Let’s Talk About It List

Book Series

A South Carolina Sampler: Celebrating the SC Academy of Authors Inductees of 2012

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Read some of South Carolina’s finest writers of both fiction and nonfiction that were honored by the SC Academy of Authors in 2012. (accommodates 30)

• The Sea is So Wide And My Boat is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation by Marian Wright Edelman
• The Girl Hunters, The Snake, The Twisted Thing by Mickey Spillane
• The River Home: A Return to the Carolina Lowcountry by Franklin Burroughs
• Down by the Riverside by Charles Joyner

**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach

All That Jazz

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Learn about the Jazz Age through the eyes of three American masters whose work helped immortalize the triumphs and tensions of the era. (accommodates 30)

• Jazz by Toni Morrison
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Dreamkeeper and Other Poems by Langston Hughes

**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach

And Still I Rise: The Triumph of the African-American Spirit

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Using a variety of viewpoints and settings, authors investigate the hardships of the African-American experience and how, through friendship, family, love, and tradition, African Americans persevere in spite of it all. (accommodates 20)

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
• Brown Girl, Brownstones, by Paule Marshall
• A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines
• Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor
• Beloved, by Toni Morrison

Banned Books

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Books are banned and censored for a variety of reasons—from religious to political to social. Celebrate your freedom to read by enjoying five frequently challenged and banned books from a variety of authors and time periods. Whether banned for being “sexually explicit” or for “occult themes,” these books all offer a wide scope for discussion and for enjoyment. (accommodates 30)

• Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
• Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D. H. Lawrence
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
• Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo A. Anaya
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling

Carolina On My Mind

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Featuring native sons and daughters of the Palmetto State, this series combines fiction and non-fiction works to create a well-rounded look at a complex people. (accommodates 30)

• Partisans and Redcoats by Walter Edgar
• Demark Vesey by David Robertson
• The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
• The Keeper of the House by Rebecca Godwin
• Edisto by Padgett Powell

**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach

Changing Places: Reflections on the Natural World

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Prepare to be captivated by this survey of American Nature Writing in the 20th Century, which encompasses perspectives from a junkyard to a greenhouse and from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Wisconsin. (accommodates 30)

• A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold
• The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World, Michael Pollan
• Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Janisse Ray
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard

Classic Southern Humor

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Sometimes boisterous, sometimes grotesque, these works of Southern humor reveal insights into the Southern way of life both past and present…and are side-splittingly funny as well! (accommodates 15)

• A Collection of Classic Southern Humor II, edited by George W. Koon
• Georgia Scenes, by Augusta Longstreet
• The Ponder Heart, by Eudora Welty
• The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, by Tom Wolfe
• The Hamlet, by William Faulkner

Destruction or Redemption: Images of Romantic Love

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Ah, love. Who can explain this puzzling but universal feature of the human condition? These books may not explain love, but they certainly present timeless descriptions of it. (accommodates 30)

• Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles
• The End of the Affair, by Grahame Greene
• Morgan’s Passing, by Anne Tyler
• A Mother and Two Daughters, by Gail Godwin

I Love a Mystery

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This collection of classic mysteries will be sure to tantalize. From hard-boiled detectives to secretaries-turned-sleuths, the protagonists of these novels may come from different backgrounds, but they all have the same purpose: to find out “who dunnit”! (accommodates 20)

• I the Jury, by Mickey Spillane
• Bertie and the Tinman, by Peter Lovesay
• Murder at Markham, by Patricia Sprinkle
• Talking God, by Tony Hillerman
• Rumpole of the Bailey, by John Mortimer
• Rumpole’s Last Case, by John Mortimer

Isabella’s Sisters: Women Creating Worlds

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In these fascinating memoirs and biographies, women create worlds, both real and fictional. Each book is a detailed portrait of a strong, influential woman, a woman capable of changing the course of history, art, culture, or politics. (accommodates 30)

• Isabella of Castille: The First Renaissance Queen, by Nancy Rubin
• Lost in Translation, by Eva Hoffman
• Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog
• Jazz Cleopatra:Josephine Baker in Her Time, by Phyllis Rose
• Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera

It’s a Mad, Mad World: Visions of the Way We Are…Maybe

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These unconventional novels make us question the world and the way we understand it. Does history really have a pattern? Could we be crazy and not realize it? Can we ever understand the motivations of the human spirit? (accommodates 16)

• City Of Glass, by Paul Auster
• A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, by Julian Barnes
• The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
• The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
• Love in the Ruins, by Walker Percy

