J.B. asks from Atlanta, GA on October 29, 2011
What Has Been Your Favorite Book Club Book?
Hi Ladies (and a few gentlemen),
I'm so excited that a friend of mine is starting a book club! Some other friends and I used to have one, but it slowly dissipated, and I've been eager to join another one but too busy to start it myself. Anyway, I was looking for good suggestions for book club reading -something perhaps you read that you think would generate a lot of conversation or that you read for a book club. It doesn't have to be current, although that may help because I know this crowd has probably already read "The Help," "Water for Elephants," and a lot of books like that. I know several of the women well and a few not at all, so I want to choose something that has a fairly broad appeal, doesn't get mired down in prose (which I often like, but many don't), and isn't super controversial. As I said -I know several and that we're fairly liberal and independent, but I don't know everyone involved.
Thanks for your suggestions!
1 mom found this helpful
So What Happened?™
Thank you all! There are some great suggestions here. I am so happy to be reminded of "Picking Cotton"! I meant to read it when it came out, and it had fallen off of my radar. I'm keeping this list, because there are several that would be fantastic book club picks.
I also have to say, "The Red Tent" is one of my all-time favorites! I will take a poll at our first meeting, and if no one else has read it -I'll definitely use it.
More Answers
D.S. answers from Kansas City on October 29, 2011
some old, some new choices:
The Book Thief! (Loved it. And so did the club.)
Room
Moloka'i
Jim the Boy
Dracula (seriously, we all had a great discussion on it last year)
Tinkers (some loved it, some hated it, so good chat)
The Devil in the White City
Loving Frank (very good if you don't already know the end; don't peek!)
Me and Emma
Blue Diary
Suite Francais
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The River Midnight
Interpreter of Maladies
Blindness
Middlesex
The Poisonwood Bible
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Sicken
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things
We Need to Talk about Kevin (mothers will have a lot to talk about with this one)
I could go on and on...my book club has met for more than 8 years! We don't always agree on a book but that can make the discussion more fun.
4 moms found this helpful
L.U. answers from Seattle on October 29, 2011
I loved the book "The Red Tent" - by Anita Diamant. I also loved "Sotah" - by Naomi Ragan.
3 moms found this helpful
S.S. answers from Chicago on October 29, 2011
I belong to a book club. there are 10 of us in the club. we meet the second friday of each month. We decided last year at christmas to set genre's and take turns picking the book. we meet at each other's houses. these are the genre's we had and the book for each month
January - Good Grief (I don't remember what the catagory was for that one)
February - Romance Lady Be Good by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
March - American Wife (about the life of laura bush) by Curtis Sittenfeld
April - wednesday sisters (can't remember the catagory)
May - Spoken from the Heart by Barbara Bush
June - no angel by Jay Dobyns
July - Children's literature The Giver by Lois Lowry
August - Mystery Tell no one by I think Harlan Coban
September - Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
October - Horror
November
December - The Christmas Jars by Jason Wright
can't remember the other months lol. Wow how sad. Going to go look at my list. a lot of books you can ask at the library and they will get you discussion questions
3 moms found this helpful
J.C. answers from Philadelphia on October 29, 2011
Sarah Key
Pillars of the Earth
World without End
Picking Cotton
This Much I know is True or any Wally Lamb book
3 moms found this helpful
J.D. answers from Boston on October 29, 2011
We're reading "The Hotel Between Bitter and Sweet" and it's really good!
2 moms found this helpful
S.W. answers from Minneapolis on October 29, 2011
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman.
This was voted the best book read in years by the book group I was part of for 10 years. It is an amazing story of a young Hmong girl living in CA who was diagnosed with epilepsy and the years-long clash between the beliefs of the physicians treating her and the traditional Hmong beliefs of her family. The author treated both sides fairly and accurately. I was left with an understanding of this interesting culture
A review on Amazon "I was one of the physicians involved in the care of Lia Lee. I'm referred to in the book as the physician that first diagnosed Lia's spells as seizures. Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, the principal pediatricians in the book, were and are good friends of mine. Having experienced Lia Lee's saga personally, and then having read the book, I can only refer to Anne Fadiman's talent as astounding. Anne walks an incredibly fine, and very well documented, line as she describes what happens when American medical technology meets up with a deep and ancient Eastern culture. My team (Western medicine) failed Lia. Never have I felt so fairly treated in defeat, and never have I felt so much respect for an author's skillful distillation of a tragically murky confrontation of cultures."
2 moms found this helpful
K.J. answers from Albany on October 29, 2011
"The Shack" is a personal favorite of mine.
1 mom found this helpful
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