DISCUSSION GUIDES

This ski trip is about to be the worst vacation of Aubrey’s life.

An Illuminated Life explores the people and events that permanently alter the narrative of our lives. With unforgettable characters and a gripping story, An Illuminated Life will stay with you long after the last page.

Life has a time limit. Love doesn’t.

The #1 New York Times
bestseller

The phenomenal true
story of the black female mathematicians at NASA whose calculations helped fuel
some of America’s greatest achievements in space—a powerful, revelatory history
essential to our understanding of race, discrimination, and achievement in modern
America. The basis for the smash Academy Award-nominated
film starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae, Kirsten
Dunst, and Kevin Costner.

Before John Glenn
orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated
female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and
adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and
astronauts, into space.

Among these
problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women,
some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to
teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into
service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics
industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these
overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they
answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating,
high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim
Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the
women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one
of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the
Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War
II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space
Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan,
Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American
women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles
their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances
and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.

-WINNER OF
ANISFIELD-WOLF AWARD FOR NONFICTION

The instant New York Times bestseller, Kim Liggett's The Grace Year is a speculative YA thriller in the vein of The Hunger Games and The Power, now in trade paperback.

No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.

In Garner County, girls are banished for their sixteenth year to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage.

But not all of them will make it home alive.

Tierney James dreams of a better life—but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that there’s more to fear about the grace year than the brutal elements and the poachers in the woods.

Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, Liggett's The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has captivated and inspired readers for decades. Published posthumously by her bereaved father, Anne's journal, written while she and her family were in hiding during World War II, has become one of the central texts of the Jewish experience during the Holocaust, as well as a work of literary genius.

With the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, the Frank family's life is turned inside out, blow by blow, restriction by restriction. Prejudice, loss, and terror run rampant, and Anne is forced to bear witness as ordinary people become monsters, and children and families are caught up in the inescapable tide of violence.

In the midst of impossible danger, Anne, audacious and creative and fearless, discovers who she truly is. With a wisdom far beyond her years, she will become a writer who will go on to change the world as we know it.

Critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman weaves a lyrical and heart-wrenching story of the way the world closes in on the Frank family from the moment the Nazis invade the Netherlands until they are forced into hiding, bringing Anne to bold, vivid life.

Based on extensive research and published in cooperation with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, When We Flew Away is an extraordinary and moving tour de force.

Perfect for Alice Hoffman fans and readers of every age.

"Adding new poignance to a story whose ending we already knew, Alice Hoffman has deftly recreated the child Anne Frank with all her wit, mischief, and uncertainties. This fictionalized account of the increasingly desperate years that preceded the famous diary breaks readers' hearts one more time. But it reminds us of how important it is to remember and honor all that was lost." -- Lois Lowry, Newbery Award-winning author of Number the Stars

“We can highly recommend Alice Hoffman’s novel of Anne Frank’s life, set in the dramatic and terrible circumstances of those first war years. We hope it will persuade young readers that contributing to a better world is both necessary and possible.” --Ronald Leopold, Executive Director, Anne Frank House

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER from the author of His & Hers, now a #1 Netflix show, and the hit bestseller My Husband's Wife!

“Her best book yet.” —Harlan Coben
The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible – a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.

“Magnetic and jaw-dropping.” —Mary Kubica, bestselling author
"Unforgettable." —Chris Whitaker, bestselling author