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DISCUSSION GUIDES

General discussion questions for any book
  • 61.
    Your Presence Is Mandatory: A Novel

    by Sasha Vasilyuk

    Winner of the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature | Gold Medal Winner for the 94th Annual California Book Awards | Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

    A riveting debut novel, based on real events, about a World War II veteran with a secret that could land him in the Gulag, and his family who are forced to live in the shadow of all he has not told them.

    Ukraine, 2007. Yefim Shulman, husband, grandfather and war veteran, was beloved by his family and his coworkers. But in the days after his death, his widow Nina finds a letter to the KGB in his briefcase. Yefim had a lifelong secret, and his confession forces them to reassess the man they thought they knew and the country he had defended.

    In 1941, Yefim is a young artillerist on the border between the Soviet Union and Germany, eager to defend his country and his large Jewish family against Hitler's forces. But surviving the war requires sacrifices Yefim never imagined-and even when the war ends, his fight isn't over. He must conceal his choices from the KGB and from his family.

    Spanning seven decades between World War II and the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, Your Presence Is Mandatory traces the effect Yefim's coverup had on the lives of Nina, their two children and grandchildren. In the process, Sasha Vasilyuk shines a light on one family caught between two totalitarian regimes, and the grace they find in the course of their survival.

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 62.
    The Water Knife

    by Paolo Bacigalupi

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "fresh, genre-bending thriller” (Los Angeles Times) set in the near future when water is scarce and a spy, a hardened journalist and a young Texas migrant find themselves pawns in a corrupt game.

    "Think Chinatown meets Mad Max." NPR, All Things Considered

    In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 63.
    A Year in Provence (Vintage Departures)

    by Peter Mayle

    NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs.

    He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine. A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days.

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 64.
    The Mother-Daughter Book Club: A Novel

    by James Patterson and Susan Patterson

    The Mother-Daughter Book Club is Susan and James Patterson's new novel, the follow-up to Things I Wish I Told My Mother--the New York Times bestselling, book club favorite praised novel.

    "An entertaining book ... As friends talk books, hopes, dreams ... and dishy revelations ... it's romantic love--both old and new ... that drive[s] the story forward." --Kirkus Reviews

    Between their busy lives and their far-flung residences, the Mother-Daughter Book Club--four longtime college friends and their five daughters--more often discuss the books on their nightstands via 2 a.m. texts than in-person meetings. And maybe it's just as well, after what happened at their last get-together ...

    So it's an emotional reunion when they finally gather again, this time on the spectacular shores of Italy's Lake Como. Sightseeing excursions, reminiscing fueled by "Como-politans," and a hint of vacation romance all build toward the book club's trademark "Night of Secrets."

    These friends, and sometime rivals, are close readers--of novels, memoirs, and of each other. But as the years and the distance cast shadows and doubt, confidences and sympathies turn into surprising revelations.

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 65.
    When Sparks Fly

    by Monica Murphy

    From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Monica Murphy comes a sweltering summer romance you won't be able to put down.

    Twenty-two-year-old heiress Rachel Henderson has one goal this summer: hide out at her family's lake house and recover from the most mortifying breakup Manhattan society has ever witnessed. Sun, swimming, and zero paparazzi--what could go wrong?

    But her quiet summer by the lake goes up in literal flames when a spa-day candle mishap sets her mother's designer curtains on fire. When the local fire department shows up--specifically the ridiculously hot fire captain--the house is saved, but the captain scorches her pride with a lecture about fire safety.

    Determined to prove she can handle life on her own without her family's help, Rachel finds a new roommate and a new job--too bad she's terrible at it. Oh, and she keeps running into Captain Tall-Dark-and-Infuriating (which definitely isn't a hardship). The more time they spend together, the more their conversations start to get real, and Rachel finds herself falling for Wyatt. She thinks he might even feel the same way.

    The only problem? Wyatt is all about roots and permanence, while Rachel is the very definition of flighty. But this summer, she just might be tempted to stay ...

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 66.
    The Fine Art of Lying: A Reese's Book Club Pick

    by Alexandra Andrews

    “Alexandra Andrews is monied Manhattan’s very own Agatha Christie.”—Ada Calhoun

    From the critically acclaimed author of Who is Maud Dixon? comes a riveting new novel about a young wife and mother thrust into a world of wealth and privilege, whose rash mistake sets off a domino effect of murder and betrayal.

    In the beginning, there was art.

    It was Clare Bast’s love of art that saved her from a bleak, predictable life in upstate New York, and drew her to the cultured world of Manhattan’s Upper East Side where she met Jed, her doting, affluent husband.

    Despite her best efforts—including a half-finished PhD, abandoned when her daughter Sadie was born—Clare secretly can’t help but feel like an imposter in Jed’s one-percent, Park-Avenue life.

