DISCUSSION GUIDES

Summary: In Evicted, Princeton sociologist Matthew Desmond follows eight families in Milwaukee as they each struggle to keep a roof over their heads. Evicted transforms our understanding of poverty and economic exploitation while providing fresh ideas for solving one of twenty-first-century America’s most devastating problems.

Summary:

A story of queer love and working-class families, Young Mungo is the brilliant second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain.

Acclaimed as one of the best books of the year by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, Time, and Amazon, and named a Top 10 Book of the Year by the Washington Post, Young Mungo is a brilliantly constructed and deeply moving story of queer love and working-class families by the Booker Prize–winning author of Shuggie Bain. Growing up in a housing estate in Glasgow, Mungo and James are born under different stars—Mungo a Protestant and James a Catholic—and they should be sworn enemies. Yet against all odds, they fall in love as they find sanctuary and dream of escape in the pigeon dovecote that James has built for his prize racing birds. But when Mungo’s mother sends him on a fishing trip to a remote loch with two strange men, he will need all his strength and courage to find his way back to a place where he and James might still have a future.

Summary: LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION The acclaimed author of The Serpent's Gift returns with this "deep and beautiful" (Jaqueline Woodson, New York Times bestselling author) story about a queer Black woman working to stay clean, pull her life together, and heal after being released from prison.Ranita Atwater is "getting short." She is almost done with her four-year sentence for opiate possession at Oak Hills Correctional Center. Three years sober, she is determined to stay clean and regain custody of her two children. Ranita is regaining her freedom, but she's leaving behind her lover Maxine, who has inspired her to imagine herself and the world differently. My name is Ranita, and I'm an addict, she has said again and again at recovery meetings. But who else is she? Who might she choose to become? Now she must steer clear of the temptations that have pulled her down, while atoning for her missteps and facing old wounds. With a fierce, smart, and sometimes funny voice, Ranita reveals how rocky and winding the path to wellness is for a Black woman, even as she draws on family, memory, faith, and love in order to choose life. Pomegranate is a complex portrayal of queer Black womanhood and marginalization in America from an author "working at the height of her powers" (Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling). In lyrical and precise prose, Helen Elaine Lee paints a humane and unflinching portrait of the devastating effects of incarceration and addiction, and of one woman's determination to tell her story.

Summary: Combining "fast-paced historical fiction with a hint of suspense" (Booklist), this epic saga from Julia Kelly explores love, motherhood, and betrayal set against World War II.

Liverpool, 1935: Raised in a strict Catholic family, Viv Byrne knows what's expected of her: marry a Catholic man from her working-class neighborhood and have his children. However, when she finds herself pregnant after a fling with Joshua Levinson, a Jewish man with dreams of becoming a famous jazz musician, Viv knows that a swift wedding is the only answer. Her only solace is that marrying Joshua will mean escaping her strict mother's scrutiny. But when Joshua makes a life-changing choice on their wedding day, Viv is forced once again into the arms of her disapproving family.

Five years later and on the eve of World War II, Viv is faced with the impossible choice to evacuate her young daughter, Maggie, to the countryside. In New York City, Joshua gives up his failing musical career to serve in the Royal Air Force and try to piece together his feelings about the family he left behind. However, tragedy strikes when Viv learns that the countryside safe haven she sent her daughter to wasn't immune from the horrors of war. It is only years later, with Joshua's help, that Viv learns the secrets of their shared past and what it will take to put a family back together again.

Telling the harrowing story of England's many evacuated children, Kelly's The Lost English Girl "will hook readers from the first page" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Summary: From the author of A Little Hope--a Read with Jenna Bonus Pick--comes another "heartwarming, character-driven" (Booklist) life-affirming novel about three individuals whose lives intersect in unforeseen ways.

Set in a close-knit suburb in the grip of winter, A Quiet Life follows three people grappling with loss and finding a tender wisdom in their grief.

Chuck Ayers used to look forward to nothing so much as his annual trip to Hilton Head with his wife, Cat--that yearly taste of relaxation they'd become accustomed to after a lifetime of working and raising two children. Now, just months after Cat's death, Chuck finds that he can't let go of her belongings--her favorite towel, the sketchbooks in her desk drawer--as he struggles to pack for a trip he can't imagine taking without her.

Ella Burke delivers morning newspapers and works at a bridal shop to fill her days while she anxiously awaits news--any piece of information--about her missing daughter. Ella adjusts to life in a new apartment and answers every call on her phone, hoping her daughter will reach out.

