Book Discussion Sets - Fiction

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture...

The self-interested disregard of a dying woman's bequest, an impulsive girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage between an idealist and a materialist — all intersect at a Hertfordshire estate called Howards End. The fate of this beloved country home symbolizes the future of England itself in E. M. Forster's exploration of social, economic, and philosophical trends, as exemplified by three families: the Schlegels, symbolizing...

"The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid. "The Invention of Wings" follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), Kidd allows herself to go...

The City of Lights, as seen by one of its greatest citizens and admirers Paris has been inspiring writers for centuries. Its neighborhoods and people make for a never-ending flow of potential stories. Mavis Gallant, Canadian by birth but Parisian since the 1950s, has created an incredibly loving and accomplished tribute to her adoptive home. In this collection, Gallant illustrates the surprising sense of interconnectedness that comes from living in...

Retired literary agent Joe Allston feels like a spectator to his own life, until he rediscovers his journals and relives a trip he took years before to his mother's birthplace.

"A Tale of Two Cities is one of the most thrilling narratives in the whole range of the literature of fiction. Considered apart from all the other works of Dickens, it would entitle him to a very high rank among romancers. The total effect of the novel, both in construction and content, is remarkably strong. A careful re-reading will convince one that no event is superfluous, that every scene pictured, every character introduced, every mysterious,...

The interconnected lives, loves, and relationships of different generations of the McLeod family are revealed over the course of three crucial summers, in a debut novel about love, death, and birth in a Scottish family. Told in three intertwined novellas, Three Junes spans Greece, Scotland, and New York to bring the reader into the fold of one memorable Scottish family. An astonishing first novel that traces the lives of a Scottish family over a decade...

"Fans of Barbara Kingsolver will love this stunning debut novel from a New York Times bestselling nature writer, about an unforgettable young woman determined to make her way in the wilds of North Carolina, and the two men that will break her isolation open. For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. She's barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase...