weekly

[A]rtful, edgy…Although some of the secondary characters lack depth, Adele has it in spades…. The book's denouement may frustrate readers—but then, that rather seems the point.… [A]n unflinching exploration of female self-sacrifice and the elusive nature of satisfaction.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. On page 121, Slimani writes of Adele, "She understood that desire was unimportant." What do you think this means? Why does Adele feel so compelled to have sex with different men?

2. Did your opinion of Adele change when you learned more about her relationship with her mother?

3. Every so often, it seems that Adele is going to turn over a new leaf. For example, on page 48, Slimani writes, "She is going to clean up her life. One by one, she is going to jettison her anxieties. She is going to do her duty." Do you think she really wants to get better? Do you think she ever will?

4. Was Richard right to try to create a sense of routine and security for Adele toward the end of the novel? What would you have done in his place?

5. How did you interpret the novel’s ending? Do you think Adele will come back?

6. Did you feel sympathy for Adele? What about for Richard?

7. Slimani has said that this novel was loosely based on the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a French politician and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who said that he was suffering from sex addiction after being charged with sexual assault in 2011. What do you think of Slimani’s decision to make the main character a woman?

8. Slimani’s first novel, The Perfect Nanny, was about a seemingly flawless nanny who ended up killing her two young charges. If you read The Perfect Nanny, did you notice any similarities between the two novels?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Admissions
Meg Mitchell Moore, 2015
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385540049

Summary
The frazzled pressure cooker of modern life as a seemingly perfect family comes undone by a few desperate measures, long-buried secrets—and college applications!

The Hawthorne family has it all. Great jobs, a beautiful house in one of the most affluent areas of northern California, and three charming kids with perfectly straight teeth. And then comes their eldest daughter's senior year of high school . . .

Firstborn Angela Hawthorne is a straight-A student and star athlete, with extracurricular activities coming out of her ears and a college application that's not going to write itself. She's set her sights on Harvard, her father's alma mater, and like a dog with a chew toy, Angela won't let up until she's basking in crimson-colored glory.

Except her class rank as valedictorian is under attack, she's suddenly losing her edge at cross-country, and she can't help but daydream about the cute baseball player in English class. Of course Angela knows the time put into her schoolgirl crush would be better spent coming up with a subject for her term paper—which, along with her college essay and community service hours has a rapidly approaching deadline.

Angela's mother, Nora, is similarly stretched to the limit, juggling parent-teacher meetings, carpool, and a real-estate career where she caters to the mega rich and super-picky buyers and sellers of the Bay Area.

The youngest daughter, Maya, still can't read at the age of eight; the middle-child, Cecily, is no longer the happy-go-lucky kid she once was; and the dad, Gabe, seems oblivious to the mounting pressures at home because a devastating secret of his own might be exposed.

A few ill-advised moves put the Hawthorne family on a heedless collision course that's equal parts achingly real and delightfully screwball.

Sharp and topical, The Admissions shows that if you pull at a loose thread, even the sturdiest of lives start to unravel at the seams of high achievement. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971-72
• Raised—on military bases around the US
• Education—B.A., Providence College; M.A., New York University
• Currently—Newburyport, Massachusetts

Meg Mitchell Moore is an American author of several novels, including her most widely known, Admissions (2015). With a father in the U.S. Navy, she grew up on military bases around the country, eventually spending her senior year in Winter Harbor, Maine, where she graduated from high school.

From there Mitchell went to Providence College to earn her B.A. and spend a junior year abroad at Oxford University. Then it was on to New York University for her M.A. in English literature.

Following her school years, Mitchell moved to Boston, becoming a writer for technology magazines and, later, for a number of business and consumer magazines.

When her husband took a new job, the family—with an infant daughter and another on the way—moved to Vermont. It was a turning point for Mitchell, who eventually applied and was accepted into the storied Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at Middlebury College.

As she says on her website, she took up writing at a very young age: the moment she "figured out how the cursive T and F were different. So while Mitchell always wanted to write, Bread Loaf convinced her that she needed to.

Her debut The Arrivals came out in 2011, followed the next year by So Far Away. Her third book, Admissions, was published in 2015. Regarding the length parents will go to get their children into top colleges, the novel was inspired by living in California for a single year. There Mitchell witnessed parents who would do what it took, no matter the toll on the family, to ensure their children got the best (and most expensive) shot in life. Admissions was well received: Publishers Weekly called it "a page turner as well as an insightful character study."

A fourth novel, The Captain's Daughter (2017), takes place in Maine, a setting loosely based on Winter Harbor where Mitchell spent her last year in high school. (Adapted from various online sources and the author's webpage.)

Book Reviews
[S]tellar.... Moore successfully conveys how the quest for excellence spares no one in this industrious clan: even cheerful middle child, Cecily, loses her sense of self after a mistake costs her dance team. This is a page-turner as well as an insightful character study.
Publishers Weekly

[Meg Mitchell Moore's] unique voice and unflinching yet sympathetic perspective combine to create a story that is fresh and unexpectedly entertaining. Moore presents her characters in all their flawed glory and lovable short-sighted determination, spinning out the story of one family’s collapse and rebirth with energy and wit. Part thought-provoking commentary, part zany satire on the definition of success and the choices some are willing to make to achieve it, this is a book that is sure to earn a good deal of attention.
RT Book Reviews

The members of a high-achieving Marin County family face their fears: applying to college, blowing a deal, revealing their secrets.... Moore has an excellent eye for the minutiae of upper-middle-class life, but it gets exhausting immersing yourself in another family's worries on top of your own. Moore's readers may find this book cuts a little too close to home.
Kirkus Reviews

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Adultery
Paulo Coelho, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101874080

Summary
In the latest novel from Paulo Coelho, a woman attempts to overcome midlife ennui by rediscovering herself in a passionate relationship with a man who had been a friend in her youth.

