DISCUSSION GUIDES

Summary:

Nina de Gramont's The Christie Affair is a stunning novel that reimagines the unexplained eleven-day disappearance of Agatha Christie that captivated the world.

"Sizzles from its first sentence."--The Wall Street Journal

A Reese's Book Club Pick

Why would the world's most famous mystery writer disappear for eleven days? What makes a woman desperate enough to destroy another woman's marriage? How deeply can a person crave revenge?

In 1925, Miss Nan O'Dea infiltrated the wealthy, rarefied world of author Agatha Christie and her husband, Archie. In every way, she became a part of their life--first, both Christies. Then, just Archie. Soon, Nan became Archie's mistress, luring him away from his devoted wife, desperate to marry him. Nan's plot didn't begin the day she met Archie and Agatha.

It began decades before, in Ireland, when Nan was a young girl. She and the man she loved were a star-crossed couple who were destined to be together--until the Great War, a pandemic, and shameful secrets tore them apart. Then acts of unspeakable cruelty kept them separated.

What drives someone to murder? What will someone do in the name of love? What kind of crime can someone never forgive? Nina de Gramont's brilliant, unforgettable novel explores these questions and more.

Summary: Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings―asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass―offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.

Summary: A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots―all in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Summary: The riveting new novel by the acclaimed author of Sugar Run, Perpetual West is a brilliant and evocative story of borders—between the United States and Mexico, between lovers, and between facets of the self.

Summary: Quit letting fear call the shots! You've got a message that the world needs to hear & it's only going to happen if you get it in flight.

Summary: "Funny, eerie, tender, haunting and unsettling, smokily atmospheric, and fantastically enjoyable." ―Helen MacDonald, author of Vesper Flights

Summary: An intensely moving and revelatory memoir of enduring and emerging from exceptional grief

Summary: An uplifting, behind-the-scenes look at Grammy Award–winning Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Williams’s life, her life-long struggle with anxiety and depression, and the practical wisdom she learned along the way. After decades of sweeping her mental health under the rug, Williams discovered that joy can be found when we release toxic thought patterns, forgive ourselves and others, and live authentically.

Summary: For fans of Neal Stephenson, Andy Weir, and Cixin Liu comes a novel that readers describe as “a great Black Mirror episode” with the “page-turning pacing of Michael Crichton.”

Summary: A sensational divorce trial in 17th-century Boston becomes a deadly witch hunt in Chris Bohjalian’s HOUR OF THE WITCH. Puritan Mary Deefield—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt, a thrilling New York Times bestseller from the author of The Flight Attendant.