I’ve had this list for a while, before we went to Rome, in fact, but I was waiting until I had finished writing about our vacation after our return. We had a bumper crop of recommendations for next year’s book group books: FORTY-SIX books to choose from. GAH. I actually hope that the organizer will cut the max to 3 per person in the future, because having to wade through a list that long is hard! And, of course, it narrows the chances of any of MY recommendations being chosen…which is what happened this year. Five excellent recommendations from me, and not one made the cut. Curses. Ah well, it won’t stop me from reading them.
I was pleased that none of the books I really DIDN’T want…except one, and I’ll let you guess which, made the list. And glad that 3 of the books I DID vote for were chosen, AND glad that the 3 I had already read didn’t make the cut, even though one of them is an excellent book that I think everyone should read and that I would read again (Henrietta Lacks). Once again, a lot of heavy subjects and non-fiction on the list! We are a serious bunch, but I’m glad that plenty of fiction was voted in as well, because last year’s books were quite heavy. We actually had to do a second round of voting because a pile of books all got 3 votes each.
Here is the list, in case you are interested or looking for something to read:
Key: blue=recommended/voted for by me, green=voted for by me, yellow=already read. The ones with a star in front won.
- The Club by Ellery Lloyd
- *The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
- Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
- This Is My America by Kim Johnson
- An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
- The Last Winter by Porter Fox
- The Plot: a Novel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
- H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
- The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
- No one is talking about this by Patricia Lockwood
- *The President and the Freedom Fighter by Brian Kilmeade
- The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
- The Plot against America by Philip Roth
- *Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
- This Is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel
- She Would be King by Wayetu Moore
- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Inland by Téa Obreht
- Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
- *America the Anxious: How our Pursuit of Happiness is Creating a Nation of Nervous Wrecks by Ruth Whippman
- Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- The Book of Joy; Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Douglas Cartton Abrams
- The Sellout by Paul Beatty
- The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
- The History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
- Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
- They will Drown in their Mother’s Tears by Johannes Anyuru
- Queen of Wishful Thinking by Milly Johnson
- Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor
- *Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg
- *Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chen
- Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang
- *Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz
- The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
- The Accidental Empress by Allison Pataki
- The Almost Nearly Perfect People by Michael Booth
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
- *Vanderbilt by Anderson Cooper
- The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
- The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
- How The Word Is Passed by Clint Smith
- The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones
- *12 Major World Religions: The Beliefs, Rituals, and Traditions of Humanity's Most Influential Faiths by Jason Boyett
How am I ever going to find time to read all the books on MY list, let alone this one??