Book Discussion Kits for Adults
How do I have an adult book discussion?
Frequently Asked Questions - Reader Services
The Pioneer Library System makes holding a book discussion as easy as checking out a kit! All you have to do is gather the friends . . .and open the book. We do the all the rest for you!
PLS maintains Book Discussion Kits that have everything you need to have a successful group reading experience. Each kit contains 10-12 copies of the listed book, bookmarks, a manual containing discussion questions, reviews, articles about the book, and information about the author. Each kit can be checked out for 6 weeks.
So whether your interests are fiction or nonfiction or romance or mystery - Pioneer Library System has a kit that you and your friends will enjoy.
To reserve a kit for pick-up at your hometown library please call 405.701.1849 or 405.701.1839 - Please allow 3 working days for delivery.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
A fable about undauntedly following one's dream, listening to one's heart, and reading life's omens features dialog between a boy and an unnamed being.
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Sijie Dai
At the height of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, two boys are among the thousands exiled to the country for “reeducation. ” The narrator and his best friend, Luo, guilty of being the sons of doctors, are made to cart buckets of excrement up and down mountain paths. But the boys have a violin to distract them—as well as the beautiful daughter of the local tailor, possessor of a beguiling pair of feet. When the two discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translations, their education takes a surprising turn.
Being Polite to Hitler by Robb Forman Dew
After teaching and raising her family for most of her life, Agnes Scofield realizes that she is truly weary of the routine her life has become. But how, at 51, can she establish an identity apart from what has so long defined her? Robb Forman Dew intricately weaves together personal and family life into a richly wrought tapestry of the country in the 1950s and beyond. Being Polite to Hitler is a moving, frank, and surprising portrait of post-World War II America.
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
Played out against this turbulent backdrop, Alessandra's married life is a misery, except for the surprising freedom it allows her to pursue her powerful attraction to the young painter and his art. The Birth of Venus is a tour de force, the first historical novel from one of Britain's most innovative writers of literary suspense. It brings alive the history of Florence at its most dramatic period, telling a compulsively absorbing story of love, art, religion, and power through the passionate voice of Alessandra, a heroine with the same vibrancy of spirit as her beloved city.
Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis
In football, as in life, the value placed on people changes with the rules of the game they play. The young man at the center of this story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the NFL. When listeners are first introduced to him, he's one of 13 children of a crack-addicted mother; doesn't know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. Nor had he ever touched a football. This is his remarkable, moving story.
The Brave: a novel by Nicholas Evans
As a student at the Ashlawn Preparatory School in 1959 England, eight-year-old, cowboy-crazy Tommy Bedford is teased for being a bed wetter and gets the shock of his young life when he learns that his sister, glamorous “Next Big Thing” actress Diane Reed, is really his mother. Soon afterwards, she and Tommy move to L.A., where Diane falls for TV cowboy Ray Montane, and their tortured relationship leads to a horrifying act of violence that has lifelong repercussions for Tommy. In a parallel, present-day plot, 50-ish Tom, now a writer and documentary filmmaker who specializes in the American West, lives in Montana, is divorced and estranged from his adult son, Danny, who has been accused of committing an atrocity while serving in Iraq, for which he will be tried in military court.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley conjures up a horrifying, but often comic, vision of a future Utopia in which humans are processed, conditioned, regimented, and drugged into total social conformity. The story, set in a futuristic London, focuses on the misadventures of Bernard Marx. Disaffected with the regimentation of society, Bernard and his girlfriend, Lenina, visit the American Southwest where Native Americans are permitted to live in an "uncivilized" state. There they come upon a fair-skinned young man named John, who turns out to be the son of a Londoner, and Bernard brings John back to "civilized" London.
For a while, the "Savage" creates a sensation. Eventually the Savage becomes increasingly horrified by the "brave new world" and retreats into reading Shakespeare's plays. The Savage has fallen passionately in love with Lenina, but has convinced himself that any sexual contact between them would be a grievous sin--a stance that completely baffles Lenina who has been conditioned to enjoy promiscuous sex without any emotional commitment. In despair, the Savage precipitates a riot. Bernard is exiled for his participation and the Savage holes up in an abandoned lighthouse, where he grows food and mortifies his flesh as penance for his lust for Lenina. In the end, reporters discover the Savage and photograph his bizarre rituals of self-flagellation. A nightly carnival ensues as swarms of London curiosity seekers come to witness the antics of this strange creature. Finally the Savage, in shame and desperation, hangs himself.
Chosen by Chandra Hoffman
In Chosen, a young caseworker becomes increasingly entangled in the lives of adoptive and birth parents, with devastating results.
It all begins with a fantasy: the caseworker in her "signing paperwork" charcoal suit standing alongside beaming parents cradling their adopted newborn, set against a fluorescent-lit delivery-room backdrop. It's this blissful picture that keeps Chloe Pinter, director of the Chosen Child's domestic-adoption program, happy while juggling the high demands of her boss and the incessant needs of both adoptive and biological parents.
