By now we have discussed why so many books we read in clubs are set against a background of war. But we have never encountered the case of a book saved in a suitcase for five decades and released from its tomb as a memento mori and an almost perfect epic novel.

Not to be missed by any club is Suite Francaise, newly published in paperback. Written by Irene Nemirovsky as she fled from the Nazis in 1940 France, she managed to complete two books of her proposed five-part epic novel on the scale of War and Peace. (And who can wait for the new translation of W&P from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky coming out in November?) Suite Francaise begins with "A Storm in June" as Parisians are fleeing the city. She introduces multiple characters of every class as possible love stories weave into the daily lives of people under occupation. A few characters were destined for the final novels, others have met their fates in the first two books. Sadly, we will never know what happens to them. In 1942, Nemirovsky was deported to Auschwitz where she died of typhus.

Nemirovsky was a noted French novelist in the 1920s and 1930s and my friend Wendy insists we read every one of her books. And we will once they are translated -- a process that has now begun. For an excellent overview of "A Storm in June" and "Dolce," the two books in Suite Francaise, check out its Wikipedia entry. And shudder at the thought of life before we discovered it (like about a year and half ago...)

Clubs are mourning the recent passing of Kurt Vonnegut and making lists prominently featuring Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade, Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions.  Writers' reputations are a moving target, especially authors whose work was a sensation in a specific time.  I am looking forward to revisiting Slaughterhouse-Five with my club.  It was a towering book in my youth, but I know current high school student who have adopted Billy Pilgrim and Kilgore Trout as their own.  The science fiction elements may just turn out to be precise realism these days.

Don't forget to bring your talking points.  These might include an appreciation of Vonnegut's life, an original review (a fascinating artifact in itself) and obituaries from near and far.  So it goes was a touchstone for a lot of us -- it's time to bring it back.

Can a novel about conjoined craniopagus twins be hopeful, inspirational, and dare we say it, a bit sexy? The Girls by Lori Lansens (Rush Home Road) is also an audacious instant classic, told Poisonwood Bible-style, from the perspective of Rose and Ruby Darlen. It is surprising in so many ways, yet it contains one of our favorite themes: a pair of sisters’ loving and complex relationship. But these sisters can only see each other via mirrors and one twin, Rose, must carry the other, Ruby. They can never be separated.

Rose is the literary, sports-obsessed sister and the primary narrator who tells the story of their birth in a freak tornado. “Ruby is forever beside me,” Rose writes. “I understand that I am me, but that I am also we.” The girls’ teenage mother quickly abandons them, but they are soon adopted by the wise, kindly, no-nonsense nurse Aunt Lovey and her husband Uncle Stash. Raised on a stark, often idyllic farm in Leaford, Ontario, the girls have a philosophical view about their role as curiosities. But they crack jokes about it, pine away for boys, and pinch each other to communicate. The novel is also an absorbing medical story for club members who think they are geneticists and brain surgeons and wish to present their medical theories to the club.

Rose and Ruby are the oldest set of craniopagus twins. How long can they live and how much will you miss them?

We can never have enough news about Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in any format.  The best news of all?  Anchor has come out with an annotated version of the great classic, just in time for your club's annual revisiting.  Edited by David M. Shappard, The Annotated Pride and Prejudice features the text itself on one page, the extensive footnotes on the opposite page.  The Age of Austen is a fascinating period, but I think that every classic should be so annotated.

For more things The World of Jane Austen, come armed with the latest news, You've Read the Novels (Now Read the Footnotes) by William Grimes.  In his article from The New York Times, March 16, he selects his favorite footnotes from the annotated version including the precise definitions of all the conveyances that take the Bennets and the de Bourghs from one place to another.  My favorite vehicles have always included the phaeton and the curricle.

What is everyone reading this spring?  Among the new and upcoming paperbacks, these three titles are considered must reads by clubs:

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl 

Coming out in paperback on April 24th, clubs are scheduling this book like mad.  Narrated by precocious high school senior Blue Van Meer, it's a wild and crazy tour through the curriculum with major stops at True Crime, the Manson Family and 1960s radicalism.  Antlers might lock over this one, but some members are packing their bags to join Blue and Dad on their last road trip.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

This book won every single literary award, so clubs everywhere want to be the real judge and jury. Set in mid-1980s India, it's the story of a family on the brink in a wartorn area at the foot of the Himalayas.  Cultural clashes, the onset of modernity and the usual family emotional life are deftly mixed.  This is Desai's second book, her first was the critically acclaimed and superbly named Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.

Intuition by Allegra Goodman

Two scientists in charge of a Cambridge, Massachusetts research institute are desperate for a grant.  When the experiments of one postdoc scientist show promise, the work is promoted behind what the science might tell them is plausible.  A fantastic portrait of the scientific culture and cancer research, the club will decide whether the book's ending lives up to its promise.