A free guide for book clubs
Read it together.
SalsSky: The Chosen One is seven chapters, about five minutes a scene. Here are questions for every chapter, built on the book's own Ascent: what each chapter turns away from, and what it turns towards. Free to print and to share.
One email · No card · No password
How to run it
Read one chapter a week. Chapter One is free for everyone, with one email and no card, so every member can begin before anyone pays for anything. The rest of the book is $4.99, once.
Ask each person to bring the one line that stopped them, and to say what it touched: Heart, Mind, Body or Soul. Start there, before the questions.
The questions for each chapter talk about what happens in it. Read the chapter first.
Chapter One
Unlearn
- The first chapter is called Unlearn. What did Sals have to unlearn, and what might you?
- “Trust whatever stays clear when the fear shows up.” Where does fear show up in this chapter, and what stays clear?
- Sophus asks Sals, “Did you notice it, or did you chase it?” What is the difference, in the chapter and in your own week?
- “They drown because they can’t let go of what’s already gone.” Who in this chapter is holding on, and to what?
- When the sea comes, the book’s answer is “Not hope. Not despair. Just what was true.” Why might what is true be harder than hope?
- Which line stopped you? Read it aloud, and say what it touched: Heart, Mind, Body or Soul.
Chapter Two
Deceiver’s Veil
- This chapter is called Deceiver’s Veil. What is hidden here, and from whom?
- “Do you always answer uncertainty with steel?” Where does that question land in the chapter, and how do you answer uncertainty yourself?
- “Clarity has a way of changing the price of everything else around it.” What becomes cheaper, and what dearer, once something is seen clearly?
- The book sets relief beside “gratitude that asked for nothing in return”. What is the difference between the two?
- “Toward whatever’s still standing once distraction stops working.” What is still standing at the end of this chapter?
- Which line stopped you, and what did it touch?
Chapter Three
Descendant of Destiny
- Descendant of Destiny: is destiny in this chapter something inherited, or something chosen?
- “He believes stillness will draw it out.” What is waiting to be drawn out, and why stillness rather than force?
- “Patience meeting patience, until patience itself became the only proof either of them required.” What kind of trust is being built here?
- “Nothing that adds weight without adding strength.” What would you put down if you lived by that rule?
- “The call had never truly been Sioux — only close enough to her voice to fool him in the dark.” What false calls have you followed because they sounded close enough?
- Which line stopped you, and what did it touch?
Chapter Four
The Challenge Within
- The Challenge Within: is the danger in this chapter outside the city, or inside it?
- “So people panic in one direction while the real fire keeps burning somewhere they’re not looking.” Where is the real fire?
- “Hope moves fast once it finds itself a symbol.” What symbol does the city find, and what does it cost the person who becomes one?
- “This one got kept by everyone who showed up the morning after, without being asked to.” Who shows up the morning after in your life?
- “A vow only means something once the deadline it was tied to actually arrives.” Which vows are tested in this chapter?
- Which line stopped you, and what did it touch?
Chapter Five
Conundrum of Existence
- Conundrum of Existence: what question does this chapter refuse to answer simply?
- “Grief, once it runs out of a target that can be blamed cleanly, starts looking for one that can be blamed at all.” How does grief move through these characters?
- Somebody trusts “the one thing in him that had never once needed to be certain to be right.” When has instinct served you better than certainty?
- “Some wounds don’t announce what they’ve actually done to you until it’s already too late to undo it.” Which wounds in this chapter announce themselves late?
- “It just wasn’t the whole shape of what had happened here.” What part did each character see, and what did they miss?
- Which line stopped you, and what did it touch?
Chapter Six
Salssky’s Odyssey
- The chapter takes the book’s name: SalsSky’s Odyssey. What kind of journey is this?
- “You’ve never once used it to become something you weren’t already.” What does this say about change?
- “Not as an answer announcing itself, but as a question finally exhausting its own need to be asked.” Have you had a question end that way?
- “He simply flew.” What did he have to stop needing first?
- “Something closer to relief than fear.” When has letting a weight fall felt like relief?
- Which line stopped you, and what did it touch?
Chapter Seven
The Sun That Remains
- The Sun That Remains: what remains at the end, and what does not?
- “He just never learned the difference between waiting and giving up.” What is the difference?
- “I gave a frightened city a story to hold onto.” Was it a kindness? What is the honest kind of story?
- “Arriving together would matter more than arriving quickly.” Where in your life is that true?
- “We find out what all of this was actually for.” What was it for?
- Of every line in the book, which would you keep, and why?