New York Times bestselling author Suze Orman investigates the complicated, dysfunctional relationship women have with money in this groundbreaking book. At the center of the book is The Save Yourself Plan—a streamlined, five-month program that delivers genuine long-term financial security.

Suze Orman will receive the 2008 National Equality Award Oct. 4 at the Human Rights Campaign’s annual national dinner in Washington, D.C. Congratulations Suze!

1. How does the alternative life that Nasr imagines for himself affect his relationship with Farah? In your experience, has the ability to imagine a path not taken haunted your life?
2. What do you think of Nasr’s mother’s generation’s desire to push their children into arranged marriages?
3. In a love marriage, the desire to commit to someone for life comes after falling in love. In an arranged marriage, the opposite is true: with the commitment of marriage comes love. Given this difference, would a love marriage between Nasr and Jameela have been more successful than the arranged marriage he has with Farah? Can Nasr ever hope to develop feelings for Farah that are as strong as the feelings he has for Jameela?
4. In Chapter 13, while talking to Jameela, why does Nasr recall the awkwardness of his exchange with Lillian on the plane home from London? How do the emotions lingering from that encounter affect his conversation with Jameela? He has been angry with Jameela for weeks, so why doesn’t he finally confront her?
5. If first-generation Americans often feel that they straddle two cultures, for many of the main characters in this novel, September 11 exacerbates their sense of being culturally marooned. They resist both of the communities that make claims on their allegiance: the Americans they live among and, despite themselves have come to resemble, and the terrorists, who share their religious beliefs and customs and who, to a certain extent, claim to have acted in their name. At the end of Book One, why does Nasr conflate the memory of his sister Saira’s wedding with his behavior at Heathrow airport when he ignores the Arab passenger’s imploring calls for help? How are the emotions that these two events stir up similar?
6. Along the same lines, why do Nasr’s feelings about the people he meets at the masjid (Malik, Rashida, etc.) shift so dramatically after Javaid and Jameela leave New York? And what does this mean for him and his future with Farah?
7. What does Javaid tell Jameela that makes her finally decide to elope with him? Why is this piece of information particularly effective in persuading her?
8. The Groom to Have Been is preceded by two epigraphs—one from Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence and the other from the Qur’an. Why do you think these epigraphs were chosen?
9. Late in the novel, Nasr thinks the following of his and Farah’s relationship: “Implicit in their sort of marriage was that Farah would love him without needing to know him thoroughly ”What does Nasr mean by this? Discuss this notion of marriage. Can anyone in a marriage know the other person thoroughly?
10. Is Nasr an admirable figure? Do you find his way of being in a world changed by the attacks on September 11 reasonable and practical, or cowardly and insufficient?
11. Do you think the novel has a happy ending?

Every so often a new writer appears who is wiser than her years would suggest, whose flesh-and-blood characters embody more experience than a young writer could possible know. Sana Krasikov is one of those writers. Her first published story appeared in the New Yorker, her second in The Atlantic Monthly’s fiction issue. One More Year is her debut collection, made up of stories of people who hold out hope, despite the odds, that life will be kind to them. Here’s a collection of the highly acclaimed praise for Sana Krasikov:

• “An amazing mature work for a young author. The eight stories herein are all shrewdly humane and formally exquisite… Krasikov is as good as Junot Diaz and Jhumpa Lahiri…” —Miami Herald
• “…Graceful and keen, these stories seep into memory not only for their unflinching gaze but also for their sane compassion.” —San Francisco Chronicle
• “…Ms. Krasikov’s short stories are some of the finest debut work to appear in recent years.” —The New York Sun
• “Whether male or female, teenage or elderly, in chaotic Moscow or a bucolic New York City suburb, their stories feel immediate, urgent, and gratifyingly real.” —Entertainment Weekly (A-)

“Lang Lang is a 26-year-old classical pianist who tickles both ivories and eardrums with formidable skill.” —USAToday.com

The sensational Chinese musical prodigy tells his heartbreaking, dramatic, and ultimately triumphant story in Journey of a Thousand Miles. Catch Lang Lang in his element when he launches the 2008 Summer Olympics in Tienanmen Square. Watch more videos and learn more about the book at LangLang.com.

Update: The above video is apparently not from the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics as it was uploaded 4 months ago. Also, the outfit he’s wearing in the above video doesn’t jive with the photo of Lang Lang’s opening ceremony performance over at the Vuture blog. Sorry for any confusion. We’ll try to hunt down Lang Lang’s performance at the Olympics asap but from what the Vuture blog is saying it might be a bit difficult.

Read a review at Salon.com and visit Janelle Brown’s website.

1. Discuss the epigraph by J. M. Barrie and its meaning in the novel. How are the notions of failure, success, and personal fulfillment examined in the book and are they complicated by the expectations of family, culture, and society?
2. This novel is centered on three very different women. Explore the concepts of femininity and feminism in the novel and the ways in which Janice, Margaret, and Lizzie reinforce and challenge those models.
3. Location plays an important part in the novel, magnifying and thwarting characters’ aspirations. Examine the setting in this novel. What do Santa Rita, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and California itself symbolize? Could this story take place anywhere else?
4. In the first chapter, Janice dreams of buying a piece of art with her new fortune—“she covets a Van Gogh, one like those she saw a few years back. The violence of the paint applied in furious layers so thick that she could see the impressions of the artist’s fingers, clawing at the canvas—she felt like she’d been slapped. The color! As vivid as a hallucination.” Is this object of desire an obvious one for Janice? What can we glean about Janice from her choice of a Van Gogh, in particular?
5. After he requests a divorce, Paul tells Janice, “You don’t need me. You’ve never needed anyone in your life.” Do you find there is truth in Paul’s statement? Does Janice come across as completely self-reliant or hopelessly dependent? Or is Paul projecting his own feelings onto her, trying to justify leaving the marriage?
6. At the beginning of the novel, Janice and Margaret seem to be antagonists. Does this remain the case throughout the story? By the end of the novel, do Janice and Margaret merely understand each other, or have they grown more alike?
7. At first glance, Bart seems like an odd choice for Margaret’s affection. Why does she fall for him and how does she reconcile her love with her neo-feminist principles?
8. The Miller women cope with their predicaments through various means—the accumulation of material objects, money, drugs, religion, ambition, and sex. How effective are these ultimately and what do they have in common?
9. After an unsuccessful and desperate attempt to score it, Janice races to the hospital to meet Margaret and Lizzie, who has just been released from the emergency room. The text reads, “For the first time in longer than she can recall, [Janice] feels happy.” In many ways, this is such a low moment; explain what the author means.
10. All We Ever Wanted Was Everything is a satire. What or who is the object of the author’s critique? Some early readers likened the novel to the film American Beauty. Do you see a similarity between the two works? What is Janelle Brown’s message to her readers?

1. Before her death, Elizabeth tells Lydia, “Cambridge is just a palimpsest”–a word meaning a parchment that has been written on, scraped off, and used again. What does she mean by this? How does that metaphor figure in the construction of the novel? Could the metaphor of the palimpsest represent anything else in the novel other than the city?
2. At Elizabeth’s memorial service, Cameron reads lines from the Wallace Stevens poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”:

   When the blackbird flew out of sight
   It marked the edge
   Of one of many circles.

   How are these lines relevant to Elizabeth’s death? What edges of circles, or intersecting lives and stories, does Elizabeth now mark even though she has disappeared from sight?

