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Reader's Paradise

Best book-club books of the recent past

15 years ago

My book club has not yet selected our books for this year. (We're on an odd schedule.) I'm having trouble coming up with a suggestion. Which books have worked well for other book clubs in the past few years?

In my own club, we have particularly enjoyed:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

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Comments (7)

Kath
15 years ago
I will again recommend Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Along the same lines is Mr Rosenblum's List by Natasha Solomons (called Mr Rosenblum Dreams in English in the US for some strange reason). Both of those I class as 'nice' books, like GLPPS.
Room by Emma Donoghue, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is also a good read, and not as depressing as the subject matter might suggest.
ccrdmrbks
15 years ago
My book club does a mix of new and tried-and-true. Some of our best discussions came over:
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Lisa See
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
A Thread of Grace Mary Doria Russell
The Help Stockett (we didn't all love this, but it was a good discussion)
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Thank you all for you responses. You've given me some good ideas, and some names of books that just might spark some discussion. I'm always a little leery of books about the Holocaust; I often find them too upsetting to read. But The Sunflower sounds like it goes beyond just relating the horrors to some deeper reflections on human nature. My library doesn't have a copy, nor a copy of A Thread of Grace, but I think I'll look elsewhere for them. I like the idea of the reading kits. I believe our local library has a few of those; I'm not sure how many. I went to one meeting of the library book club. We discussed Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth, a fabulous book, but I was disappointed in the discussion. It was dominated by a woman who wanted to discuss current-day politics, and the leader/librarian, couldn't seem to slow her down. The discussion ended exactly one hour after we started, even though we had lots more to discuss.
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Well, I'm in my book club primarily for the socializing! I would read books anyway. I enjoy the social aspect of discussing books with others, and I really like the women in my group. I realized one day that while I had garden friends, and sewing friends, and friends I used to work with, I knew almost no one who lived the same town as me, despite having lived there for 18 years. I knew that the mother of one of my daughter's friends was in a book club, and asked her if they were taking new members. The rest is history, and I'm having a whale of a time. I'm even reading books I'd otherwise never have encountered on my own. Some I like, some I do not, but it does expand my horizons.
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I would like you opinion about a book published this year by a new author, Lisa Lareau. It is entitled, "The Last Neanderthal Clan." The setting is in prehistoric times and it hypothesises the last struggle for survival of the last Neanderthal group. I find it a very good read, written in a new manner.
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I'm going to join this bookclub when I retire. They call themselves 'Faith and Fiction', and a friend has invited me and sent me a list of the books they have read. They have been together since 2002. Here are the most recent ones on their list: January The Melody of Secrets by Jeffrey Stepakoff February Mr. Perumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan March Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian April The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah May The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson June The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner July The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende August Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile September The Tilted World by Tom Franklin and Beth Ann fennelly October The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks November The Professor by Robert Bailey December Dollbaby by Laura Lane McNeal 2017 January My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout February Dear Carolina by Kristy Woodson Harvey March Commonwealth by Ann Patchett April Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance May Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi June The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb by Melanie Benjamin July Swing Time by Zadie Smith August The Wonder by Emma Donaghue
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vickitg
15 years ago
Some that our club rated highly for discussability:

The Girls - Lori Lansens
The Help
Snow Flower... - Lisa See
Water for Elephants- Sara Gruen
The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Going back a little further -- these were some favorites:

Bean Trees -- Barbara Kingsolver
Cider House Rules -- John Irving
East of Eden -- John Steinbeck
House of Sand and Fog - Andre Dubus
Life of Pi -- by Yann Martel (May 2004)
Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem
Peace Like a River -- by Leif Enger
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
kathy_t
Original Author
15 years ago
Many thanks for sharing these. I am intrigued by several of these titles and will check them out. -- Kathy
kathy_t
Original Author
15 years ago
So I took a couple of suggestions from this thread to my book club meeting - and none of my suggestions made the cut! But maybe next time... -- Kathy
vickitg
15 years ago
:( Sorry. So what will you be reading?
kathy_t
Original Author
15 years ago
I just posted our selections on the 2011 Book Club choices thread. (I tried to post the list earlier, but my Firefox browser crashed just as I was finishing, so I turned off my computer in frustration.) Since you've asked in this thread, I'll repeat the list:

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
Biography Night (individual choice)
Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor
Our community One Read book (title as yet unknown)
Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls
Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

My group has already read several of the the suggestions that were offered in this thread, and generally we liked all of them, so I think we'd like the others as well. I will keep this list handy for future selections. Thanks again! -- Kathy

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