At our book club meeting last night we voted on our spring selections. I thought I’d list the nominees here along with the books that got voted in for March, April, and May.
The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson and Anne Born
Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
And the winners are:
March: Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay 320 pages
April: The Invisible Wall by Harry Bernstein 336 pages
May: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 432 pages
What do you think? Did we do ok? Did we miss an awesome title that we need to revisit when we vote on our choices for next summer?
We have each member bring their nominees, discuss them, then everyone votes on 3. The top 3 vote getters are the next three selections. I’d love to hear how other book clubs choose their books.
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My book group had a good discussion of A Thousdand Splendid Suns. And we’ve all been passing around the Invisible Wall, so that should be a good choice. You might want to revist The Zookeeper’s Wife – lots to disccuss in that one.
I just bought The Zookeeper’s Wife, and I’ve heard great things about Sarah’s Key. A friend of my loved A Thousand Splendid Suns, but I haven’t read it yet. I hadn’t heard of The Invisible Wall until now, but it looks really good.
i read ‘look me in the eye…’ and was disappointed. it wasn’t that anything was wrong with the book…it just wasn’t what i imagined. i’m going to put your book selections on my TBR list (except for ATSS–i read it already).
I vote for Out Stealing Horses and The Reader.
I’ve never been in a F2F book club, so I can’t say what generates discussion, but the titles look great. Getting Stoned with Savages is hilarious. Sarah’s Key is great. A few of the others are on my wish list. Have fun!
I loved Devil in the White City. We read it for our group and there was a lot to discuss. I think you picked some good ones though. We are meeting in January to pick our books for the YEAR. It’s a daunting task.
I would give another look to The Reader. It’s not very long but it is HEAVY. I read it in one sitting! and I bawled for the last 50 pages or so. (I also didn’t have one half a clue what it was about when I started it so try not to watch any of the movie promos?)
Our group read one thousand splendid suns there was alot to discuss. I have invisible wall on my book shelf, and zookeeper’s wife. We are having our book club meeting in early Jan. I will be posting about it. Hopefully it won’t be a bomb. We started this last year. Where we discuss any problems and things to improve. We bring books with us three we line up a list for the year,
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down was one of the best discussions my group has ever had. It was a fascinating book!
You certainly made a great choice with A Thousand Splendid Suns! I’ve heard good things about Sarah’s Key. I just read Out Stealing Horses and although i found it to be an incredibly slow read, it is a good story.
I loved Look Me in the Eye and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. They’d both be great for discussion. Of course, Khaled Hosseini is a good choice, but I’d love to know the other two books were getting more attention.
Some great titles there Lisa – I loved Out Stealing Horses, it was one of my favorites last year and would be good to read with a group. The Fadiman book is excellent.
This is similar to how we started our book group in August – we each had a title or two and then voted on them for most of the year. I think it’s working well – we’re still a very young group though.
The Zookeeper’s Wife and The Uncommon Reader were fantastic. I think UR would make a really good book club pick. The Devil in the White City was a great read, but I’m not sure how much there would be to discuss. I loved Out Stealing Horses, one other lady in my book group did too, but another gal thought it was dreadful. I read Troost’s more recent book Lost on Planet China, and it was snort-drink-out-your-nose funny, so I’d lean toward him too.
Coincidentally, my group is reading The Reader this spring.
I loved The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. That was fascinating and would make a great book club read. Keep that on the agenda for the future, because there are so many great discussions you could have about that book…
Devil in the white city is awesome, but the zookeepers wife was BORING!
Good choices! Sarah’s Key will be good to discuss, I think.
We each email three choices ahead of time, then we get together and vote on the three that each has suggested. We each host our book at our home, and for the remaining months we nominate books and go to a restaurant.
Read ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, ‘Out Stealing Horses’, and ‘Zookeeper’s Wife”. Love the first 2 but was not so impressed with the last one. Thanks for the heads-up on some great new reads.
I really enjoyed reading your March and May selections – *A Thousand Splendid Suns* is outstanding! I don’t know your April pick, I’ll have to look into it.
It’s interesting to read about how other book groups select … we’re not that organized (one month at a time)
Do read Alan Bennett’s An Uncommon Reader whether your group selects it or not. Its a humorous, quick read–very clever. I highly recommend it!
Good choices – I just read an reviewed Sarah’s Key here
LibrarysCat
Sarah’s Key is really, really sad. Very well done.