Many things make for a good book club. The right group of people, the right food, the right drinks… But in our view, the biggest guarantor of success is to choose the right books. We’ve given it some thought, so here are our top 10 books we think make for perfect book club reads. They vary from fiction to non-fiction, and cut across every genre and subject. But they’re all highly readable, packed full of ideas and will divide opinion – always good for a sparky debate.
Book recommendations
- Educated by Tara Westover
- Putney by Sofka Zinovieff
- Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
- Supper Club by Lara Williams
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- East West Street by Philippe Sands
- The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
- This is London by Ben Judah
Notes
Listen in to episode 22 for our full book-club discussion of Educated by Tara Westover, and find out why we liked it so much.
In episode 55 Bad Blood by John Carreyrou gets the full book club treatment
We were joined by Andy Russell of London’s Horror Book Club to discuss The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson in episode 33.
We fell more than a little bit in love with Philippe Sands, author of East West Street, in episode 18.
We discussed Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders in episode 8.
Our most-downloaded show, episode 9 is on This is London by Ben Judah.
Our book recommendations on this episode also feature in Episode 59.
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