RELATED: Let's Talk About It List | Let's Talk About It FAQs | Application
Let's Talk About It | List
Book Series
All That Jazz
Learn about the Jazz Age through the eyes of three American masters whose work helped immortalize the triumphs and tensions of the era.
Jazz by Toni Morrison
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Dreamkeeper and Other Poems by Langston Hughes
(accommodates 30)
**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach
And Still I Rise: The Triumph of the African-American Spirit
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.
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
(accommodates 22)
Banned Books
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.
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
(accommodates 30)
Carolina On My Mind
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.
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
(accommodates 30)
**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach
Changing Places: Reflections on the Natural World
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.
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
(accommodates 35)
Classic Southern Humor
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!
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
(accommodates 15)
Coming of Age Memoirs (**three book series)
Growing up can be hard; discovering yourself and your place in the world is harder. In these unique memoirs, three very different narrators record and reflect on this difficult process.
Distant Fires, by Scott Anderson
Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, by Judith Ortiz Cofer
This House of Sky, Landscapes of a Western Mind, by Ivan Doig
(accommodates 20)
Destruction or Redemption: Images of Romantic Love
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.
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
(accommodates 100)
Growing Up in America (**four book series)
This series gives a multi-ethnic take on growing up in America. From Native American to Hispanic, from black to white, there is a striking sameness in the process of understanding oneself, one’s family, and one’s place in the world.
Ferris Beach, by Jill McCorkle
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, by Michael Dorris
Local News, by Gary Soto
Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
(accommodates 42)
I Love a Mystery
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”!
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
(accommodates 23)
Isabella’s Sisters: Women Creating Worlds
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.
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
(accommodates 60)
It’s a Mad, Mad World: Visions of the Way We Are…Maybe
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?
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
(accommodates 20)
Jewish Literature: Between Two Worlds, Stories of Estrangement and Redemption New!
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?
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
(accommodates 35)
The Journey Inward: Women’s Autobiography
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.
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
(accommodates 50)
Key Ingredients: Food in Fiction
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!
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
(accommodates 30)
Love and Forgiveness in the Presence of the Enemy
Explore themes of love and forgiveness in everyday life through classic and contemporary literature.
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
(accommodates 18)
**Donated by Pickens County Public Library
Making a Living, Making A Life: Work and its Reward in a Changing America
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.
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
(accommodates 35)
Masters of the Mother Tongue
Prepare to be awed by the skill with which these award-winning and often anthologized authors from across the world wield their pens.
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
(accommodates 30)
**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach
Modern American Poetry (can be matched with the Modern American Poets video series) New!
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!
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
(accommodates 200)
New American Worlds: Writing the Hemisphere
Whether realistic or magically enhanced, the descriptions of society in these novels are compelling and eye-opening. Will you recognize your world?
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Absalom! Absalom!, by William Faulkner
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
(accommodates 35)
No Suitcase Needed: Books With A Strong Sense of Place
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!
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)
(accommodates 30)
Not for Children Only
Gain an adult perspective on classic childhood favorites. There’s more to discuss in these books than you may remember!
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
(accommodates 80)
Possible World, Here or Elsewhere (**four book series)
Science fiction and fantasy combine in this series to paint sometimes eerie and sometimes comical portraits of what our world could be like under completely different circumstances.
Magic Kingdom for Sale! Sold, by Terry Brooks
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
The Postman, by David Brin
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
(accommodates 35)
Rebirth of a Nation: Nationalism and the Civil War
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.
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
(accommodates 57)
Remember Everything: The Importance of Heritage in South Carolina Literature
History and memory dominate these South Carolina works, highlighting the importance of heritage in the South.
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
(accommodates 75)
Seeds of Change: The Inheritance of Columbus (**four book series)
This series examines Christopher Columbus and his effects on history from a variety of genres and viewpoints: cultural, historical, fictional, and satirical.
The Crown of Columbus, by Michael Doris, Louise Erdrich
Seeds of Change: The Story of Cultural Exchange After 1492, by Sharryl Davis Hawke, James E. Davis
Christopher Columbus, Mariner, by Samuel Eliot Morison
The Dogs of Paradise, by Abel Posse
(accommodates 31)
South Carolina Literary Map: Women of Carolina
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.
