Book Clubs

Do you belong to a book club or reading group? I hope you’ll consider The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott. It’s a pleasure to talk with readers about the book, and I would love to speak to your group in person, over the phone, or online!

If you’d like to arrange a discussion, just send me an email. Let me know where your club is located and when you plan to discuss the book. If you’re near Chicago, I may be able to appear in person (with cookies, of course). If you are further afield, we can set up a phone call or a Skype session during the meeting.

If we meet in person I would be happy to sign your club’s copies of the book. But if we connect over the phone or online, this can still be arranged! Just let me know the names of the people in your book club, and I’ll send a pack of personalized book plates.

I look forward to the chance to meet you!

Discussion Questions

The following questions are intended to start a discussion about The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott. You can download a printable copy here.

1. Have you ever read a poem or book that profoundly challenged or changed your worldview? How might the events of the novel have differed if Walt Whitman had not published Leaves of Grass in the summer of 1855?
2. What is Louisa’s relationship like with each of her sisters? Do any of these relationships change throughout the novel? If so, how? Do you think Louisa’s identity was defined by her sisters?
3. Abba says that men and women experience love differently: “For a man, love is just a season. For a woman it is the whole of the year.” Is that true in The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott? Is it true in your own personal experience?
4. Bronson Alcott was a truly unusual father and man. What is your impression of him? How do you think he affected his daughters, and did he affect each one differently?
5. Describe Bronson and Abba’s marriage. Do you think it influenced Louisa’s view of matrimony? If so, in what way?
6. Was Louisa right not to go with Joseph Singer to New York? Why or why not? What would you have done?
7. Why was Louisa so protective of her independence? Considering the greater opportunities available to women now, but also the frenetic pace of their lives and, in some ways, more complex obligations, do you think she would be as protective of her independence if she lived today?
8. At one point Abba tells Louisa, “We must never give if we are hoping for something in return.” Why does she say that? Do you think what she says is true?
9. At the end of the novel we learn that Louisa is taking care of her niece Lulu. What kind of parent do you think Louisa would be, and why?
10. Louisa tells Joseph, “My life is no longer my own.” And yet she chose to base Little Women, her most successful novel, on herself and her sisters. If writers use their own experiences as inspiration, are they inviting fans to pry into their personal lives? Or should their work be taken at face value?