Hello! I am not the first nor (I’m sure) the last person to ask this – it’s my turn to pick a book for the book club and I have nervous sweats. So far we’ve read quite a few literary reads, this is a club of heavy readers who have already read so much (everything I suggested most have read 😭) so would be grateful for anything good for discussion, or anything supppppper out there, or super weird, or literary, or fun! I’m for anything! Thank you!!! ☺️
Edit- YOU FOLKS ARE AWESOME!! Thank you for your recommendations!!
by a_shifa
9 Comments
Time Traveler’s Wife is usually good for some wacky discussions.
Some of ours were Invisible life of Addie Larue, Looking for Jane, Dungeon Crawler Carl, World War Z, Project Hail Mary, Remarkably Bright Creatures, Demon Copperhead
I’m giving a variety of suggestions:
Classic – I recently reread HG Wells’ The War of the Worlds and it’s terrifying. It’s also fascinating to see how people are essentially the same and how the response to an invasion in the late 1890s to today feels eerily similar.
Modern literary: Remains of the Day or Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Young Adult (YA): Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. This is a weird and compelling and wonderful book about the author’s childhood as a Persian-American.
YA nonfiction: Symphony for the City of the Dead by MT Anderson. This is about Shostakovich writing his seventh symphony and the siege of Leningrad.
Fiction: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. This is about a woman whose husband begins to turn into a shark while he’s staying a production of Our Town. There’s also a woman about to give birth to baby birds.
Historical fiction: The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell. This is about Lucrezia Di’Medici who was married at 15 and died at 16.
Matt Haig’s ‘The Life Impossible’ is a strange one. Too strange for many, but I really liked it.
Here are two lesser-known but fascinating books that would make for great book club discussions:
[“The Employees” by Olga Ravn](https://amzn.to/3PUD6td)
A bizarre and thought-provoking sci-fi novel written as a series of reports from human and non-human workers aboard a spaceship. It explores existential questions about humanity, labor, and emotions in a unique and experimental format.
[“Your House Will Pay” by Steph Cha](https://amzn.to/40vDJ1k)
A literary crime novel that blends historical and contemporary perspectives on racial tensions in Los Angeles. It’s an under-the-radar gem that offers compelling themes for discussion on justice, identity, and generational trauma.
I added links in the title above for the Amazon page for you to check them out.
>anything supppppper out there, or super weird
*Forked* by Ruth Cardello.
I genuinely feel as though this would make for entertaining discussion when the group convenes.
I’ve not read it yet but Flatland looks pretty interesting and would probably make for good discussions.
As does ‘One, No One and One Hundred Thousand’ by Luigi Pirandello.
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Super weird, but I really enjoyed it.
Memoir: Change Me Into Zeus’s Daughter
Fiction: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter or Caramelo
Short Stories: Everything That Rises Must Converge