All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Bryn Greenwood, 2016
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250074133
Summary
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight.
Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident.
After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world.
A powerful novel you won’t soon forget, Bryn Greenwood's All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Hugoton, Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Kansas State University
• Currently—lives in Lawrence, Kansas
Bryn Greenwood is an American writer of essays, short stories, and novels. The latter includes, Last Will (2012), Lie Lay Lain (2014), and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (2016).
Like her heroine Wavy in her 2016 novel, Greenwood grew up in Kansas. One of seven sisters (the result of a blended family), her mother was a teetotaler, and her father a meth dealer, who ran one of the largest meth production and distribution businesses in the Midwest. Had meth been legal, she told KCUR Radio in Kansas City, he would haven been a billionaire. In another interview, she recalled...
He had a private plane and pilot, and there was always money except when there wasn’t. The money is like a faucet that’s turned on full blast for 10 minutes and then it’s turned off. And you wait for the next time the faucet is turned on.
When you have that kind of business, you have just hordes of hangers-on, an endless rotation of people going through your existence because they want to use you or they want to benefit from you or they’re just there for the drugs. So yeah, [my father's] life was a little crazy. (Kansas City Star).
Her parents divorced when Bryn was two; she lived mostly with her mother and with her fraternal grandparents. In the summers she spent time with her father—but that ended when she was 14, and he was sent to jail.
Also, like her heroine Wavy, Greenwood had a much older boyfriend: she was 13 and he 28. Because the novel's depiction of Wavy and Kellen's romance, Greenwood has received a fair amount of criticism from readers—even those who haven't read her book. When comparisons are made to Lolita, she noted that while Nabokov's book was written to make readers uncomfortable, that was not her purpose:
I didn’t intend at all for my book to shock or titillate. I’m more of the mind that: There are people who’ve lived this life, I have lived portions of this life, and they don’t see it in fiction (KCUR radio).
Greenwood discovered books early on and knew she wanted to write. Her first story came when she was four: she had to dictate it to one of her sisters. Years later, Greenwood went on to college and, eventually, to grad school where she earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Kansas State University. She taught English in Japan for a while, returned to the U.S., and finally landed in Lawrence, Kansas, where she is now a college teacher and administrator.
She married, got divorced, bought a house (a work in progress), and lives with her hairless cats and adopted dogs. (Author bio by LitLovers.)
Book Reviews
Captivating and smartly written from the first page, Greenwood's work is instantly absorbing. Pithy characters saunter, charge or stumble into each scene via raw, gripping narrative. Greenwood slow-drips descriptions, never giving away everything at once. Rather, she tells her story as if lifting a cloth thread by thread, revealing heartbreaking landscapes and riveting dialogue in perfect timing. This book won't pull at heartstrings but instead yank out the entire organ and shake it about before lodging it back in an unfamiliar position.
Christina Ledbetter - Associated Press
Greenwood's haunting novel...is a story that will stay with readers long after the book is finished.
Lisa McLendon - Wichita Eagle
Bryn Greenwood has handed readers a strange—but strangely grabbing—tale.
Harry Levins - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
[A] strong debut...about a young girl’s triumph over the sordid life she might have led as the daughter of drug addicts, one of whom is a meth dealer.... This is a memorable coming-of-age tale about loyalty, defiance, and the power of love under the most improbable circumstances.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [P]owerful, provocative debut chronicles a desolate childhood and a discomfiting love affair.... [T]he novel closes on a note of hard-won serenity, with people who deserve a second chance gathered together. Intelligent, honest, and unsentimental.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. From the first moment we meet Wavy, her life is filled with rules. Most are her mother's rules, but some are hers. What rules are holding Wavy back and which ones does she use to construct a sense of safety? How do the rules change as she grows up?
2. Wavy's fears and her efforts to resist fear are major themes in the story. How does the refrain "nothing left to be afraid of" guide Wavy's life?
3. More than once, it's remarked that the kitchen door of the farmhouse is unlocked, and Wavy points out that there isn't even a key to that door. On a practical level, what does it say about Wavy and the people around her that this door is never locked? As a metaphor, what does it tell us?
