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

Route 66 and all that by paul strong. A bit different from the usual novel. Very funny, think Bill Bryson meets Gervais Phinn. An essential read,great travel book.

Speak Okinawa by Elizabeth Miki Brina.

All the light you cannot see.
By Anthony Doerr. Brilliant, well written and thought provoking.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan

I have recently read some of Dorothy L Sayers books having read somewhere that Prince Philip used to read them in down time when his ship during the war, and a friend in Switzerland coincidentally asked me to get hold of a copy of one of her spiritual books for her. Just finished The Nine Tailors and thoroughly enjoyed it. Old-fashioned elements, and of its time, but beautifully written, more complex than Agatha Christie. Am going to read more of her work. Also re-reading PG Wodehouse Mike and Psmith, came across it while having a clear-out of books, and had forgotten how laugh-out-loud funny it is.

Just Once by Lori Handeland. Best book I have read in ages

The Island, Victoria Hislop and the sequel One August Night.

where the cawdads sing =brilliant book great for a book club

midgey

Have you read The Salt Path by Raynor Winn? She has written another called The Wild Silence which I think I enjoyed more.

The Salt Path would be my recommendation too. A great book and inspired me to join a virtual walking challenge. However, I enjoyed The Salt Path more than The Wild Silence.

Flowers for Algernon

American Dirt by Jeannine Cummins is a great read and plenty of topics for discussion afterwards.

My suggestion is the last runaway by Tracey Chevalier, the author of The Girl with the Pearl Earring, which if you havent already read it is a great read about rembrandts household seen from the view of a servant girl. The Last Runaway concerns a quaker girl leaving england and going with her sister to america. It is well researched and has very believable plot lines of quakers , quilting and slavery. I do not want to spoil the plot but the rather good and believable line is that the girl is so seasick even though it was a calm crossing ,that she realizes that she has , so to speak, burnt her boats ;and could never go back to britain as she could not face another sea journey. This rather clever part of the plot puts somewhat of a different slant on her journey. Have suggested this to many different people and the various parts of the plot appeal to them as the actual background is very believeable and gives you a sense of what going to america meant in those days. Hope you enjoy it

Anything by Anne Tyler, Matt Haig , Jane Harper.
Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan
Eleanor Oliphaunt is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Hamnet or anything by Maggie O Farrell
Anything by Kate Atkinson

I could go on!

The Outcasts of Time by Ian Mortimer. Ian Mortimer is a historian, who has written several Time Travellers guides - eminently readable books about different periods of history. This one is his first work of fiction and is about two stonemasons in 1348, who are walking home to Devon from Winchester, where they have been working on the new cathedral. They catch the Black Death on the way and one of them has a vision where he can either die that night or move forward 99 years each day for the next week and prolong his life. A beautiful, moving book and historically extremely accurate.

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

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.

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.

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.

?? 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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

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

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