Book Group Take-Out

The lone black female cor­po­rate attor­ney in mid­town Man­hat­tan dis­cov­ers her white boss, and lover, dead with a gun­shot wound to his head, and must deal with office sus­pi­cions and gos­sip when she is pro­mot­ed as his successor.

Down­load the All Her Lit­tle Secrets dis­cus­sion guide.

A blind French girl on the run from the Ger­man occu­pa­tion and a Ger­man orphan-turned-Resis­tance track­er strug­gle with respec­tive beliefs after meet­ing on the Brit­tany coast.

Down­load the All the Light We Can­not See dis­cus­sion guide.

When her new hus­band is arrest­ed and impris­oned for a crime she knows he did not com­mit, a ris­ing artist takes com­fort in a long­time friend­ship, only to encounter unex­pect­ed chal­lenges in resum­ing her life when her hus­band’s sen­tence is sud­den­ly overturned.

Down­load the An Amer­i­can Mar­riage dis­cus­sion guide.

A young woman from Nige­ria leaves behind her home and her first love to start a new life in Amer­i­ca, only to find her dreams are not all she expected.

Down­load the Amer­i­canah dis­cus­sion guide.

When a suc­cess­ful New York lawyer sud­den­ly dis­ap­pears with­out a trace, nei­ther his wife nor his daugh­ter has any idea where he might be – until they find a love let­ter he wrote many years before, to a Burmese woman who is unknown to them.

Down­load The Art of Hear­ing Heart­beats dis­cus­sion guide.

At the end of the Civ­il War, three peo­ple – Madge, who has the pow­er to heal; Sadie, who can com­mune with the dead; and Hemp, who is search­ing for his fam­i­ly – arrive in Chica­go where they all bat­tle to sur­vive in a com­mu­ni­ty des­per­ate to lay the pain of the past to rest.

Down­load the Balm dis­cus­sion guide.

The sto­ry of Peco­la Breedlove pro­files an eleven-year-old African Amer­i­can girl grow­ing up in an Amer­i­ca that val­ues blue-eyed blondes and the tragedy that results from her long­ing to be accepted.

Down­load The Bluest Eye dis­cus­sion guide.

Try­ing to make sense of the hor­rors of World War II, Death relates the sto­ry of Liesel – a young Ger­man girl whose book-steal­ing and sto­ry-telling tal­ents help sus­tain her fam­i­ly and the Jew­ish man they are hid­ing, as well as their neighbors.

Down­load The Book Thief dis­cus­sion guide.

A last-of-her-kind out­cast and mem­ber of the Pack Horse Library Project braves the hard­ships of Ken­tuck­y’s Great Depres­sion and hos­tile com­mu­ni­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion to bring the near-mag­i­cal per­spec­tives of books to her neighbors.

Down­load The Book Woman of Trou­ble­some Creek dis­cus­sion guide.

Noah traces his com­ing of age dur­ing the twi­light of apartheid in South Africa and the tumul­tuous days of free­dom that fol­lowed, offer­ing insight into the far­ci­cal aspects of the polit­i­cal and social sys­tems of today’s world.

Down­load the Born a Crime dis­cus­sion guide.

Traces the sto­ry of an Amer­i­can row­ing team from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton that defeat­ed elite rivals at Hitler’s 1936 Berlin Olympics, shar­ing the expe­ri­ences of their enig­mat­ic coach, a vision­ary boat builder, and a home­less teen rower.

Down­load The Boys in the Boat dis­cus­sion guide.

Walk­ing away from her love­less mar­riage and tak­ing a job in a derelict, finan­cial­ly dev­as­tat­ed town, six­ty-three-year-old Britt-Marie uses her fierce orga­ni­za­tion­al skills to become a local soc­cer coach to a group of lost children.

Down­load the Britt-Marie Was Here dis­cus­sion guide.

Presents an account of how Quak­er sur­geon Joseph Lis­ter devel­oped an anti­sep­tic method that indeli­bly changed med­i­cine, describ­ing the prac­tices and risks of ear­ly oper­at­ing the­aters as well as the belief sys­tems of Lis­ter’s contemporaries.

