Help - I need to choose a book for my book club.

One of the best books I've read in the last 18 months was 'Six Years' by Harlen Cobin. Totally brilliant. Great story and great hero who's funny and brave and clever but human. Unusual story and setting., not predictable. Very different from anything else - I loved it in the early lockdown days.

My favourite book... Daughter of Time by Josephine Tay. PLEASE read it , if you haven’t already done so.

"Elizabeth is Missing" Can't remember who wrote it.

I love Allende and if the club haven’t mostly read The House of the Spirits, it is almost universally enjoyed.

If you want something that doesn't have too many heavy themes but a lot to enjoy, The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki. The best way I can describe it is a sort of late modern Anna Karenina.

Another vote for ‘Where the Crawdads Sing ‘….a brilliant book!

Anything by Isabel Allende, like Eva Luna, A long Petal of the Sea, Of Love and Shadows.........

MerylStreep

Sarnia
We seem to be the only 2 who loved Where the Crawdads Sing
The most beautiful book.

I mentioned it on page 1 !

Everyone in our book club loved it.

I loved Where the Crawdads Sing Meryl as did all our book group.

I tend not to read books as I have an appalling memory, I never get past the first chapter as I have to keep re-reading it. I did wonder, however, if anyone had seen the 2018 film "The Book Club" starring the absolutely gorgeous Andy Garcia as a Pilot along with Diane Keeton, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Fonda and Candice Bergen. I also wondered if those Book Clubs came about after someone saw the film.

Sarnia
We seem to be the only 2 who loved Where the Crawdads Sing
The most beautiful book.

For a complete change how about: Barefoot Soldier by Beharry VC. Bravery by our young soldiers and a rare insight into the West Indies

annodomini

Thanks, Terribull, once I find an author I like I tend to try more and more of their books. Amanda Craig is a versatile writer. 'Love in Idleness' is hilarious and 'In a Dark Wood' is moving and disturbing. Both are good reads.

I’ve just started reading The Midnight Library dragonfly. Will be interested to know what your book club think of it.

BlueSapphire
Absolutely anything by Margaret Forster ?.

Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

V for Victory by Lissa Evans

The Hand that First held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell

Anything by Margaret Forster

I have just finished Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers. Wonderful book, truly excellent

MagicWand

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
One of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

I agree. We read this at our book club, and initially we were unsure of it. All of us came to love it! Weird, but very enjoyable, and very uplifting. One of the few books I would read again.

Paperbackwriter no way was I sneering!
I said 'they' (the others) don't like chicklit. It is just a genre that they don't like. I put good in inverted commas to point out that it was tongue in cheek.
I don't like historical novels - is that sneering?
Why so defensive?

For something a little bit different - 'The Garden of Evening Mists' - set in Malaya just after WW2.

And 'The Nightingale' by Kristin Hannah - How ordinary people managed to survive in France during the Nazi occupation.

Plenty to discuss with these two.

Jessie Burton The Muse a Sunday Times bestseller, it is about art and a painting's secret history and takes the protagonist to Spain.

If you want to raise the temperature of your book club readers a bit then Jo Carnegie's Wild Things, a bit sexy, sassy and funny, some of it may bring back memories!

?? When oh when will our wish be granted and OPs' posts further down the thread be highlighted in green? dragonfly46 posted her decision at 10.02 this morning. But that didn't stop the flow of suggestions.

However, I have been looking at some of the suggestions in the thread (both before and after 10:02) and, although I'm not in a book club, may well make a note for future reading. Thank you for the inspiration.

Craftycat the sequel is 'A Parrot in the Pepper Tree* and the author is Chris Stewart. I'm glad you've reminded me of these books which I enjoyed some years ago.

Driving Over Lemons- can't remember the name of author- the sequel is good too.
I always get very good advice from our library when I order our books for Reading Group- they know the onesthat have been popular.

They like 'good' books not chicklit

Rather rude, m'dear. Please don't put sneer at a genre that you don't necessarily like. It doesn't mean they are badly written by any means, merely not to your particular taste.

On a more positive note, anything by Lisa Jewell is excellent.

The 2020 winner of the Booker Prize, Shuggie Bain, should provide plenty to discuss. Not always an easy read, though.