A woman in her thirties begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. In everybody's eyes, she has a perfect life: happy marriage, children, and a career. Yet what she feels is an enormous apathy.

All that changes when she encounters a successful politician who had, years earlier, been her high school boyfriend. As she rediscovers the passion missing from her life, she will face a life-altering choice. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1947
• Where—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Education—Left law school in second year
• Awards—Crystal Award (Switzerland), 1999; Rio Branco
Order (Brazil), 2000; Legion d’Honneur (France), 2001;
Brazilian Academy of Letters (Brazil), 2002
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Paulo Coelho's books have been translated into 56 languages, topped bestseller lists throughout the world, and scored him such celebrity fans as Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Madonna; yet for Brazilian publishing phenom Paulo Colho, the road to success has been strewn with a number of obstacles, many of them rooted in his troubled past.

Personal life
As a youth, Coelho was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, a professional engineer. When he rebelled, expressing his intentions to become a writer, his parents had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was subjected to electro-shock therapy. He left home to join the 1970s countercultural revolution, experimenting with drugs, dabbling in black magic, and getting involved in Brazil's bohemian art and music scene. He teamed with rock musician Raul Seixas for an extremely successful songwriting partnership that changed the face of Brazilian pop—and put a lot of money in Coelho's pockets. He also joined an anti-capitalist organization called the Alternative Society which attracted the attention of Brazil's military dictatorship. Marked down as a subversive, he was imprisoned and tortured.

Amazingly, Coelho survived these horrific experiences. He left the hippie lifestyle behind, went to work in the record industry, and began to write, but without much success. Then, in the mid-1980s, during a trip to Europe, he met a man, an unnamed mentor he refers to only as "J," who inducted him into Regnum Agnus Mundi, a secret society that blends Catholicism with a sort of New Age mysticism. At J's urging, Coelho journeyed across el Camino de Santiago, the legendary Spanish road traversed by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He chronicled this life-changing, 500-mile journey—the culmination of decades of soul-searching—in The Pilgrimage, published in 1987.

Writings
The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist, the inspirational fable for which he is best known. The first edition sold so poorly the publisher decided not to reprint it. Undaunted, Coelho moved to a larger publishing house that seemed more interested in his work. When his third novel, 1990's Brida, proved successful, the resulting media buzz carried The Alchemist all the way to the top of the charts. Released in the U.S. by HarperCollins in 1993, The Alchemist became a word-of-mouth sensation, turning Coelho into a cult hero.

Since then, he has gone on to create his own distinct literary brand—an amalgam of allegory and self-help filled with spiritual themes and symbols. In his novels, memoirs, and aphoristic nonfiction, he returns time and again to the concepts of quest and transformation and has often said that writing has helped connect him to his soul.

While his books have not always been reviewed favorably and have often become the subject of strong cultural and philosophical debate, there is no doubt that this self-described "pilgrim writer" has struck a chord in readers everywhere. In the 2009 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records, Coelho was named the most translated living author—with William Shakespeare the most translated of all time!

Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Few writers are able to accomplish what Coelho can in just two to four weeks—which is how long it takes for him to write an entire novel.

• Before become a bestselling novelist, Coelho was a writer of a different sort. He co-wrote more than 60 songs with Brazilian musician Raul Seixas.

• Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, a non-profit organization funded by his royalties that raises money for underprivileged children and the elderly in his homeland of Brazil.

• Coelho has practiced archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps him to unwind.

• In writing, Coelho says "I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation."

• Coelho loves almost everything about his work, except conferences. "I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul."

• When asked what book most influenced his life, he answered:

The Bible, which contains all the stories and all the guidance humankind needs. (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Coelho milks each opportunity to preach—by way of endless interior monologues, quotes from Scriptureand talky scenes—sermons about love, marriage, sexual attraction, evolutionarytheory and every other imponderable he can muster. Occasional interestingtidbits about the novel's setting, the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud,are not enough to redeem the pervasive mawkishness.More trite truthiness from Coelho.
Publishers Weekly

[A]n interview with a writer...sets Linda on an increasingly out-of-control cure for her restless boredom.... Coelho...is perhaps too successful. Linda's adultery, more tedious than convincing, will fail to convince the reader to accept her guilt-free rationale for her behavior. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal

Coelho milksceach opportunity to preach...sermons about love, marriage, sexual attraction, evolutionary theory and every other imponderable he can muster. Occasional interesting tidbits about the novel's setting, the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud,are not enough to redeem the pervasive mawkishness. More trite truthiness from Coelho.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In the beginning of the novel, Linda describes herself as risk-averse. How does the concept of risk taking factor into the protagonist’s actions throughout the novel? By the end of the novel, do you think that she associates risk with reward?

2. How is love defined throughout Adultery? On page 90, Linda contemplates requited versus unrequited love. Which type of love do you believe is more transformative in the novel?

3. Throughout the novel, the protagonist attempts to articulate what her unhappiness feels like: “an animal who can’t quite understand how it got caught in the trap,” a “spongy black hole.” How did these analogies help to shape your understanding of her mental state? Did you feel sympathy for the character throughout your reading experience?

