DISCUSSION GUIDES

Summary: Social Poetics documents the imaginative militancy and emergent solidarities of a new, insurgent working class poetry community rising up across the globe.

Summary: Based on the gripping true story of Irena Sendler, an unlikely Polish resistance fighter who helped save thousands of Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, bestselling author James D. Shipman’s Irena's War is a heart-pounding novel of courage in action, helmed by an extraordinary and unforgettable protagonist.

Summary: We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth tells an honest, thought-provoking, personal story and explores the impact of wealth on identity, relationships, and sense of place in the world. At twenty-five, Jennifer joined Microsoft, met her husband, and together they became extra-lucky beneficiaries of the dot-com boom. But wealth surprised her. Having a lot of money doesn’t look or feel like what Hollywood sells us.

Summary: Meet Majella O’Neill, a heroine like no other. Growing up in Northern Ireland just after the Troubles, Majella lives a quiet life caring for her alcoholic mother and working in the local chip shop, but when her predictable existence is upended, she realizes there might just be whole big world outside her small town. Don’t miss this unforgettable debut from the author of the hot new novel Factory Girls.

Summary: “Why is this town called Mother’s Rest?” That’s all Reacher wants to know. But no one will tell him. It’s a tiny place hidden in a thousand square miles of wheat fields, with a railroad stop, and sullen and watchful people, and a worried woman named Michelle Chang, who mistakes him for someone else: her missing partner in a private investigation she thinks must have started small and then turned lethal.

Summary: Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy by Dr. Gholnecsar (Gholdy) Muhammad unpacks the critical need for honoring students' identities to help them grow academically and personally during a time when educators nationwide are searching for ways to improve literacy achievement.

Summary: Two strangers—generations and oceans apart—have a chance to save each other in this moving and suspenseful novel about family secrets and the ineffable connections that lead us to one another.

Summary: Before there was Catherine the Great, there was Catherine Alexeyevna: the first woman to rule Russia in her own right. Ellen Alpsten's rich, sweeping debut novel is the story of her rise to power.

Summary: A love and adventure story with a philosophical perspective, this new speculative fiction novel explores the individual’s quest for purpose in a richly-imagined AI future.