Down­load The Butcher­ing Art dis­cus­sion guide.

Fol­lows the ban­ished witch daugh­ter of Titans as a con­flict with one of the most venge­ful Olympians forces her to choose between the worlds of the gods and mortals.

Down­load the Circe dis­cus­sion guide.

An account of the Chica­go World’s Fair of 1893 relates the sto­ries of two men who shaped the his­to­ry of the event – archi­tect Daniel H. Burn­ham, who coor­di­nat­ed its con­struc­tion, and ser­i­al killer Her­man Mudgett.

Down­load The Dev­il in the White City dis­cus­sion guide.

Traces the author’s expe­ri­ences as a child born to sur­vival­ists in the moun­tains of Ida­ho, describ­ing her par­tic­i­pa­tion in her fam­i­ly’s para­noid stock­pil­ing activ­i­ties and her resolve to edu­cate her­self well enough to earn accep­tance into a pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ty and the unfa­mil­iar world beyond.

Down­load the Edu­cat­ed: A Mem­oir dis­cus­sion guide.

A social­ly awk­ward, rou­tine-ori­ent­ed lon­er teams up with a bum­bling IT guy from her office to assist an elder­ly acci­dent vic­tim, forg­ing a friend­ship that saves all three from lives of iso­la­tion and secret unhappiness.

Down­load the Eleanor Oliphant is Com­plete­ly Fine dis­cus­sion guide.

A sto­ry of the divi­sions between cul­tures and the rifts with­in a fam­i­ly explores the fall­out of the drown­ing death of Lydia Lee, the favorite daugh­ter of a Chi­nese-Amer­i­can fam­i­ly in 1970s Ohio.

Down­load the Every­thing I Nev­er Told You dis­cus­sion guide.

The crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed film, tele­vi­sion and the­ater actress presents an inspir­ing and deeply hon­est sto­ry of her life, from her com­ing-of-age in Rhode Island to her cur­rent hard-won success.

Down­load the Find­ing Me dis­cus­sion guide.

Tak­en from their fam­i­lies when they are very small and sent to a remote, church-run res­i­den­tial school, Ken­ny, Lucy, Clara, Howie, and Maisie are bare­ly out of child­hood when they are final­ly released after years of deten­tion. The paths of the five friends cross and criss­cross over the decades as they strug­gle to come to terms with their past and, ulti­mate­ly, find a way forward.

Down­load the Five Lit­tle Indi­ans dis­cus­sion guide.

A Depres­sion-era woman con­fronts a wrench­ing choice between fight­ing for the Dust Bowl-rav­aged land she loves in Texas or pur­su­ing an uncer­tain future in California.

Down­load the Four Winds dis­cus­sion guide.

Mrs. Thread­good­e’s tale of two high-spir­it­ed women of the 1930s, Idgie and Ruth, helps Eve­lyn, a 1980s woman in a sad slump of mid­dle age, to begin to reju­ve­nate her own life.

Down­load the Fried Green Toma­toes at the Whis­tle Stop Cafe dis­cus­sion guide.

Tak­en in by a wealthy fam­i­ly friend after sur­viv­ing an acci­dent that killed his moth­er, thir­teen-year-old Theo Deck­er tries to adjust to life on Park Avenue.

Down­load the Goldfinch dis­cus­sion guide.

When the armies of Heav­en and Hell decide it’s time for Armaged­don, a demon and an angel decide they like life on earth and team up to stop the com­ing Apocalypse.

Down­load the Good Omens dis­cus­sion guide.

A fur­ni­ture sales­man in 1960s Harlem becomes a fence for shady cops, local gang­sters, and low-life pornog­ra­phers after his cousin involves him in a failed heist.

Down­load the Harlem Shuf­fle dis­cus­sion guide.

