3 Favorite Book Club Reads
Poll of Favorite Book Club Reads.
Recently, I asked the question on The Great American Read Facebook Book Club: What is your favorite book that you’ve read with your book club?
With over 200 responses, below are top three titles mentioned.
With over 200 responses, below are top three titles mentioned.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
GoodReads Description:
In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are.
France, 1939. In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real--and deadly--consequences.
France, 1939. In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When France is overrun, Vianne is forced to take an enemy into her house, and suddenly her every move is watched; her life and her child’s life is at constant risk. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates around her, she must make one terrible choice after another.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets the compelling and mysterious Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. When he betrays her, Isabelle races headlong into danger and joins the Resistance, never looking back or giving a thought to the real--and deadly--consequences.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Ove is a 59-year-old man forced into early retirement. Now his life seems to have no purpose. He’s as sour as a lemon, as irritable as a raging rash. As new neighbors move in, Ove is forced into something else he doesn’t want—interacting with other people. Slowly, we learn Ove’s personal history and find out that retirement is not the only reason he’s bitter. And slowly we also see Ove change.
This book is an amusing, heart-breaking, insightful look into what shapes a man’s life, his heart, and personality. Very touching. Very good. I can’t imagine that anyone would not love this book as much as I did. A real gem.—Annette
This book is an amusing, heart-breaking, insightful look into what shapes a man’s life, his heart, and personality. Very touching. Very good. I can’t imagine that anyone would not love this book as much as I did. A real gem.—Annette
A Gentleman in Moscow by Armor Towles
GoodReads Description:
He can’t leave his hotel. You won’t want to.—A transporting novel about a man who is ordered to spend the rest of his life inside a luxury hotel.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin. Rostov, an indomitable man of erudition and wit, has never worked a day in his life, and must now live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors. Unexpectedly, his reduced circumstances provide him entry into a much larger world of emotional discovery.
Brimming with humor, a glittering cast of characters, and one beautifully rendered scene after another, this singular novel casts a spell as it relates the count’s endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be a man of purpose.
BONUS:
I love my own book club! We’ve been meeting over a decade now and have whittled away a list of diverse books. The wonderful thing about being in a book club is that you read books you never would have chosen yourself, opening up your reading world to brand new and exciting adventures. It’s always so gratifying when a book you didn’t really want to read pleasantly surprises you.
Here are ten books I’ve read through my book club that I’ve LOVED (besides A Man Called Ove, mentioned above):
Happy Reading!
Annette
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