book club recs

[mpc]

Hi. I'm looking for ideas for my IRL book club. I've been going for 4 years now and I know it was happening for at least a year before that, so we've been through a lot of books. A big problem we keep running into is super long wait lists at the library. It's ok sometimes, but too expensive to deal with every month. So we're trying to come up with a list to choose from that is more readily available. I would love to hear any suggestions you have!

Here are the books we did this past year:
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
Educated by Tara Westover
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
A Simple Favor by Darcy Bell
Endurance by Scott Kelly
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
Artemis by Andy Weir
The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

Thanks!

[Gato]

Here are some books I really liked, that probably aren't in demand still, but are still recent enough that the library will have multiple copies.

Florida by Lauren Goff (short stories)
Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday (fiction)
The Only Story by Julian Barnes (fiction)
The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (memoir)
Heavy by Kiese Laymon (memoir)
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (fiction)
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (fiction)
Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout (fiction)
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (fiction)

[krystee]

Born a Crime, The Night Circus, The Underground Railroad, A Man Called Ove, Lilac Girls, Between the World and Me

[mrspez07]

Here’s our list from the last year and others I remember

All the Light we cannot see
Flight Behavior
This is How it Always Is
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Priestdaddy
The Power
Yes Please
An American Marriage
Call Me American
Pachinko
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
Becoming
The Wife Between Us

[ufcasey]

Goodreads has a compilation that might give you some ideas:
www.goodreads.com/book/popular_group_books?country=US&duration=a

[ally]

My local library has a "book club in a bag program" with many choices.  The kit contains everything a group needs to enjoy reading and discussing a book. Each bag includes ten copies of a title, a list of discussion questions, a biographical sketch of the author, and a book sign-up sheet to help the Leader stay organized.

In my years in book clubs, we have only used it once, but it is a nice option if available. 

erielibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Book-Club-Spring-2019.pdf

[kelliebeans104]

Here are a few slightly older books that come to mind that would be good book club discussion books:

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
The Baker's Secret by Stephen P. Kiernan

[mpc]

Thanks all!! some great ideas here.

Gato, I like the idea of Florida, since we live in Florida and haven't done a short story collection before. The one on your list with the most availability is Anything is Possible.

krystee, we've done Born a Crime and The Night Circus. I read the Underground Railroad and thought it was just ok, but there are multiple copies available now and a lot of people seem to really like it, so maybe that is a good choice.

[mpc]

Hi! I figured I'd come back with an update. I really wanted to make sure the choice was accessible, so I compared these suggestions and a few others from Goodreads to availability at the library. Based on that I made a poll and we voted from these choices:

Anything is Possible
Exit West
The Wife Between Us
The Underground Railroad
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The winner was The Wife Between Us. lol. This group loves their thrillers. I am happy enough because I'm doing the popsugar reading challenge and this will fulfill the prompt of a book with two female authors.

I am going to keep the list I compiled as suggestions for the future though. Thanks all.