DISCUSSION GUIDES

"Funny, eerie, tender, haunting and unsettling, smokily atmospheric, and fantastically enjoyable." ―Helen MacDonald, author of Vesper Flights

An intensely moving and revelatory memoir of enduring and emerging from exceptional grief

An uplifting, behind-the-scenes look at Grammy Award–winning Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Williams’s life, her life-long struggle with anxiety and depression, and the practical wisdom she learned along the way. After decades of sweeping her mental health under the rug, Williams discovered that joy can be found when we release toxic thought patterns, forgive ourselves and others, and live authentically.

For fans of Neal Stephenson, Andy Weir, and Cixin Liu comes a novel that readers describe as “a great Black Mirror episode” with the “page-turning pacing of Michael Crichton.”

A sensational divorce trial in 17th-century Boston becomes a deadly witch hunt in Chris Bohjalian’s HOUR OF THE WITCH. Puritan Mary Deefield—faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul—plots her escape from a violent marriage in this timely and terrifying story of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt, a thrilling New York Times bestseller from the author of The Flight Attendant.

Jessamyn Stanley’s YOKE: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance takes readers on an autobiographical journey to self-acceptance in a series of deeply honest essays. Stanley explores everything from her path to body liberation and her struggle with imposter syndrome to the limitations she has come to see in yoga culture—consumerism, cultural appropriation, racism. Tying it all together is Jessamyn’s singular voice—funny, frank, and warm—producing a work that is a unique and compelling blend of memoir, philosophy, and self-help.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes an epic novel of love and heroism and hope, set against the backdrop of one of America’s most defining eras—the Great Depression.

Years after disappearing from Brooklyn, disgraced businessman Ricardo Desire is found dead in his home. A glimpse of Ricardo’s past reveals a salacious love triangle and double life. In the aftermath of his death, the lives of those he knew begin to unravel. Olena Jackson is the detective assigned to the high-profile case, and the more she digs, the more lies and bodies she uncovers. Although Ricardo is gone, for the people left behind, the collision course is just getting started.

It’s the last year of highschool, and everything has changed . . .

Maybe it's the end of the world, but not for Candace Chen, a millennial, first-generation American and office drone meandering her way into adulthood in Ling Ma's offbeat, wryly funny, apocalyptic satire, Severance.

"A stunning, audacious book with a fresh take on both office politics and what the apocalypse might bring." --Michael Schaub, NPR.org

"A satirical spin on the end times-- kind of like The Office meets The Leftovers." --Estelle Tang, Elle

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: NPR * The New Yorker ("Books We Loved") * Elle * Marie Claire * Amazon Editors * The Paris Review (Staff Favorites) * Refinery29 * Bustle * Buzzfeed * BookPage * Bookish * Mental Floss * Chicago Review of Books * HuffPost * Electric Literature * A.V. Club * Jezebel * Vulture * Literary Hub * Flavorwire

Winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award * Winner of the Kirkus Prize for Fiction * Winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award * Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel * A New York Times Notable Book of 2018 * An Indie Next Selection

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she's had her fill of uncertainty. She's content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend.

So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost.

Candace won't be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They're traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

A send-up and takedown of the rituals, routines, and missed opportunities of contemporary life, Ling Ma's Severance is a moving family story, a quirky coming-of-adulthood tale, and a hilarious, deadpan satire. Most important, it's a heartfelt tribute to the connections that drive us to do more than survive.