When a skele­ton is unearthed in the small, close-knit com­mu­ni­ty of Chick­en Hill, Penn­syl­va­nia, in 1972, an unfor­get­table cast of char­ac­ters — liv­ing on the mar­gins of white, Chris­t­ian Amer­i­ca — close­ly guard a secret, espe­cial­ly when the truth is revealed about what hap­pened and the part the town’s white estab­lish­ment played in it.

Down­load The Heav­en & Earth Gro­cery Store dis­cus­sion guide.

A sci­en­tist from Aus­tralia and a Niger­ian-Amer­i­can art his­to­ri­an become con­nect­ed by their shared inter­est in a 19^th cen­tu­ry race horse, one study­ing its remains, the oth­er uncov­er­ing the his­to­ry of the Black horse­men who were crit­i­cal to its success.

Down­load the Horse dis­cus­sion guide.

When arti­facts from Japan­ese fam­i­lies sent to intern­ment camps dur­ing World War II are uncov­ered in Seat­tle, Hen­ry Lee embarks on a quest that leads to mem­o­ries of grow­ing up Chi­nese in a city rife with anti-Japan­ese sentiment.

Down­load the Hotel on the Cor­ner of Bit­ter and Sweet dis­cus­sion guide.

The for­mer pres­i­dent offers an account of grow­ing up on a Geor­gia farm dur­ing the Depres­sion and pro­vides pro­files of the peo­ple who shaped his life.

Down­load the An Hour Before Day­light dis­cus­sion guide.

Doc­u­ments the sto­ry of how sci­en­tists took cells from an unsus­pect­ing descen­dant of freed slaves and cre­at­ed a human cell line that has been kept alive indef­i­nite­ly, enabling dis­cov­er­ies in such areas as can­cer research, in vit­ro fer­til­iza­tion and gene mapping.

Down­load The Immor­tal Life of Hen­ri­et­ta Lacks dis­cus­sion guide.

Con­fi­dent that her best days are still ahead, a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­woman relies on close friends and her resource­ful­ness when an unex­pect­ed loss turns her world upside down.

Down­load the It’s Not All Down­hill From Here dis­cus­sion guide.

Presents a true account of the ear­ly twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry mur­ders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforce­ment offi­cials, cit­ing the con­tri­bu­tions and mis­steps of a fledg­ling FBI that even­tu­al­ly uncov­ered one of the most chill­ing con­spir­a­cies in Amer­i­can history.

Down­load the Killers of the Flower Moon dis­cus­sion guide.

Inex­plic­a­bly pulled back in time to the ante­bel­lum South, a con­tem­po­rary Black woman, raised in the age of Civ­il Rights and Black Pow­er, must con­front the harsh real­i­ties of Black his­to­ry in America.

Down­load the Kin­dred dis­cus­sion guide.

Traces the unlike­ly friend­ship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a ser­van­t’s son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan’s monar­chy through the atroc­i­ties of the present day.

Down­load the Kite Run­ner dis­cus­sion guide.

In the ear­ly 1960s, chemist and sin­gle moth­er Eliz­a­beth Zott, the reluc­tant star of Amer­i­ca’s most beloved cook­ing show due to her rev­o­lu­tion­ary skills in the kitchen, uses this oppor­tu­ni­ty to dare women to change the sta­tus quo.

Down­load the Lessons in Chem­istry dis­cus­sion guide.

Draws from pri­ma­ry source mate­r­i­al and inter­views to weave togeth­er the adven­tures of four coura­geous women who risked every­thing to become spies dur­ing the most tumul­tuous years of the Civ­il War.

Down­load the Liar, Temptress, Sol­dier, Spy dis­cus­sion guide.

An ordi­nary writ­ing assign­ment for a col­lege Eng­lish class brings Joe face-to-face with a dying Viet­nam vet­er­an, who is also a con­vict­ed murderer.

Down­load the Life We Bury dis­cus­sion guide.

The lives of three women con­verge at the Ravens­bruck con­cen­tra­tion camp as Car­o­line Fer­ri­day resolves to help from her post at the French con­sulate, Kasia Kuzm­er­ick becomes a couri­er in the Pol­ish resis­tance, and Her­ta Ober­heuser takes a Ger­man gov­ern­ment med­ical position.

