Top Ten Tuesday asks: "What books would make good book Club selections?
Here are a few books that worked really well in my book clubs over the past few years in terms of the level of discussion that the book generated:
Historical Fiction
1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett---Civil rights, 1960s
2. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan---the late 1940s in the deep South, racial tension
3. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese---set in Ethiopia during its civil war in the late 1960s.
4. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See---during the 1800s in China, about the lives of women and foot-binding.
5. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Annie Burrows---set on the island of Guernsey which was occupied by the Nazis during WWII.
6. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan---Frank Lloyd Wright and his affair with Maima Bostwick
7. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks---A village beset by the plague in Derbyshire.
8. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant---The story of women during Biblical times.
9. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen---A traveling circus and its cast of characters.
Nonfiction
1. The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan--- the beginning of the Forest Service and National Forests and a fire that nearly brought it all down.
2. Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand---The great American race horse.
3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson---The Chicago Worlds Fair at the turn of the century juxtaposed to a mass-murderer in the same area.
4. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan---The American Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.
5. American Nightingale by Bob Welsh---about the first American nurse to die in Europe after D-Day
YA/Children's Books (for Adult Book Groups!)
1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak---WWII inside Germany.
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie---the divided life of an Indian on and off the reservation. Very funny and poignant.
3. Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan---set during the Great Depression about the plight of Mexican laborers.
