GENTLEMAN FROM MOSCOW, by Amor Towles

In The New York TImes

In NPR:  A Grand Hotel Adventure

Love, New York, and All That Jazz, in The Guardian

Penguin Reading Guide

Author answers questions about his book

In LitLovers  Summary, Review, Questions

A SPOOL OF BLUE THREAD, by Anne Tyler

LitLovers discussion questions

In The New York Times Book Review

Cozy "Blue Thread" in National PUblic Radio

Review in The Washington Port
\
Man Booker Short List, in The Atlantic

Penguin Random House Interview

A PIECE OF THE WORLD, by Christina Baker Kline

Mystery Woman: A Novel Explores the Story of Andrew Wyeth’s ‘Christina’s World’ in the NYTIMES

Reading Group Guides - discussion questions

In LitLovers - review and questions

 The story behind the book, in Book Reporter

In Oprah.com: A Piece of the World, by Christina Baker Kline, 320 pages; William Morrow

 “When Christina Baker Kline was a child, her father built an A-frame house on a Maine island just 75 feet wide to teach her self-reliance. Weekends and summers, the family pumped water, read by candlelight, used an outhouse, and stayed warm with only a stone fireplace. Not surprisingly, Kline grew interested in how the inner life could survive a lack of external comforts, an idea that sits at the heart of her 2013 book, Orphan Train. In her sixth novel, A Piece of the World, she revisits that dichotomy, applying her observations to the saga behind Andrew Wyeth's iconic painting, Christina's World.”

QUIET: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain

In YouTube  a presentation

10 Lessons from Quiet 

Inside Intelligence, in The New York Times

The Power of Introverts, with Susan Cain, a TED Talk

Quiet, Please:  Unleashing the Power of Introverts, in NPR

The Secret Power of Introverts, in Forbes

THE OTHER EINSTEIN, by Marie Benedict

Big Library Read

Book Movement Reading Guides

Notre Dame Magazine: What Am I Reading?

Psychology Today:  The Other Einstein: Was There One?

Scientific American: The Forgotten life of Einstein's First Wife

EXIT WEST, by Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid mixes global trouble with a bit of magic in the New York Times

Escaping a World on Fire, review in NPR

Reviews, praise, and reader's guide in the publisher page, Penguin Random House

Discussion questions in The New York Times

PBS Newshour: The NY Times / PBS book club

In The Atlantic

The author answers readers'question on YouTube 

In LitLovers

"Only then, hoping to leave, or making it across the border, do you understand that those who live on the other side do not see you as human at all." Viet Thanh Nguyen

ABOUT EXIT WEST

WINNER OF THE 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2017, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“A breathtaking novel…[that] arrives at an urgent time.” –NPR

“It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” –Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review

“Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” –Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating

A New York Times bestseller, the astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands.

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .

Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

ABOUT EXIT WEST

WINNER OF THE 2018 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION and THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2017, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

“A breathtaking novel…[that] arrives at an urgent time.” –NPR

“It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful.” –Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review

“Moving, audacious, and indelibly human.” –Entertainment Weekly, “A” rating

A New York Times bestseller, the astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands.

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .

Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

ORPHAN MASTER'S SON, by Adam Johnson

Sunday Book Review, in the New York Times

The Paris Review:  Interview

Book review in The Washington Post

Supersummary.com The Orphan Master's Son

World Literature Today

Review in The Guardian

In LitLovers 

HOMEGOING, by Yaa Gyasi

Descendants, in the New Yorker

"A sprawling epic, brimming with compassion"  in NPR

Isabel Wilkerson's review in The New York Times

What Slavery Costs One Famil, in The New York Times

A Bold Tale of Slavery in The Washington Post

Summary and questions in LitLovers

EVERYTHING I NEVER TOLD YOU, by Celeste Ng

For book discussion groups, in the author's web page.

In The New York Times

The Guardian

LA Times: a moving tale of a dysfunctional family

In The Huffington Post

In LitLovers:  Summary, Reviews, and Questions

The NEA Big Read (National Endowment for the Arts)

MAYFLOWER, by Nathaniel Philbrick

Pilgrims and Indians: The Forgotten Years, in The NY Times

Pilgrims and Indians, in The NY Times

Interview with the the author, Nathaniel Philbrick and discussion questions.

New World, Old Woes, in The Guardian

A war with bad guys on both sides in early America, in The Seattle Times

A Story of Courage, Community and War, in the Washington Post

Philbrick, Nathaniel. "Debunking Pilgrim Myths: Before Plymouth." NPR's All Things Considered. November 22, 2006.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. "Debunking Pilgrim Myths: The First Thanksgiving." NPR's All Things Considered. November 23, 2006.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. "Mayflower. C-Span Video Library,  June 8, 2006. [video: 58 min]

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FLIGHT BEHAVIOR, by Barbara Kingsolver

The Butterfly Effect, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver, in the NY Times

Author webpage, Biography

Book Review in NPR

The Guardian, Review

Barbara Kingsolver, Barack Obama, and the Monarch Butterfly, in The New Yorker

LitLovers - discussion questions

Groupreads