Book Club Suggestions

Several people have asked me recently for Book Club suggestions. I'm not much of a book clubber myself but there are definitely some books that could provoke intense and/or interesting discussions.

For adult book clubs, I will offer that, according to this morning's Shelf Awareness, the following are the most popular book club books during June based on votes from readers and leaders of more than 30,000 book clubs registered at Bookmovement.com:

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
2. Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
3. Cutting for Stone: A Novel by Abraham Verghese
4. Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
5. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
6. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel by Jamie Ford
7. The Paris Wife: A Novel by Paula McLain
8. Little Bee: A Novel by Chris Cleave
9. Water for Elephants: A Novel by Sara Gruen
10. Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel by Jeannette Walls

For parent-child book clubs, I would suggest the following:

1. For pre-K-2nd Graders: A Place to Call Home by Alexis Deacon, illustrated by Viviane Schwarz (see blog post dated 7/6/11)
2. For 3rd Graders: Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (see blog post dated 4/3/11)
3. For 4th-5th Graders, consider Jimi: Sounds Like a Rainbow, A Story of the Young Jimi Hendrix,  by Gary Golio and illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. (see blog post dated 6/29/11)
4. For 5th-6th Graders, consider Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt (see blog posted dated 5/27/11)
5. For teens: Exposed by Kimberly Marcus (see blog post dated 2/16/11)

Each of these books has cross-gender and cross-generational appeal. You'll find there's lots to think about and lots to talk about. Happy reading!