4. On page 131, Linda claims she feels “comfortable in my madness.” Are there points where you feel that she is losing touch with reality or giving in to delusional thinking?

5. Why is Jacob so attractive to Linda? Is it the illicitness of their affair that excites her, or does she have a genuine appreciation for his personality? What aspects of his personality are most appealing to her?

6. On page 125, the protagonist emphasizes the importance of “keeping up appearances. ” How does that need to exhibit a normal, happy life arise throughout Adultery? Where in the novel do the boundaries between public and private personas become blurred?

7. Discuss the significance of the novel Frankenstein throughout Adultery. How is the scientist/monster dichotomy reflected in the Linda’s own personality and actions?

8. On page 158, the protagonist laments that all she feels is “insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing.” Why do you think the author chose to direct that sentiment toward the reader? Are there other places in the novel wherein the protagonist assumes the reader feels the same way she does?

9. Examine the scene in which Marianne and Jacob dine with Linda and her husband. Based on what was said, do you think that Marianne had any suspicion about her husband’s affair? Or did Linda’s anxiety about the situation color her perception of Marianne’s words?

10. Discussions regarding drug usage in Switzerland occur several times in the book. Before going to meet the drug dealer, Linda notes that the Swiss “both prohibit and tolerate” drugs at the same time (page 116). What does this contradiction say about Swiss culture?

11. Adultery is set in Switzerland, and mentions of Swiss culture pepper the narrative. Discuss what you learned about Geneva and Swiss culture. Did anything surprise you? Are there any connections to be made between the discussion of cultural norms in Swiss culture and the protagonist’s actions?

12. As her affair progresses, Linda’s actions and thoughts take a darker, more obsessive tone. Did your perception of her change throughout the novel? How did you react to her decision to “destroy” Marianne?

13.Adultery is a novel that explores the line between morality and immorality. How does Linda define morality? How does her husband? What actions—if any—would you deem immoral?

14. It could be argued that Adulteryy is about examining selfhood. How does Linda’s understanding of herself and her desires change by the end of the novel? What does her affair teach her about herself? About her relationship with her husband? Do you think she regrets her affair?

15. Discuss the scene in which the protagonist and her husband go paragliding (page 241). How does that experience transform her? Why do you think she cries after she lands?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Advise and Consent
Allen Drury, 1959
Doubleday
616 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385054195

Summary
Winner, 1960 Pulitizer Prize

Advise and Consent is a study of political animals in their natural habitat and is universally recognized as THE Washington novel. It begins with Senate confirmation hearings for a liberal Secretary of State and concludes two weeks later, after debate and controversy have exploded this issue into a major crisis. (From the publisher.)

Over the course of the novel, we follow four of the primary players in the U.S. Senate: Bob Munson, the affable and skilled Senate Majority Leader; Seab Cooley, the hornery Senator from South Carolina who carries a personal grudge against the nominee; Brigham Anderson, the talented and idealistic young Senate from Utah who heads up the subcommittee hearings; and Orrin Knox, Senator from Michigan who burns with an intense rivalry toward the man who sits in the White House.

Each man, and others, must make a decision to follow their party dictate or their own moral compass. Fifty years after it was written Advise and Consent still speaks to us about the difficult trade-offs and compromise at the heart of governing.

Author Bio
• Birth—September 2, 1918
• Raised—Porterville, California
• Death—September 2, 1998
• Where—Tiburon, California
• Education—B.A., Stanford University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize

Allen Stuart Drury was a U.S. novelist. He wrote the 1959 novel Advise and Consent, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1960.

He was born to Alden Monteith Drury (1895-1975), a real estate broker and insurance agent, and Flora Allen (1894-1973), a legislative representative for the California Parent-Teacher Association. Drury's early American descendants were early immigrants to Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Allen Stuart Drury grew up in Porterville, California, and earned his B.A. at Stanford University in 1939. In the 1990s, he wrote three novels inspired by his experiences at Stanford: Toward What Bright Glory?, Into What Far Harbor?, and Public Men. After graduating from Stanford, Drury went to work for the Tulare Bee in Porterville, where he won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. Drury enlisted in the U.S. Army on July 25, 1942 in Los Angeles and trained as an infantry soldier.

A Senate Journal
In late 1943, he was a 25-year old army veteran looking for work. A position as the United States Senate correspondent for United Press soon provided Drury not only with gainful employment, but also with the opportunity "to be of some slight assistance in making my fellow countrymen better acquainted with their Congress and particularly their Senate."

In addition to fulfilling his duties as a reporter, Drury also kept a journal of his views of the Senate and individual senators. Drury freely offered his first impressions of many senators: "Alben Barkley, the Majority Leader, acts like a man who is working awfully hard and awfully earnestly at a job he doesn't particularly like."

He considered Minority Leader Robert Taft "one of the strongest and ablest men here," and felt that "Guy Gillette of Iowa and Hugh Butler of Nebraska vie for the title of Most Senatorial. Both are model solons, white-haired, dignified, every inch the glamorous statesmen."

Harry Truman was featured as his position changed from junior senator from Missouri to vice president to president in the course of Drury's narrative. Given the period it covered, it is natural that Drury's diary devoted considerable attention to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his contentious relations with the Senate. Drury wrote: "If he appears in a critical light, that is because this is how we saw him from the Hill."

