DISCUSSION GUIDES

Summary: This “unwavering triumph” (The New York Times Book Review) about fragile family bonds introduces us to Evangeline on her wedding weekend, as a dead whale is trapped in the Winter Island harbor, the groom might be lost at sea, and her absent mother has shown up out of the blue.

Summary: Based on true events, A Ritchie Boy, is the inspiring tale of Eli Stoff, a Jewish Austrian immigrant who becomes a US Army intelligence officer during WWII, triumphs over adversity, and finds his place in America.

Summary: Love from the Vortex and Other Poems, an archeological exploration on love and intimacy, charts Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz’s journey of finding and losing love over the span of three decades with six different men who came into her life at various times, but also offers a universal take on what can happen when one seeks love and connection with others, and the lessons that follow when that connection and love is lost.

Summary: Featuring two complicated women in a dangerous cat and mouse game, And Now She’s Gone explores the nature of secrets — and how violence and fear can lead you to abandon everything in order to survive.

Summary: Different Strokes chronicles the rise of the Williams sisters, as well as other champions of color, closely examining how African Americans are collectively faring in tennis, on the court and off.

Summary: Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong.

Summary: What appears to be a story of mothers and daughters, of sisterhood put to the test, of adolescent love and grown-up misconduct, and of history’s long reach, becomes a provocative and compelling exploration of America’s failure to find a language to talk about race.

Summary: Yaa Gyasi's stunning follow-up to her acclaimed national best seller Homegoing is a powerful, raw, intimate, deeply layered novel about a Ghanaian family in Alabama.

Summary: Morally ambiguous P.I. Leonid McGill is back — and investigating crimes against society's most downtrodden — in this installment of the beloved detective series from an Edgar Award-winning and bestselling crime novelist.

Summary: When two young women receive the news that their father’s plane has crashed, they know that their lives will never be the same. Just like that, these two girls are thrown into a reality where their father is dead and it seems their dreams are quickly slipping away.