4. Kellen is a murderer and Wavy knows this from an early point in her relationship with him. How is she able to know this while still considering him a good person? What things in her life have prepared her to accept two seemingly contradictory ideas? How do you feel about this paradox?a
5. The book provides multiple points of view of Wavy and Kellen, including their own. How are your impressions of them altered by a narrator's biases? Who seems like the most reliable narrator? Who seems the least reliable? How do you decide whose opinion to trust?
6. Aunt Brenda's perspective is the one that most clearly correlates to our current social attitudes toward relationships like Wavy and Kellen's, but is she the hero of this story? To what degree do you sympathize with her?
7. Compared to Wavy, her cousins and her college roommate are ostensibly the product of "normal" upbringings. In what ways are they more emotionally healthy than Wavy? In what ways do they have similar emotional issues?
8. Until 2006, the state of Kansas had no law requiring a minimum age for marriage, as long as the underage bride or groom had parental or judicial consent. On occasion this produced child brides far younger than Wavy would have been. The law now sets the minimum age at 15, a year younger than the age of consent. How does marriage change our views of what would otherwise be statutory rape? What if Kellen's wish had come true, and he and Wavy had married after her 14th birthday? How would we view that relationship once it was sealed by law?
9. When we talk about "consent" we have a bad habit of restricting it to the question of sex, but what other types of consent are at play in the story? Stress is placed on Wavy's capacity to consent to a sexual relationship with Kellen, but what about her capacity to consent or refuse consent to other things?
10. Of the female role models in Wavy's life, which has the greatest effect on her? How do these role models color her views about herself and her relationships?
11. As much as we may wish for Wavy and Kellen's relationship to remain platonic, what do you feel contributes to its steady shift toward becoming first romantic and then sexual? What might have happened if it had remained platonic?
12. Amy narrates a large portion of Wavy's life, while only revealing parts of her own. How does she choose what to reveal and what to hide? And why might she prefer to tell Wavy's story over her own?
13. What is the dynamic between Wavy and Kellen as husband and wife at the end? Who do you see as the decision maker? The moral compass? What other roles have they taken on, and how comfortable are they in those roles? Considering their backgrounds, how likely are they to succeed in creating a healthy relationship and a "normal" family?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Chemist
Stephanie Meyer, 2016
Little, Brown and Co.
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316387835
Summary
In this gripping page-turner, an ex-agent on the run from her former employers must take one more case to clear her name and save her life.
She used to work for the U.S. government, but very few people ever knew that. An expert in her field, she was one of the darkest secrets of an agency so clandestine it doesn't even have a name. And when they decided she was a liability, they came for her without warning.
Now she rarely stays in the same place or uses the same name for long. They've killed the only other person she trusted, but something she knows still poses a threat. They want her dead, and soon.
When her former handler offers her a way out, she realizes it's her only chance to erase the giant target on her back. But it means taking one last job for her ex-employers. To her horror, the information she acquires only makes her situation more dangerous.
Resolving to meet the threat head-on, she prepares for the toughest fight of her life but finds herself falling for a man who can only complicate her likelihood of survival. As she sees her choices being rapidly whittled down, she must apply her unique talents in ways she never dreamed of.
In this tautly plotted novel, Meyer creates a fierce and fascinating new heroine with a very specialized skill set. And she shows once again why she's one of the world's bestselling authors. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 24, 1973
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Brigham Young University
• Awards—
• Currently—lives in Cave Creek, Arizona
Stephanie Meyer is an American fiction writer and film producer, best known for her vampire romance series Twilight. The Twilight novels have gained worldwide recognition and sold over 100 million copies, with translations into 37 different languages Meyer was the bestselling author of 2008 and 2009 in America.
Meyer was ranked No. 49 on Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People in 2008," and was included in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities in 2009 (listed as No. 26). Her annual earnings exceeded $50 million. In 2010, Forbes ranked her as the No. 59 most powerful celebrity with annual earnings of $40 million.
Early life
Meyer was born in Hartford, Connecticut as the second of six children to Stephen and Candy Morgan. She was raised in Phoenix, Arizona, attending Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, where her former English teacher remembered her as "bright but not overly so."
She attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where she received a BA in English. In 1994, at the age of 21, Meyer married her Christian Meyer, whom she had known since she was four. Meyer worked briefly as a receptionist in a property company and had even considered law school, but when her first child was born she decided to be a stay-at-home-mother. The couple now has three sons.