In addition to the chamber's personalities, Drury's journal captured the events, large and small, of the 78th and 79th Congresses. He characterized this period as "the days of the War Senate on its way to becoming the Peace Senate."

At times the events Drury described had a national impact, such as FDR's death or the Senate's consideration of the United Nations Charter. In other cases, the effects were felt more clearly within the Senate community, such as the resignation of Majority Leader Barkley, the Senate's rejection of a congressional expense allowance, or the death of Secretary of the Senate Edwin Halsey.

Although written in the mid-1940s, Drury's diary was not published until 1963. A Senate Journal found an audience in part because of the great success of Advise and Consent, Drury's 1959 novel about the Senate's consideration of a controversial nominee for Secretary of State.

Later works
Drury's greatest success was Advise and Consent, which was made into a film in 1962. The book was partly inspired by the suicide of Wyoming Senator Lester C. Hunt. It spent 102 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

Drury followed Advise and Consent with several sequels. A Shade of Difference is set a year after Advise and Consent. Drury then turned his attention to the next presidential election after those events with Capable of Honor and Preserve and Protect. He then wrote two alternative sequels based on two different outcomes of an assassination attack in an earlier work: Come Nineveh, Come Tyre and The Promise of Joy.

In 1971, Drury published The Throne of Saturn, a science fiction novel about the first attempt at sending a manned mission to Mars. He dedicated the work "To the US Astronauts and those who help them fly." Political characters in the book are archetypal rather than comfortably human. The book carries a strong anti-leftist/anti-communist flavor. The book has a lot to say about interference in the space program by leftist Americans.

Having wrapped up his political series by 1975, Drury began a new one with the 1977 novel Anna Hastings, more a novel about journalism than politics. He returned to the timeline in 1979, with the political novel Mark Coffin U.S.S. (though the main relationship between the two books was that Hastings was a minor character in Mark Coffin U.S.S.'s sequels). It was succeeded, by the two-part The Hill of Summer and The Roads of Earth, which are true sequels to Mark Coffin U.S.S. He also wrote stand-alone novels, Decision (about the Supreme Court) and Pentagon, as well as several other fiction and non-fiction works.

Drury's political novels have been described as page-turners, set against the Cold War, with an aggressive and determined Soviet Union seeking to undermine the U.S.

Death
Drury lived in Tiburon, California, from 1964 until his 1998 death of cardiac arrest. Drury had completed his 20th novel, Public Men set at Stanford, just two weeks before his death. He died on 2 September 1998 at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco, California on his eightieth birthday. Drury was never married.[ (From .)

Book Reviews
(Older books have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)

I can recall no other novel in which there is so well presented a president's dilemma when his awful responsibility for the nation's interest conflicts with a personal code of good morals.
New York Times

Decide high policy, legislate for the good of the country, run the government, and play nursemaid...too. How do they expect us to do any of it?

Is Munson right? Do we expect too much of our elected officials? Or should the men and women we send to Washington be responsive to our individual needs? Who gains access to Senators anyway?

10. Talk in particular about Brigham Anderson's decision. Could he have taken another path? What would you have advised him, given the era in which the events of the book take place.

11. Does evil occur in this book? If so, who is responsible for setting it in motion? If not, why not?

12. SPOILER ALERT: What kind of president do you think Harley Hudson will make? Will he live up to the job and be capable of making sound decisions?

13. After reading Advise and Consent, how do you view politicians—at least those portrayed in this book? Do you see them as attempting to walk a fine line between their ideals and their ambitions? Do you feel their personal ambition frequently overtakes their ideals? Do you feel that most try to legislate for the good of the nation? Or does staying in office, "careerism" take precedence over devising fair and workable national policy?

14. Are today's politicians different than the way Drury wrote about them in 1957-58?

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

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The Affair (Jack Reacher series, 16)
Lee Child, 2011
Random House
608 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440246305

Summary
Everything starts somewhere.... For elite military cop Jack Reacher, that somewhere was Carter Crossing, Mississippi, way back in 1997. A lonely railroad track. A crime scene. A coverup.

A young woman is dead, and solid evidence points to a soldier at a nearby military base. But that soldier has powerful friends in Washington.

Reacher is ordered undercover—to find out everything he can, to control the local police, and then to vanish. Reacher is a good soldier. But when he gets to Carter Crossing, he finds layers no one saw coming, and the investigation spins out of control.

Local sheriff Elizabeth Deveraux has a thirst for justice—and an appetite for secrets. Uncertain they can trust one another, Reacher and Deveraux reluctantly join forces. Reacher works to uncover the truth, while others try to bury it forever. The conspiracy threatens to shatter his faith in his mission, and turn him into a man to be feared.

A novel of unrelenting suspense that could only come from the pen of #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child, The Affair is the start of the Reacher saga, a thriller that takes Reacher—and his readers—right to the edge...and beyond. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 30, 1953
• Raised—Coventry, England, UK
• Education—Sheffield University
• Awards—Anthony and the Barry Awards for Best First
Mystery; Barry and Nero Awards for Best Novel
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA

Lee Child, whose real name is Jim Grant, is a British thriller writer. He is the author of 16 Jack Reacher thrillers, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Worth Dying For, 61 Hours, Gone Tomorrow, Nothing to Lose, and Bad Luck and Trouble. His debut, Killing Floor, won both the Anthony and the Barry awards for Best First Mystery, and The Enemy won both the Barry and the Nero awards for Best Novel. Foreign rights in the Jack Reacher series have sold in more than fifty territories.

Each of Child's novels follows the adventures of a former American Military Policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States.

