Book Club Book Recs?

[Haven]

My book club is starting up again next Friday and I''m looking for some good new books to suggest.

We''re all women, aged 25 to 65, a few teachers, a lawyer, a SAHM, a couple corporate businesswomen, and a retiree. We read fiction and nonfiction, and we like a good debate.

What books worked well for your book clubs? Any suggestions?

 

[makemepretty]

The Poisonwood Bible
The Shack
Jodi Picoult''s Handle with Care
Time Travelers Wife
Memoirs of a Geisha

These are some great books that you could discuss. I think you can go to Amazon.com and search for book club suggestions too.

 

[CurlySue]

Middlesex
Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

 

[b.anna]

this isn''t a super deep read, but "eat, pray, love" is a really fun book and is great for an all women''s book club my FI''s mother lent the book to me (she is in her 50s, works in education for individuals with special needs) and i loved it (me 23, just finished school, trying to get into med school). so i think it could work really well for your age range and diversity of professions

another jodi picoult book is "my sister''s keeper" which i read before the movie came out (i dind''t see the movie, i felt like it would''ve ruined the book). great book to debate about law and raising children if the women in your club are mothers

 

[dragonfly411]

A long Way Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

The Once and Future King

Ivanhoe - Sir Walter Scott

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Memoirs of a Geisha

Dance of the Dissident Daughter ( non fic by Sue Monk Kidd, fantastic book)

The Quantum Mind (Physics applied to Psychology but easy to understand, really fascinating book)

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

A Clockwork Orange

100 Years of Solitude

Love in the Time of Cholera

A Handmaid''s Tale

Wuthering Heights

A Beautiful Mind

Under the Tuscan Sun

My Life in France

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Life of Pi

She''s Come Undone

Angela''s Ashes

Night

The Color Purple

Sula

Beloved

Life of a Slave Girl

Reading Lolita in Tehran

Cry, The Beloved Country

The Poisonwood Bible

Roots

Le Morte De Arthur ( I recommend reading the unabridged version of this, it is fantastic)

Lord of the Rings (you can get the unabridged books combined into one, and read them one at a time)

Les Miserables

Don Quixote

War and Peace

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Vanity Fair

The Crimson Petal and the White

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Geisha (a biography of a real Geisha)

Swan (by the author of Under the Tuscan Sun)

The Shack

Cold Mountain

Snow Falling on Cedars

The World According to Garp

Cider House Rules

The Book of Merlyn

An Inconvenient Truth

Living to Tell the Tale ( autobiography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

The Omnivore''s Dilemma

Eat, Pray, Live

The Man Who Listens to Horses

Where the Red Fern Grows

The Yearling

 

[Haven]

Thanks, everyone! I''m going to bring a big list to the library later this week and mull through all your suggestions.

I''m so excited, I love book club!

 

[Irishgrrrl]

Italia posted a while ago about a book called "The Help" by Katharine Stockett. I read it on Italia''s recommendation, and it was WONDERFUL! I think it would be a great choice for a book club!

 

[Blackpaw]

hi Haven

I think a great book for a book club would be This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
Its a long read but absolutely gripping, tells the life story of the captain of the HMS BEagle...So for discussion you have a lot of fodder in the theory of evolution and how the author presents the debate.
Also its based quite strictly on historical fact, but a work of fiction - so there would be interesting discussion insofar as how that works, problems with it etc.

Id also recommend Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and The Famished Road by Ben Okri. Both allow for lots of discussion re colonizations effect on African nations etc. They''re both very interesting politically and stylistically.

 

[Elmorton]

Haven - not really a "debate" book, but an absolutely fabulous read for a group of women who are around the same age/have different perspectives on life:

The Girls from Ames by Jeffery Zaslow

 

[wsu12]

I read 2-3 books weekly. Firefly has some wonderful suggestions, in fact I have read many on her list. The best book I have read all year was "A Year of Pleasures" Elizabeth Berg. It was so beautifully written, a pleasure indeed.

 

[wsu12]

Umm...I meant dragonfly..My apologies.

 

[dragonfly411]

firefly, dragonfly... they fly hehehe. Actually Firefly was my favorite My little pony

I''m a dork, I know.

 

[Novel]

Date: 10/7/2009 10:12:01 AM
Author: dragonfly411
A long Way Gone : Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Memoirs of a Geisha

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

Reading Lolita in Tehran

The Poisonwood Bible

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Cold Mountain

Snow Falling on Cedars

Cider House Rules

An Inconvenient Truth


The Yearling

Ditto. Also to Middlesex.

Some more options:

Other Barbara Kingsolver books if you haven''t read them (esp The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven).

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

The Summer Guest

A Pigeon and A Boy (we just read this in my book club and I made my mom and bf read it after I did)

The Wedding - Dorothy West

Those Who Save Us

What I Loved

Anything by Edwidge Danticat

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Eleni (exceptional!)

Like Water for Chocolate

The Red Tent

I''m stopping now

Recommending books is one of my chief joys in life! (hence the name)

 

[tenfour]

Date: 10/8/2009 9:23:06 PM
Author: fsu1227
I read 2-3 books weekly. Firefly has some wonderful suggestions, in fact I have read many on her list. The best book I have read all year was ''A Year of Pleasures'' Elizabeth Berg. It was so beautifully written, a pleasure indeed.

i second this suggestion without even reading ''a year of pleasures.'' i''ve read five elizabeth berg titles this month. ''a year of pleasures'' is next on my list. all of her books have been fantastic.