Twilight novels
According to Myer, the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream in 2003. Although she had no writing experience, she sat down to capture the dream on paper. Starting with a short draft—of what would become Chapter 13—she wrote the complete novel within three months. Although she says its writing was strictly for her own enjoyment and that she had no intentions of seeking a publisher, her sister persuaded her to send the manuscript to literary agencies.
Of the 15 letters she wrote, five went unanswered, nine brought rejections, and the last was a positive response from Jodi Reamer of Writers House. Eight publishers then competed for the rights to publish in a 2003 auction, and by the end of the year Meyer signed a $750,000 three-book deal with Little, Brown and Company.
Twilight was published in 2005 with a print run of 75,000 copies. Within a month, it reached No. 5 on the New York Times Best Seller list for Children's Chapter Books, later reaching #1. Foreign rights to the novel were sold to over 26 countries, and Publishers Weekly named it the Best Book of the Year. It was also a New York Times Editor's Choice.
With the success of Twilight, Meyer came out with three more books in the series: New Moon (2006), Eclipse (2007), and Breaking Dawn (2008). All books were top sellers, and in 2008 the four books of the series claimed the top four spots on USA Today's year-end bestseller list, making Meyer the first author to ever achieve this feat.
The novels held the top four spots again on USA Today's 2009 year-end list. In August of that year, the paper revealed that Meyer broke J. K. Rowling's record on their bestseller list—the four Twilight books had spent 52 straight weeks in the top 10. The books have spent more than 143 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List.
Adult novels
In 2008 Myer published her first adult sci-fi novel, The Host. The author has said she has plans, and some initial writing, for another two books: "The Soul" and "The Seeker." The Host, about an alien and the human woman in inhabits, debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, remaining on the list for 26 weeks.
In 2016 Meyer broke out of speculative fiction with The Chemist. A spy novel, it has received comparisons to the Jason Bourne series. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/20/2016.)
Book Reviews
This espionage action story will no doubt tighten Meyer's grip on her devoted readers. Its main character is much like Jason Bourne, to whom the novel is dedicated affectionately.... Meyer knows how to control dramatic tension as skillfully as any of the Bourne movies. The pages turn themselves.
Keith Donohue - Washington Post
Engrossing.... A terrific ride.... The Chemist is consistently fast-paced fun, especially the way that Alex's scientific genius gives her an array of potions-she's small, but you don't want to get within swiping distance of the rings on her fingers-that verge on the magical.
Charles Finch - USA Today"
Fans will likely tear through The Chemist, just as they did with the Twilight novels and with The Host.... Our heroine is very good at staying alive.... The book hit on an appealing theme. Chris is an expert in her field, one that happens to be male dominated. Her peers are out to get her. She has to watch her back constantly.... With so many popular novels out there featuring unreliable female narrators stuck in various suburbs, it was nice to read about a woman who gets out and has a lot to do.
Meredith Goldstein - Boston Globe"
[Meyer has] an unusual ability to turn genres inside out. The characters in the novel are motivated by love of family rather than by duty to country or abstractions like saving the world. Love gives the adventure meaning, rather than just being a subplot off to the side. Spy fans can be assured that in most respects, The Chemist functions in much the same way as a Bourne or Bond story, complete with mounting body count, cool explosions, stakeouts and betrayals. But changing the proportion of gender in the genre gives the concoction a renewed, and welcome, rush.
Noah Berlatsky - Los Angeles Times
[U]neven...a former operative for a secret U.S. government agency...must take extraordinary steps to stay alive.... [T]he plot plays out along predictable lines that don’t do justice to the intriguing setup. Underdrawn characterizations don’t help.
Publishers Weekly
[S]py versus spy and throbbing romance novel with good results.... A tale of skulduggery... complete with help from a luscious mistress of disguise who could have stepped right out of a James Bond novel. Rated B for badass.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Wangs Vs. the World
Jade Chang, 2016
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544734098
Summary
Meet the Wangs, the unforgettable immigrant family whose spectacular fall from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings them together in a way money never could.
Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, bighearted immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he s just been ruined by the financial crisis.
Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family s ancestral lands and his pride.