Though Grant was born in Coventry, England, his parents moved him and his three brothers to Handsworth Wood in Birmingham when he was four years old, so the boys could get a better education. Grant attended Cherry Orchard Primary School in Handsworth Wood until the age of 11 and was one of the cleverest boys in his year. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, also the alma mater of J. R. R. Tolkien and Enoch Powell. His father was a civil servant and his younger brother, Andrew Grant, is also a thriller novelist.

Some of Grant's early influences include Enid Blyton, W.E. Johns, and Alistair MacLean.

In 1974, at age 20, Grant attended law school in Sheffield at Sheffield University, though he had no intention of entering the legal profession and, during his student days, worked backstage in a theatre. Instead, he took a job in commercial television after graduating.

In January 2012, Grant donated £10,000 towards a new vehicle for Brecon Mountain Rescue Team. He offered the donation because his brother is a senior member of the team. The team's former control vehicle was written off after a collision in 2011.

His wife Jane is from New York.

Grant joined Granada Television, part of the UK's ITV Network, in Manchester as a presentation director. There he was involved with shows including Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. Grant was involved in the transmission of more than 40,000 hours of programming for Granada, writing thousands of commercials, news stories, and trailers. He stayed with Granada 1977-1995 and ended his career there with two years as a trade union shop steward.

After being let go from his job because of corporate restructuring, he decided he wanted to start writing novels, stating they are "the purest form of entertainment." In 1997, his first novel, Killing Floor, was published and he moved to the United States in the summer of 1998.

He has said that he chose the name Reacher for the central character in his novels because he is himself tall and, in a supermarket (Asda in Kendal, Cumbria, when he was living in Kirkby Lonsdale), his wife Jane told him: "Hey, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket.... I thought, 'Reacher — good name.'" Some books in the Reacher series are written in first person, while others are written in the third person.

In 2007, Grant collaborated with 14 other writers to create the 17-part serial thriller The Chopin Manuscript narrated by Alfred Molina that was broadcast weekly on Audible.com from 25 September 2007 to 13 November 2007.

On 30 June 2008, it was announced that Lee Child would be taking up a Visiting Professorship at the University of Sheffield in the UK from November 2008. In 2009, Child funded 52 Jack Reacher scholarships for students at the university.

Child was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America in 2009. (From Wikipedia and Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Mr. Child's 16th book, The Affair, shakes up the status quo by delivering the Reacher creation myth…it presents his most colorful appearance in a long time. It establishes Reacher's idealistic but vengeful personality and lays out the rules by which he lives.
Janet Maslin - New York Times

With Reacher, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lee Child has created “a series that stands in the front rank of modern thrillers.
Washington Post

Child’s compelling 16th thriller featuring incorruptible vigilante Jack Reacher (after Worth Dying For) rewinds the clock to 1997 when Reacher was still a military cop and working on the case that led to his eventual break with the Army. Reacher must figure out whether the shocking murder of 27-year-old Janice May Chapman in Carter Crossing, Miss., has any connection with nearby Fort Kelham, where Army Rangers are trained. Reacher soon learns that two other women had their throats slit in the same way as Chapman, and the leading suspect is a Fort Kelham captain, whose father is a U.S. senator and die-hard Army supporter. Reacher knows all too well the case has political trouble written all over it—and he and his Army bosses quickly butt heads over how it should be handled. Readers expecting new insight or details into Reacher’s background will be disappointed, but they’ll find all the elements—solid action, wry humor, smart dialogue—that have made this series so popular.
Publishers Weekly

What turned career army cop Jack Reacher into the wandering and deadly version of a knight in rusted armor? In this 16th novel in the highly successful Reacher franchise, Child goes back to small-town Mississippi in 1997. Women have been murdered near a secret Ranger base. The Rangers are suspected, and the official investigation is a mess. Reacher is sent to town disguised as a bum to keep one eye on what might be a flawed army investigation, the other on a series of similar killings in the town, and if he had a third eye, he would use it to cover his back. Verdict: Exciting and suspenseful, with deceit and cover-ups, violence, and sex, this is another great entry in Child's compelling series. Reacher's many fans can only hope there will be many more. Highly recommended for anyone who likes intelligent, well-written, tense thrillers. To the dismay of series fans, the diminutive Tom Cruise is slated to play the six-foot-tall Reacher in a film adaptation of Child's One Shot.—Ed.] —Robert Conroy, Warren, MI
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 Affair:

1. How would you describe Jack Reacher? What are the rules he lives by? One of his most famous—"All you need, and nothing you don't"—could almost be called his "credo." What other codes define his life, and what do they say about his character?

2. Why has Reacher left the military?

3. A number of reviewers felt that this book gives the entire Reacher series a much needed boost, that the past several installments in the 16 book series have "jumped the shark," meaning that they had lost their freshness and were rehashing overly familiar ground. Presuming you've read previous Jack Reacher books, in what way does this book differ from the others in the series?

4. Reacher has always been somewhat mysterious. What background information do you learn about him in The Affair—particularly about his family, as well as some of his idiosyncrasies (obsessions?) that appear in the 15 other Reacher books. In his various recollections and re-interpretations of his life, does Reacher learn anything about himself?

5. Lee Child writes with a degree of humor, which seems odd given that the series is in the suspense/thriller genre, not usually known for humor. What passages did you found funny?

6. What do you think of Sheriff Deveraux? How would you describe her—is she simply a female version of Reacher? Or is she a distinct personality in her own right?

