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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 491.The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward
In a rare window into some of her life’s pivotal moments, Melinda French Gates draws from previously untold stories to offer a new perspective on encountering transitions.
- 492.We Live Here Now: A Novel
Award-winning author of New York Times bestselling breakout novel (and hit Netflix show) Behind Her Eyes returns with a haunting Gothic novel about a house—and a marriage—gone terribly wrong.
- 493.Big Summer: A NovelAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“Sexy and satisfying, Big Summer is the perfect quarantine read.” —USA TODAY
“The beach read to end all beach reads.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Big fun, and then some. It’s empowering and surprising—a reminder to put down the phone and enjoy each moment for what it is.” —The Washington Post
A deliciously funny, remarkably poignant, and simply unputdownable novel about the power of friendship, the lure of frenemies, and the importance of making peace with yourself through all life’s ups and downs. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Good in Bed and Best Friends Forever, Big Summer is the perfect escape with one of the most lovable heroines to come to the page in years.
Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time—she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media—so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless.
Drue was always the one who had everything—except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song.
A sparkling novel about the complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most. - 494.The Usual Desire to Kill: A NovelA “droll, psychologically astute…unexpected…very funny” (Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air) and moving portrait of a long-married couple, seen through the eyes of their wickedly observant daughter.
Miranda’s parents live in a dilapidated house in rural France that they share with two llamas, eight ducks, five chickens, two cats, and a freezer full of decades-old food.
Miranda’s father is a retired professor of philosophy who never loses an argument. Miranda’s mother likes to bring conversation back to “the War,” although she was born after it ended. Married for fifty years, they are uncommonly set in their ways. Miranda plays the role of translator when she visits, communicating the desires or complaints of one parent to the other and then venting her frustration to her sister and her daughter. At the end of a visit, she reports “the usual desire to kill.”
This wry, propulsive story about an eccentric yet endearing family and the sibling rivalry, generational divides, and long-buried secrets that shape them, is a glorious debut novel from a seasoned playwright with immense empathy and a flair for dialogue. - 495.The Buddha in the Attic (Pen/Faulkner Award - Fiction)NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/FAULKER AWARD WINNER • The acclaimed author of The Swimmers and When the Emperor Was Divine tells the story of a group of young women brought from Japan to San Francisco as “picture brides” a century ago in this "understated masterpiece ... that unfolds with great emotional power" (San Francisco Chronicle).
In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the extraordinary lives of these women, from their arduous journeys by boat, to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; from their experiences raising children who would later reject their culture and language, to the deracinating arrival of war.
Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times. - 496.The Scarlet LetterChiltern Publishing creates the most beautiful editions of the World's finest literature. Your favorite classic titles in a way you have never seen them before; the tactile layers, fine details and beautiful colors of these remarkable covers make these titles feel extra special and will look striking on any shelf.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a classic novel set in Puritanical Boston in the mid-17th century. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a young woman who is publicly shamed and ostracized for having a child out of wedlock. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing to signify her status as an adulterer. As she struggles to survive in a Puritanical society that is unforgiving of her sins, Hester is eventually able to redeem herself through her strong will and determination. The novel examines themes of sin, guilt, and repentance in a powerful way.
Throughout the novel, readers are able to explore the inner workings of Hester's mind and understand the consequences of her actions and how they affected those around her. The Scarlet Letter is an emotionally charged and thought-provoking story that is sure to stay with readers long after they finish the book.
- 497.Room: A NovelHeld captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her precocious young son finally gain their freedom, and the boy experiences the outside world for the first time. Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating -- a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.
- 498.The Staircase in the WoodsNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.
“Chuck Wendig weaves his magic once more, turning a lonely staircase in the woods into a searing, propulsive, dread-filled exploration of the horrors of knowing and being known.”—Kiersten White, author of Hide and Lucy Undying
ONE OF VULTURE’S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.
Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something extraordinary: a mysterious staircase to nowhere.
One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.
Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . . - 499.Jane and Dan at the End of the WorldAS SEEN ON THE TODAY SHOW • USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A ZIBBY OWENS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025! • A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK CLUB PICK!
Date night goes off the rails when one couple gets wrapped up in a crime in progress, in this “hilarious” (People) new novel from the USA Today bestselling author.
When Jane and Dan score dinner reservations at the renowned and expensive La Fin du Monde (The End of the World) Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to a halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her.
But before they even get to the second course, an activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies! Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.
Which means Dan and Jane can predict what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, they can survive anything—even marriage. - 500.Angela's Ashes: A MemoirA Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, Angela’s Ashes is Frank McCourt’s masterful memoir of his childhood in Ireland—now with a new introduction by Patrick Radden Keefe.
“When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.”
So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible, and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.
Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance, and remarkable forgiveness.
Angela’s Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt’s astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.