It’s my turn to pick a book for my book club. Oh, the pressure! While it isn’t the most stressful decision I’ll make this year, it does rank pretty high. I want our group to enjoy the book and for it to be a good discussion. So, I thought I would share my thought process with you! I’ll announce my pick at our September meeting and we will discuss it in October. Don’t worry…I’ll let you know how it goes!
A few comments about my amazing book club, The Novel Lovers. We are a neighborhood club that started over 20 years ago. We were 5 young moms who loved to read and needed to feel like an adult at least once a month. Flash forward and today we have over 20 members. As long as you live in our neighborhood, you are welcome to join (we did grandfather-in a few people who moved but are still local, we aren’t cruel!). It makes for an eclectic group of intelligent women of various ages and stages of life. We read a range of genres but tend towards popular literature with a few non-fiction books tossed in every year.
Where do I begin? I start by looking at what our club has read this year, sometimes we find ourselves stuck on a certain theme or genre. This year, we have been reading a lot of popular fiction like The Midnight Library by Matt Haig and The Love Story of Missy Carmichael by Beth Morrey. Next, I go to my Goodreads and look through my various Want-To-Read and Read lists. Generally, I try to pick a book I have already read, so I am fairly confident people will enjoy it and that it is worth discussing. Knowing that I have enough time to read a couple of books before September, I am willing to consider some books that I haven’t read yet. I also like to pick a book that most, if not all, of our group has NOT read. That is a tall order with this large, book-loving group but I am going to try!
Several books that I have read this year jumped out at me. The first is We Begin at the End by Christ Whitaker. Beautifully written, an amazing story and characters you come to love, this would be a great discussion. I also loved This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger but I worry a lot of us have read it since it was published in 2019. Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Read and The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave are two fun reads but I think a lot of people may have read these since they have been on the NYT, Chicago Tribune and other Top 10 books lists.
Turning to my own To-Be Read list, I found a couple of older books that have been on my list for a while. I meant to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt before a trip to Savannah a few years ago but never got around to it. Or what about We Were the Mulvanys by Joyce Carol Oates? I have a soft spot for family sagas but at 454 pages, it seems too long. We don’t read a lot of Science Fiction, so should I suggest Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir? I loved The Martian, both his book and the movie! But, I feel like I should read it first before I recommend it to my club.
My final two ideas are totally different from each other. I have had several avid-reader friends recommend Writer & Lovers by Lily King and it gets great reviews on Goodreads and Amazon. This feels like a safe bet and one that I could pick even if I haven’t read it. So if I read a few others and don’t like them, I think this will be my fall back.
The last book on my list is a total wildcard – Laundry Love: Finding Love in a Common Chore by Patric Richardson. I found this book on The Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club‘s Summer Reading Guide. Patric runs a Laundry Camp at the Mall of American (I know, what?!?) and shares his tips and tricks for this never-ending chore. After Malcolm Gladwell did a recent episode of his Revisionist History podcast on laundry, I took this as a sign to read the book. So it got added to my list.
After some thought, I came up with my short list:
My goal is to read the three books that I haven’t read before September 12 when I have to announce my pick. I have started Laundry Love and am finding it very interesting and practical (and short!). I promise to share my final decision in mid-September after our book club meeting. If you have any opinions, please share in the comments section!
Happy Reading!
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