The other day I read about a book club that chose only books with one word titles. That’s good news for me, I figured, since the title of my new book is MERRY. But it did get me wondering how book clubs choose the books they do. So I went to bookclub.com’s list of the ten top books to see what I could deduce. (I should say that there are many different lists of top ten books!)
- Three of the books are mystery/thriller/suspense: Lisa Jewell’s None of This is True, Jodi Picoult’s Mad Honey and R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface.
- Fodder for conversation: You need something to talk about. In her blog, Modern Darcy , Anne Bogel makes the point that the best book club books are not necessarily the best books. Could you really argue about War and Peace? You need a book that has something you can debate. In the case of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, the protagonist made a lot of choices that were questionable. Yellowface addresses the issues of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation.
- Controversial endings: Sometimes you read a book and you just have to talk to someone about how it ended. None of This is True is a great example of that. I’m still not sure what happened.
- Families: Almost all these books relate in one way or another to family dynamics. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett is about parents and children and and daughters and sisters. At the heart of Rebecca Yarros’ blockbuster romantasy, Fourth Wing, is the protagonist’s relationship with her family history.
- Intriguing setting: Several of these books open us up to different world’s. Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast. Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts is about an underground network of heroic librarians.
- Familiar faces: Almost all the books on this list were written by authors who’ve shown up on these lists before. But there were two new names: Rebecca Yarro and R.F Kuang. So there’s hope!
How about you? Are you part of a book club? What are you reading?
SUSAN BREEN is the award-winning author of The Fiction Class and the Maggie Dove mystery series. She is the 2024 winner of the Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. Her new novel, MERRY, is forthcoming from Alcove Press in Fall 2025.
Great insights, Susan. There does need to be room for discussion–and possibly alternate opinions? That’s what makes any discussion interesting. But I’ve never thought about book club picks in that light. Thanks!
I was looking back on my book club picks and realized some of our best meetings were when we disagreed!
I am part of a book club. Members recommend a book they’ve read and enjoyed, so I am reading books far outside my 90% crime. They look to me for the crime recommendations, and as next week is my month, we’ll be discussing Anthony Horowitz’s CLOSE TO DEATH, the newest in his Hawthorne series.
But I have read historicals, romance, biographies, etc. through this club. The person whose book is up acts as moderator and keeps the discussion going and also keeps one or two from monopolizing the conversation!
And that person also brings the treats for Elevenses!
Mine works that way as well. Marni, and I love all the different books I’ve been exposed to.
My book club (The Bumble Book Club) has been meeting for nearly 20 years and we read everything from nonfiction to mystery to underrated classics. I like your list of guidelines for selecting an appropriate read–there has to be something to talk about! We loved parsing out Demon Copperhead for character and plot, we enjoyed James as we considered a re-telling of a fave classic in such a dramatically different POV. A good mystery pleases us if we can talk about whether it was solveable, how long it kept us in suspense, and how the plot twists surprised us. Bonus points if it takes place in an interesting setting, so exotic or historic seems better than contemporary.
Our next read is Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.
Thank you so much, Melissa . You make me think that my book club should have a name too. I’m looking forward to reading James. All best, Susan.
My club is reading James now! I read it and adored it. Just loved it to pieces. I’m in two clubs, and we’re reading the latest Kate Atkinson there. I’m not sure how we pick the books. If they have good reviews, that helps. One club is more cerebral and the other one is more into mysteries and thrillers. One club often chooses women’s fiction, while the other one seems to love Irish and Scottish fiction. We often nix books that sound depressing, which is a good lesson for a writer.
Emilya, I love Kate Atkinson. I’ve haven’t read James yet, but I will.