But the very job that offers her refuge from her turbulent personal life and Portland's winter rains soon becomes a battleground involving three very different couples: the Novas, well-off college sweethearts who suffered fertility problems but are now expecting their own baby; the McAdoos, a wealthy husband and desperate wife for whom adoption is a last chance; and Jason and Penny, an impoverished couple who have nothing—except the baby everyone wants. When a child goes missing, dreams dissolve into nightmares, and everyone is forced to examine what he or she really wants and where it all went wrong. Told from alternating points of view, Chosen reveals the desperate nature of desire across social backgrounds and how far people will go to get the one thing they think will be the answer.
Christmas at Harrington’s by Melody Carlson
Christmas is approaching, and Lena Markham finds herself penniless, friendless, and nearly hopeless. She is trying to restart her life, but job opportunities are practically nonexistent. When a secondhand red coat unexpectedly lands her a job as Mrs. Santa at a department store, Lena finally thinks her luck is changing. But can she keep her past a secret?
Reading Christmas at Harrington’s, a story full of redemption and true holiday spirit, will be your newest Christmas tradition.
Christmas Cookie Club by Ann Pearlman
Mark your calendar. It's the Christmas Cookie Club! Every year on the first Monday of December, Marnie and her twelve closest girlfriends gather in the evening with batches of beautifully wrapped homemade cookies. Everyone has to bring a dish, a bottle of wine, and their stories. This year, the stories are especially important. Marnie's oldest daughter has a risky pregnancy. Will she find out tonight how that story might end? Jeannie's father is having an affair with her best friend. Who else knew about the betrayal, and how can that be forgiven or forgotten, even among old friends such as these? Rosie's husband doesn't want children, and she has to decide, very soon, whether or not that's a deal breaker for the marriage. Taylor's life is in financial freefall. Each woman, each friend has a story to tell, and they are all interwoven, just as their lives are. The Christmas Cookie Club is about the paths Marnie and her friends have traveled, the absolute joy they take in life and love despite the decisions they've regretted, the hard choices and amends they've had to make, and the sacrifices along the way. Ultimately, The Christmas Cookie Club is every woman's story.
Christmas Memory by Truman Capote
The call for the faded straw hat and the rickety old baby buggy are the sign that preparations for Christmas are about to begin. This tender autobiographical story about the author as a young boy and his aged companion aunt is presented in a newly illustrated edition that suits the tone and time of the tale well. Perfect for oral, the loving and warm story will also be enjoyed by the able middle-grade reader as well as adults.
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Tom, a tired, cash-strapped journalist, is banned from flying when a security search causes him to lose his cool. Now he must take the train if he wants to arrive in Los Angeles for Christmas with his girlfriend. To finance the trip, he sells a story about a train ride taken during the Christmas season. Along the way, he encounters a ridiculous cast of characters, unexpected romance, and an avalanche that changes everyone's plans.
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
Venice, a city steeped in a thousand years of history, art and architecture, teeters in precarious balance between endurance and decay. Its architectural treasures crumble--foundations shift, marble ornaments fall--even as efforts to preserve them are underway. This book opens in 1996, when a dramatic fire destroys the historic Venice opera house, a catastrophe for Venetians. Arriving three days after the fire, Berendt becomes a kind of detective--inquiring into the nature of life in this remarkable museum-city--while gradually revealing the truth about the fire. He introduces us to a rich cast of characters, Venetian and expatriate, in a tale full of atmosphere and surprise which reveals a world as finely drawn as a still-life painting. The fire and its aftermath serve as a leitmotif, adding elements of chaos, corruption, and crime and contributing to the ever-mounting suspense.
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
A compelling historical narrative about the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the two men who shaped its place in history -- an architect of almost magical ability and a prolific serial killer known as the Devil.
Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew
Infused with the intensity of a changing time, here is a story of hope and heartbreak, of love and courage, of a journey from wounded to indomitable. In August 1954, Jubie Watts, a white teenager, leaves Charlotte, NC, with her family and their black maid for a Florida vacation.
Jubie notices the anti-integration signs they pass, and feels racial tension build as they journey further south. But she cannot predict the shocking turn their trip will take. In the wake of tragedy, Jubie confronts her parents' failings, decides where her own convictions lie, and makes a leap to independence.
Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray
Ruth loves to bake cake, and when in a crisis, she bakes cake. As Eat Cake begins, Ruth's husband, a successful hospital administrator, has just lost his job in a merger; her elderly mother has just come to live with them after a frightening break-in, her smart-alec daughter is failing to keep the misery of adolescence to herself, and her father, long-estranged from her mother, turns up at the door with shattered wrists and no place to go. Now, she has reason to bake cakes!
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
A celebrated writer pens an irresistible, candid, and eloquent account of her pursuit of worldly pleasure, spiritual devotion, and what she really wanted out of life.
Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn
Ella Minnow Pea is a girl living happily on the fictional island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina. Ella finds herself acting to save her friends, family, and fellow citizens from the intruding totalitarianism of the island’s Council, which has banned the use of certain letters of the alphabet. Publisher’s Weekly says this novel is “bursting with creativity, neological mischief, and clever manipulation of the English language”.
Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick
Cynthia Ozick is one of America’s literary treasures. For her sixth novel, she set herself a brilliant challenge: to retell the story of Henry James’s The Ambassadors—the work he considered his best—but as a photographic negative, that is the plot is the same, the meaning is reversed. At the core of the story is Bea Nightingale, a fiftyish divorced schoolteacher whose life has been on hold during the many years since her brief marriage. When her estranged, difficult brother asks her to leave New York for Paris to retrieve a nephew she barely knows, she becomes entangled in the lives of her brother’s family and even, after so long, her ex-husband.
Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, "Nell" sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.
Freakonomnics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt
Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives--how people get what they want or need especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of--well, everything.
Freedom: a novel by Johathan Franzen
At one time the Berglund's were ideal neighbors and hands-on-parents. But now, in the new millennium, they had become a mystery. Their son had moved in with the Republican family next door. Walter, an environmental lawyer, had taken a job with Big Coal, and Patty was coming unhinged before everyone's eyes. What had caused such a transformation?
Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
As the United States begins gearing up for war in the Middle East, twenty-year-old Tassie Keltjin, the Midwestern daughter of a gentleman hill farmer—his “Keltjin potatoes” are justifiably famous—has come to a university town as a college student, her brain on fire with Chaucer, Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir. Between semesters, she takes a job as a part-time nanny. The family she works for seems both mysterious and glamorous to her, and although Tassie had once found children boring, she comes to care for, and to protect, their newly adopted little girl as her own. As the year unfolds and she is drawn deeper into each of these lives, her own life back home becomes ever more alien to her: her parents are frailer; her brother, aimless and lost in high school, contemplates joining the military. Tassie finds herself becoming more and more the stranger she felt herself to be, and as life and love unravel dramatically, even shockingly, she is forever changed.
Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
Eric Weiner's The Geography of Bliss signals the arrival of the next great category of literary nonfiction: the philosophical self-help humorous travel memoir. Using the ancient philosophers and the much more recent "science of happiness" as his guide, Weiner travels the world in search of the happiest places. As Weiner makes his way from Iceland (one of the world's happiest countries) to Bhutan (where the king has made Gross National Happiness a national priority) to Moldova (not a happy place), he calls upon the collective wisdom of "the self-help industrial complex" to help him navigate the path to contentment.
He travels to Switzerland, where he discovers the hidden virtues of boredom; to the tiny-and extremely wealthy-Persian Gulf nation of Qatar, where the relationship between money and happiness is laid bare; to India, where Westerners seek their bliss at the feet of gurus; to Thailand, where not thinking is a way of life; to a small town outside London where happiness experts attempt to "change the psychological climate." He also travels within the U.S.-and discovers that paradise is always a step away.
Throughout his global quest, Weiner integrates the insights of classical thinkers on happiness, augmented by one-liners worthy of a stand-up comedian. Full of inspired moments and earned epiphanies, The Geography of Bliss sets out to accomplish a feat few books dare and even fewer achieve: to make you happier.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father-- an ardent pacifist--and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, who are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Forty years ago Harriet Vanger, scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden disappeared, and her uncle, Henrik, is determined to know the truth about what happened to her. Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist, is hired by Henrik to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. He's assisted by Lisbeth Salander, 24, a pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed with wisdom beyond her years. They discover a vein of iniquity running through the Vanger family and a surprising connection between themselves.
The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls
'I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.' So begins journalist Jeannette Walls' memoir, a heartbreaking and astonishing story of unconditional love in a family that, despite its profound flaws, gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.
The Goodbye Quilt by Susan Wiggs
Linda Davis's local fabric shop is a place where women gather to share their creations: quilts commemorating important events in their lives. Wedding quilts, baby quilts, memorial quilts--each is bound tight with dreams, hopes and yearnings.
Now, as her only child readies for college, Linda is torn between excitement for Molly and heartache for herself. Who will she be when she is no longer needed in her role as mom? What will become of her days? Of her marriage?
Mother and daughter decide to share one last adventure together--a cross-country road trip to move Molly into her dorm. As they wend their way through the heart of the country, Linda stitches together the scraps that make up Molly's young life. And in the quilting of each bit of fabric--the hem of a christening gown, a snippet from a Halloween costume--Linda discovers that the memories of a shared journey can come together in a way that will keep them both warm in the years to come.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that notion. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
In January 1946, London is beginning to recover from World War II, and Juliet Ashton is looking for a subject for her next book. She spent the war years writing a column for the Times until her own dear flat became a victim of a German bomb. While sifting through the rubble and reconstructing her life, she receives a letter from a man on Guernsey, the British island occupied by the Germans. He'd found her name on the flyleaf of a book by Charles Lamb and was writing to ask if she knew of any other books by the author. So begins a correspondence that draws Juliet into the community of Guernsey and the members of the Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Named to protect its members from arrest by the Germans, the society shares their unique love of literature and life with a newfound friend. Seeing this as the subject of her next book, Juliet sails to Guernsey, a voyage that will change her life.
Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where she works for the Commander and his wife. She is hoping to become pregnant by the Commander, since she is valued only for her fertility. Failure to produce a child could mean exile to the polluted Colonies. She cherishes the bittersweet memories of 'before' when she lived with her husband and daughter, had a job, access to knowledge, and had her own name.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In Jackson, Miss., 1962, there are lines--lines that are not crossed. Black maids raise white children, but no one trusts them not to steal the silver. Black maids clean the toilets, but they have their own out back. Black maids cook the food, but they eat theirs in the kitchen. Everyone knows there are lines, and everyone stays within the lines.
The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent
Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried, and hanged as a witch in Salem. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with each other, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria and superstitious tyranny. This is the story of Martha's courageous defiance and ultimate death, as told by the daughter who survived.
History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Leo Gursky is trying to survive a little bit longer, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive, drawing attention to himself at the milk counter of Starbucks. But life wasn’t always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And although he doesn’t know it, that book also survived: it crossed oceans and generations, and changed lives.
Fourteen-year-old Alama was named after a character in that book. She has her hands full keeping track of her little brother Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah) and taking copious notes in her book, How to Survive in the Wild Volume Three. But when a mysterious letter arrives in the mail she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.
In her extraordinary new novel Nicole Krauss has created some of the most memorable and moving characters in recent fiction. A tale brimming with laughter, passion, and soaring imaginative power, The History of Love confirms Krauss as one of the most remarkable writers of her generation.
Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
Recently widowed Helen Ames is shocked to discover that her husband, whom she'd thought was as faithful as they came, had been leading a double life. The money they had been saving for retirement had disappeared in several big withdrawals, spent by him before he died. What was he doing, and what would she do now? Helen's investigation into her husband's dealings leads to a new adventure and change for herself and her daughter.
House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Grace Bradley had gone to work as a servant for the wealthy Hartford family when she was just a girl. During that time she had become quite friendly with daughters Hannah and Emmeline. In the summer of 1924, at a society party there, a young poet shot himself. The only witnesses were Hannah and Emmeline and only they--and Grace--know the truth. Grace, now 98, tells her story to a young movie director, revealing some secrets while keeping others hidden.
The House on Tradd Street by Karen White
Inheriting an historic home from an elderly man she had recently met, Melanie Middleton, a Charleston real-estate agent who possesses the ability to see ghosts, finds herself dealing with an entire family of haunts and joins forces with Jack Trenholm, a handsome writer, to unravel the house's dark history and find some long-missing diamonds.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, and more. Henrietta’s cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can’t afford health insurance.
Soon to be made into an HBO movie by Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball, this New York Times bestseller takes readers on an extraordinary journey, from the “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to stark white laboratories with freezers filled with HeLa cells, from Henrietta’s small, dying hometown of Clover, Virginia, to East Baltimore today, where her children and grandchildren live and struggle with the legacy of her cells. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew. It’s a story inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans, the birth of bioethics, and the legal battles over whether we control the stuff we’re made of.
Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez
The middle of Kabul in war-torn Afghanistan seems like the last place one would open a Beauty School, but that's exactly what Deborah Rodriguez did. Now she shares the stories of her students who enrolled there in spite of threats to their own personal well being and learned the art of perms, friendship, and freedom.
Letter from Home by Carolyn Hart
Summer 1944: Gretchen is working as a reporter at the local newspaper. Everyone's talking about Faye Tatum, who's been found dead in her own living room. Gretchen had known Faye and knew that the circumstances of her life were much different than people imagined. Gretchen's determined to uncover the truth once and for all -- even if it means writing a story that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century--1951--in the middle of the United States--Des Moines, Iowa--in the middle of the largest generation in American history--the baby boomers. As one of the funniest writers alive, he is perfectly positioned to mine his all-American childhood for memoir gold. Like millions of his generational peers, Bill Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around his house and neighborhood wearing a jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel about his neck, vanquishing evildoers--in his head--as "The Thunderbolt Kid." Using his fantasy-life persona as a springboard, Bryson re-creates the life of his family in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality--a life at once familiar to us all and as far away and unreachable as another galaxy.
Listen by Rene Gutteridge
Marlo was the perfect place to live until someone started posting private conversations online word-for-word. Now, neighbors have turned against neighbors and friends against friends. When violence and paranoia escalate, the police hustle to find the person responsible before someone ends up dead.
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Two very different woman, a young refugee from the Nigerian delta and a suburban English housewife, met on a beach in Africa years before. Told in alternating voices, the story follows the course of their friendship. In the end, their bond will face the ultimate test when each woman must make a devastating decision.
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen by Susan Gregg Gilmore
It’s the early 1970s. The town of Ringgold, Georgia, has a population of 1,923, one traffic light, one Dairy Queen, and one Catherine Grace Cline. The daughter of Ringgold’s third-generation Baptist preacher, Catherine Grace is quick-witted, more than a little stubborn, and dying to escape her small-town life. Every Saturday afternoon, she sits at the Dairy Queen, eating Dilly Bars and plotting her getaway to Atlanta. And when, with the help of a family friend, the dream becomes a reality, she immediately packs her bags, leaving her family and the boy she loves to claim the life she’s always imagined. But before things have even begun to get off the ground in Atlanta, tragedy brings Catherine Grace back home. As a series of extraordinary events alter her perspective–and sweeping changes come to Ringgold itself–Catherine Grace begins to wonder if her place in the world may actually be, against all odds, right where she began.
Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O’Connor McNees
Readers across generations have fallen in love with Little Women. But how could Louisa May Alcott --- who never had a romance --- write so convincingly of love and heartbreak without experiencing it herself? In The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O’Connor McNees deftly mixes fact and fiction as she imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa’s writing career --- and inspire the story of Jo and Laurie in Little Women.
Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women by Harriet Reisen
A vivid, energetic account of the life of the beloved author whose work has delighted millions of readers, Louisa May Alcott. Reisen portrays a writer as worthy of interest in her own right as her most famous character, Jo March, and addresses all aspects of Alcott’s life: the effect of her father’s self-indulgent utopian schemes; her family’s chronic economic difficulties and frequent uprootings; her experience as a nurse in the Civil War; the loss of her health; and her frequent recourse to opiates in search of relief from migraines, insomnia, and symptomatic pain. Stories and details culled from Alcott’s journals; her equally rich letters to family, friends, publishers, and admiring readers; and the correspondence, journals, and recollections of her family, friends, and famous contemporaries provide the basis for this true-life rags-to-riches tale.
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Fact and fiction are blended in this novel about the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney who, in spite of being married to others, began a clandestine affair that eventually led them to flee to Europe, devastating their families and shocking Chicago society. Based on years of research, the historical novel brings the characters to life and illuminates Mamah's conflicts and sacrifices as she's forced to choose between her roles as mother, wife, lover, and intellectual
Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks
A brush with death leads a young man to the love of his life. Is there really such thing as a lucky charm? The hero of this novel believes he's found one in the form of a photograph of a smiling woman he's never met, but who he comes to believe holds the key to his destiny. The chain of events that leads to him possessing the photograph and finding the woman pictured in it is the stuff of love stories only a master can write.
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson
When Major Pettigrew, a retired British army major in a small English village, embarks on an unexpected friendship with the widowed Mrs. Ali, who runs the local shop, trouble erupts to disturb the bucolic serenity of the village and of the Major’s carefully regimented life.
As the Major and Mrs. Ali discover just how much they have in common, including an educated background and a shared love of books, they must struggle to understand what it means to belong and how far the obligations of family and tradition can be set aside for personal freedom. Meanwhile, the village itself, lost in its petty prejudices and traditions, may not see its own destruction coming.
Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Dr. David Henry, forced by a winter blizzard to deliver his own twins, a boy and a girl, makes a decision that will alter his family's life forever when he recognizes that the girl twin has Down syndrome. He instructs a nurse to take the girl away to an institution and never reveal the secret. But, the nurse keeps the child, leaves the area, and raises it as her own. As the story unfolds over 25 years, two families are haunted by the secret.
Mindless Eating: why we eat more than we think by Brian Wansink Ph.D.
This book will literally change the way you think about your next meal. Food psychologist Brian Wansink revolutionizes our awareness of how much, what, and why we’re eating—often without realizing it. His findings will astound you.
- Can the size of your plate really influence your appetite?
- Why do you eat more when you dine with friends?
- What “hidden persuaders” are used by restaurants and supermarkets to get us to overeat?
- How does music or the color of the room influence how much—and how fast—we eat?
- How can we “mindlessly” lose—instead of gain—up to twenty pounds in the coming year?
Starting today, you can make more mindful, enjoyable, and healthy choices at the dinner table, in the supermarket, at the office—wherever you satisfy your appetite.
My Nest Isn’t Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space by Lisa Scottoline
Popular mystery writer and author of Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog (2009) (an amusing collection drawn from her weekly newspaper column, “Chick Lit”), Scottoline stirs up even more sassy fun—this time bringing her daughter, Francesca, into the mix as co-writer. Building from the stories in her first collection, Scottoline teaches the art of choosing the perfect purse, how to survive deadlines (not to mention dirty dishwashers), and what to do (or not do) when visiting your adult child’s apartment. All the usual suspects are in tow, including four loyal canines, two quirky cats, and one feisty Mother Mary—with a few family photographs to boot. Echoing her mother’s wit and charm, daughter Francesca muses on the life of a twenty something and tackles apartment decor, first dates, finding the perfect gal pal, and starting out as a single girl in New York City.
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
New superiour court judge Alex Cormier is assigned to preside over the case of the alleged Sterling High School shooter. Lawyer Jordan McAffee represents Peter--the boy who, on the day of the shooting, was found in the corner of the gymnasium holding a gun to his head with a shaky hand. Detective Patrick DuCharme has one star witness, but her story keeps changing. And then there's the biggest problem of all--the star witness happens to be Judge Cormier's daughter.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
In the small coastal town in Maine, everyone knows Olive Kitteridge, the retired school teacher, who plays a leading or subsidiary role in many lives. She has the uncanny ability to see into the hearts of others, discerning their triumphs and tragedies, while not always seeing her own life as clearly. For instance, she doesn't see that her own son feels tyrannized by her or that her stoic husband stays with her not out of love, but out of a sense of duty.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
After a meeting with his only neighbor, sixty-seven-year-old Trond is forced to reflect upon a long-ago incident that marks the beginning of a series of losses for Trond and his childhood friend, Jon.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell examines some of the most successful people today, and tries to determine what exactly contributes to their success. He finds that, as a culture, we often analyze a person's success based on what that person is like. Rather, we should look at contributing factors such as culture, family, and the idiosyncratic differences in their upbringing to determine what makes a person successful.
