Hachette Livre

Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for Lies by Enrique de Heriz. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. ‘. . . the past, like the future, can only be imagined’. Isabel believes this; does the author?
  2. ‘We are who we’re told we are.’ Is this true? Is it true of the characters in Lies?
  3. ‘That’s what names do: they proliferate to excess and destroy the place they occupy.’ What do you understand the author to mean by this?
  4. ‘I’m not sure what the word “return” really means.’ What does return mean to you? Why is Isabel unsure of the meaning?
  5. ‘The duty of looking after other people makes you real.’ Is this true? Without it are we any less real? Is Isabel?
  6. Isabel’s study of death rituals has repeatedly demonstrated the imposition of order on the chaos caused by death. How else is this a theme in Lies?
  7. ‘Truth is a lighthouse.’ For good or ill. How do you end up feeling about truth?
  8. Looking at the language of Lies, ‘the older the story you’re telling, the more you inflate your words’. Said of Serena, is this true of her? Of the whole novel?
  9. Why does the author set the style of the ‘With Luis’ chapters as he does?
  10. ‘All our means of communication have an immediate effect, like a cut to the jugular.’ How does speed of communication affect the characters (both past and present) in Lies?
  11. Why do the children propose to scatter Isabel’s ashes off the Russian woman’s beach?
  12. Is life a jury-rig?

Current Reading Group Titles

  1. The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday
  2. The Disappeared by Kim Echlin
  3. The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin
  4. Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
  5. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
  6. Testimony by Anita Shreve
  7. Home by Marilynne Robinson
  8. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
  9. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  10. Remembering The Bones by Frances Itani
  11. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
  12. Lies by Enrique de Heriz
  13. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
  14. Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
  15. Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  16. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
  17. The Sisterhood by Emily Barr
  18. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  19. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie
  20. The Return by Victoria Hislop
  21. A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott
  22. A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
  23. Scapegallows by Carol Birch
  24. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
  25. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
  26. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  27. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  28. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  29. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  30. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  31. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  32. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  33. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  34. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  35. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  36. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  37. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  38. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  39. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  40. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  41. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  42. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  43. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  44. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  45. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  46. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell