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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 721.The Wife, the Maid, and the MistressFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Frozen River, this “genuinely surprising whodunit” (USA Today) reimagines the tantalizing suspense surrounding a scandalous murder mystery that rocked the nation.
“This book is more meticulously choreographed than a chorus line. It all pays off.”—The New York Times Book Review
One summer night in 1930, Judge Joseph Crater steps into a New York City cab and is never heard from again. Behind this great man are three women, each with her own tale to tell: Stella, his fashionable wife, the picture of propriety; Maria, their steadfast maid, indebted to the judge; and Ritzi, his showgirl mistress, willing to seize any chance to break out of the chorus line.
As the twisted truth emerges, Ariel Lawhon’s wickedly entertaining debut mystery transports us into the smoky jazz clubs, seedy backstage dressing rooms, and shadowy streets beneath the Art Deco skyline. - 722.We Are Not Like Them: A NovelTold from alternating perspectives, an evocative and riveting novel about the lifelong bond between two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event—a powerful and poignant exploration of race in America today and its devastating impact on ordinary lives.
- 723.OutlawedThe Crucible meets True Grit in this riveting adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West.
- 724.The Art of Hearing Heartbeats: A NovelThe first book in the Art of Hearing Heartbeats series, this is a passionate love story, a haunting fable, and an enchanting mystery set in Burma.
When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains. - 725.Greta & Valdin: A NovelA TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
“A heartfelt portrait of a complex family.” —People • “Laugh-out-loud-funny.” —Harper’s Bazaar • “Quintessential rom-com meets the delicious family sprawl of a Russian classic.” —Vanity Fair
The “brilliant” (Daily Mail, London) bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and family drama, all while flailing their way to love—for fans of Schitt’s Creek and Sally Rooney’s Normal People.
It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Maaori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants.
Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop intruding: her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word.
Filled with “kernels of humor and truth” (Elle) and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings’ misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms. - 726.The Testaments: A Novel (The Handmaid's Tale)#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • A gripping return to Gilead, The Testaments exposes the regime’s inner decay through the intersecting stories of three women whose choices could ignite its downfall.
Coming soon as a Hulu Original series starring Ann Dowd, reprising her role as Aunt Lydia, Chase Infiniti as Agnes, and Lucy Halliday as Daisy.
The Testaments can be read on its own or as a sequel to Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale.
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three women converge, with potentially explosive results. Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by that of Aunt Lydia, whose complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is and how far she will go for what she believes. - 727.Interior Chinatown: A Novel (National Book Award Winner) (Vintage Contemporaries)NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • “A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood” (Vanity Fair) and a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.
Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet. - 728.The Business Trip: A Novel
"A stunning and accomplished debut, with hugely relatable characters and an addictive storyline that kept me turning the pages well into the night. Bravo!" --BA Paris, New York Times bestselling author
"Wow, The Business Trip was nonstop twists and turns. I loved the unusual way that the story was told, and I kept reading all day long because I couldn't wait to see how it ended!" -- Freida McFadden, New York Times bestselling author
IT WAS THEIR CHANCE TO GET AWAY, NOT GO AWAY . . . FOREVER.
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but have boarded the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship.
After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—soon, the messages become stranger and more erratic. And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, red flags go up, and panic sets in.
When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the question: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women—or what did they do to him?
Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, nothing is as it seems. The Business Trip takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing whom? - 729.Heartwood (A Read with Jenna Pick): A Novel
Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,” (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.
- 730.Peace Like a RiverLeif Enger's debut novel, Peace Like A River, was launched to critical acclaim in 2001 and went on to sell over one million copies. Now a perennial, best-selling American classic, it is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, and a love story, in which "there is magic... none more potent that Leif Enger's prose" (Newsday). Enger brings us eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy in the Midwest who has reason to believe in miracles. Along with his sister and father, Reuben finds himself on a cross-country search for his outlaw older brother who has been charged with murder. Their journey unfolds like a revelation, and its conclusion shows how family, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, and the most tragic of fates.