Down­load the Lilac Girls dis­cus­sion guide.

When she dis­cov­ers the dead body of the infa­mous and wealthy Charles Black in his suite, hotel maid Mol­ly Gray finds her order­ly life upend­ed as she becomes the prime sus­pect in the case and is caught in a web of decep­tion that she has no idea how to unravel.

Down­load the Maid dis­cus­sion guide.

A cur­mud­geon hides a ter­ri­ble per­son­al loss beneath a cranky and short-tem­pered exte­ri­or while clash­ing with new neigh­bors, a bois­ter­ous fam­i­ly whose chat­ti­ness and habits lead to unex­pect­ed friendship.

Down­load the A Man Called Ove dis­cus­sion guide.

When every per­son, all over the globe, receives a small wood­en box bear­ing the same inscrip­tion and a sin­gle piece of string inside, the world is thrown into a col­lec­tive frenzy.

Down­load the Mea­sure dis­cus­sion guide.

The for­mer U.S. poet lau­re­ate and Pulitzer Prize-win­ning author of Native Guard shares a chill­ing­ly per­son­al mem­oir about the bru­tal mur­der of her moth­er at the hands of her for­mer stepfather.

Down­load the Memo­r­i­al Dri­ve dis­cus­sion guide.

A tale inspired by the final years of Thomas Cromwell describes how after the exe­cu­tion of Anne Boleyn and childbed death of Queen Jane, the for­mer black­smith’s son orches­trates a des­per­ate plot to for­ti­fy Eng­land and save his own life.

Down­load The Mir­ror & the Light dis­cus­sion guide.

A free­lance writer returns to her grandmother’s home­land to ful­fill her last wish to have her ash­es scat­tered in Havana and dis­cov­ers her fam­i­ly his­to­ry amidst Cuba’s trop­i­cal beau­ty and dan­ger­ous polit­i­cal environment.

Down­load the Next Year in Havana dis­cus­sion guide.

A fol­low-up to the Pulitzer Prize – win­ning The Under­ground Rail­road, fol­lows the har­row­ing expe­ri­ences of two African-Amer­i­can teens at an abu­sive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

Down­load The Nick­el Boys dis­cus­sion guide.

When a dev­as­tat­ing event breaks her heart open, aspir­ing writer Alice cre­ates a stun­ning debut nov­el in which her words find their way to read­ers, from a teenag­er hid­ing her home­less­ness to a wid­ow­er rent by grief, who, due to her book, find new paths forward.

Down­load the No Two Per­sons dis­cus­sion guide.

The evo­lu­tion and even­tu­al deca­dence of a small South Amer­i­can town is mir­rored in the fam­i­ly his­to­ry of the Buendias.

Down­load the One Hun­dred Years of Soli­tude dis­cus­sion guide.

Describes the life and times of John Laroche, a plant smug­gler and orchid thief, and the eccen­tric world of Flori­da’s obsessed col­lec­tors of rare plants.

Down­load The Orchid Thief dis­cus­sion guide.

Eleven-year-old Reuben shares the sto­ry of how his father, try­ing to raise his sons alone in 1960s Min­neso­ta, takes their fam­i­ly on a quest to find Reuben’s old­er broth­er, who has been charged with murder.

Down­load the Peace Like a Riv­er dis­cus­sion guide.

Hired by J. P. Mor­gan to curate a col­lec­tion of rare mate­ri­als for his new­ly built Pier­pont Mor­gan Library, Belle de Cos­ta Greene becomes one of the most pow­er­ful women in New York despite the dan­ger­ous secret she keeps.

Down­load The Per­son­al Librar­i­an dis­cus­sion guide.

An inspi­ra­tional, fre­quent­ly dis­turb­ing mem­oir of a trou­bled youth describes how the author fell vic­tim to the ills of the child wel­fare sys­tem and her long and dif­fi­cult strug­gle to rebuild her life.