    When the well-connected wife of Jed’s new boss introduces her to influential friends—a curator here, a gallerist there, an aficionado abroad—Clare feels an essential part of herself coming alive again. And when she discovers that an important work painted by the subject of her unfinished dissertation is hanging in the brownstone of a seductively attractive dealer, she believes fate is leading her where she belongs . . . until she finds herself at the scene of a gruesome murder and a stolen masterpiece. Caught in the perfectly wrong place at the perfectly wrong time, every clue the investigation uncovers points back to her.

    Suddenly, Clare is trapped inside a dark and treacherous art world filled with unscrupulous dealers and international criminals. What, exactly, has she gotten herself into . . . and how is she going to get herself, and her family, out?

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 67.
    The Calamity Club: A Novel

    by Kathryn Stockett

    “So immersive, exciting, and downright fabulous, you never want it to end.”—Oprah Daily

    INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The multimillion-copy-selling author of The Help returns with a bold, big-hearted novel about a group of unbreakable women, fighting for what’s rightfully theirs—and the power of friendship to change everything.

    “Pure, hell-raising entertainment.”—The New York Times Book Review

    Oxford, Mississippi, 1933.

    Abandoned by her mother one Christmas Eve, eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Now one of the unadoptable "big girls" at the Lafayette County Orphan Asylum, she fights each day to keep her spirit unbowed.

    Birdie Calhoun, unmarried and outspoken, has come to Oxford to ask her socialite sister to help the struggling family she's left behind. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie discovers her sister's seemingly charmed life is a tapestry of lies.

    Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman running low on luck with little left to lose. When their fates--and Meg's--converge, Charlie comes up with an audacious plan for them to take control of their lives. But in a place and time where hypocrisy is rife and women's freedom is fragile, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences.

    The Calamity Club will make you laugh, cry, and cheer--an epic testament to underestimated women who know that calamity can be the spark of new beginnings. This is Kathryn Stockett at her most confident, heartfelt, and hilarious--the triumphant return of one of the most beloved storytellers of our time.

    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 68.
    All the Tomorrows After

    by Joanne Yi

    A “harrowing yet hopeful” (Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be) novel about a Korean American teen navigating grief and first love who agrees to accept money from her estranged father in exchange for letting him get to know her.

    Each night, Winter Moon counts her earnings dreaming of escape. Once she’s saved enough, she and her grandmother can finally take flight and disappear. But when her spiteful mother steals her money and blows through it all in one day, Winter is forced to turn to her estranged father, who recently reappeared in her life after being absent for more than a decade. They agree upon a simple contract: she spends time with him in exchange for payment.

    It’s not easy reconciling the past and the present, though, and when she’s struck with a sudden loss, Winter flounders in grief and rage. The only person offering a hand is Joon, the new boy at school who sees Winter when no one else does.

    When Winter discovers a secret her father has been keeping from her, things get even more complicated. As she navigates grief, first love, and forgiveness, Winter begins to forge connections, new and old, that make her question everything: her future, her conviction to disappear, and what it really means to be family. Winter knows that broken things can never be fixed, but can they come back together in a different way?
    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 69.
    The Thing Around Your Neck: Twelve dazzling stories from the global bestselling author of Half of a Yellow Sun

    by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

    From the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists—a dazzling story collection filled with "indelible characters who jump off the page and into your head and heart" (USA Today).

    In these twelve riveting stories, the award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie's signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.
    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
  • 70.
    A Harvest of Hearts: Deluxe Stenciled Edges

    by Andrea Eames

    In the beloved tradition of Howl’s Moving Castle and The House in the Cerulean Sea, a whimsical and unforgettable cozy fantasy about adventure, common sense, and the power of love, as a cheeky butcher's daughter, a befuddlingly handsome sorcerer, and his clever talking cat unlock magical secrets in the dark heart of their kingdom…

    DELUXE EDITION WITH STENCILED EDGES, PRINTED INTERIOR COVERS, SOFT TOUCH & SPOT GLOSS COVER!

    A Sunday Times Bestseller!

    “Down-to-earth and completely irresistible, Foss is fantastic, as is her talking cat! A Harvest of Hearts is that rare story that feels both classic and unique at the same time. I loved it!” —Sarah Beth Durst, New York Times bestselling author of The Spellshop


    Everyone in Foss Butcher’s village knows what happens when the magic-workers come; they harvest human hearts to use in their spells. That’s just how life in her kingdom works. But Foss, plain, clumsy, and practical as a boot, never expected anyone would want hers. 

    When a sorcerer snags a piece of Foss’s heart without meaning to, she is furious. For once a heart is snagged, the experience is . . . well, unpleasant. So, Foss finds herself stomping toward the grand City to keep his enchanted House and demands that he fixes her before she keels over and dies, or whatever happens when hearts are Snagged. 

    But the sorcerer, Sylvester, is not what she expected. Petulant, idle, and new to his powers, Sylvester has no clue how to undo the heart-taking, or how to do much of anything really, apart from sulk. Foss’s only friend is a talking cat and even the House’s walls themselves have moods. 

    As Foss searches for a cure, she accidentally uncovers that there is much more to the heart-taking—and to the magic-workers themselves—than she could have ever imagined. . . .
    DISCUSSION GUIDE AND QUESTIONS
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