Lessons in Chemistry (2022), Bonnie Garmus, hardcover 400 pp DISCUSSION LEADER: Marty Walker General Fiction / A feminist tale set in 1950s and 60s California about one-of-a-kind scientist Elizabeth Zott, whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a TV cooking show.
This Tender Land (2020), William Kent Krueger, paperback 464 pp DISCUSSION LEADER: Brenda Edwards Historical Fiction / Four orphan children flee the brutal Lincoln Indian Training School in southern Minnesota and embark upon an epic coming-of-age journey through the Depression-era Midwestern U.S.
A Christmas Carol (1843), Charles Dickens, Penguin Christmas Classics, October 2014, hardcover 144 pp DISCUSSION LEADER: Priscilla Martin Victorian Literature / Elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge is transformed by visitations from ghosts of his past.
Someone Else’s Shoes (2023), JoJo Moyes, hardcover 448 pp Discussion Leader: Cary Flynn General Fiction / In a spin on the classic plot where characters swap circumstances, two women suddenly find themselves invisible — to their spouses, colleagues, the world — and find joy in being “seen” by each other.
The Poisonwood Bible (1998), Barbara Kingsolver, Deckle Edge, June 2008, paperback 576 pp Discussion Leader: Jill Mountan Historical Fiction / An evangelical Baptist minister takes his wife and four daughters from Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959, and finds his mission calamitously transformed.
Remarkably Bright Creatures (2022), Shelby Van Pelt, hardcover 368 pp Discussion Leader: Phyllis Basford General Fiction, Mystery / Through her relationship with a giant Pacific octopus, a lonely widow discovers that sometimes humans don’t always have all the answers.
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The Women of Chateau Lafayette (2021), Stephanie Dray, hardcover 576 pp Discussion Leader: Elizabeth Curtin Historical Fiction / Based on the true story of a castle in France and three women who, although divided by centuries, are united in their determination to make a better life for themselves and others.
The Sweetness of Forgetting (2012), Kristin Harmel, paperback 368 pp Discussion Leader: Jyothi Shroff General Fiction, Historical Fiction / Three generations struggling to survive reach a turning point when Hope McKenna-Smith travels to Paris to uncover a 70-year-old family secret for her dying grandmother.