Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Appearance & Reality, Community, Safety & Danger
Tags Romance, Realistic Fiction, British Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
Popular Book Club Picks
Searching for study guides on books selected by some of the nation's top book clubs, curated by Oprah, Reese Witherspoon, the PBS NewsHour, the New York Times, and the American Library Association? Look no further. This collection covers critically-acclaimed classics like Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez to contemporary, buzzworthy novels like Girl, Woman, Other. We hope this compilation of study guides provides your own book club with lively discussion topics and keen insights.
The Authenticity Project
The Back of the Turtle
The Barbarian Nurseries
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears
The Beekeeper of Aleppo
The Bee Sting
The Birth House
The Blue Hour
The Bluest Eye
The Book Club for Troublesome Women
The Book of Form and Emptiness
The Book of Joy
The Book of Longings
The Book of Lost Friends
The Book of Lost Hours
The Book of Negroes
The Book of Ruth
The Book of Two Ways
The Books of Jacob
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Appearance & Reality, Community, Safety & Danger
Tags Romance, Realistic Fiction, British Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2014
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Environment, Fate, Community, Power & Greed, Climate
Tags Fantasy, Modern Classic Fiction, Canadian Literature
The Back of the Turtle (2014) is a bestselling novel by Canadian American author Thomas King. King is of Cherokee Greek descent and has garnered acclaim for his novels about Indigenous Canadian experiences, including The Inconvenient Indian and Green Grass Running Water. The Back of the Turtle won King the Governor General’s literary award.The narrative follows Gabriel Quinn, a member of the First Nations community of Lethbridge, Alberta, as he returns to his family’s home... Read The Back of the Turtle Summary
Publication year 2011
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family
Tags American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
The Barbarian Nurseries is a contemporary novel set in Los Angeles and other neighborhoods in Orange County. Author Héctor Tobar is a native of Los Angeles and is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and journalist, previously writing weekly columns and acting as a foreign correspondent for the LA Times. Both this novel and his previous work of fiction focus primarily on the lives of immigrants in California. The Barbarian Nurseries was a New York Times Notable... Read The Barbarian Nurseries Summary
Publication year 2007
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Immigration, Race, The Past
Tags Realistic Fiction, Immigration & Refugeeism, History: African , African American Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
Dinaw Mengestu’s 2007 debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, is a NYT Notable Book, a recipient of the Guardian First Book Award, and the LA Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Originally published in the UK under the title Children of the Revolution, the story takes place across three days in the life of Sepha Stephanos, an Ethiopian refugee living in Washington, DC. In his New York Times review of the book... Read The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Summary
Publication year 2019
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Immigration, War, Grief
Tags Immigration & Refugeeism, Military & War, Modern Classic Fiction, World History, Historical Fiction
Publication year 2023
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, Guilt, Loneliness, Love, Shame & Pride, Sexual Identity, Coming of Age, Midlife, Environment, Daughters & Sons, Social Class, Safety & Danger, Truth & Lies
Tags Horror & Suspense, Dramatic Literature, Irish Literature, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2006
Genre Novel, Fiction
Tags Historical Fiction, Women`s Studies, Gender & Feminism, World History
The Birth House is a work of historical fiction written by Canadian novelist Ami McKay and published in 2009. The book was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and won three Libris Awards from the Canadian Booksellers Association. The story takes place in the early 20th century during World War I and is set primarily in Scots Bay, a small shipbuilding community in Nova Scotia, Canada. While she is originally from Indiana, McKay... Read The Birth House Summary
Publication year 2024
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Memory, Gender Identity, Art, Good & Evil, Safety & Danger
Publication year 1970
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family
Tags American Literature, Existentialism, Race & Racism, Education, Education, Historical Fiction, Classic Fiction
The Bluest Eye is the first novel of Nobel-Prize winning writer Toni Morrison. It was published in 1970. Set in Lorain, Ohio in 1941, the novel traces how Pecola Breedlove, the dark-skinned daughter of a poor African American family, came to be pregnant with her father's child and lost her sanity after the baby died.Morrison prefaces the novel with a Foreword in which she explains several of her choices in writing the novel. The novel... Read The Bluest Eye Summary
Publication year 2025
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Femininity, Family, Marriage, Self Discovery, Community, Equality
Tags Historical Fiction, Gender & Feminism
Publication year 2021
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Mental Health, Coming of Age, Grief, Art
Tags Magical Realism, Coming of Age, Fantasy, Modern Classic Fiction, Mental Illness
Publication year 2016
Genre Book, Nonfiction
Themes Joy, Gratitude, Forgiveness, Death, Friendship, Religion & Spirituality
Tags Self-Improvement, Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Psychology, Inspirational, Psychology, Philosophy
In The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, co-authors Douglas Abrams, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu share their discussion on the nature of joy and the methods to achieve it in the face of adversity. Originally published in 2016, this work falls within the genre of spiritual and self-help literature. The Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, and Archbishop Tutu, a leader in the fight against... Read The Book of Joy Summary
Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Gender Identity, Religion & Spirituality, Coming of Age
Tags Historical Fiction, Religion & Spirituality, Gender & Feminism, World History
Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Literature, Mothers, The Past, Family
Tags Historical Fiction, Military & War, American Civil War, World History
Publication year 2025
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Grief, Memory, War
Tags Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction
Publication year 2007
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Music
Tags Historical Fiction, World History
Aminata Diallo, from the village of Bayo, in western Africa, is the daughter of Mamadu, a jeweler, and Sira, a midwife. At the age of eleven, she is kidnapped after watching her parents murdered and her village burned. She is captured by African slave traders, who sell her to white slave traders. She and the other captives are marched in a coffle, a line of prisoners chained together, on a harrowing three-month journey to the... Read The Book of Negroes Summary
Publication year 1988
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, Mothers, Religion & Spirituality, Literature, Coming of Age, Disability
Tags Historical Fiction, Trauma & Abuse, Women`s Studies, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2020
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Family, Love
Tags Romance, Historical Fiction, Relationships, Modern Classic Fiction
Publication year 2014
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Religion & Spirituality, Truth & Lies, Power & Greed, Conflict
Tags Historical Fiction, Life-Inspired Fiction, Religion & Spirituality, Jewish Literature, World History
Publication year 2019
Genre Novel, Fiction
Themes Equality, Community, Trust & Doubt
Tags Historical Fiction, Gender & Feminism, Southern Literature, World History, Romance
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a historical novel by American author Kim Michele Richardson. Published in 2019, the book takes place in the Kentucky hills during the Great Depression in 1936. In its depiction of prejudice and community in 1930s Kentucky, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek touches upon themes including the distrust of authority, the random and dangerous nature of prejudice, the power of community, and the importance of caring. Other work... Read The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek Summary