Discussion Guides

A profound memoir of coming to terms with a lost racial identity David Mura was well into his twenties when he began to explore his Asian American identity. His Japanese American parents had been incarcerated in internment camps during World War II, and in response to their traumatic experience, they abandoned their Japanese roots to try to assimilate into white, middle-class America. As a result, Mura was raised to consider himself as a white person, and his journey toward understanding and accepting his Asianness was a fraught road--one that left many fractured relationships in its wake. In Exit, Miss Saigon, Mura writes with frank openness about his personal experiences and the irrevocable ways they are rooted in the internalized, systemic racism that permeates American culture. Starting out as a young poet in Minneapolis working toward a PhD, Mura avoided reading "minority literature," yearning instead to be like famed poets in their ivory towers--Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, John Berryman, artists tortured by their families and personal demons rather than by politics or race. As Mura began to read more widely, his conceptions of race and its societal construction began to broaden. When the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, Minnesota, staged a presentation of Miss Saigon in 1992, Mura published "Secrets and Anger" in Mother Jones, a scathing critique of the play's racist undertones and the arguments he'd been having with white artist friends about it. As a result, Mura was ostracized from the local, dominantly white writing community, yet in its place he found a deeper connection with other BIPOC writers and eventually started an Asian American arts organization in the Twin Cities. Far more than a personal memoir, Exit, Miss Saigon is a clear-eyed examination of issues affecting Asian Americans: anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, affirmative action, racial and sexual stereotypes in the media, interracial relationships and raising mixed-race children, the legacy of Japanese American internment, and the shortfalls of therapy in addressing race. Mura excavates the deep-seated racist stereotypes thrust on those perceived as "other" (read: nonwhite people) and works to uncover a more authentic, liberatory path to defining personal identity. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of the #1 bestseller The New Menopause explains everything a woman needs to know to thrive during the often-misdiagnosed and medically ignored perimenopausal years

“Don’t tolerate shrugged shoulders from your doctor during your perimenopausal journey. Get ahead of the issues and your potential symptoms with this important, empowering, and scientifically dependable book.”—Vonda Wright, MD, author of Unbreakable

I’m just not feeling like myself! This is the battle cry of the perimenopausal woman.

Though menstrual cycle changes and the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies them are the hallmarks of the transition to menopause, many women with regular periods as young as 35 can also start to feel irregular, with symptoms that include anxiety, fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, sexual symptoms, and volatile moods. This array of symptoms can be hugely disruptive—all the more so when a doctor dismisses a woman’s complaints as all in her head or prescribes unnecessary and potentially harmful treatment.

In The New Perimenopause, Dr. Mary Claire Haver—the trailblazing voice behind the movement to revolutionize health care for women—sets things straight. She explains that the numerous and varied symptoms of perimenopause occur in direct response to normal endocrine changes; this is the hormonal "zone of chaos."

A comprehensive, authoritative book of science-backed information and lived experience, The New Perimenopause includes:

• Clear, science-backed explanations of what's going on in your body, from changes in your menstrual cycle to energy levels, mood, sleep, and sexual issues.
• How and why dealing with these changes now is preventative medicine for your later years.
• Checklists, questions for your doctor, and how to insist on good care.
• The very latest research on the benefits and side effects of progesterone therapy to help ease your hormonal transition.

Whether you have symptoms or not, The New Perimenopause helps remove the mystery around this time of change, putting women in control of their health going forward.

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!
A LibraryReads pick!

DELUXE EDITION―featuring gorgeous gilded edges, detailed endpapers, and beautiful case art under the book jacket!

Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.

Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.

Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel, dissolute heir of the blood-gutted Azalea House—where poetry magic is power, but women are forbidden to read.

But in a twist of fate, the palace now stands on the knife-edge of civil war, with Wei trapped in its center. . . with a violent prince.

To save herself and the nation, she must survive the dangers of court, learn to read in secret, and compose the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of love. . . and death.

The Poet Empress is an epic fantasy that explores darker themes, subjects, and scenes that may not be suitable for all readers. Please see the author's content note at the beginning of the book.

A vivid, unforgettable work of women’s fiction and the story of an unlikely sisterhood—an emotionally powerful and haunting tale of friendship that illuminates the plight of women in a traditional culture—from the author of the bestselling The Pearl That Broke Its Shell and When the Moon Is Low.

For two decades, Zeba was a loving wife, a patient mother, and a peaceful villager. But her quiet life is shattered in this gripping murder mystery when her husband, Kamal, is found brutally murdered with a hatchet in the courtyard of their home. Nearly catatonic with shock, Zeba is unable to account for her whereabouts at the time of his death. Her children swear their mother could not have committed such a heinous act. Kamal’s family is sure she did, and demands justice.

Barely escaping a vengeful mob, Zeba is arrested and jailed. As Zeba awaits trial, she meets a group of women whose own misfortunes have also led them to these bleak cells: thirty-year-old Nafisa, imprisoned to protect her from an honor killing; twenty-five-year-old Latifa, who ran away from home with her teenage sister but now stays in the prison because it is safe shelter; and nineteen-year-old Mezhgan, pregnant and unmarried, waiting for her lover’s family to ask for her hand in marriage. Is Zeba a cold-blooded killer, these young women wonder, or has she been imprisoned, as they have been, for breaking some social rule? For these women, the prison is both a haven and a punishment. Removed from the harsh and unforgiving world outside, they form a lively and indelible prison sisterhood.

Into this closed world comes Yusuf, Zeba’s Afghan-born, American-raised lawyer, whose commitment to human rights and social justice have brought him back. With the fate of this seemingly ordinary housewife in his hands, Yusuf discovers that, like Afghanistan itself, his client may not be at all what he imagines.

A moving work of cultural fiction that looks at the lives of modern Afghan women, A House Without Windows is astonishing, frightening, and triumphant.