The Paper Bag Christmas by Kevin Alan Milne
"A heart-tugging tale of a boy who discovers the true meaning of Christmas through his friendship with a troubled little girl"--Provided by publisher.
Postmistress by Sarah Blake
What would happen if a postmistress chose not to deliver the mail?
It is 1940. While the war is raging in Europe, President Roosevelt promises he won't send American boys over to fight.
Iris James is the postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts a small town at the end of Cape Cod. She firmly believes her job is to deliver and keep people's secrets, to pass along the news of love and sorrow that letters carry. Faithfully she stamps and sends the letters between people such as the newlyweds Emma and Will Fitch, who has gone to London to help out during the Blitz. But one day she slips a letter into her pocket, and leaves it there.
Meanwhile, seemingly fearless radio gal, Frankie Bard is reporting the Blitz from London, her dispatches crinkling across the Atlantic, imploring listeners to pay attention. Then in the last desperate days of the summer of 1941, she rides the trains out of Germany, reporting on what is happening to the refugees there.
Alternating between an America on the eve of entering into World War II, still safe and snug in its inability to grasp the danger at hand, an a Europe being torn apart by war, the two stories collide in a letter, bringing the war finally home to Franklin.
Push by Sapphire
Precious Jones, 16 years old and pregnant by her father with her second child, meets a determined and highly radical teacher who takes her on a journey of transformation and redemption. (The Academy Award winning movie, Precious, is based on this novel.)
Rainwater by Sandra Brown
Ella Barron, mother of a son, ten, runs her Texas boarding house with the efficiency of a ship's captain. Then she's pulled into an unusual series of events when she reluctantly rents one of her rooms to the handsome and dying Dr. David Rainwater. The winds of change are blowing all over Texas, just as they are in the life that Ella has painstakingly built for herself and her son.
Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg
Christmas has come to a town in Alabama. A town much like the one Flagg grew up in. In this remote town where the mail is still received by boat, something happens to change Christmas morning festivities.
Room by Emma Donaghue
To five-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it's where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.
Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it's not enough. Not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son's bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.
Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, ROOM is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.
Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself.
Say You’re One of Them by Uwen Akpan
Poverty and violence are things children in Africa face daily. Akpan shares stories of such children, two of which include: 'An Ex-Mas Feast,' about an eight-year-old in Kenya who needs money to buy books and pay fees to attend school, but the money his young sister takes on the streets must be used for food. Another is: 'My Parents' Bedroom,' about a young girl and her small brother in Rwanda who witness their parents' terrible choice in order to protect their children.
Scent of Rain and Lightning by Nancy Pickard
One beautiful summer afternoon, from her bedroom window on the second floor, Jody Linder is unnerved to see her three uncles parking their pickups in front of her parents’ house—or what she calls her parents’ house, even though Jay and Laurie Jo Linder have been gone almost all of Jody’s life. “What is this fearsome thing I see?” the young high school English teacher whispers, mimicking Shakespeare. Polished boots, pressed jeans, fresh white shirts, Stetsons—her uncles’ suspiciously clean visiting clothes are a disturbing sign.
The three bring shocking news: The man convicted of murdering Jody’s father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-six years since that stormy night when, as baby Jody lay asleep in her crib, her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night.
Now Billy Crosby has been granted a new trial, thanks in large part to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. As Jody lives only a few doors down from the Crosbys, she knows that sooner or later she’ll come face-to-face with the man who she believes destroyed her family.
What she doesn’t expect are the heated exchanges with Collin. Having grown up practically side by side in this very small town, Jody and Collin have had a long history of carefully avoiding each other’s eyes. Now Jody discovers that underneath their antagonism is a shared sense of loss that no one else could possibly understand. As she revisits old wounds, startling revelations compel her to uncover the dangerous truth about her family’s tragic past.
Engrossing, lyrical, and suspenseful, The Scent of Rain and Lightning captures the essence of small-town America—its heartfelt intimacy and its darkest secrets—where through struggle and hardship people still dare to hope for a better future. For Jody Linder, maybe even love. (From the publisher.)
School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
The School of Essential Ingredients follows the lives of eight students who gather in Lillian’s Restaurant every Monday night for cooking class. It soon becomes clear, however, that each one seeks a recipe for something beyond the kitchen. Students include Claire, a young mother struggling with the demands of her family; Antonia, an Italian kitchen designer learning to adapt to life in America; and Tom, a widower mourning the loss of his wife to breast cancer. Chef Lillian, a woman whose connection with food is both soulful and exacting, helps them to create dishes whose flavor and techniques expand beyond the restaurant and into the secret corners of her students’ lives. One by one the students are transformed by the aromas, flavors, and textures of Lillian’s food, including a white-on-white cake that prompts wistful reflections on the sweet fragility of love and a peppery heirloom tomato sauce that seems to spark one romance but end another. Brought together by the power of food and companionship, the lives of the characters mingle and intertwine, united by the revealing nature of what can be created in the kitchen.
