Joining a book discussion group is a great way to meet fellow book-lovers—but one of the trickiest things can be deciding which books you should tackle together. Here are our suggestions: recently published books that should appeal to a broad range of readers—and which will offer your book club plenty to discuss over a glass of wine.
recommended by Five Books editors
The perfect book club read is a novel that will appeal to a broad audience, touch on talking point issues, and feel like a worthwhile investment of time. Literary quality is—to some extent—subjective, but we’ve avoided the crowd-pleasing ‘easy reads’ that tend to populate lists like this. Life is busy, and not everyone has the time or inclination to sit down with a doorstopper every month. (Reading for your book club shouldn’t feel like homework!) But if you’ve gone to the trouble of joining a book group in the first place, it’s probably because you have a strong interest in reading and you’d like a bit of extra guidance or motivation to push you to read better books more often.
Saying that, none of these books are intimidating experimental or dense; they are aimed at the intelligent general reader, who wants a novel that make them think—but also to feel—and therefore to discuss.
August 25, 2024
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