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DISCUSSION GUIDES
- 951.Becoming Madam SecretaryShe took on titans, battled generals, and changed the world as we know it…
New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Dray returns with a captivating and dramatic novel about an American heroine Frances Perkins.
Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference.
When she’s not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell’s Kitchen, Frances throws herself into the social scene in Greenwich Village, befriending an eclectic group of politicians, artists, and activists, including the millionaire socialite Mary Harriman Rumsey, the flirtatious budding author Sinclair Lewis, and the brilliant but troubled reformer Paul Wilson, with whom she falls deeply in love.
But when Frances meets a young lawyer named Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a tea dance, sparks fly in all the wrong directions. She thinks he’s a rich, arrogant dilettante who gets by on a handsome face and a famous name. He thinks she’s a priggish bluestocking and insufferable do-gooder. Neither knows it yet, but over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House.
Frances is destined to rise in a political world dominated by men, facing down the Great Depression as FDR’s most trusted lieutenant—even as she struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood. And when vicious political attacks mount and personal tragedies threaten to derail her ambitions, she must decide what she’s willing to do—and what she’s willing to sacrifice—to save a nation. - 952.Between the World and MeA New York Times Best Seller, National Book Award Winner, NAACP Image Award Winner, and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Between the World and Me offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
- 953.Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague“Plague stories remind us that we cannot manage without community . . . Year of Wonders is a testament to that very notion.” – The Washington Post
An unforgettable tale, set in 17th century England, of a village that quarantines itself to arrest the spread of the plague, from the author The Secret Chord and of March, winner of the Pulitzer Prize
When an infected bolt of cloth carries plague from London to an isolated village, a housemaid named Anna Frith emerges as an unlikely heroine and healer. Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition. As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love. As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."
Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. Written with stunning emotional intelligence and introducing "an inspiring heroine" (The Wall Street Journal), Brooks blends love and learning, loss and renewal into a spellbinding and unforgettable read. - 954.Where the Lost Wander: A Novel
In this epic and haunting love story set on the Oregon Trail, a family and their unlikely protector find their way through peril, uncertainty, and loss.
The Overland Trail, 1853: Naomi May never expected to be widowed at twenty. Eager to leave her grief behind, she sets off with her family for a life out West. On the trail, she forms an instant connection with John Lowry, a half-Pawnee man straddling two worlds and a stranger in both.
But life in a wagon train is fraught with hardship, fear, and death. Even as John and Naomi are drawn to each other, the trials of the journey and their disparate pasts work to keep them apart. John's heritage gains them safe passage through hostile territory only to come between them as they seek to build a life together.
When a horrific tragedy strikes, decimating Naomi's family and separating her from John, the promises they made are all they have left. Ripped apart, they can't turn back, they can't go on, and they can't let go. Both will have to make terrible sacrifices to find each other, save each other, and eventually...make peace with who they are.
- 955.The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
“Extraordinary … A sweeping history of the Palestinian-Israeli conundrum … Highly readable and evocative.” – The Washington Post
The tale of a simple act of faith between two young people, one Israeli and one Palestinian, that symbolizes the hope for peace in the Middle East – with an updated afterword by the author.
In 1967, Bashir Khairi, a twenty-five-year-old Palestinian, journeyed to Israel with the goal of seeing the beloved stone house with the lemon tree behind it that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Eshkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family left Europe for Israel following the Holocaust. On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next half century in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, demonstrating that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and transformation. - 956.Don't Let the Forest In
As alluring as it is unsettling, award-winning author CG Drews' debut YA psychological horror will leave readers breathless and hesitant to venture deeper into the woods.
- 957.Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of warriors -- women who could not be Army Rangers and Navy SEALS in their own right, but who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be -- including Ashley White, a beloved soldier who was killed serving her country's cause
- 958.Beyond Everest: One Sherpa’s Summit and Hope for Nepal
One small man, one giant mountain: a Sherpa’s quest to create a better future, one perilous step at a time.
- 959.The Memory Trap
In the early 1960s, Rob Chambers, a brilliant young Dallas attorney, finds himself ensnared in a dangerous game of money laundering by the son of his firm’s largest client. If Rob refuses to participate, everyone dear to him will be murdered, starting with Wanda, the woman he cherishes.
- 960.Uninvited Valor--The Forsaken Soldiers of WWII: Based on the Epic True Story of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Debut author John Kiyonaga draws on his own father’s experience serving with the 442nd RCT, a unit consisting entirely of Japanese-American enlisted soldiers and considered the military’s most decorated unit. Expertly weaving fiction with history, Uninvited Valor is the story of men called into brotherhood—and greatness—by circumstances beyond their control, and their decision to go for broke, risking everything for the country that has forsaken them.