Down­load the A Piece of Cake dis­cus­sion guide.

Sold into a life of pros­ti­tu­tion at a ten­der age, Angel has long since giv­en up on love, but when Michael Hosea makes her his wife and sets up their home out west, Angel dis­cov­ers a world of love and warmth.

Down­load the Redeem­ing Love dis­cus­sion guide.

When his moth­er, a trib­al enroll­ment spe­cial­ist liv­ing on a reser­va­tion in North Dako­ta, slips into an abyss of depres­sion after being bru­tal­ly attacked, four­teen-year-old Joe Coutz sets out with his three friends to find the per­son who destroyed his family.

Down­load The Round House dis­cus­sion guide.

A chance encounter with a hand­some banker in a Green­wich Vil­lage jazz bar on New Year’s Eve 1938 cat­a­pults wit­ty Wall Street sec­re­tary Katey Kon­tent into the upper ech­e­lons of New York society.

Down­load the Rules of Civil­i­ty dis­cus­sion guide.

With­draw­ing from a fam­i­ly par­ty, six­teen-year-old Lau­rel Nicol­son wit­ness­es a shock­ing mur­der that through­out a sub­se­quent half cen­tu­ry shapes her beliefs, her act­ing career, and the lives of three strangers.

Down­load The Secret Keep­er dis­cus­sion guide.

An ordi­nary man is unwit­ting­ly caught up in a sense­less mur­der in Algeria.

Down­load The Stranger dis­cus­sion guide.

The wid­owed own­er of the St. Cecelia, a land­mark hotel, Traci Eddings has one sum­mer sea­son to restore it to its for­mer glo­ry, but when a trag­ic death changes every­thing, she must put wrongs to right, put guilty par­ties in their place and maybe even find a new romance along the way.

Down­load the Sum­mers at the Saint dis­cus­sion guide.

A nov­el based on the true sto­ry of an Auschwitz-Birke­nau sur­vivor traces the expe­ri­ences of a Jew­ish Slo­va­kian who uses his posi­tion as a con­cen­tra­tion-camp tat­tooist to secure food for his fel­low prisoners.

Down­load The Tat­tooist of Auschwitz dis­cus­sion guide.

A graph­ic mem­oir detail­ing the author’s expe­ri­ences as a child pris­on­er in the Japan­ese-Amer­i­can intern­ment camps of World War II, reflect­ing on the choic­es his fam­i­ly made in the face of insti­tu­tion­al­ized racism.

Down­load the They Called Us Ene­my dis­cus­sion guide.

Embark­ing on a leg­endary col­lab­o­ra­tion launch­ing them to star­dom, two friends dis­cov­er that their suc­cess, bril­liance and mon­ey won’t pro­tect them from their own cre­ative ambi­tions or betray­als of the heart.

Down­load the Tomor­row, and Tomor­row, and Tomor­row dis­cus­sion guide.

Harold Fry is con­vinced that he must deliv­er a let­ter to an old love in order to save her, meet­ing var­i­ous char­ac­ters along the way and rem­i­nisc­ing about the events of his past as he tries to find peace and acceptance.

Down­load The Unlike­ly Pil­grim­age of Harold Fry dis­cus­sion guide.

Viewed with sus­pi­cion in the after­math of a tragedy, a beau­ti­ful her­mit who has sur­vived for years in a marsh becomes tar­get­ed by unthink­able forces.

Down­load the Where the Craw­dads Sing dis­cus­sion guide.

When her noto­ri­ous, hilar­i­ous, volatile, tal­ent­ed, trou­bled and ago­ra­pho­bic moth­er goes miss­ing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her.

Down­load the Where’d You Go, Bernadette dis­cus­sion guide.

An inside-Wash­ing­ton thriller about an ambi­tious law clerk thrown into a life-or-death trea­sure hunt with major nation­al impli­ca­tions when the Supreme Court jus­tice she works for slips into a sud­den coma.

Down­load the While Jus­tice Sleeps dis­cus­sion guide.