Book club recommendations
Now that the kids are back in school, moms can start checking books off their own reading lists. Book club recommendations for this fall range from the romantic to the thrilling — and don’t forget the ones with movies coming out soon.
Books from your favorite authors
Jojo Moyes practically owns the New York Times best seller list. One Plus One follows Me Before You and The Girl You Left Behind, and Moyes doesn’t disappoint with her story about a dysfunctional family and a maybe-knight in shining armor (Barnes & Noble, $18). Frazzled moms will relate to the hoops through which Jess will jump as a mother trying to do the best for her kids after her husband ducks away from their lives.
No one tackles the hidden tarnish beneath the sheen of suburbia like Liane Moriarty, and Big Little Lies is no exception (Barnes & Noble, $17). An annual event turns deadly, and the homicide investigation delves into the secrets hiding within the families entrenched in the school community.
Book club picks for fantastic discussions
Taylor Jenkins Reid’s After I Do is written in a fun, conversational tone, but the quick read has a lot of discussion points beneath the whimsical exterior (Barnes & Noble, $11). Lauren and Ryan have the perfect relationship — until they don’t. Their decidedly untraditional marriage experiment offers an alternative way of looking at marriage. Gathering together a group of women is the perfect place to talk about how the traditional expectations of marriage might not work so well for every couple.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie takes readers from Nigeria to America and London, and back to Nigeria (Barnes & Noble, $11). A young, passionate couple leaves their homeland and end up on separate continents before finding their way back to each other and the land of their birth. Adichie tackles love, skin color, and the idea of home in this stunning novel.
Mysteries and thrillers are better with friends
Two of Gillian Flynn’s books are hitting movie theaters this fall — Gone Girl and Dark Places — so continue your book club’s thrills with Flynn’s Sharp Objects (Barnes & Noble, $9). The chilling story follows a woman back to her home town, where her questions about the murders of two pre-teen girls take her uncomfortably close to her hypochondriac mother.
While your kids are diving into the Harry Potter books, check out J.K. Rowlings’ alter ego, Robert Galbraith. Galbraith’s second novel, The Silkworm, has detective Cormoran Strike looking into the disappearance of a novelist who wrote his latest book with a nasty, personal look at the people around him (Barnes & Noble, $17). When the novelist is murdered, Strike’s investigation becomes decidedly more urgent — and compelling.
Revisit the books, then see the movies
Gayle Foreman’s If I Stay looks at the tenuous place between life and death (Barnes & Noble, $7). Mia wakes up after a car accident, watching from outside of her body, and she must wade through memories and flashes of the accident to understand the state of her physical body — and the choice she must make about it. Though If I Stay is a young adult novel with a decidedly romantic slant, the quick, poignant read offers a wealth of material for a book club discussion.
Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James might have been the most whispered-about book of 2012 (Barnes & Noble, $11). Between the clandestine Kindle downloads and sneaking peeks while waiting in the school pick up line, women had the chance to mentally cast their perfect Christian Greys. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson won’t officially hit the screen until Valentine’s Day, 2015, but the trailer for the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is encouraging fans to dive back into the trilogy. Be sure you’re comfortable with the members of your book club before recommending this one!