After the sudden death of her father, Kirsten Bonato set aside her veterinary school aspirations, finding comfort in the steady routine of working at an animal shelter. But as time passes, old dreams and new romantic interests begin to surface--and Kirsten finds herself at another crossroads.

In this beautiful and profoundly moving novel, three parallel narratives converge in poignant and unexpected ways, as each character bravely presses onward, trying to recover something they have lost. Emotionally riveting and infused with hope, "the soothing tone and warm worldview of this grown-up bedtime story will be good for what ails you" (Kirkus Reviews).

Summary: Praise for Ruth Ware's instant New York Times, USA TODAY, and Los Angeles Times bestseller:

"So many questions....Until the very last page! Needless to say, I could not put this book down!" --Reese Witherspoon

"Once again the author of The Woman in Cabin 10 delivers mega-chills." --People

"Missing Big Little Lies? Dig into this psychological thriller about whether you can really trust your nearest and dearest." --Cosmopolitan

From the instant New York Times bestselling author of blockbuster thrillers In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10 comes a chilling new novel of friendship, secrets, and the dangerous games teenaged girls play.

On a cool June morning, a woman is walking her dog in the idyllic coastal village of Salten, along a tidal estuary known as the Reach. Before she can stop him, the dog charges into the water to retrieve what first appears to be a wayward stick, but to her horror, turns out to be something much more sinister...

The next morning, three women in and around London--Fatima, Thea, and Isa--receive the text they had always hoped would never come, from the fourth in their formerly inseparable clique, Kate, that says only, "I need you."

The four girls were best friends at Salten, a second-rate boarding school set near the cliffs of the English Channel. Each different in their own way, the four became inseparable and were notorious for playing the Lying Game, telling lies at every turn to both fellow boarders and faculty. But their little game had consequences, and as the four converge in present-day Salten, they realize their shared past was not as safely buried as they had once hoped...

Atmospheric, twisty, and with just the right amount of chill to keep you wrong-footed, The Lying Game is told in Ruth Ware's signature suspenseful style, lending itself to becoming another unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time.

Summary: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"Other authors are at a ten out of ten, for me, and Lisa is a solid hundred." --Gillian McAllister, The Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of Wrong Place Wrong Time

The #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell weaves a "simply masterful" (Samantha Downing, internationally bestselling author) thriller about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this stand-alone sequel to The Family Upstairs.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock--her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn't want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they're connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller The Family Upstairs, "Lisa Jewell is a superb writer at the top of her game" (Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author) with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.

Summary: Based on a true story, an epic historical novel from the award-winning author of Things in Jars that illuminates the lives of two characters: a girl shipwrecked on an island off Western Australia and, three hundred years later, a boy finding a home with his grandfather on the very same island.1629: A newly orphaned young girl named Mayken is bound for the Dutch East Indies on the Batavia, one of the greatest ships of the Dutch Golden Age. Curious and mischievous, Mayken spends the long journey going on misadventures above and below the deck, searching for a mythical monster. But the true monsters might be closer than she thinks. 1989: A lonely boy named Gil is sent to live off the coast of Western Australia among the seasonal fishing community where his late mother once resided. There, on the tiny reef-shrouded island, he discovers the story of an infamous shipwreck... With her trademark "thrilling, mysterious, twisted, but more than anything, beautifully written" (Graham Norton, New York Times bestselling author) storytelling, Jess Kidd weaves "a true work of magic" (V.E. Schwab, author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue) about friendship, sacrifice, brutality, and forgiveness.

Summary: In this instant New York Times bestselling and "utterly addictive thriller" (Ana Reyes, New York Times bestselling author), a young author is invited to an exclusive writer's retreat that soon descends into a pulse-pounding nightmare.

Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn't dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell--they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza's erratic behavior, Wren's cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth--or suffer the same fate.

A claustrophobic and "audacious psychological thriller debut" (Publishers Weekly), The Writing Retreat expertly explores the dark side of female relationships, fame, and the desire to have our stories told.

Summary: *Now a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal*

A taut, psychological thriller from Iain Reid, "one of the most talented purveyors of weird, dark narratives in contemporary fiction" (Los Angeles Review of Books).

Severe climate change has ravaged the country, leaving behind a charred wasteland. Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable if solitary life on one of the last remaining farms. Their private existence is disturbed the day a stranger comes to the door with alarming news.

Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm, but the most unusual part is that arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won't have a chance to miss him. She won't be left alone--not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

Told in Iain Reid's sparse, biting style, Foe is a "mind-bending and genre-defying work of genius" (Liz Nugent, author of Unraveling Oliver) that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.