DISCUSSION GUIDES

As this centuries-spanning tale begins, Orlando is a passionate sixteen-year-old nobleman whose days are spent in rowdy revelry, filled with the colorful delights of Queen Elizabeth I’s court. By the close, three centuries have passed, and he will have transformed into a thirty-six-year-old woman in the year 1928. Orlando’s journey is also an internal one—he is an impulsive poet who learns patience in matters of the heart, and a woman who knows what it is to be a man.

Virginia Woolf’s most unusual creation, this classic of feminist literature is a fantastical mock biography—a funny, exuberant romp through history that examines the true nature of love and gender identity.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes a rollicking, riveting tale set in the Cosmere universe—a standalone adventure perfect for fans of The Princess Bride.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson

The Cosmere
The Stormlight Archive
● The Way of Kings
● Words of Radiance
● Edgedancer (novella)
● Oathbringer
● Dawnshard (novella)
● Rhythm of War

The Mistborn Saga
The Original Trilogy
● Mistborn
● The Well of Ascension
● The Hero of Ages

Wax and Wayne
● The Alloy of Law
● Shadows of Self
● The Bands of Mourning
● The Lost Metal

Other Cosmere novels
● Elantris
● Warbreaker
● Tress of the Emerald Sea
● Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
● The Sunlit Man

Collection
● Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series
● Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
● The Scrivener's Bones
● The Knights of Crystallia
● The Shattered Lens
● The Dark Talent
● Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians (with Janci Patterson)

Other novels
● The Rithmatist
● Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds
● The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England

Other books by Brandon Sanderson

The Reckoners
● Steelheart
● Firefight
● Calamity

Skyward
● Skyward
● Starsight
● Cytonic
● Skyward Flight (with Janci Patterson)
● Defiant

Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.

From New York Times bestselling author Amy Harmon comes the saga of a young woman who dares to chart her own destiny in life and love during the American Revolutionary War.

In 1760, Deborah Samson is born to Puritan parents in Plympton, Massachusetts. When her father abandons the family and her mother is unable to support them, Deborah is bound out as an indentured servant. From that moment on, she yearns for a life of liberation and adventure.

Twenty years later, as the American colonies begin to buckle in their battle for independence, Deborah, impassioned by the cause, disguises herself as a soldier and enlists in the Continental Army. Her impressive height and lanky build make her transformation a convincing one, and it isn't long before she finds herself confronting the horrors of war head-on.

But as Deborah fights for her country's freedom, she must contend with the secret of who she is--and, ultimately, a surprising love she can't deny.

• Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone
• The Library of Lost and Found
• The Secrets of Love Story Bridge
• The Messy Lives of Book People

Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
Winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Finalist for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction

An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone

Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.

The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity from “a writer of uncommon elegance and poise.” (The New York Times)

Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home in this immersive family saga. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world — conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding coming-of-age path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.

"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."—The New York Times

"Hugely appealing."—People Magazine

One name, given in tribute to a Russian author. A lifetime of trying to escape it.