Book Club Picks

I am currently in four book clubs, as I Iove to discuss books and meet others who enjoy doing the same. The book clubs I’m part of are all very different, and the manner in which each group selects its books varies greatly.

For one of them where we spend a lot of time discussing the book, we pick new releases by suggesting titles and as a group eventually settle on the next choice. Another has the host for each month select what the group will read. The third takes suggestions in the summer and meets in August to vote and assign the winners to the next 10 months. The last group has a get-together in December where every member brings a book for a gift exchange. Those books are then assigned to the months for the coming year, which means that some months have one selection and some months have two. It works well for me that these groups select the books in such distinctive manners because I end up reading a wide range of books. And if a book doesn’t sound like a fit for me, I simply pass on reading it and realize I may hear some spoilers during the discussion.

Earlier this year, I wrote a feature that highlighted some books that will provide fabulous fodder for discussion. Because some clubs select all year and others select in the summer for the year, I thought I would recommend some more books that will give book clubs plenty to talk about in their meetings.

Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson (fiction) – Good Dirt is a novel rich in lore and history, weaving together the stories of the Freeman family ancestors and a stoneware jar that has been with the family for centuries with the current day narrative of Ebony “Ebby” Freeman, the main character. The Freemans are a prominent Black family whose young son Baz was murdered, a crime that is still not solved years later. While the book jumps around in time a fair amount, I found it easy to follow and loved that each perspective contributed to explaining the significance of the jar as well as who killed Baz. This beautiful book will appeal to those who enjoy complex family dramas as well as character-driven tales focusing on family, trauma, loss, legacies, and love. Learning about the stoneware jars made by slaves is an added bonus.

The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai (historical fiction) – Beautifully and lyrically written, Nguyen Phan Que Mai’s English debut follows multiple generations of the Tran family against the backdrop of Vietnam’s heartrending 20th-century history. From the rise of the Communist government in North Vietnam to the years of conflict during the war itself, The Mountains Sing is historical fiction at its finest – it highlights the impact and cost of the events that led up to the Vietnam War from the Vietnamese people’s perspective while interweaving in the language and traditions of their culture. The Mountains Sing is not only a glimpse into Vietnam, but is also a cautionary tale about the impact of a decades-long conflict on the people living through it. I needed lots of tissues, and the Tran family’s experiences have stayed with me long after I finished this one.

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion by Julie Satow (nonfiction) – When Women Ran Fifth Avenue tells the stories of Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel. It also provides a brief history of department stores and how they changed the world of shopping and opened up employment opportunities for women. At a time when most working women were nurses or teachers, the department store created a new career path for them in sales and business. This glimpse into the department store phenomenon and its impact on our culture and shopping habits is fascinating, especially in light of their slow demise as online shopping popularizes. While this is narrative nonfiction, it is a page-turner chock full of trade secrets, drama, and intriguing history. I truly could not put it down.

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown (mystery) – In What Kind of Paradise, Janelle Brown evocatively wrestles with the effects of progress, technology, and power through the lens of a fierce and lonely girl and her paranoid and extremist father. Jane has spent her entire life in rural Montana living off the grid with her father. He is evasive about their past, claiming only that her mother died in a car crash that led them to move to Montana. He educates Jane with 19th-century philosophical works and leaves her regularly for week-long jaunts. When she accompanies him on a trip that ends in murder, she realizes that nothing is as she believed it to be. This gorgeously told story captivated me from page one. Brown brings to life the early days of the internet with vivid detail, creating such a tense experience for the reader who understands how drastically different things are today from how early internet pioneers wanted or expected them to be. This haunting page turner explores right and wrong, extremism, technology, and family. 

I would love to hear how your book club selects what it will read. If your club wants to be featured in Page Turners, please let me know! We would love to highlight your group.

For more book recommendations and bookish thoughts, see Cindy’s monthly Buzz Reads column, her award-winning Thoughts from a Page Podcast or follow @ThoughtsFromaPage on Instagram.