7. What does Reacher mean when he says, "if I ever buy a house, it's going to be next to a railroad train." What's the fascination with trains—and what does it reveal about Reacher's personality?

8. The novel takes place four-and-a-half years before the 9/11 attacks. How does Child portray the US Army? Do you think his portrayal has validity?

9. What role does political connection or privilege play in this novel?

10. Does Child do a good job here of ratcheting up the suspense? Does the novel live up to it's name as a "thriller"?

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

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The Affairs of Others
Amy Grace Loyd, 2013
Picador : Macmillan
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250041296

Summary
A young woman haunted by loss, who resdiscovers passion and possibility when she's drawn into the tangled lives of her neighbors.

Five years after her young husband’s death, Celia Cassill has moved from one Brooklyn neighborhood to another, but she has not moved on. The owner of a small apartment building, she has chosen her tenants for their ability to respect one another’s privacy. Celia believes in boundaries, solitude, that she has a right to her ghosts. She is determined to live a life at a remove from the chaos and competition of modern life.

Everything changes with the arrival of a new tenant, Hope, a dazzling woman of a certain age on the run from her husband’s recent betrayal. When Hope begins a torrid and noisy affair, and another tenant mysteriously disappears, the carefully constructed walls of Celia’s world are tested and the sanctity of her building is shattered—through violence and sex, in turns tender and dark. Ultimately, Celia and her tenants are forced to abandon their separate spaces for a far more intimate one, leading to a surprising conclusion and the promise of genuine joy.

Amy Grace Loyd investigates interior spaces of the body and the New York warrens in which her characters live, offering a startling emotional honesty about the traffic between men and women. The Affairs of Others is a story about the irrepressibility of life and desire, no matter the sorrows or obstacles. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Bowdin College; M.A.,
Hollins University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York Ctiy

Amy Grace Loyd is an executive editor at Byliner Inc. and was the fiction and literary editor at Playboy Magazine. She worked in The New Yorker's fiction department and was associate editor on the New York Review Books Classics series. She has been a MacDowell and Yaddo fellow and lives in Brooklyn, NY. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
It is hard to read through Loyd’s novel without stopping to digest her lovely prose. Nearly every sentence has layers of meaning…. Loyd’s words read like the best kind of poetry. There are lines that leave you thinking about larger truths.
New York Daily News

Loyd is acute and unsparing in her portrayal of Celia’s grief over the loss of her husband. Though the chapters are short and the radius of action is small, Affairs still feels substantial. Celia moves almost ghostlike through her own apartment, her building, the streets of Brooklyn and the reaches of her mind, with the reader being just as absorbed in her thoughts as she is.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

This is a book filled with larger-than-life feelings, raw nerves, and sexual intrigue. Small details of everyday life become fraught with as much passion as stolen moments in presumed privacy… Remarkably, Loyd creates a dramatic tension that gives the most domestic of concerns a lusty weight because of what they mask—betrayal, love, and violence.
Daily Beast

From start to finish, Loyd’s prose flows exquisitely through the story, as she limns the depths of the protagonist’s mind, the complexity of human intimacy, and the idiosyncrasies of each new character with the grace of a seasoned novelist.
Vanity Fair

[A] mesmerizing debut….beautifully, even feverishly described. As Celia discovers, the magnetic pull of other people's everyday experiences proves impossible to resist.
Entertainment Weekly

For first-time novelist Amy Grace Loyd, an apartment building is not simply housing. It is also a metaphor for the paradoxical isolation and proximity we feel among others...With forceful, sensual prose (the author is captivated by the scents of people and places), Loyd allows Celia to discover that ‘life had as many gains as losses as long as we were willing to tally them.
Oprah Magazine

A riveting, raw debut…. Loyd brilliantly keeps us holding our breath as Celia's barriers disintegrate, her rules fall away, and the shield she holds so tightly over her heart slowly lowers….Stunningly rendered, acutely emotional.
Redbook

Lloyd’s burnished, spare sentences conceal hidden volumes of emotion, and in its different moods, the book may put readers in mind of Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland or of a more hopeful version of Claire Messud’s recent The Woman Upstairs.
Millions

Widowed five years earlier, Celia Cassil....chose the tenants in her Brooklyn brownstone for their discretion and respect for “separateness.” When one of them moves to France, she reluctantly allows him to sublet his apartment to Hope.... Not long after Hope moves in, another of Celia’s tenants...disappears, and his daughter holds Celia responsible. [A] character study...narrow in scope but long on intensity and emotion
Publishers Weekly

Celia Cassill...still in mourning for her young husband...is isolated and withdrawn. Now she finds herself pulled into the problems of her tenants.... [A]a sophisticated, sympathetic, and beautifully written portrayal of contemporary individuals who come to share more than just an apartment building. —Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal

Loyd’s writing is rich and elegant, with elements of allusion and allegory and beguiling characters to draw readers in. Dark and sensual, with just a touch of suspense, this first novel offers a heartwrenchingly honest story about grief while still allowing for a glimmer of hope.
Booklist

[C]uriously flat: Celia is matter-of-fact and, it seems, scarcely involved in the heart of her own story; only the supporting players seem to feel much of anything.... As a result, the feel of the book overall is more memoir than novel.... More emotional investment would have given this story, competent though it is, more life.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. When we first meet Celia she tells us that her husband died five years ago, and “I went with him, or a lot of me did” (2). What does Celia mean here? What kind of life is she living at the beginning of the novel?

