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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 721.The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper: A NovelFrom the author of Rise and Shine Benedict Stone, now an original movie on Hallmark.
"An endearing celebration of life." -RealSimple.com
Perfect for fans of A Man Called Ove, this curiously charming debut follows a lovable widower and his life-changing adventure of love and self-discovery.
Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater vest, waters his fern, Frederica, and heads out to his garden.
But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam's death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam's possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he's never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife's secret life before they met--a journey that leads him to find hope and healing in the most unexpected places.
Featuring an unforgettable cast of characters with big hearts and irresistible flaws, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper is a joyous reminder of life's infinite possibilities.
Don't miss Phaedra Patrick's uplifting new novel, The Little Italian Hotel!
Check out these other heartwarming stories from Phaedra Patrick:- Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone
- The Library of Lost and Found
- The Secrets of Love Story Bridge
- The Messy Lives of Book People
- 722.I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter: A Time magazine pick for Best YA of All Time#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A "stunning" (America Ferrera) YA novel about a teenager coming to terms with losing her sister and finding herself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican American home.
"Alive and crackling--a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. "--The New York Times
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family. But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role. Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed. But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal? - 723.The Trees: A Novel
Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
Winner of the 2022 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
Finalist for the 2022 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
Finalist for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award
Longlisted for the 2022 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone
Percival Everett’s The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till.
The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can’t look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America’s pulse. - 724.The Namesake: A NovelNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations. Namesake is a fine-tuned, intimate, and deeply felt novel of identity from “a writer of uncommon elegance and poise.” (The New York Times)
Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world — conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
"Dazzling...An intimate, closely observed family portrait."—The New York Times
"Hugely appealing."—People Magazine
"An exquisitely detailed family saga."—Entertainment Weekly - 725.The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold WarNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the celebrated author of Operation Mincement and The Siege comes the thrilling Americans-era tale of Oleg Gordievsky, the Russian whose secret work helped hasten the end of the Cold War.
“The best true spy story I have ever read.”—JOHN LE CARRÉ
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Economist • Shortlisted for the Bailie Giffords Prize in Nonfiction
If anyone could be considered a Russian counterpart to the infamous British double-agent Kim Philby, it was Oleg Gordievsky. The son of two KGB agents and the product of the best Soviet institutions, the savvy, sophisticated Gordievsky grew to see his nation’s communism as both criminal and philistine.
He took his first posting for Russian intelligence in 1968 and eventually became the Soviet Union’s top man in London, but from 1973 on he was secretly working for MI6. For nearly a decade, as the Cold War reached its twilight, Gordievsky helped the West turn the tables on the KGB, exposing Russian spies and helping to foil countless intelligence plots, as the Soviet leadership grew increasingly paranoid at the United States’s nuclear first-strike capabilities and brought the world closer to the brink of war. Desperate to keep the circle of trust close, MI6 never revealed Gordievsky’s name to its counterparts in the CIA, which in turn grew obsessed with figuring out the identity of Britain’s obviously top-level source. Their obsession ultimately doomed Gordievsky: the CIA officer assigned to identify him was none other than Aldrich Ames, the man who would become infamous for secretly spying for the Soviets.
Unfolding the delicious three-way gamesmanship between America, Britain, and the Soviet Union, and culminating in the gripping cinematic beat-by-beat of Gordievsky’s nail-biting escape from Moscow in 1985, Ben Macintyre has crafted an electrifying account of an international hero. Like the greatest novels of John le Carré, The Spy and the Traitor brings readers deep into a world of treachery and betrayal, where the lines bleed between the personal and the professional, and one man’s hatred of communism had the power to change the future of nations. - 726.The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel
The New York Times bestselling novel from Garth Stein—a heart-wrenching but deeply funny and ultimately uplifting story of family, love, loyalty, and hope—a captivating look at the wonders and absurdities of human life . . . as only a dog could tell it.
- 727.Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel (Modern Library 100 Best Novels)Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most. Billy Pilgrim’s journey is at once a farcical look at the horror and tragedy of war where children are placed on the frontlines and die (so it goes), and a moving examination of what it means to be fallibly human. An American classic and one of the world’s seminal antiwar books, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is faithfully presented in graphic novel form for the first time from Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler) and Eisner Award-nominated artist Albert Monteys (Universe!).