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
(accommodates 30)
Sovereign Worlds
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.
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
(accommodates 30)
Tell About the South New!
Drawing from Southern literature at its finest, this series will indoctrinate you into the rhythms and ways of the South.
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
(accommodates 30)
Telling Li(e)ves
This series offers biographies with a twist! These fascinating, if partisan, works reveal as much about the biographers as they do about the researched figures and provide entertainment throughout.
Greek Lives, by Plutarch
The Life of Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell
Leonardo Da Vinci, by Sigmund Freud
Eminent Victorians, by Lytton Strachey
Orlando, by Virginia Wolfe
(accommodates 40)
They Went West
(Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition)
Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer
Nothing To Do But Stay by Carrie Young
(accommodates 30)
**Donated by Chapin Memorial Library in Myrtle Beach
Unsuitable Job For a Woman
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 50)
War in the Twentieth Century
From the Spanish Civil War to the World Wars to Vietnam, this series presents detailed and compelling views of the major wars of the 20th Century.
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
(accommodates 35)
What America Reads: Myth Making in Popular Fiction
In this series of larger-than life novels, discover what best-sellers of the past reveal about our national psyche.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Shane, by Frank Schaeffer
From Here to Eternity, by James Jones
A Tan and Sandy Silence, by John D. MacDonald
(accommodates 85)
Words Written & Sung: Translating Literature into Music
Read the literary inspiration behind your favorite operas and rediscover classic literature through this delightful, sometimes whimsical, series.
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
(accommodates 20)
Mixed Media Series
The Jazz Age: Charleston and Beyond New!
A survey of jazz culture through both time and place, this series mixes incisive fiction with sweeping film.
Round Midnight (1986 film starring Dexter Gordon)
The Benny Goodman Story (1955 film starring Donna Reed)
Coming Through the Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje
Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin (short story)
(accommodates 40)
Memories: Recreated Versions of the Past
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.
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)
(accommodates 42)
The Play’s the Thing
Compare three classic plays to their film adaptations.
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)
(accommodates 40)
Reflections of the Old West
These classic Westerns, in both their literary and film varieties, capture the spirit of the American frontier and will capture anybody’s imagination.
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)
(accommodates 37)
Stiff Upper Lips
The female protagonists of these classic works endure hardships with patience and resolve and manage to live their lives with deep personal integrity.
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)
(accommodates 35)
Stiff Upper Lips 2 - Masterpiece Theatre
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.
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)
(accommodates 35)
Video Series
From Rosie to Roosevelt
A film survey of World War II.
The Homefront: The Homefront (1985)
Rosie the Riveter: The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980)
Japanese Americans: Days of Waiting (1990) or The Color of Honor
African Americans and the War: Men of the USS Mason
The Holocaust: America and the Holocaust
The Experience of Combat: D-Day
Presidents, Politics, and Power: American Presidents Who Shaped the 20th Century A film survey of American presidents.
Theodore Roosevelt (2 volumes)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (4 volumes)
Harry Truman (2 volumes)
Lyndon B. Johnson (2 volumes)
Richard Nixon (3 volumes)
Ronald Reagan (2 volumes)
Modern American Poets: Voices and Visions
A film survey of American poets.
Volume 1: Elizabeth Bishop
Volume 2: Hart Crane
Volume 3: Emily Dickinson
Volume 4: T.S. Eliot
Volume 5: Robert Frost
Volume 6: Langston Hughes
Volume 7: Robert Lowell
Volume 9: Sylvia Plath
Volume 10: Ezra Pound
Volume 11:Wallace Stevens
Volume 13: William Carlos Williams
The World War I Years: America Becomes a World Power
Woodrow Wilson, Part I: A Passionate Man
The Great War - 1918
1914-1918: Shell Shock (from The Century) and Men of Bronze: The Black American Heroes of World War I
Up South: African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War
Woodrow Wilson, Part II: The Redemption of the World
Return to Isolationism (from Between the Wars)