2. Hope brings about an immediate change in the building when she arrives. What do we learn about Hope from Celia’s first impression of her? Why is Celia so hesitant to let Hope live in the building?

3. Discuss the different ways that Celia and Hope deal with their respective grief. Do their actions make sense in light of what’s happened to them, or are they simply impulsive and reckless?

4. Hope’s old boyfriend Les is a polarizing presence in the novel. Celia initially describes him as a “terrifying and bitterly handsome giant” (31). Why is Hope so drawn to him? What does Celia understand about Les and how does that influence the confrontations she has with him?

5. For most of the book Celia’s tenant on the fourth floor, the retired ferry captain Mr. Coughlan, is missing. What role does his character play in the novel? What do Celia and the other tenants learn from Coughlan when he does return?

6. Celia and Hope’s relationship takes on a new dimension late in the novel. What do the women gain from each other? How do you see their relationship evolving?

7. At one point Celia asks, “Why shouldn’t the past…be as real as anything else?” (139). What does Celia do to make this true for her own life? Does Celia’s attitude about the past change by the end of the book?

8. One of the many themes in the novel is the varying degrees of privacy and intimacy in our lives, especially for people living in close proximity to one another. Discuss the different ways that privacy is either protected or violated in the novel. How is intimacy achieved in this story? Is it always connected to physical space?

9. The novel begins and ends with a party scene. Compare Celia in the first party and the last. How has she changed? What do you think will happen to her after the final scene?

10. How does the style of Amy Grace Loyd’s writing fit the nature of the story? Discuss your favorite lines and why they were meaningful to you.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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After Alice
Gregory Maguire, 2015
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060548957

Summary
A magical new twist on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Lewis’s Carroll’s beloved classic.

When Alice toppled down the rabbit-hole 150 years ago, she found a Wonderland as rife with inconsistent rules and abrasive egos as the world she left behind. But what of that world? How did 1860s Oxford react to Alice’s disappearance?

In this brilliant work of fiction, Gregory Maguire turns his dazzling imagination to the question of underworlds, undergrounds, underpinnings—and understandings old and new, offering an inventive spin on Carroll’s enduring tale. Ada, a friend of Alice’s mentioned briefly in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is off to visit her friend, but arrives a moment too late—and tumbles down the rabbit-hole herself.

Ada brings to Wonderland her own imperfect apprehension of cause and effect as she embarks on an odyssey to find Alice and see her safely home from this surreal world below the world. If Eurydice can ever be returned to the arms of Orpheus, or Lazarus can be raised from the tomb, perhaps Alice can be returned to life. Either way, everything that happens next is “After Alice.” (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 9, 1954
• Where—Albany, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., State University of New York, Albany; M.A., Simmons College; Ph.D., Tufts
University
• Currently—lives near Boston, Massachusetts

Gregory Maguire is an American novelist. Most famously, he is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West; Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister; After Alice; and more than 30 other novels for adults and children.

Education
Maguire, born and raised in Albany, New York, is the middle child of seven. Schooled in Catholic institutions through high school, he received a B.A. in English and Art from the State University of New York at Albany, an M.A. in Children's Literature from Simmons College, and a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University. His doctoral thesis was about English-language fantasy written for children between 1938 and 1988.

Early career
Maguire was 24 when, in 1978, he published his first novel for children. He has since published more than 20 books for young people and, alongside his creative work, has devoted much of his professional life to literacy and literature education.

In 1979, Maguire began teaching at Simmons College, where he became co-director at the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature. He remained at Simmons until 1986.

In 1987, he co-founded a nonprofit educational charity, Children's Literature New England, Inc., and served as co-director for twenty-five years.

Children's novels
Starting with that first book in 1978, The Lightning Time, Maguire has published over 20 books for young readers, including his well-known "The Hamlet Chronicles." That seven book series includes Seven Spiders Spinning (1994), Six Haunted Hairdos (1997), Five Alien Elves (1998), Four Stupid Cupids (2000), Three Rotten Eggs (2002), A Couple of April Fools (2004), and One Final Firecracker (2005). Though he is best known as a fantasy writer, Maguire has also written picture books, science fiction, realistic and historic fiction.

Adult novels
In 1995, Maguire turned to adult novels with the first book of his "Wicked Years" series: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995). That book transforms the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its 1939 film adaption into the misunderstood green-skinned Elphaba Thropp. The novel became the blockbuster Broadway musical Wicked and, at its height, had nine companies running simultaneously around the world.

Next in "The Wicked Years" line-up came Son of a Witch (2005), A Lion Among Men (2008), and Out of Oz (2011).

Maguire's other adult novels, most of which were also inspired by classic children's tales, include Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999), Lost (2001), Mirror, Mirror (2003), and After Alice (2015), which was published on the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Other
Maguire is an occasional reviewer for the New York Times Book Review. He has contributed and performed original material for NPR's All Things Considered and has lectured widely around the world on literature and culture.

In addition to his writing, Maguire has been a board member of the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance. He has also served on boards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Board of Associates of the Boston Public Library, and the Concord Free Press, among others.

