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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 81.The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir
A New York Times bestseller, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of one girl's coming-of-age in a polygamist Mormon Doomsday cult.
“A haunting, harrowing testament to survival." — People Magazine
“An addictive chronicle of a polygamist community.” — New York Magazine
Ruth Wariner was the thirty-ninth of her father’s forty-two children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can only ascend to Heaven by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible. After Ruth's father--the man who had been the founding prophet of the colony--is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries, becoming the second wife of another faithful congregant.
In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where her mother collects welfare and her step-father works a variety of odd jobs. Ruth comes to love the time she spends in the States, realizing that perhaps the community into which she was born is not the right one for her. As Ruth begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, she struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.
Recounted from the innocent and hopeful perspective of a child, The Sound of Gravel is the remarkable true story of a girl fighting for peace and love. This is an intimate, gripping book resonant with triumph, courage, and resilience. - 82.The Love HypothesisThe Instant New York Times Bestseller and TikTok Sensation!
As seen on THE VIEW!
A BuzzFeed Best Summer Read of 2021
When a fake relationship between scientists meets the irresistible force of attraction, it throws one woman's carefully calculated theories on love into chaos.
As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn't believe in lasting romantic relationships—but her best friend does, and that's what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor—and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford's reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive's career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding...six-pack abs.
Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope. - 83.Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting: A NovelFrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Authenticity Project comes an escapist story that will transport you, cheer you, and make you smile—and make you, too, wish you had Iona’s gift for bringing out the best in everyone.
- 84.A Tree Grows in BrooklynFrom the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. Often scorned by neighbors for her family’s erratic and eccentric behavior―such as her father Johnny’s taste for alcohol and Aunt Sissy’s habit of marrying serially without the formality of divorce―no one, least of all Francie, could say that the Nolans’ life lacked drama. By turns overwhelming, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are raw with honestly and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Betty Smith has captured the joys of humble Williamsburg life―from “junk day” on Saturdays, when the children traded their weekly take for pennies, to the special excitement of holidays, bringing cause for celebration and revelry. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience. Here is an American classic that "cuts right to the heart of life," hails the New York Times. "If you miss A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you will deny yourself a rich experience."
- 85.Treasure Island (Signet Classics)The rousing seafaring classic of adventure, pirates, and buried treasure
“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
For sheer storytelling delight and pure adventure, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island has never been surpassed. From young Jim Hawkins’s first encounter with the sinister beggar Pew to the climactic battle with the most memorable villain in literature, Long John Silver, this novel has fired readers’ imaginations for generations. A stirring tale of treachery, greed, and daring, Treasure Island continues to enthrall readers of all ages.
This edition features an introduction by Patrick Scott and an afterword by Sara Levine. - 86.Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A NovelSoon to be a major motion picture starring Cate Blanchett. A whip-smart, hysterical dramedy about a family in crisis after the disappearance of its brilliant, misanthropic matriarch. Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom. Where’d You Go Bernadette is a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.
- 87.The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in AppalachiaIn the early evening of June 25, 1980, Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were killed in an isolated clearing in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years no one was prosecuted for the "Rainbow Murders," though suspicion was cast on a succession of local men. In The Third Rainbow Girl, Eisenberg follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, forming a searing portrait of America and its divisions of gender and class, and of its violence.
- 88.Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says About Our Eternal Home (Clear Answers to 44 Real Questions About the Afterlife, Angels, Resurrection, and the Kingdom of God)
In this story of secrets, self-discovery and forgiveness, a disgraced star flees to Lowcountry SC in search of refuge, connection to family she’s never known, and a great new love story—if only she is brave enough to leave her old life behind.
- 89.The House of Fortune (The Miniaturist, 2)Alive with the magic of 18th-century Amsterdam, an enchanting, fantastical stand-alone companion novel to the sensational New York Times bestseller The Miniaturist, which has sold over two million copies worldwide.
- 90.A Spy in the StruggleAward-winning author, activist and educator Aya de León takes on climate justice and corporate corruption in her high-drama feminist espionage novel, A SPY IN THE STRUGGLE.