It's October - Think Book Groups

October is National Reading Group Month. If you want some ideas for books for your book group, check out the list for 2013 at www.nationalreadinggroupmonth.org/ggr_selections.html Of course, for me every month is reading group month as I moderate the library’s book club. One of the most challenging aspects of running any book club is choosing the books to discuss. The possibilities are manifold as every week brings new, intriguing books that might be good to discuss. I keep a running list, waiting for the paperback edition to be published so I can buy multiple copies.

Some of my current favorites, already available in paperback, are Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple, Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt and The Dog Stars by Peter Heller.

I have already shared my fondness for Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette in my blog post of August 19, 2013. I am definitely planning on choosing Semple’s slyly witty novel that centers on a mother-daughter relationship for my book club. 

Tell the Wolves I’m Home, like Where’d You Go, Bernadette, focuses on a teenage girl and her family. But poor June Elbus is a loner, a 14-year-old who feels understood only by her uncle Finn, a famous painter in New York City who also happens to be gay. Unfortunately, it is 1987, and Finn dies of AIDS, no successful treatment being available yet.  

Finn's death leaves June devastated and open, after the initial shock, to a covert friendship with the one person who loved him as much as she – Toby, Finn’s lover and the man June’s mother blames for Finn’s death. June’s growing friendship with Toby gives her a new perspective on Finn’s life but also damages her already weakened relationship with her older sister, Greta. 

Brunt’s wonderful novel, at times heartbreaking and at other times humorous, will stay with you long after you read the last page.  It would be interesting to compare the characters in Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Tell the Wolves I’m Home.

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller is a well-crafted first novel on the post-apocalyptic theme from an award-winning adventure writer who has written for such magazines as National Geographic. This time the world as we know it ends through a horrific flu pandemic, killing off a large portion of the population. Hig survives although he lost his wife and everyone he knows. He lives in the hangar of a small airport in what used to be Colorado with his dog, a grouchy gun nut his only neighbor. Hig’s one joy is his 1956 Cessna, a plane he uses to fly the perimeter of their area to check for invaders or to sneak off to fish.  

When flying one day, Hig hears a transmission from the radio, giving him hope that something better lies beyond his little domain. He risks his very survival to fly past the point of no return in pursuit of the voice, but what he finds in himself and the people he meets is more surprising than any of his expectations. Heller’s spare language and descriptions of nature convey the essence of a world where everything once known has become unknown, where both the best and the worst in people has survived.

All three of these books are great possible choices for my book club. What suggestions do you have for great book group reads?

(I’m reading The Witch’s Daughter by Paula Brackston right now.  What are you reading?)