Personal
Maguire met the American painter Andy Newman in 1997, and in 1999 they adopted the first of their three children. Two others followed in 2001 and 2002. Maguire and Newman were married in June 2004, shortly after gay marriage became legal in Massachusetts. Maguire and his family were featured on Oprah, and he was the subject of a New York Times Magazine profile by Alex Witchel. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/29/2015.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [T]houghtful and disconcertingly memorable.... Maguire frequently pulls back from the action to offer a larger perspective as characters struggle to discover who and what they are—and, most importantly, why they are.... [A]a feast for the mind.
Publishers Weekly

What happened above after Alice fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland?... [C]lever and philosophical, on the Lewis Carroll classic. [Some] readers may find the slow build up of action and wrenching jumps between the two disconnected settings, one in stilted 19th-century language and the other in the nonsense of Wonderland, a bit too high a barrier to keep them reading. —Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT
Library Journal

(Starred review.) Continuing his tradition of rewriting fairy tales with an arch eye and offbeat point of view, Maguire turns his attention to Lewis Carroll and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.... A brilliant and nicely off-kilter reading of the children's classic, retrofitted for grown-ups—and a lot of fun.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Had you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll before reading Gregory Maguire’s After Alice? If not, are you curious to go back and read (or reread) it?

2. Had you read any of the author’s earlier revisionist fairy tales, such as Mirror Mirror or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister? Why do you think readers find these revamped classic stories so appealing?

3. Ada is said to have “lived with a sense of disappointment and failure, thanks to her misshapen form, suffered from a flat dream-life, one that seemed poorly differentiated from waking hours.” How much do you think Ada’s brace affected her personality? Once she fell down the rabbit hole, why do you think this was one of the first things she shed? How is she different without it?

4. In Chapter 14, we learn that “a story in a book has its own intentions, even if unknowable to the virgin reader, who just lollops along at her own pace regardless of the author’s strategies, and gets where she will.” What are the intentions of After Alice? Did it differ from your own?

5. After falling down the rabbit hole, one obstacle after another presents itself as Ada searches for her friend, Alice. A bird tells Ada, “All who descend meet reproach.” How so?

6. Ada’s story alternates with that of Lydia, Alice’s sister, who is charged with finding the two young girls. Did you favor reading one section over another?

7. How is Ada different from her friend, Alice? How is Lydia similar to her sister?

8. What do you think is the significance of Mr. Clowd having such a prominent visitor as Charles Darwin?

9. What was the purpose of Josiah Winter and his young charge, Siam, in the story? Were you surprised that Lydia felt jealous that Mr. Winter might pay more attention to the hapless governess, Miss Armstrong? Do you think there was something else behind her cruel treatment of the harried governess? What do you think of Miss Armstrong’s opinion of Ada’s disability?

10. Gregory Maguire’s earlier book WICKED, a fresh take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, was adapted into one of the most successful Broadway musicals of all time. How do you think After Alice would fare as a musical?
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11. In Wonderland, Ada is aghast at the Queen’s careless uprooting of the roses: “My,” said Ada, laying the dead rose upon the peaty moss. “Life is a very cheap thing here.” And the aforementioned blossom replies, “Cheap and dear all at once,” said the Rose from her grave. “That’s the thing. You’ll figure it out sooner than later.” How does this sentiment apply to Ada’s and Alice’s life back in Oxford?

12. Miss Armstrong and Mr. Clowd have a discussion of mortality over tea, and the governess highlights a quote from Emerson on the nature of faith and grief, and how the strength of one’s beliefs should shore them against any loss they should encounter. Mr. Clowd counters with “Perhaps Emerson’s comment is wrong. Perhaps we are meant and made to shift our beliefs. If it is a choice between being consistent or being willfully blind.” Do you agree?

13. After finally finding Alice, Ada decides to follow the White Queen’s advice and “go through the ceiling” to make her ascent back home: “She felt a sudden rage. The ascent of the human creature ---one has to fight to be born, after all. She bashed against the glass with every ounce of her might. She would break through, she would. So she did, being a child with more force of intention that she’d previously allowed herself to acknowledge.” What do you think the author is saying here with this mode of returning to the real world?

14. Were you surprised that Ada did not encounter Alice until almost the very end?

15. At the end of the novel, Darwin tells Mr. Winter, “If separate species develop skills that help them survive, and if those attributes are favored which best benefit the individual and its native population, to what possible end might we suppose has arisen, Mr. Winter, that particular capacity of the human being known as the imagination?” What did you think Darwin meant with this statement?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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After Anna
Lisa Scottoline, 2018
St. Martin Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250185235

Summary
A fast-paced, thrilling new novel full of suspense and emotional justice.

Noah Alderman, widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie, and for the first time in a long time he and his son are happy.

But their lives are turned upside down when Maggie’s daughter moves in with them. Anna is a drop-dead gorgeous sixteen-year-old with a secret dark side. Unbeknownst to everyone, Anna is not simply a selfish beauty, but a dangerously disturbed sociopath.

Anna sets out to systematically destroy the new life Noah has built, and when she turns up dead, Noah is at the top of the suspect list. Noah begins his own investigation in order to clear his name and save his family, and what he discovers is darker than he could have ever imagined. (From the publisher.)

Visit the author's website.
Follow Lisa on Facebook.

Book Reviews
[A] nail-biting domestic thriller…. Filled with plenty of twists and complex characters, this entertaining story builds to a satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly

Scottoline, a master at crafting intense family dramas, expertly twists Maggie’s reality with a page-turning mix of guilt, self-delusion, and manipulation.
Booklist

The result is a nail-biting thriller but a terrible mystery, … running amok as [it spins] out a series of improbable complications, a barrage of shameless cliffhangers, and a culprit ex machina before the absurdly happy ending.
Kirkus Reviews

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

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

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

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

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