best books for book clubs

Summer Reading!

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Well, we’ve come to the end of another wonderful season of reading, sharing, and bonding over great books!  And now it’s time to kick our feet up at the beach–grab your sunscreen, your swimsuit, and don’t forget that most essential ingredient of all: your beach read!  Below you’ll find some titles to get you through the long summer wait until Literary Masters posts the 2016-17 season reading list!

This Must Be the Place by Maggie O’Farrell: Ah…this may be a little unfair because this title hasn’t been released in the States yet.  However, by the end of July you should be able to get your hands on this wonderfully charming novel–highly recommended!  You’ll ponder marriage, parenthood, and the many selves each of us contain as you read what is, at its core, a thoroughly enjoyable love story.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman: Another charmer, this time from a Swedish author, whose debut novel is taking the world by storm.  About a grumpy man.  Well, really about the stories each of us has hidden within, and about friendship, and connection.  Enjoy!


My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante:  If you’re one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t read this gorgeous book about two Italian friends, you have a treat in store!  Actually, four treats, because it’s the first of four sumptuous Neapolitan novels.  Be prepared to ignore loved ones for a long while.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan:  Well, we had to put this book as a beach read, right?  Even if you’re not a surfer, you’ll enjoy the journey this author takes you on in this autobiography that won the Pulitzer Prize.  He opens your eyes to new cultures and to, yes, the wonderful world of waves.  Have fun!

Disrupted by Dan Lyons:  No doubt you read an earlier WHIRL Books post about this hilarious memoir here.  For fans of the HBO series Silicon Valley (and if you’re not a fan, what is wrong with you???) and also for everyone who looks around the beach and thinks, “where did all these young people come from, and just how do they think they are making the world a better place?”  Laugh out loud with some serious questions explored.

The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan by Rafia Zakaria:  If you can’t visit Pakistan this summer, it can visit you.  Exploring the personal as well as the public aspects of life in Pakistan, this eye-opener is a great nonfiction choice for the summer.

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng:  A gripping novel about a family whose daughter is found dead.  How much did they really know about her?  How much do they really know about each other?  One of those books that absolutely lingers for days after finishing it.

High Dive by Jonathan Lee:  Suspenseful and thrilling in its blending of fact and fiction.  Remember the bomb that went off in Brighton, England, in 1984 in an attempt to assassinate the British Prime Minister and her cabinet?  Meet the characters (invented by Lee) who will take you back there.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney:  We loved the writing in this debut novel, and the four siblings, negotiating their lives around a future inheritance (i.e. the ‘nest’) will make lots of our own families look better by comparison. 🙂  A quick, breezy, enjoyable read.

I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani:  This award-winning debut novel from Nigeria was part of our Literary Masters 2015-16 season, and it was a hit!  You may not think you want to read a story about email scamming, but you will change your mind as the pages fly by!  So funny but once again, important themes are mined.  The best novel that book clubs don’t know about.

Zero K by Don DeLillo:  Weird, yes, definitely.  But compelling and thought-provoking and different for sure.  Set in a cryogenics facility in central Asia where bodies can be frozen until cures for diseases are found, this novel will challenge you to think about those deep questions–about life, about death, about meaning.  Call it a cerebral beach read.

Well, this ought to take care of your page-turning needs until we post our list!  That should be some time in late August, so STAY TUNED!

 Do you have any titles you’d like to recommend for summer reading?  We’d love to hear from you!

The Literary Masters Reading List for the 2015/2016 Season is Posted!

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The 2015/2016 Season of Literary Masters is officially kicking off today with the announcement of the reading list on the Literary Masters website.  You can visit and learn all about Literary Masters book groups and salons by clicking here.  And if you just want to see the reading list, here it is below.  Why not read along with Literary Masters?  Enjoy!
Controversy. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary app, controversy is “a discussion marked especially by the expression of opposing views.” Well, the 2015/2016 Literary Masters season is sure to be filled with all sorts of viewpoints! As always, our salons encourage debate and a spirited exchange of ideas. Our hope, of course, is that we come away from each meeting having learned from fellow members and with a more open, informed, and empathetic viewpoint. After all, isn’t that why we read and gather to talk about our books? Get ready to wade into a few controversies, fellow members!
Literary Masters 2015/2016 Season
October: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. To call the publication of this book a controversy is an understatement. Like it or hate it, Pulitzer Prize-winning Harper Lee’s second novel has generated one of the largest (and divisive) literary conversations in ages. And we’ll be taking part!

