Book Clubs
Get your book club talking with reading guides, sample chapters, and more
Do you and your friends love getting together to discuss great books? You're in the right place! find out which Anansi books we recommend for your book club, check out our featured book club, sign up to receive our book club newsletter, and enter our monthly contest!
Featured Book Club
An interview with the Greenley's Bookstore book club
Q:Why did Greenley's decide to start a book club?
A:Mainly community! We love sharing books with our customers, and this was a way to bring people in closer, meet common minds, give back to our loyal customers by hosting a fun time, talk about what we love, and also, frankly, sell books.
Q:How do you choose which books the club will read?
A:Initially, we tried to come up with them together. We went around and took suggestions, but ultimately we found it’s easier to just suggest one we think will be good for discussion. Everyone goes along with it, and for the most part, no one’s minded the choices. It’s clear that the group prefers fiction, though.
Q:Which books have generated the liveliest discussion for your club?
A:Annabel by Kathleen Winter was one of the best, especially because several hadn’t wanted to read it and then were surprised by how much they enjoyed it and how deep the novel is. The intersex topic raised some interesting discussion, and the characters, particularly Treadway, also generated talk, based mainly on their choices.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday was another great discussion novel; people were really enthusiastic about that book, and we gathered around a laptop to watch the movie trailer, too.
Half-Blood Blues generated quite a conversation because of the depth of the novel, the characterization, setting, style, and especially the actions of the main character, Sid. There’s so much to talk about with that book, and there were mixed feelings about it. We’ve never had a heated discussion, though!
Probably the most interesting discussions so far were the ones in which club members started out saying they really enjoyed a novel but eventually started picking it apart and, in retrospect, found more things they actually took issue with. By the end of the meeting, it was clear they no longer thought the book was so wonderful!
Q:Do you ever find the conversation gets "stuck" during a meeting? How do you work past that?
A:It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen, particularly if we all like the book and don’t actually find much to say other than that. Usually we get past it by introducing questions or interesting tidbits we’ve found online about the novel.
Q:What is the club looking forward to reading over the next few months?
A:So far we’ve got only the next two months planned. Our next book is Susan Juby’s Woefield Poultry Collective, a humorous novel about a woman from the city who decides to try her (inexperienced) hand at farming, and is aided by a motley crew of characters. Next we’re considering reading two books set in the same location and comparing them: the seemingly quintessential book club choice The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows and The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock.
Our thanks to Steph and the Greenley's book club for joining us. If you're a member of an awesome book club and would like to be featured on our website, please send us an email!
We recommend
Looking for your book club's next great read? Browse our suggestions below, all of which include a handy reading guide to help spark conversation.
For reading guides, sample chapters, author interviews, and more, click on the cover images below.