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Sisters May and Pearl live in Shanghai, China in the mid-1930s--a time of glamour and wealth for their city. However, their once wealthy family is near bankruptcy, so they are matched in arranged marriages to Gold Mountain men who have come from California to find brides. Traveling to America, they find life there harsh and the situation is made worse by Pearl's unexpected pregnancy as a result of a shipboard romance. It's a secret both women vow to keep for the remainder of their lives.
Singing with the Top Down by Debrah Williamson
At a time in the 1950s when America is a little more innocent and everyone believes in a brighter tomorrow, two children and their flamboyant aunt head toward California in a Buick Skylark convertible and share adventures both funny and poignant that teach them the true meaning of family.
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
In this charming fable, Grisham tells the story of one couple's hilarious attempt to escape Christmas, only to be forced by friends and family to rediscover the true meaning of the season
Small Change by Sheila Roberts
Rachel, Jessica and Tiffany all share a difficult secret: they're all struggling with major financial problems. A sudden divorce has turned Rachel from a stay-at-home mom to a strapped-for-cash divorcee about to enter the workforce for the first time. Tiffany's spending has been out of control for years, and her mounting credit card bills have put a major strain on her marriage. And Jessica just had the rug pulled out from under her. After struggling her entire life to make ends meet, she's just gotten engaged to a man with a big bank account. And now he's asked her to sign a prenuptial.
When the women share their problems at their weekly crafting group, they decide to ban together to take control of their finances. As they struggle to bring balance back to their checkbooks and their lives, they learn some important lessons: that making a series small changes in one's spending habits can make a big difference…and that some things in life, like good friends, are truly priceless.
So Brave,Young and Handsome by Leif Enger
Life changes for Glendon Hale, an aging train robber on a quest to reclaim love and obtain forgiveness, when he meets Monte Becket, a writer who has lost his sense of purpose. Inspired by Glendon's tale of having abandoned his wife two decades ago and now trying to find her to ask her forgiveness, Monte decides to follow the man and write his story. On their trail is Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton detective who's been hunting Glendon for years.
Solomon’s Oak by Jo-Ann Mapson
Glory Solomon never expected to be a young widow, a wedding planner, or a business owner, but suddenly she is all three. After her husband’s unexpected death, Glory turns his hand-built chapel into a wedding venue. Unconventional couples are drawn to the modest chapel, which is shaded under a historic tree known as Solomon’s Oak. Glory’s first clients request a pirate wedding, complete with sword-fighting and gallons of grog. In the chaos of the pirate ceremony, Glory meets two people who will change her life forever: Juniper and Joseph. As Glory struggles to raise Juniper as a foster daughter, she realizes she can’t get by without Joseph Vigil, a former cop who halts the pirate wedding when he mistakes the sword-fighting for real violence.
Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas
When a student bearing a striking resemblance to artists' renderings of Jesus Christ is found murdered--by crucifixion--in London's Jewish ghetto, 19th- century private detective Cyrus Barker must hire an assistant to help him solve the sinister case. That individual turns out to be a downtrodden young man, Thomas Llewelyn, whose murky past includes stints at college and prison. Together they pass through chop houses, stables, and clandestine tea rooms, inching ever closer to the shocking truth.
So Much For That by Lionel Shriver
Shep Knacker has long saved for "The Afterlife": an idyllic retreat to the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Traffic jams on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway will be replaced with "talking, thinking, seeing, and being"—and enough sleep. When he sells his home repair business for a cool million dollars, his dream finally seems within reach. Yet Glynis, his wife of twenty-six years, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the right time to go. Weary of working as a peon for the jerk who bought his company, Shep announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her.
Just returned from a doctor's appointment, Glynis has some news of her own: Shep can't go anywhere because she desperately needs his health insurance. But their policy only partially covers the staggering bills for her treatments, and Shep's nest egg for The Afterlife soon cracks under the strain.
Enriched with three medical subplots that also explore the human costs of American health care, So Much for That follows the profound transformation of a marriage, for which grave illness proves an unexpected opportunity for tenderness, renewed intimacy, and dry humor. In defiance of her dark subject matter, Shriver writes a page-turner that presses the question: How much is one life worth?
Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
A gripping exploration into the world of Lou Arrendale, an autistic man who is offered a chance to try a brand-new experimental 'cure' for his condition. Now Lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery that might completely change the way he views the world and the very essence of who he is.
Stitches by David Small
One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Small, a prize-winning children's author, re- creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X- rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Graphic novel
Stones Into Schools by Greg Mortenson
Picking up where 'Three Cups of Tea' left off, Mortenson recounts his ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his continued work in Kashmir and Pakistan after a 2005 earthquake; and the ways in which he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders. He also talks about his desire to promote peace through education and literacy.
Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall
Olivia Harker Cross of Pope County, Ky., lives on Big Foley Mountain, where someone is killing the wolves. Although this upsets her, she has more important things that concern her. Like how little she understands her own history, her mother's madness, or her daughter's flight to California, leaving her to raise her grandson. Most of all, Olivia doesn't understand why so many people seem to hate her. When she faces down each of these concerns, she ignites a conflict that changes her life.
Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer
Growing up, a group of women believed their generation would be different. They went to good colleges, and began high-powered careers. But after marriage and babies, they decided to stay home, temporarily, to raise their children. Now, ten years later, they are still at home, unsure how they came to inhabit lives so different from the ones they expected. However, their lives are about to change in ways they never could have predicted.
That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo
Griffin had been happily married for 30 years with a lovely family and a great job. He had attained everything he'd hoped for in his life. Then, in what seemed like a moment, everything changed. With his parents dead, his marriage over, and his daughter about to be married, the middle-aged man reflects on the life he had and the life he had hoped to have.
Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Margaret Lea, who works in her father's bookshop, has a fascination for the biographies of the long-dead. When she gets a letter from the mysterious and reclusive famous author Vida Winter asking Margaret to write about her extraordinary life, Margaret is thrilled. Traveling to Yorkshire to meet Vida, she's captivated by Vida's storytelling, but doesn't entirely believe some of it. What Margaret discovers on her journey to confirm the truth is for her a chilling and transforming experience.
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Three Cups of Tea traces Mortenson's decade-long odyssey to build school (especially for girls), throughout the region that gave birth to the Taliban and sanctuary to Al Qaeda. While he wages war with the root causes of terrorism - poverty and ignorance - Mortenson must survive kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, death threats from Americans who consider him a traitor, and wrenching separations from his family.
Trouble in Paradise by Terrye Robins
The humdrum life of a third grade teacher named Allison Kane is turned upside-down when she becomes the obsession of an unscrupulous new neighbor. As she tries to unravel a puzzle that plagues her neighborhood, she is drawn deeper into the man's sordid secrets.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
A Visit from the Goon Squad is an utterly unique work of fiction - simultaneously a novel and a series of linked stories - in which Jennifer Egan extracts episodes from the lives of a colorful array of characters to weave an atemporal tapestry of narrative that stretches into both past and future.
It all begins with Sasha, an arresting, raven-haired kleptomaniac, who at the novel's opening is 35-years-old and living in New York, though in future chapters we find Sasha as both a teenage streetrat in Naples, Italy, and a California suburban mother. Sasha is central to A Visit from the Goon Squad, as is Bennie Salazar, a successful A and R guy and founder of the Sow's Ear record label. Bennie's story similarly unfolds episodically through Egan's novel - from his "green-haired and safety-pinned" youth to later years, in which we find Bennie filled with regrets and shame.
Egan's eclectic cast of characters ranges from 1970s punk-rockers and record industry professionals to Kenyan tribesman and a single genocidal dictator from an unnamed country. With each chapter, perspective shifts to another character, usually a character from the periphery of a prior chapter. And with this shift in voice and perspective come radical changes in format - from straight-forward narrative to a convict's apologetic epistle to, in one instance, a powerpoint presentation created by a teenager. Each of these chapters is distinct from its siblings and each is able to stand independently as an engaging piece of short fiction.
Violets of March by Sarah Jio
Emily Wilson would be the first to admit that her life has seen better days. Her best-selling novel debuted eight years ago, she has struggled to write since, and she is now coming face-to-face with divorce from her once perfect husband Joel. Emily needs to heal, and she decides the best place to renew herself is across the country in a dear spot from her childhood: Bainbridge Island.
While staying with her beloved Aunt Bee, Emily's attempt at healing becomes complicated when she discovers the diary of a mysterious woman named Esther. Esther's story leads Emily on a path through a timeless love story, a painful series of misunderstandings, and a devastating secret that has vexed her family for decades.
The Violets of Marchis a story about love and fate. It's about the power such love has over us over space and time, and how it can haunt us when it goes unfulfilled. It defines love as an eternal bond that may drive us toward irrationality, but, ultimately, brings us hope for happiness and forgiveness.
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Jacob Jankowski, an orphan, is drifting through life when he jumps onto a passing train, and enters a world of freaks, grifters, and misfits, a second rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression. As they make one-night stands in town after town, Jacob, a veterinary student who almost earned his degree, is put in charge of caring for the circus animals. It's there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful married star of the equestrian act and Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable.
Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy
Feelings are mixed when it's announced that a new highway may bypass the town of Rossmore and cut through Whitethorn Woods instead. Some say it will be an economic disaster, while others think it will make the town safer. Father Brian Flynn is concerned for the fate of St. Ann's Well, a wishing well at the edge of the woods which would be destroyed. No one seems to know what to do about it until Neddy, an emotionally 'challenged' person, finally saves the day.
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Can a woman ever really know herself if she doesn’t know her mother?
Meredith and Nina Whitson are as different as sisters can be. One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters.
As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are.
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