Charles pulls Andrew, his aspiring-comedian son, and Grace, his style-obsessed daughter, out of schools he can no longer afford. Together with their stepmother, Barbra, they embark on a cross-country road trip from their foreclosed Bel-Air home to the upstate New York hideout of the eldest daughter, disgraced art-world it-girl Saina.
But with his son waylaid by a temptress in New Orleans, his wife ready to defect for a set of 1,000-thread-count sheets, and an epic smashup in North Carolina, Charles may have to choose between the Old World and the New, between keeping his family intact and finally fulfilling his dream of starting anew in China. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1969-70
• Where—State of Ohio, USA
• Raised—San Fernando Valley, California
• Education—B.A., Cornell Univesity
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Jade Chang is an American editor, journalist, and author. Her debut novel, The Wangs Vs. the World, was published to wide acclaim in 2016.
Chang's parents met when the two came to the U.S. from Taiwan for graduate school. Chang herself was born in Ohio, although when she was nine, her family moved to California, a place she now considers home. She went cross-country for college, however, to Cornell University in upstate New York where she received her B.A. in English.
Over the years, Chang has written for a number of magazines but most consistently for Metropolis, a high-end New York-based architecture and design magazine. She became the west coast editor. It was from this vantage point, observing lives of the wealthy, that Chang witnessed the 2008 recession and its effect on people of means—an event that inspired The Wangs Vs. the World.
Most recently, Chang became an editor for GoodReads. Earlier in her career, she had worked with Elizabeth Khuri Chandler—before Chandler and her husband Otis started GoodReads. A number of years later, when GoodReads expanded, Chang was hired to edit the website's Young Adult newsletter.
Chang is the recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James D. Houston Memorial scholarship from the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. She lives in Los Angeles. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Jade Chang delivers a rollicking, off-beat, on-target illustration of culture clash and the American dream turned on its head. With a tight cast of characters, Chang offers a sympathetic look at the plight of one family struggling through the 2008 recession. We watch its members fumble, often hilariously, through a rocky adjustment to their new status—from the haves to the have-nots. READ MORE.
Cara Kless - LitLovers
A riches-to-rags story, an immigrant story and a quixotic road trip are bundled into Jade Chang's sharply funny first novel…This novel is overstuffed with subplots and detours, but Charles…makes the ride worthwhile, as does the author's savage takedown of the American dream.
Carmela Ciuraru - New York Times
Jade Chang is unendingly clever in her generous debut novel about the comedy of racial identity. If there is a stereotype that Asian-Americans kids are quiet, unpopular and studious, that their parents are strict disciplinarians (think Tiger Mom), then Chang has conjured up the Wangs to prove otherwise…. As much as The Wangs vs. the World is about Asian-American identity, it is also a sprawling family adventure compressed into a road trip novel. The result is a manic, consistently funny book of alternating perspectives as the Wangs make various cross-country stopovers in their '80s station wagon…. To be a first- or second-generation immigrant means wrestling with the reality that no place is ever truly home. In Chang's compassionate and bright-eyed novel, she proves that struggling with that identity can at least be funny and strange, especially when you struggle together with family.
Kevin Nguyen - New York Times Book Review
With mischievous, Dickensian glee, Chang’s prose power-drives the appealingly dysfunctional family, now a disgrace to the wet dream of capitalism, through their postfall paces.... Chang’s confident, broad-stroke, and go-for-broke style makes her fresh twist on the American immigrant saga of the woebegone Wangs one of 2016’s must-reads.... You will laugh your ass off while learning a thing or two about buying into, and then having to bail on, the American dream. But mostly, you’ll get to savor, thanks to a wildly innovative plot twist, the I Chang of this diabolical dramedy: how it’s love, not money, that really makes the world, and all the people in it, go round.
Lisa Shea - Elle
One of the best debut novels of 2016, this warmhearted, wide-ranging novel tells the wholly modern story of the Wang family: Father Charles has had his fortune decimated by the financial crisis, so he wants to corral his family, return to China, and start all over. But first, everyone—Charles, his wife, and their three children—has to sort out the tangles of their lives.
Estelle Tang - Elle
It all comes crashing down for Charles Wang, so he and his family hit the road. This endearing debut is more fun than you’d expect from a trip with this backdrop.