Jewish Literature: Between Two Worlds, Stories of Estrangement and Redemption

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In these novels, Jewish characters struggle with their religion, their families, and their place in unwelcoming cultures. Can they find peace, or are they doomed to an uncomfortable limbo? (accommodates 30)

• Mr. Sammler’s Planet, by Saul Bellow
• Lost in Translation, by Eva Hoffman
• The Centaur in the Garden, by Moacyr Scliar
• Out of Egypt: A Memoir, by Andre Aciman
• Kaaterskill Falls, by Allegra Goodman

The Journey Inward: Women’s Autobiography

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Five women share the secrets of their lives and art in these beautifully-written, daringly-intimate autobiographies. From Isadora Duncan’s creation of modern dance to Beryl Markham’s aerial career, these memoirs will teach, inspire, and universally delight. (accommodates 30)

• One Writer’s Beginnings, by Eudora Welty
• Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart
• Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston
• My Life, by Isadora Duncan
• West With the Night, by Beryl Markham

Key Ingredients: Food in Fiction

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Food is important. We all know we can’t live without it! Food also evokes powerful emotional responses: from the happy memory of a favorite shared meal to the horror and anxiety invoked by lean times and hunger. Each of the five fiction works in this series offer images and discussions of food—its production, consumption, or accompanying traditions. What does food mean to people in different cultures at different times? Grab a snack, find a comfortable armchair, and find out! (accommodates 30)

• Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
• Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko
• Dubliners, by James Joyce
• The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck
• Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café, by Fannie Flagg

Love and Forgiveness in the Presence of the Enemy

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Explore themes of love and forgiveness in everyday life through classic and contemporary literature. (accommodates 18)

• Scenes from The Illiad, by Homer
• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
• Embers, by Sandor Marai
• The Guardians, by Ana Castillo
• Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

**Donated by Pickens County Public Library

Making a Living, Making A Life: Work and its Reward in a Changing America

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This series offers an examination of work-related issues: women in the work force, a changing workplace, employment as identity, the puritan work ethic and, of course, the American Dream. (accommodates 30)

• Growing Up, by Russell Baker
• Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller
• The Professor’s House, by Willa Cather
• Working, by Studs Terkel
• Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich

Making Sense of the Civil War

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This new series is designed as a succession of five conversations exploring different facets of the Civil War experience, informed by reading the words written or spoken by powerful voices from the past and present. (accommodates 30)

• March, by Geraldine Brooks
• Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, by James McPherson
• America’s War, a new anthology of historical fiction, diaries, memoirs, and short stories, edited by Edward L. Ayers

Masters of the Mother Tongue

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Prepare to be awed by the skill with which these award-winning and often anthologized authors from across the world wield their pens. (accommodates 30)

• The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
• The Woman Who Walked Into Doors by Roddy Doyle

**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach

Modern American Poetry (can be matched with the Modern American Poets video series)

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Modern American Poets: Voices and Visions offers significant sections on 13 great American poets, who can be matched with the video series to create a fascinating poetry blitz! (accommodates 30) Modern American Poets: Voices and Visions (includes the following sections):

• Walt Whitman
• Emily Dickinson
• Robert Frost
• Wallace Stevens
• William Carlos Williams
• Ezra Pound
• Marianne Moore
• T.S. Eliot
• Hart Crane
• Langston Hughes
• Elizabeth Bishop
• Robert Lowell
• Sylvia Plath

Muslim Journeys: Points of View

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The drama of conflict, chaos, and war come to Western readers in daily newspaper stories, but the news gives us scant details about how people live their lives in Islamabad, Fez, Cairo, or Tehran. Through the titles in “Points of View,” readers will encounter individual experiences in Muslim-majority societies through memoirs and novels representing a diverse geography and some of the best contemporary storytelling. (accommodates 30)

• In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
• Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
• House of Stone by Anthony Shadid
• Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie
• Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi

No Suitcase Needed: Books With A Strong Sense of Place

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In each of these five critically acclaimed books, the setting is as vivid as a character. Travel from Paris to Nigeria, from the American West to the slums of Ireland, and finally to rural Alabama…all from the comfort of your armchair! (accommodates 25)

• A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (Paris)
• Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
• Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner (American West)
• Angela’s Ashes, by Frank McCourt (Ireland)
• To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (Alabama)

Not for Children Only

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Gain an adult perspective on classic childhood favorites. There’s more to discuss in these books than you may remember! (accommodates 30)

• The Classic Fairy Tales, by Iona Opie and Peter Opie
• Tatterhood and Other Tales , by Ethel Johnston Phelps
• Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
• The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
• Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
• Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
• Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry, by Mildred Taylor
• I am the Cheese, by Robert Cormier