November: Redeployment by Phil Klay. This time it’s the subject matter that is controversial; these stories written by an Iraq war veteran will take us to a place that none of us have been to—but where we’ve sent plenty of fellow Americans. We should talk about this, right? What’s not contested is the merit of this book; it won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, among others.

December: The Children Act by Ian McEwan. Can you force a sick child to accept medical treatment? Should you? What if that child’s religion forbids it? And who gets to decide? These and other controversial topics will be covered in our salons during December.

January: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.   The protagonist of this thought-provoking novel will undoubtedly make you look at the Viet Nam war (and America’s role in it) in a whole new light. Just how much responsibility does America bear, and how guilty should we feel? A controversial war, and a novel sure to generate a lot of debate.

February: Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow. There is universal sentiment that the literary world lost a lion when E.L. Doctorow passed away this year. However, this novel is full of controversy, both in its structure and its themes. We will have fun “digging deep” into this literary treasure, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

March: The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran by Nazila Fathi. Is there anything about Iran that isn’t controversial? This memoir is our nonfiction selection for the season, written by a native Iranian and NY Times correspondent. This is sure to open a few eyes. Ben Affleck isn’t the only one who can transport us to Iran and back!

April: I Do Not Come to You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani. This debut novel won its Nigerian author the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book as well as the Betty Trask First Book Award. Set in Nigeria, the hilarious story (with some serious undertones) pits education against corruption as we enter the world of Nigerian email scamming. With a controversial nod to Western affluence and influence, this novel will, if nothing else, make you look at your emails with new appreciation!

May: Purity by Jonathan Franzen. Okay, just the author’s name generates controversy. But we’ll be closing out the season discussing the work of another literary…well, if not a lion, then at least a literary cub.   Perhaps we’ll have to don our feminist hats to decide once and for all whether Franzen is a misogynist. Perhaps we should invite Oprah to a salon?

Should Your Book Club Read Life After Life by Kate Atkinson?

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YES.  In fact, I don’t see how you could read this book and NOT discuss it–really digging deep like we do in our Literary Masters salons–with others.  Life After Life by Kate Atkinson was the October selection for Literary Masters book groups and salons, and it was a hit!

This book not only cries out for a post-reading discussion, it also demands to be read twice.  Honestly, the second reading makes all the difference–and makes the first reading worth the time.  So what can your book club discuss?

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!

Warp speed plot summary:
Set mainly in England between 1910 and 1967, this novel tells the story of Ursula Todd and her family who live at Fox Corner.  The thing is, Ursula is a very unique character; she keeps dying and coming back to life.  Each time she returns, the life she leads is different from the one before. Sometimes it’s slightly different, and other times it’s radically different.  So what is going on?  We readers wonder this as we follow Ursula through her many lives and through the history of the time, especially the wars and the Blitz.

If this sounds like science fiction or fantasy to you, I would argue that it is not.  This book is so well done–as a piece of realistic fiction that is also perhaps a thought experiment–I urge you to give it a try.  Twice!

Your book club should “dig deep” into the following:

Two main things seem to be going on in this book: the exploration of philosophies or life beliefs, and a telling of the history of England.  As for the first:

You’ll want to really ask yourselves: what is going on with Ursula?  Is she being reincarnated?  Is she living parallel lives?  Is there some sort of circularity happening, or is it more like a palimpsest?  Is the book saying anything about all of the above?  Or is it merely exploring all these concepts?  A good place to start is to ask yourselves:  Is Ursula conscious of what is going on?  Is she consciously making choices in her life that set her on a different course?

