Durable Goods_ A Novel - Elizabeth Berg [48]
9. Describe Katie’s friend Cherylanne and her family (Belle and Bubba). How does the apparent disparity between the two girls and their families help to shed light on Katie’s character and situation?
10. Berg’s writing has been described as both “quiet” and “delicate.” With respect to Durable Goods, how would you interpret these descriptions? Do you think they are accurate? How would you describe Berg’s style in this novel?
11. Durable Goods is imbued with a sense of immediacy. How does Berg make the reader feel present in that particular time and place with Katie Nash? Select some passages that were particularly telling or successful in creating a sense of setting. Did Berg’s technique in creating a literary atmosphere enable you to feel more connected to her characters?
12. While Katie’s situation is unique, she is truly a universal character. Did you find yourself able to identify with her? If so, how, and at what points in the story did you feel most connected? Did you identify with any of the other characters? How?
13. The end of the novel is infused with both hope and sadness. Did the end of the book leave you wanting more or wondering what would happen to Katie, Diane, and their father? How did you feel about Katie’s decision to return home? What do you predict will happen to the family at this point in their story?
ELIZABETH BERG is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Say When, True to Form, Never Change, and Open House, which was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection in 2000. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year, and Talk Before Sleep was short-listed for the ABBY award in 1996. The winner of the 1997 New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, she is also the author of a nonfiction work, Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True. She lives in Chicago.
“Touching…[A] deft, sweet, and often comic novel.”
—Chicago Tribune
UNTIL THE REAL THING COMES ALONG
by ELIZABETH BERG
“A PERCEPTIVE COMEDY OF MODERN MANNERS … At the end of each undemanding day, Patty goes home to an empty apartment and listens to her biological clock ticking as ominously as Captain Hook’s crocodile…. Patty wants a husband and a baby, and not necessarily in that order…. But Patty has a problem. Try as she might, there is only one man she can love—her best friend, Ethan—and try as Ethan might, he is quite firmly and intractably gay. With rueful good humor, Until the Real Thing Comes Along shows how Patty and Ethan come to terms with the impossibility of having it all.” —The Boston Globe
Published by Ballantine Books
Available wherever books are sold
The Guide’s inside, so it’s perfect for your reading group.
www.randomhousereaderscircle.com
“Hilarious and heartbreaking… A book
worth buying.”
—San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
JOY SCHOOL
by ELIZABETH BERG
“A STORY THAT TUGS AT THE HEARTSTRINGS…. Thirteen-year-old Katie is new to her Missouri town, living alone with a stern, inaccessible father following her mother’s death. Unable to fit in at school, she forges alliances where she can: with her housekeeper, with a pimply fellow misfit named Cynthia, and with the gorgeous Taylor, who gets her kicks out of shoplifting. Most frustrating of all is Katie’s imperfect friendship with the proprietor of a local gas station, a handsome twenty-three-year-old who shares her love of checkers but doesn’t return her crush. With humor and an eye for telling detail, Berg conveys the way each unpromising element of Katie’s life ultimately offers her more than she had anticipated.” —People
Published by Ballantine Books
Available wherever books are sold
The Guide’s inside, so it’s perfect for your reading group.
www.randomhousereaderscircie.com
“Berg knows the hearts of her
characters intimately, showing them with
compassion, humor, and an
illuminating generosity.”
—The Seattle Times
WHAT WE KEEP
by ELIZABETH BERG