Rebirth of a Nation: Nationalism and the Civil War

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How did America first begin to define itself and develop into a cohesive nation state? This historical series uses a variety of genres to paint a detailed picture of post-Civil War America. (accommodates 30)

• Two Roads to Sumter, by William and Bruce Catton
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Ordeal by Fire, Volume II: The Civil War, by James M. McPherson
• Reconstruction: After the Civil War, by John Hope Franklin
• The Private Mary Chestnut: The Unpublished Civil War Diaries, edited by C. Vann Woodward

Remember Everything: The Importance of Heritage in South Carolina Literature

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History and memory dominate these South Carolina works, highlighting the importance of heritage in the South. (accommodates 30)

• Rich In Love, by Josephine Humphreys
• Down by the Riverside, by Charles Joyner
• Secret and Sacred, edited by Carol Blesser
• The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy
• Red Hills and Cotton, by Ben Robertson

South Carolina Literary Map: Women of Carolina

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This series features five of the Palmetto State’s most famous female writers, from South Carolina’s only Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction Julia Peterkin to national bestseller Sue Monk Kidd. Written about South Carolina women and by South Carolina women, these books and poems will illuminate the experience of women in our state. This series is based on the South Carolina Literary Map, created by the Palmetto Book Alliance. (accommodates 30)

• Scarlet Sister Mary, by Julia Peterkin
• The World Is Round, by Nikky Finney
• The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
• Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison
• Clover, by Dori Sanders

Sovereign Worlds

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Manifesto, history, and fiction collide in this series to present a multi-layered view of the condition of Native Americans. Eye-opening and thought-provoking, this series will teach you more about Native Americans than you ever learned in school. (accommodates 30)

• Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, by Vine Deloria
• Love Medicine, by Louise Erdrich
• After Columbus, The Smithsonian Chronicle of the North American Indians, by Herman J. Viola
• Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, by Jack Weatherford
• The Indian Lawyer, by James Welch

Tell About the South

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Drawing from Southern literature at its finest, this series will indoctrinate you into the rhythms and ways of the South. (accommodates 25)

• Wise Blood, by Flannery O’Conner
• All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
• Golden Apples, by Eudora Welty
• Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
• Slaves in the Family, by Edward Ball

They Went West

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. (accommodates 30)

• Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
• Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer
• Nothing To Do But Stay by Carrie Young

**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach

Unsuitable Job For a Woman

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Women detectives, young and old, brave murder and mayhem to solve crimes in this light and entertaining series.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James
The Body in the Library, by Agatha Christie
Copy Kat, by Karen Kijewski
Madness in Maggody, by Joan Hess
The J. Alfred Prufrock Murders, by Corinne Holt Sawyer
(accommodates 30)

War in the Twentieth Century

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From the Spanish Civil War to the World Wars to Vietnam, this series presents detailed and compelling views of the major wars of the 20^th Century. (accommodates 30)

• For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemmingway
• Going After Cacciato, by Tim O’Brien
• Empire of the Sun, by J.G. Ballard
• The Guns of August, by Barbara W. Tuchman
• Anne Frank Remembered, by Miep Gies

What America Reads: Myth Making in Popular Fiction

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In this series of larger-than life novels, discover what best-sellers of the past reveal about our national psyche. (accommodates 30)

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
• Shane, by Jack Schaeffer
• From Here to Eternity, by James Jones
• A Tan and Sandy Silence, by John D. MacDonald

Words Written & Sung: Translating Literature into Music

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Read the literary inspiration behind your favorite operas and rediscover classic literature through this delightful, sometimes whimsical, series. (accommodates 18)

• The Apocrypha, translated by Edgar J. Goodspeed
• The Complete Fairytales of the Brothers Grimm VI, edited by Jack Zipes
• Carmen and Other Stories, by Prosper Merimee
• The Queen of Spades and Other Stories, by Aleksander Pushkin
• Macbeth, by William Shakespeare

Mixed Media Series

The Jazz Age: Charleston and Beyond

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A survey of jazz culture through both time and place, this series mixes incisive fiction with sweeping film.        (accommodates 30)

• Round Midnight (1986 film starring Dexter Gordon)
• The Benny Goodman Story (1955 film starring Donna Reed)
• Coming Through the Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje
• Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn, by David Hadju
• Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin (short story)

Hope Amidst Hardship

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No one gets through life without a few bumps and bruises; sometimes we forget that we are not alone in that pain. Hardship comes in many varieties, and the books in this series offer varied examples but present a common theme: there is hope along the way.  (accommodates 30)

