What were the books that made for a great discussion in your group?

The best ones so far for our group were:
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
The Elegant Gathering of White Snows Kris Radish
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

These were good just not the very best
Angry Housewifes Eating Bon-Bons by Lorna Landvik
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Awakening by Kate Chopin

I would have to agree with you about Angry Housewives – my group was a little disappointed with it. Too many characters and the story line jumps around too much.

We have been having a great time discussing Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. We read the next one in the series every other month and are about half way through the series. They are not literary genius, just LOL funny There are no reading guides available for her books so we each write down two or three standout situations/phrases/plot turns while we are reading the book (just have a large piece of paper for a book mark and a pen handy).

Other books that all of us enjoyed reading and discussing were:

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner


Some that we did not care for were:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
All He Ever Wanted by Anita Shreve

Some of our favorites were:
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Atonement by Ian McEwan
To Kill A Mockingbird
Memoirs of a Geisha
Bel Canto
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Life of Pi
Some that I personally did not care for were:
Sound and the Fury
Passage to India

House of Sand and Fog
Memoirs of a Geisha
My Sister's Keeper
The Glass Castle
The Kite Runner
To Kill a Mockingbird
Five People You Meet in Heaven
Peace Like a River

Some of the best reads we did together were:
-- Memoirs of a Geisha (followed by a trip to the movies soon after)
-- Bel Canto (Including a rather interesting politcal discussion)
-- Under the Tuscan Sun (we made a wonderful outdoor Tuscan dinner for the last night we met about the book)
-- Wickett's Remedy (And a really fun talk about the 1918 Flu Epidemic)


Ones I found 'less than wonderful' were:
-- The Time-Traveler's Wife (Too many of us felt it was confusing and the ending less than satisfying)
-- Middlemarch (Too many found it just plain boring, and the main characters annoying)
-- The Kitchen God's Wife (we felt it was the same story as her other books, with new names)

I wonder if it is what you do along with the book discussion that makes a book better or worse than expected; what do you think?

quote:

Originally posted by Nytetyger:
Ones I found 'less than wonderful' were:
-- The Time-Traveler's Wife (Too many of us felt it was confusing and the ending less than satisfying)
-- Middlemarch (Too many found it just plain boring, and the main characters annoying)
-- The Kitchen God's Wife (we felt it was the same story as her other books, with new names)

I wonder if it is what you do along with the book discussion that makes a book better or worse than expected; what do you think?

I had much the same reaction to The Time Traveler's Wife and The Kitchen God's Wife.

I don't believe you can "make" a book better or worse than expected - the book has to stand on its own merit, IMHO. However, I think you can make the discussion more fun and enjoyable with whatever you choose to do during discussion

I personally loved the Time Traveler's Wife, but several members of our book club gave up on it before they were through reading it and we also found some plot inconsistencies.

The book called ... And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer made a good discussion several years back in one of my bookclubs. We sometimes bring it up again in discussions. It is about a women's group in the midwest and the book goes through several decades with the same women in it. Their club had a lot of fancy rituals and offices in it and we joke about having our club be more like theirs.

quote:

Originally posted by Sandy:
I personally loved the Time Traveler's Wife, but several members of our book club gave up on it before they were through reading it and we also found some plot inconsistencies.

I had really wanted to enjoy the book, so after my club read it, and sadly, disliked it, I put my copy away, wanting to try it again another time. A few months back, having some free time, and nothing new to read, I did pick it up, and on a second read, it was more enjoyable. Maybe it was that I wasn;t expecting anyting this time around, or maybe it was just happenstance, but it was actually not a bad read.

I put it in the same category as 'The Crimson Petal and the White' as a book which I learned to just experience, and not expect anything unique and special, simply to be an enjoyable read.

We really enjoyed "A Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby. It was a unique approach to a story and the discussion was really good.

Quirky – excellent suggestion! About A Boy, High Fidelity . . . many Hornby’s novels would be great for discussion.

I think our best two discussions were about "The Secret Life of Bees" and "Middlesex". We also had a lot to say about "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day".

I'm shocked by the lack of support for George Elliot! I think Casaubon is one of the most enduring characters from British Victorian fiction.

By far the runaway winner for discussions for our book group was We Need To talk About Kevin - it is utterly compelling and a truly fantastic read. I've never met anyone who hasn't raved about it. The group still discuss it and it's three meetings on now.

The Edible Woman and the Handmaid's Tale were not so popular but did produce good discussions.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet gave rise to good discussions. Even though the book is long, people were able to finish it because it is so well written and is very informative about life in England/Europe in the middle ages. Other books that were very rewarding were:
Women Don't Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel

The book that most disappointed us was Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi. Way too much about Nabokov and not enough about life in Tehran.

We didn't all like it, but The Time Traveler's Wife certainly lead to good discussions.

Our group enjoyed discussing Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. Even though it was not liked by the whole group, it made for a lively discussion. To Kill a Mockingbird was enjoyed by all in the group and led to discussions of incidents in our childhoods growing up in the south. We also enjoyed discussing Cold Mountain and Poisonwood Bible. Two books that were resounding duds were Mrs. Dalloway and Heat and Dust. The stream of consciousness style of Mrs. Dalloway was hard to follow. As far as Heat and Dust, the characters throughout were not likeable and no one could say that they enjoyed the book. Interestingly, both of these books were suggested by people who came only once and were not there for the discussion of these books. We have a core of six people who attend faithfully. We discuss the latest book in depth and after sometimes chat about a variety of things.