It’s my turn to choose the next book for our book club. Here are the options I came up with. What suggestions do you have?
Fiction
Watership Down by Richard Adams. A classic adventure tale of friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and courage. So compelling you’ll forget that it is a 300-page book about rabbits!
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Engers. Perhaps the most endearing post-apocalyptic novel you will ever read, set on the shores and the waters of Lake Superior.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (the author of The Martian). Interstellar kidnapping, crossing alien cultures, a protagonist with attitude, saving the galaxy. What more could you want?
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A very human sci-fi thriller set in Chicago that makes you care about the characters.
History
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Unbroken). A broken horse, a broken jockey, a broken owner, a broken trainer—who somehow all heal each other in the underdog story of the century.
April 1865 by Jay Winik. An historian and diplomat who saw first-hand how civil wars around the world often ended badly—either in the genocide of the losing side or in an interminable guerrilla insurgency—tells why neither happened in the United States.
Shantung Compound by Langdon Gilkey. In this minor classic, Gilkey offers remarkably astute observations about human nature under pressure as he and hundreds of Westerners endured a Japanese prisoner of war camp in China during World War II—a camp that included my 96-year-old friend Ruth!
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson. The dramatic story of how Shostakovich wrote a symphony during the siege of Leningrad and smuggled it out to be played around the world when the Nazi’s seemed invincible. Even more amazingly, the symphony was performed in Leningrad itself in August 1942, with the city surrounded.
Non-Fiction
How to Know a Person by David Brooks. In a day of hyper reactions and extreme tribalism, a book of stories and practical wisdom on reviving the lost art of conversation and making friends.
Educated by Tara Westover. The astounding memoir of how the daughter of a mega-dysfunctional, survivalist family in Idaho, lacking any formal education, ended up at Cambridge.
Factfulness by Hans Rosling. The subtitle says it all—Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, from a Swedish researcher and advisor to the UN. Mind blown.
How do I join this Book Club?
I know. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s my local book club (people on my block!) who have been meeting for 17 years. If you are interested in joining a local book club you could contact your local library for ideas or options, or maybe gather a group of friends yourself!