• The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls
• The Glass Castle (2017 film starring Brie Larson and Woody Harrelson)
• Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Secret Life of Bees (2008 film starring Jennifer Hudson and Dakota Fanning)
• Wonder, by R. J. Polacio
• Wonder (2017 film starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson)
• Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom
• Tuesdays with Morrie (1999 film starring Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon)

How We Got To Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

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Using Steven Johnson’s bestselling book and the accompanying PBS documentary, this series explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life (refrigeration, clocks, and eyeglass lenses, to name a few) from their creation by hobbyists, amateurs, and entrepreneurs to their unintended historical consequences. (accommodates 30)

• How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson
• How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson – PBS documentary (360 minutes)

Six Suggested sessions, pairing the book section with the appropriate PBS series episode:

• “Clean”
• “Time”
• “Glass”
• “Light”
• “Cold”
• “Sound”

Memories: Recreated Versions of the Past

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The tricky, unstable quality of memory is poignantly captured in the works of this series, showing that what we remember may or may not accurately represent reality. (accommodates 30)

• The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams
• Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir, by Mamie Garvin Fields and Karen Fields
• The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Memory and Imagination, by Patricia Hampl (essay)
• The Glass Menagerie (1987 film starring Joanne Woodward)

Modern South Carolina Novelists

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This mixed media series is heart-wrenching, heartwarming and terrifying in turn. These well-known titles by South Carolina authors highlight the humor and horror present in all Southerners. (accommodates 30)

• Clover by Dori Sanders
• Deliverance by James Dickey
• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
• Rich in Love by Josephine Humphreys
• Serena by Ron Rash
• Clover (1997)
• Deliverance (1972 film starring John Voigt)
• The Prince of Tides (1991 film starring Barbra Streisand)
• Rich in Love (1992)
• Serena (2014 film starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence)

The Play’s the Thing

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Compare three classic plays to their film adaptations. (accommodates 30)

• A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen
• A Doll’s House (1992 film starring Juliet Stevenson)
• Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
• Hamlet (1948 film starring Laurence Olivier)
• The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
• The Importance of Being Earnest (1952 film starring Michael Denison)

Reflections of the Old West

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These classic Westerns, in both their literary and film varieties, capture the spirit of the American frontier and will capture anybody’s imagination. (accommodates 30)

• The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
• The Ox-Bow Incident (1943 film starring Henry Fonda)
• The Virginian, by Owen Wister
• The Virginian (1946 film staring Joel McCrea)
• True Grit, by Charles Portis
• True Grit (1969 film starring John Wayne)

Stiff Upper Lips

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The female protagonists of these classic works endure hardships with patience and resolve and manage to live their lives with deep personal integrity. (accommodates 30)

• Washington Square, by Henry James
• Washington Square (1997 film starring Jennifer Jason Leigh)
• Daisy Miller, by Henry James
• Daisy Miller (1974 film starring Cybill Shepherd)
• The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
• The Age of Innocence (1993 film starring Daniel Day-Lewis)

Stiff Upper Lips 2 – Masterpiece Theatre

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Follow the protagonists of Collins, Austen and Du Maurier from the page to the screen as they navigate challenging landscapes of romance and social hierarchy in their respective worlds. (accommodates 30)

• Rebecca, by Daphne DuMaurier
• Rebecca (1997 Masterpiece Theatre Film with Faye Dunaway)
• Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
• Mansfield Park (2007 Masterpiece Theatre Film with Billie Piper)
• The Woman In White, by Wilkie Collins
• The Woman In White (1997 Masterpiece Theatre Film with Justine Waddell)

Tragic Affairs Abroad

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This mixed-media series pairs books and films about the timeless intersection of romance and tragedy. (accommodates 25)

• The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
• The Painted Veil (2006 film version)
• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
• A Passage to India (1984 film version)
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
• Memoirs of a Geisha (2005 film version)
• Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• Girl with the Pearl Earring (2003 film version)
• The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
• The End of the Affair (1955 film version)

Film Series

Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle

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Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities that uses the power of documentary films to encourage community discussion of America’s civil rights history. NEH partnered with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to produce this series. The series contains four films.

• The Abolitionists (2012)
• Slavery by Another Name (2012)
• The Loving Story (2011)
• Freedom Ride (2010)

Presidents, Politics, and Power: American Presidents Who Shaped the 20^th Century A film survey of American presidents.

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• Theodore Roosevelt
• Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Harry Truman
• Lyndon B. Johnson
• Richard Nixon
• Ronald Reagan