Or is she dreaming?  Or crazy?

Related to all of the above, you’ll want to discuss the idea of eternal recurrence.  Read the epigraph together and talk about the importance of Nietzsche‘s concepts.  (If you don’t have a philosophy major in your group, just do a bit of googling!)

Whatever you decide is happening with Ursula, is it also happening with the other characters?  Why, for instance, does Ursula’s mother have scissors at one of the births?  What does this mean if it is happening with all the other characters?

These questions will no doubt carry you into the area of fate vs. randomness.  You’ll want to discuss how much agency or free will Ursula and the other characters have.  How much free will do you think YOU have?  Is your life fated, or are you its master?  What is the book saying about this?  Is there a point to Ursula living her life over and over again?  Does she learn to improve it in any way?  Or is that irrelevant?  Is she finding ways to have agency over her fate?  Is that even possible?

Another major concept you’ll want to explore is whether there is a core or essence to a person.  Is there a core to Ursula?  Is she essentially the same throughout all her lives?  Or is her identity shaped largely by her experiences?  Which points in the book do you think are pivotal with regard to Ursula’s identity?

What about the other characters?  Does each one change depending on the life that s/he is experiencing?  Two interesting characters to “dig deep” into are Sylvie and Izzy.  This touches on the history of England aspect of the book also.  Think about the change from a traditional, pastoral, idyllic England (set in cozy Fox Corner) morphing into a modern, post-war, industrialized England.  Where do Sylvie and Izzy fit in this picture?  Where do the others fit, and what is the book saying about this change?

This may take you into a discussion of the role of women and what choices they had at different times of history. 

You’ll want to discuss how the wars and particularly the Blitz are almost characters in the book.  There are graphic scenes of devastation in England but also in Germany, when Ursula and Frieda are victims of the Allied bombing.  What is the point of this juxtaposition?  Ursula has a crush on her Jewish neighbor in England but marries a German Nazi in another life.  Izzy’s son is adopted by a German couple so could be dropping bombs on England while Teddy is dropping them on Germany.  What point is the book making?

You’ll no doubt want to discuss the imagery in the book.  What significance does snow have?  What about all the animals?  Ursula means little bear, Teddy is a teddy bear, Hugh refers to Pooh bear–what’s up with the bears?  What about foxes?  What does Fox Corner represent and why is it called that?  Ursula’s last name is Todd, which means fox!  Yet she transforms into Miss Woolf on p.446–what does that mean?  There are many wolves, especially in the German section.  Adolf means wolf.  However, Ursula marries Jurgen Fuchs, which means fox!  And as I just mentioned, she admires and transforms into Miss Woolf!  Foxes vs. wolves–significant?

There is much more imagery to explore–you will no doubt come up with many more questions than answers!  Kate Atkinson seems to be, among other things, having fun with all the names in the book.  And you’ll want to discuss all the literary references.  Is Maurice purposely named?  Are we meant to think of E.M. Forster’s “homosexual novel” and thus make the connection that Maurice is a closeted gay man whose repression of his true self has resulted in his being a mean person?  Is Pamela purposely named?  Are we meant to think of Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded?  Is she virtuous?  Does she get her reward?  Is the Miss Woolf mentioned above supposed to make us think of Virginia Woolf?

You’ll want to discuss Hitler.  What role does Hitler play in this book?  Why does the book start with the scene that it does?  Does Ursula kill Hitler?

You’ll also want to discuss the book as a meta-fiction.  Talk about how it’s exploring the writing process itself.  You can start with the chapters titled “Snow,” where every story starts over; they are like a clean sheet of paper.

This book was like a Rorschach test.  I think Stanley Fish would have enjoyed observing the many Literary Masters salons in which members read their own experiences into this novel.  The interpretations were wide-ranging and fascinating–I could go on and on discussing this book and discover new ways of looking at it each time.  In that way, it’s very much like life.

There is so much more to this book, but time is flying and I must attend to other aspects of this life I am living.  Hopefully this will get you started in your discussion!  Let me know how it goes!