Marie Claire
[Chang's] book is unrelentingly fun, but it's also raw and profane—a story of fierce pride, fierce anger, and even fiercer love.... The Wangs vs. the World drives home the fact that there is no one immigrant experience—just humanity in all its glorious, sloppy complexity, doing its best to survive and thrive despite the whims of society and circumstance. With plenty of laughs, both bitter and sweet, along the way.
NPR.org
(Starred review.) [S]parkling...a family whose fortune has been lost in the 2008 financial crisis takes a cross-country road trip in an effort to regroup.... Various small crises...keep the plot percolating. Chang’s charming and quirky characters and comic observations make the novel a jaunty joy ride to remember.
Publishers Weekly
When Charles Wang's cosmetics empire comes crashing down...[he] leaves California on a road trip to upstate New York with his second wife and otherwise engaged younger children.... Incidents along the way make Charles understand that he must choose between past and family.
Library Journal
[R]eaders with a taste for outsize family dysfunction, a la Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s The Nest (2016) and Emma Straub’s The Vacationers (2014), will whip through this one with smiles on their faces.
Booklist
A Chinese-American family tumbles from riches to rags in Chang’s jam-packed, high-energy debut.... [T]his debut novelist holds nothing back. Head-spinning fun with many fine moments—but the emotional aspects of the book are weakened by the barrage effect.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Wangs Vs. the World...then take off on your own:
1. Why is Charles Wang "mad at America" and "mad at history"? Does he have a right to be? To what extent is he the cause of his own misfortune? Or to what extent is he simply one of the millions of victims of the 2008 financial collapse?
2. How does this story differ from other immigrant stories you may have read? How does it differ in tone? Are Chang's characters as sympathetic as those in other coming-to-America novels? What about the characters' sense of displacement, their feeling of never being at home anywhere?
3. Describe the members of the Wang family: Charles, the patriarch; Barbra, Charles's wife; and the three children, Andrew, Grace, and Saina (pronounced Sy-na). What are their particular hopes and internal conflicts? What conflicts exist between the family members?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: Talk about the ways in which the Wang family meets the definition of "dysfunctional." Any similarities to issues within your own family?
5. The author has said that the Wangs struggle with and are influenced by "their experiences and knowledge as Chinese people...but they do not struggle over their Chineseness." What might she mean by that observation?
6. What does Chang have to say about the worlds of makeup and fashion, as well as the visual arts and stand-up comedy? What are the differing "currencies," other than money, that determine success or failure in these areas? What is valued...or how are individuals valued in these industries/markets? Do fashion, art, and comedy-performance have anything in common with one another?
7. How does the novel portray the power of the internet? What impact, for example, does the web have on Saina? The novel takes place back in 2008; is the Net different today?
8. How does Charles Wang view the American Dream? Does he consider it strictly an American invention, or does he see it as a universal longing, a dream shared by people everywhere? How do you see the American Dream?
9. In an interview with Rumpus.com, Chang was asked where she places the Wang family on the reality-to-absurdity spectrum, Chang said...
I think that real life is absurd. There are plenty of things that happen in our day-to-day lives that would be unbelievable if we saw them in a movie or read about them in a book. So, to me, the story of the Wangs is in some ways larger than life—but I don’t find any of it to be untrue. My goal was definitely emotional truth.
Do you see life as absurd? Do you see the Wang story as absurd? If so, what is the emotional truth Chang refers to? Actually, maybe one might start with a definition of "absurdity."
10. What do the characters—all of them, but in particular Charles—come to learn by the novel's end? What lessons do they learn or insights do they gain, about themselves, the world around them, and how they fit into this world?
11. Much has been made by reviewers about the book's humor. Point to some of the passages/events you find particularly funny.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Victoria
Daisy Goodwin, 2016
St. Martin's Press
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250045461
Summary
Drawing on Queen Victoria’s diaries, which she first started reading when she was a student at Cambridge University, Daisy Goodwin—creator and writer of the new PBS/Masterpiece drama Victoria and author of the bestselling novels The American Heiress and The Fortune Hunter—brings the young nineteenth-century monarch, who would go on to reign for 63 years, richly to life in this magnificent novel.
Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England.
The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world.