- 728.Magpie Murders: A Novel
"Magpie Murders is a double puzzle for puzzle fans, who don’t often get the classicism they want from contemporary thrillers." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times
New York Times bestseller | Winner of the Macavity Award for Best Novel | NPR best book of the Year | Washington Post best book of the Year | Esquire best book of the Year
From the New York Times bestselling author of Moriarty, this fiendishly brilliant, riveting thriller weaves a classic whodunit worthy of Agatha Christie into a chilling, ingeniously original modern-day mystery.
When editor Susan Ryeland is given the manuscript of Alan Conway’s latest novel, she has no reason to think it will be much different from any of his others. After working with the bestselling crime writer for years, she’s intimately familiar with his detective, Atticus Pünd, who solves mysteries disturbing sleepy English villages. An homage to queens of classic British crime such as Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, Alan’s traditional formula has proved hugely successful. So successful that Susan must continue to put up with his troubling behavior if she wants to keep her job.
Conway’s latest tale has Atticus Pünd investigating a murder at Pye Hall, a local manor house. Yes, there are dead bodies and a host of intriguing suspects, but the more Susan reads, the more she’s convinced that there is another story hidden in the pages of the manuscript: one of real-life jealousy, greed, ruthless ambition, and murder.
Masterful, clever, and relentlessly suspenseful, Magpie Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction in which the reader becomes the detective.
- 729.
- 730.Holiday Romance: A totally hilarious and unforgettable Christmas romantic comedy (Catherine Walsh Christmas romcoms)
She's meant to be catching flights, not catching feelings...
Molly and Andrew are just trying to get home to Ireland for the holidays, when a freak snowstorm grounds their flight.
Nothing romantic has ever happened between them: they're friends and that's all. But once a year, for the last ten years, Molly has spent seven hours and fifteen minutes sitting next to Andrew on the last flight before Christmas from Chicago to Dublin, drinking terrible airplane wine and catching up on each other's lives. In spite of all the ways the two friends are different, it's the holiday tradition neither of them has ever wanted to give up.
Molly isn't that bothered by Christmas, but-in yet another way they're total opposites-Andrew is a full-on fanatic for the festive season and she knows how much getting back to Ireland means to him. So, instead of doing the sane thing and just celebrating the holidays together in America, she does the stupid thing. The irrational thing. She vows to get him home. And in time for his mam's famous Christmas dinner.
The clock is ticking. But Molly always has a plan. And-as long as the highly-specific combination of taxis, planes, boats, and trains all run on time-it can't possibly go wrong.
What she doesn't know is that, as the snow falls over the city and over the heads of two friends who are sure they're not meant to be together, the universe might just have a plan of its own...
A totally gorgeous and escapist friends-to-lovers festive romance with a swoon-worthy hero. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella, Mhairi McFarlane, and Christina Lauren.
Readers are head over heels for Holiday Romance:
"OH MY GOODNESS!... I looooooved this so much!... I had to stop myself from devouring this story much faster! I wanted to enjoy every moment of Molly and Andrew's journey... And awwwwwww!!! Their chemistry!... Sizzling... I ABSOLUTELY FELL IN LOVE... PERFECTION!" Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"SO MUCH FUN. It's a feel good holiday rom com that hits all the right spots... I fell in love with Molly and Andrew as they fell for each other... The chemistry and tension was off the charts and I was screaming "just kiss you guys"... I was actually cackling at every chapter... The best thing I could've read... My only problem is that I wish I could have more of it. And that I want an Andrew for myself!" Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Wow wow wow. I'm just utterly hopelessly in love with this book." Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"I totally binged it in a day, I did not want to put this one down!... it was everything I could have hoped for... it gave me all the warm fuzzy, holiday feelings... Get ready for some cozy blanket and curl up with a hot cocoa vibes... had me laughing, crying (happy tears) and left me smiling and wanting more." Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"I literally read it in just a few hours, I could not put it down." Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"Literally everyone go read this book! It's giving me friends to lovers and I am HERE FOR IT!!!" Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