Compelling characters, fascinating stories, and themes readers can sink their teeth into are the hallmarks of a good book club pick. This year offered plenty for discussion groups to consider. Here are five suggestions that are also making many best-of selections and award short lists.
- The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander
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(Grand Central).
Poet and Pulitzer Prize finalist Alexander, who first came to popular attention when she read one of her poems at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, offers a meditation on loss in her memoir exploring her grief at the sudden death of her husband and their joyful life together.
(Grand Central).- Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (Riverhead).
This fictional tale of marriage (and creativity, identity, secrets, and intimacy) is told from the point of view of husband and wife Lotto and Mathilde, who take turns relating their version of a life forged together—and raising all manner of questions in the process.
- Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann (Little, Brown).
The controversial, talented, and creative Mann explores her history through a mix of deftly crafted text and arresting images, highlighting her childhood, her life as a mother, and her work as a noted photographer through an intimate unveiling set fully in place and time.
- Mrs. Engels by Gavin McCrea (Catapult).
In this historical fiction debut, McCrea imagines the life of Lizzie Burns, the illiterate lover of Frederick Engels, coauthor with Karl Marx of The Communist Manifesto. Smartly drawn and enriched by fine characterizations, McCrea’s story delivers a fascinating love affair, a vivid portrait of Burns, and a dimensional view of the worlds she inhabited.
- A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Doubleday).
Perhaps one of the most difficult works of 2015 for a book group to tackle is this doorstop of a saga investigating the harrowing life of Jude, one of four college friends who move to New York City. Over the course of the much-lauded novel, each of the quartet plays a role, but it is Jude, in all his deep-seated misery, who forms the story’s brutal heart.