Despite her age, however, the young queen is no puppet. She has very definite ideas about the kind of queen she wants to be, and the first thing is to choose her name.
"I do not like the name Alexandrina," she proclaims. "From now on I wish to be known only by my second name, Victoria."
Next, people say she must choose a husband. Everyone keeps telling her she’s destined to marry her first cousin, Prince Albert, but Victoria found him dull and priggish when they met three years ago. She is quite happy being queen with the help of her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, who may be old enough to be her father but is the first person to take her seriously. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 19, 1961
• Where—England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University; Columbia University Film School
• Currently—lives in London, England
Daisy Georgia Goodwin is a British television producer, poetry anthologist and novelist.
Having attended Westminster School and Queen's College, London (another fee paying school, not a university), Goodwin studied history at Trinity College at Cambridge, and attended Columbia Film School before joining the BBC as a trainee arts producer in 1985.
In 1998 she moved to Talkback Productions as head of factual programmes, and in 2005 founded Silver River Productions. Her first novel, My Last Duchess, was published in the UK in August 2010 and, under the title The American Heiress, in the U.S. and Canada in June 2011. Her second novel, The Fortune Hunter, was released in 2014.
Victoria, published in 2016, is also the title of PBS's Masterpiece Theater's series by the same name. Goodwin is both writer and creator of the series.
In addition to her novels and film work, Goodwin has also published eight poetry anthologies and a memoir entitled Silver River, and was chairman of the judging panel for the 2010 Orange Prize for women's fiction. She has presented television shows including Essential Poems (To Fall In Love With) (2003) and Reader, I Married Him (2006).
Goodwin is married to Marcus Wilford, an ABC TV executive; they have two daughters. She appeared as part of the winning Trinity College, Cambridge team on the Christmas University Challenge BBC2, 27 December 2011. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
Goodwin demonstrates her admirable ability to fuse wide-ranging knowledge of the period with lively storytelling skills.
Sunday Times (UK)
A hit…. The research is impeccable, the attention to detail―from protocol to petticoats―perfect, and it brings the formidable figure of Victoria to sparkling life.
Sunday Mirror (UK)
[Victoria] will sweep you away. It sumptuously brings to life the tale of Victoria's ascension to the throne, her battles with her mother and her relationship with her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. I loved the detail in this novel, and tore through it.
Stylist (UK)
Fans of character-driven storylines will relish witnessing Victoria's transition from immaturity to adulthood.
Real Simple
Goodwin mines a rich vein of royal history with the ascension of the impetuous and imperious 18-year-old—whose sole companions were dolls and a lapdog—to the English throne in 1837.... [A]timeless recounting of a young girl’s aching first love. (Dec.)
Publishers Weekly
Highly recommended.... Bestselling Goodwin always draws in fans.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Daisy Goodwin was inspired to tell this story by Queen Victoria’s diaries. "How handsome Albert looks in his white cashmere breeches," the young queen wrote in 1839. Goodwin suddenly found herself imagining what it would be like if her own teenage daughter became the most powerful woman in the world overnight. How does Victoria handle her rise to power at the age of eighteen? How do you think you might have handled it?
2. In what ways does Victoria come across a "typical" teenager and/or as a powerful sovereign?
3. How does Victoria’s sheltered upbringing at Kensington Palace influence her ultimate ability to rule her country?
4. Why do you think one of the young queen’s first acts is to reject her given name of Alexandrina in favor of Victoria?
5. In what ways does Victoria’s relationship with her mother influence her decisions as queen? How does that relationship change in the course of the novel?
6. Where do you think Victoria gets the strength to stand up against her family and others who try to dictate her role as queen?
7. Why was Victoria so vengeful toward Lady Flora?
8. What are the biggest challenges that Victoria faces? How might you have dealt with those situations?
9. How do you feel about Lord Melbourne? What might Victoria's life have been like if she had chosen him over Albert?
10. What did you think of Albert when he first appeared in the story? How do you view Victoria’s prediction that theirs "will be a marriage of inconvenience"?
11. Victoria thinks Lord M must be teasing when he says that some Chartists believe that women should have the vote. There are also a number of references to "bonnets," or women, whose significance is clearly different from men’s. How do you see the role of women in general — and Queen Victoria in particular — in the course of the novel?