3. Fiction is regarded as a story invented by the imagination, whereas nonfiction is an account based on facts. Both types of literature are found in Ghostwalk, and yet the book is a novel. How do the two forms work together in Ghostwalk—does one enhance the other or detract from it? How effective, in your opinion, is fiction in conveying history? How reliable are historical accounts?
4. The novel suggests that obsession is a dangerous preoccupation that can yield fruitful or disastrous results. What are examples of both outcomes in the novel?
5. Discuss the role of betrayal in the novel. Who betrays whom and why?
6. The narrator is originally skeptical of the supernatural, insisting that she “knew where reason ended and irrationality began, even if Elizabeth had forgotten how to find that edge.” Does Lydia eventually forget how to find that edge of reason despite all her protestations to the contrary? Do you sympathize with her resistance to embrace irrationality and accept the unexplainable? How did you respond to the ghosts in the novel? Did the scientific theories in the novel change your ideas about what we think of as supernatural or beyond the rational?
7. “Glass, alchemy, and politics. You couldn’t separate them out in the 1660s.” Discuss how these elements were intertwined in the 1660s. What parallels can you draw from the 21st century?
8. What was the turning point in the novel where Lydia began believing in the supernatural? When did you first believe that events were more than coincidences? What is the first instance of the past encroaching on the present? How does it proceed from there?
9. Language often contains ambiguities and multiple meanings. Stott engages with the loaded meaning of the verb “to lie” in a number of instances throughout the novel: “You learned about lying on the river when you were working as a punt chauffeur. To lie on, to lie under, to lie close, to lie in wait for.” “Lying to you. Lying with you. Lying for you. Can I remember the difference?” How do the plays of language affect your understanding of the nature of Lydia and Cameron’s relationship? If they had been more forthcoming with each other, do you think events would have unraveled differently?
10. “You couldn’t work in isolation or be independent.” Discuss how Lydia’s statement could apply to all of the principal characters in Ghostwalk. What do they learn or gain from each other? Does that interconnectedness ever work at cross purposes?
11. In Cameron’s explanation of entanglement theory to Lydia, he describes Einstein’s word for the concept as spukhafte Fernwirkungen, or spooky action at a distance, which seems especially appropriate given the supernatural events that occur. How might entanglement theory explain and complicate Elizabeth’s drowning? The series of deaths in Newton’s time and murders in present-day Cambridge? Lydia and Cameron’s relationship?
12. Many of the characters in the novel lead double lives. In which characters is this especially apparent, and how?
13. The narrator states, “There was something ancient and pagan about the animal-liberation campaigns.” What is it about the modern political agenda of animal rights that stirs up the notion of paganism? What is Will’s explanation for the campaigns, the role of NABED, and the Syndicate, and how does it diametrically oppose Cameron’s version of events? What do you think the author’s goal was in presenting these two oppositional viewpoints?
14. Lydia comments after she agrees to finish Elizabeth’s book that writing is a kind of haunting. Do you agree with her sentiment? Do you think it resonates in other forms of art? Which ones? Who or what else haunts Lydia as she struggles to complete the book? Does Lydia finally manage to shrug off her ghosts?
15. At the end of Ghostwalk, Lydia dreams she is in a literal and psychological maze chasing an elusive red figure, a dream that leaves her bewildered and unable to discern reality. Discuss the significance of this dream. What are other instances in Ghostwalk where dreams loom larger than life? How does Stott use dreams as vehicles of discovery and revelation for her characters?
16. How did reading the actual excerpts from Newton’s diary and his recipes for alchemical formulas affect your understanding of him as a character in the story and as a historical and real person? Are there any inferences you can draw from this new understanding of Newton that would alter your perceptions of other important historical figures?
17. “It wasn’t a benign kind of curiosity. It was something dark and ravenous–ravens scavenging over a corpse–dark, urgent, and visceral.” In what way is curiosity shown to have violent consequences in this novel? What does the book seem to have to say about the nature of curiosity?
18. At one point Lydia slightly misquotes a line of Robert Browning’s to Cameron: “My interest’s in the dangerous edge of things. The honest thief, the tender murderer, the superstitious atheist.” How do these lines embody the preoccupations of the novel as a whole?
]]> http://doubleday.com/2008/06/26/ghostwalk-by-rebecca-stott/feed/ http://doubleday.com/2008/06/13/the-lizard-cage-by-karen-connelly/ http://doubleday.com/2008/06/13/the-lizard-cage-by-karen-connelly/#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 14:18:53 +0000 Sonia http://doubleday.com/?p=139 Beautifully written and taking us into an exotic land, Karen Connelly’s debut novel The Lizard Cage is a celebration of the resilience of the human spirit.
1. During a meditation, Teza reflects on the following Buddhist principles: Metta, Karuna, Mudita, Upekkha. These are the Four Divine Abidings. Love. Compassion. Joy in the good fortune of others. Equanimity. How are these principles depicted in the novel, and in what way do they help Teza cope with his imprisonment? Does he always succeed in living by these principles? How does he impart them to Little Brother?
2. How do Teza’s experiences inside the Lizard Cage represent the larger political turmoil in Burma (now Myanmar)? Despite the inhuman conditions, does hope still reside inside the prison?
3. “Words are like the ants. They work their way through the thickest walls, eating through bricks and feeding off the very silence intended to stifle them.” How is the irrepressibility of truth evident in The Lizard Cage? What parallels can you draw from other civil rights conflicts in the world?
4. Brothers Teza and Aung Min chose different paths of resistance, the former peaceful protest and the latter armed revolution. In your opinion, whose choice was more effective? How does Teza keep their relationship alive through memory? In what ways is Teza’s friendship with Little Brother similar to his relationship with Aung Min?
5. Why are pen and paper contraband in The Lizard Cage? Even Little Brother, who cannot read and write, understands their power. How is language a powerful weapon against oppression?
6. “From solitary, the whole cage is a foreign country to him. He lives on the very edge of it, straining to hear the other voices.” While confined, Teza reflects on life, from his family and first love to his education and political actions. Can memories be both freedom from captivity and a torturous reminder of a life not lived? When have you experienced this paradox?
7. Little Brother is referred to by various names, most commonly the boy, rat killer, Free El Salvador, Nyi Lay, and his real name, Zaw Gyi. Why is Teza comforted to know the boy has such a strong name? What does one’s name signify in terms of social hierarchy and character?
8. Animals, particularly lizards, play an important role in The Lizard Cage. What is the significance of the characters’ relationships with animals? How are those relationships spiritual, and what do they teach us about human relationships?
9. How are jailers Handsome and Chit Naing products of the environment in which they live? Why do they have such different attitudes toward Teza even though they have the same occupation? Are they motivated by survival, loyalty, or ambition?
10. In what way does Teza achieve freedom through Little Brother? What does the novel say about the resilience of the human spirit?
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Click here to view a tour schedule.



Atlantic contributor Ta-Nehisi Coates reads passages from his memoir and reflects on education, hip hop music, and his father’s powerful presence. Also, Coates expolores Bill Cosby’s transformation from TV dad to outspoken social critic in an essay entitled This is How We Lost to the White Man.

]]> http://doubleday.com/2008/05/13/the-beautiful-struggle-by-ta-nehisi-coates/feed/ http://doubleday.com/2008/05/09/the-great-derangement-by-matt-taibbi/ http://doubleday.com/2008/05/09/the-great-derangement-by-matt-taibbi/#comments Fri, 09 May 2008 19:39:59 +0000 Sonia http://doubleday.com/?p=95
Click here to learn more about The Great Derangement. In stores now

Meet Matt Taibbi - View the complete event schedule.

Read reviews of The Great Derangement at DailyKos, Time Out New York, and the
Los Angeles Times.

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