Literary and Upmarket

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The Flight Girls Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

The Flight Girls Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

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If you’ve read your fair share of WWII novels, you may think there isn’t anything new in the genre, but have you read any stories about the WASP? That is, the Women Airforce Service Pilots. You may have heard about the Air Transport Auxiliary in England or the Night Witches from Russia, but the WASP were American women pilots employed during the war.

Their story is fascinating and in Noelle Salazar’s debut, The Flight Girls, we get a picture of all they endured and accomplished. The novel follows one fictional WASP, Audrey Coltrane, as she experiences Pearl Harbor, signs up for service, and flies (literally) through the years of the war.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

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Are you a fan of indie bookstores? Do you love short story collections? How about novels about found families? If so, then Gabrielle Zevin’s hit, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, should be on your list.

The novel’s central character, A.J. Fikry, is an independent book store owner and widower living on remote Alice Island. When a young girl shows up in his bookstore with no family to left to claim her, A.J.’s life takes an unexpected turn.

Klara and the Sun Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

Klara and the Sun Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

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If you haven’t heard of Kazuo Ishiguro, he is a Nobel Prize winner whose works, such as Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, captivate readers. In his latest work, Klara and the Sun, Ishiguro tackles an A.I. infiltrated future society where Artificial Friends become the norm.

Unlike many A.I. centered tales, here the A.I. is friend not foe. In fact, the novel is told by an Artificial Friend, Klara, who longs for and is finally chosen by a child.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

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Have you ever read an epistolary novel? Epistolary novels are stories told entirely through a series of letters. The form originated in 1740 when Samuel Richardson revolutionized story telling with Pamela.

Considered to be one of the first novel-type works, Pamela led a long trend of epistolary novels. But today the form is rare. You might recall that The Color Purple was an epistolary novel. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an epistolary novel in its truest form. Told through letters between, not just two or three, but at least a dozen correspondents, it is truly a fascinating work.

The Jane Austen Society Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

The Jane Austen Society Book Club Questions and Food Ideas

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If you love British novels, especially feel-good ones, then The Jane Austen Society is just your type of book. Set in post WWII England, the book takes place in the small village of Chawton.

You might recognize Chawton as it was one of the places Jane Austen lived during her lifetime. The book fictionalizes the attempt to secure Jane Austen’s cottage in Chawton along with some of her things for historical purposes.