12.How has courting changed for the current heirs to the English throne compared to Queen Victoria?
13.Are there any modern-day world leaders you would compare to the young Victoria?
14.What do you see as the most and least enviable aspects of Queen Victoria’s life?
15.What was the most interesting thing about Victoria that you learned while reading this novel? Did you feel the same way about her at the beginning and end of the book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History
Sam Maggs, 2016
Quirk Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594749254
Summary
A fun and feminist look at forgotten women in science, technology, and beyond, from the bestselling author of The Fangirl's Guide to the Galaxy.
You may think you know women’s history pretty well. But have you ever heard of. . .
♦ Alice Ball, the chemist who developed an effective treatment for leprosy—only to have the credit taken by a man?
♦ Mary Sherman Morgan, the rocket scientist whose liquid fuel compounds blasted the first U.S. satellite into orbit?
♦ Huang Daopo, the inventor whose weaving technology revolutionized textile production in China—centuries before the cotton gin?
Smart women have always been able to achieve amazing things, even when the odds were stacked against them. In Wonder Women, author Sam Maggs tells the stories of the brilliant, brainy, and totally rad women in history who broke barriers as scientists, engineers, mathematicians, adventurers, and inventors.
Plus, interviews with real-life women in STEM careers, an extensive bibliography, and a guide to women-centric science and technology organizations—all to show the many ways the geeky girls of today can help to build the future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Sam Maggs is a Canadian writer, editor, on-air personality, and all-around "Geek Feminist" speaking out about the bias against women in the online game development community. Recently, she was hired as an assistant game writer for BioWare. She is also the bestselling author of The Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy (2015) and Wonder Women (2015).
Sam was born to a computer science professor at Western University in London, Ontario, where she grew up. She came to nerdom early in life she claims, in fact, before her life even began: her parents saw the original star wars some 20 times, which surely implies an inherited predilection. Once born...and a little older, her parents kept her home from school to bingewatch the Indiana Jones trilogy.
She stakes her claim as an early-developed "fangirl." She was around 12 when she discovered and then became obsessed with all things Stargate. When asked on GeekDad.com about her earliest memories of geekhood, she replied:
The hours upon hours I spent in my basement on my computer reading Stargate and West Wing fanfic instead of making friends, for sure.
She was also 10 or 12, when she found herself entranced by the world of video games, eventually mastering Doom and Myst.
Sam received her B.A. from Western University and later her M.A. at Ryerson University in Toronto. Both degrees are in English literature. She has been an Editor for the geek girl culture site, Mary Sue, and interviewed across the web about women in Geek culture. She also has her own YouTube channel.
Sam is also an accomplished on-air personality, appearing as the host of the Cineplex pre-show in front of six million Canadians a month; a frequent co-host on Teletoon; and a regular guest on MTV and Space. She’s also appeared as a regular pop culture commentator on CBC’s q, 102.1 The Edge, Newstalk 1010, and more. (Adapted from various sources, including the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[Sam Maggs’s] profiles are more than just fun, they're genuinely astounding…[and] fantastic illustrations by Sophia Foster-Dimino bring these pioneering women to life.
Village Voice
Wonder Women isn’t just filled with extraordinary tales of female scientists and inventors—though there are plenty of them—[Maggs] also includes sections on espionage and adventure, fields not traditionally associated with STEM.
Entertainment Weekly
I admire Maggs for making Wonder Women both thorough and easy to digest. When it comes to historical material like this, presentation matters…Maggs writes the descriptions of the women and their achievements in such a way that you’re inspired to take the ball and keep running.
Nerdist
Maggs condenses these storied lives effectively, and young feminists and supporters of women in STEM will applaud.
Booklist
Emphasizing {women] experts of science, medicine, espionage, innovation, and adventure, these individual profiles serve as a solid introduction.... However, readers wishing for in-depth material on specific pioneers should merely use this work as a starting point....down-to-earth and often humorous.... —Mattie Cook, River Grove PL, IL
Library Journal
Maggs' lineup of influential females is well curated and inclusive, while smart illustrations by Sophia Foster-Dimino bring the ladies to life. Wonder Women is a must-read for the girl who's a bit of a geek.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
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(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)