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September 17, 2020

Thanks to all of you who answered our recent ReadingGroupGuides.com survey where we looked at what your book groups have been doing during the pandemic. 59% of you are now meeting on Zoom (a platform that I am sure 99% of you had never heard of before March), while another 4% are using other online platforms. 24% are meeting in person, practicing social distancing. Only 13% noted that they had suspended all group activities for the moment.

For those 13% not meeting, 57% said that they only want to meet in person when the pandemic is “under control” to do this, but they do not require there to be a vaccine. 12% want to meet in person only after a vaccine is available. 17% need to get more comfortable with technology.

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Interview: Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies

Sep 16, 2020

Ayad Akhtar is a novelist and playwright who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play “Disgraced” and whose debut novel, AMERICAN DERVISH, was named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012. His highly anticipated second work of fiction, HOMELAND ELEGIES, is about an immigrant father and his son who search for belonging --- in post-Trump America, and with each other. In this interview, conducted by Bookreporter.com reviewer Harvey Freedenberg, Akhtar talks about one of the book’s most powerful scenes --- Ayad’s description of his experience in Manhattan on 9/11 --- and how he went about recreating the terrible sights and overwhelming emotions of that day; what he thinks it will take for those who harbor suspicions about Muslims to view them with less hostility; and the pivotal role that dreams play in the novel.

Author Talk: Rita Dragonette, author of The Fourteenth of September

Sep 14, 2020

Perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Heather Morris, Rita Dragonette’s debut novel, THE FOURTEENTH OF SEPTEMBER, is based upon her personal experience on campus during the Vietnam War and is told through the rare perspective of a young woman who traces her path to self-discovery. In this interview, Dragonette talks about how what she lived through in 1969-1970 parallels the activism that is occurring right now in the United States; why she calls her book a coming-of-conscience novel; what she hopes readers will take away from the story; and her future writing projects.

Rita Dragonette, author of The Fourteenth of September

Private First Class Judy Talton celebrates her 19th birthday by secretly joining the antiwar movement on her college campus. As the recipient of an army scholarship and the daughter of a military family, Judy has a lot to lose. But her doubts about the ethics of war have escalated, especially after her birthdate is pulled as the first in the new draft lottery. If she were a man, she would have been among the first off to Vietnam with an under-fire life expectancy measured in seconds. The stakes become clear for Judy as she is propelled towards a life-altering choice as fateful as that of any lottery draftee, yet also finds herself down a path of self-discovery and, ultimately, a “coming of conscience."

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Wendy Walker, author of Don't Look for Me

They called it a “walk away.” The car abandoned miles from home. The note found at a nearby hotel. The shattered family. It happens all the time. Women disappear, desperate to start over. But what really happened to Molly Clarke? When a new lead comes in two weeks after the search has ended, Molly’s daughter, Nicole, begins to wonder. Against her father’s wishes, she returns to the small, desolate town where her mother was last seen, determined to find the truth. The locals are sympathetic and eager to help. Until secrets begin to reveal themselves. When Nicole learns about another woman who vanished from town, then discovers a small hole cut into a fence guarding a mysterious, secluded property, she comes closer to the truth about that night --- and the danger surrounding her.

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Yaa Gyasi, author of Transcendent Kingdom

Gifty is a sixth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Stanford University School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after an ankle injury left him hooked on OxyContin. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her. But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive.

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Fredrik Backman, author of Anxious People

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them --- the bank robber included --- desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises, these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

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Ruth Ware, author of One by One

When the cofounder of Snoop, a trendy London-based tech startup, organizes a weeklong trip for the team in the French Alps, it starts out as a corporate retreat like any other. But as soon as one shareholder upends the agenda by pushing a lucrative but contentious buyout offer, tensions simmer and loyalties are tested. However, the storm brewing inside the chalet is no match for the one outside, and a devastating avalanche leaves the group cut off from all access to the outside world. Even worse, one Snooper hadn’t made it back from the slopes when the avalanche hit. As each hour passes without any sign of rescue, panic mounts, the chalet grows colder, and the group dwindles further…one by one.

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—Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN

—Barbara Shoup, author of LOOKING FOR JACK KEROUAC