Hachette

Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for The Rice Mother by Rani Manicka. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. Women have a hard time in this novel. Do you think they are stronger and more resilient characters than the male characters?
  2. The author gives an impression of great hidden racial tension and a level of poverty among the underclass. Does this fit in with your knowledge of Malaysia?
  3. Anna describes her and her siblings’ relationship with their mother, Lakshmi, “The truth is that she stood in the middle like an enormous English oak tree and from her weighty branches we whirled round and round silently like painted figurines on a ghostly merry-go-round.” What can you draw from Anna’s perspective? Do you think that Lakshimi wanted to plan her children’s future for their sake or her own?
  4. What role do you think the mysterious Indian snake charmer played in the novel?
  5. Has this book in any way changed your perception of Malaysia?
  6. What variations of racism and cross-cultural relationships do you come across in The Rice Mother?
  7. What does Dimple’s character bring to the book?
  8. Dimple writes in her last letter to her husband, Luke, imploring him to hand over her family’s story to Nisha when she reaches adulthood, “Love comes and goes like the dye that colours a garment. I mistook love for the garment. Family is the garment. Let her wear her family with pride.” Discuss this metaphor of love and why Dimple’s experiences brought her to this conclusion.

Current Reading Group Titles

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