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How to Pick A Book Club Book (That Everyone Agrees On)

Strategies for choosing books that everyone reads--and that everyone is excited to discuss!

Selecting the Perfect Book Club Read

So, you’ve organized your book club. You have your location, your members, and your schedule. You have big plans to make sure that this club lasts—that it becomes a community of readers who want to engage with the texts they encounter.

Now comes the fun part, but also the hard part: how to find engaging book club books that will foster interest and discussion and keep your members coming back for more.

Choosing the right book for your book club is an important task. It can mean the difference between an hour-long meeting in which everyone sits quietly, hoping somebody else will have something to say, and a great book club meeting in which the ideas flow fast and furious (but not too furious; while debate in book clubs is interesting, you likely don’t want it to devolve into outright conflict). Essentially, you want the title of this article to be a tiny bit of a misnomer. You want to make a book club selection that everyone agrees sparks literary discussion but that leads to a lively exchange of opinions and perspectives.

Let’s break down how to choose a book club book that’s right for your group to keep meetings moving and members eager to learn what all your monthly book club picks will be.

Your Book Club Dynamic

Know Your Members

When assembling your book club reading list, your first task is to know your membership. Is your group full of casual readers who are relying on book club to make sure that reading gets a place in their busy schedules? Or are they high-volume readers who always have a book on their nightstand and want to really dig deep into one of their many reads?

Knowing what your members want from your book club should be your first step when calculating how to agree on a book club book. Keep in mind both their literary interests and their capacity. If your group is seeking award-winning book club books but doesn’t have tons of time for reading, for example, you might consider The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (320 pages) instead of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (775 pages), even though both books won the Pulitzer Prize. Overwhelming (or underwhelming) a group with the amount of reading can lead to dwindling membership.

Diverse Interests, Unified Choices

Book clubs—especially larger ones—will face vastly different tastes and preferences among members. Navigating these tastes means embracing that not every person will love every book. The goal isn’t to find a title that will be everyone’s favorite book but to find something thought-provoking that everyone agrees was worth reading (even when that means they had complex and not wholly positive feelings).

When seeking books that will provoke thought and discussion, look for complex characters over static ones. Tragic heroes have been eliciting support, sympathy, and frustration since Ancient Greece, while an anti-hero might make readers love them or hate them, so works like Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart or Stieg Larsson’s thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo may be good options. When exploring different plots, look for conflicts without an obvious right or wrong choice, like the one Jodi Picoult explores in My Sister’s Keeper; debates are sure to spark.

Compromise is also important when setting a book club reading list. Examine what a book contains instead of what it is “about” to find common ground between the one group member who is a devoted reader of thrillers and another who prefers lyrical contemporary novels that take place over decades. Finally, look for balance—if you have a book with slow pacing this month, consider something quicker next time. That way, even if someone doesn’t love one month’s selection, they can take comfort knowing their interests will be represented in upcoming picks.

Set Clear Criteria for Selection

Many groups get their book ideas for book club by common consensus; they ask members to send in suggestions for the next read and then vote. While casting a wide net for suggestions will help you find titles that your members will enjoy, it can also get you titles that might not facilitate discussion.

Establishing clear guidelines for book selection, including length, genre, and difficulty can minimize these kinds of surprises. When possible, workshop these guidelines as a group—this will encourage members to follow the suggested rules and respect the needs of other members. If you are getting too many book recommendations, limit members to one suggestion per month, or use a rotating set of book club themes to narrow the possibilities.

Even with a shortlist of choices, you will likely need a bit more information about each book before making a final suggestion. Since most people don’t have the time to read three (or four, or five) books before choosing which one will be your official book club pick, consider SuperSummary’s “Before You Read” sections, which you’ll find organized by title. This will let you know that reading Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age means encountering discussions of racial profiling and systemic injustice, that reviewers praise its gripping narrative, and that it’s popular with readers who liked An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.

Exploring Different Types of Book Club Reads

Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Balancing Your Reading List

Searching for book club recommendations often pulls up lists that are entirely made up of novels. Choosing fiction for book clubs is common for a reason. There are tons of different genres, subgenres, and modes of fiction out there, and that provides a lot of room for lively discussion and debate.

However, nonfiction often gets an unfairly bad reputation and can provide great (and frequently neglected) book club book ideas. If you’re looking for something that reads like fiction but discusses real-world or real-life topics, consider looking at creative nonfiction titles, which come in a variety of forms; Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, for example, is a genre-bending mix of poetry and prose that discusses Serena Williams, Hurricane Katrina, and the way language can hurt. Essays and speeches also provide abundant options for quick, provocative nonfiction book club choices. Nicholas Carr’s 2008 essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” will probably get people talking based on the title alone.

If your group is interested in reading across multiple book club genres, balancing fiction and nonfiction can keep conversations from feeling repetitive or stale month to month.

Classics vs. Contemporary: What Resonates Today?

With so many good books getting published every week, it can be difficult to decide whether to focus on tackling the current must-read book club books or to look to classics that you may not have encountered since your high school days (The Scarlet Letter may read differently when it’s not part of sophomore English class).

Returning to members’ preferences is one way of striking the right balance. Classic literature can be challenging, especially when its age means that it uses turns of phrase and language patterns less familiar in the 21st century. Working through the difficulty is often worth the effort. Fans of contemporary science fiction, for example, might enjoy reading Frankenstein to learn why many scholars call Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley the inventor of the genre, while Henry James’s The Bostonians can offer insight into the Reconstruction Era, a famously hard-to-pin-down time in American history.

Though tackling classic book club books can create robust discussion (and give you bragging rights), plan for the challenges that come along with reading something that might be dense or written in unfamiliar vernacular. Balance classics with contemporary book club reads that feel more accessible to readers and give extra time to read classic choices by announcing them in advance. Audiobooks can also bring older texts to life, making the a good option for members who might find classic works intimidating.

Another good way to emphasize the modern value of classic novels is to pair them with a contemporary release that increases comprehension of both texts. Percival Everett’s 2024 James, for example, retells Mark Twain’s 1884 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of enslaved character Jim. Connections don’t need to be as literal as retellings, either. While The Catcher in the Rye is considered a classic bildungsroman, Erika L. Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter sets its coming-of-age narrative in contemporary Chicago. Pairing these texts lets your group discuss both the individual books and explore the differences between coming of age as a white boy in post-World War II America and as a Mexican American girl in 2018.

Award-Winning and Popular Picks

Many members will come to book club seeking insight into what’s new and interesting in the literary landscape. If you’re looking to discuss the hottest new titles, here’s a breakdown of some of the best book club books of 2024:

  • The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese: This 2023 multigenerational saga follows a family in India whose members frequently fall victim to drowning.
  • The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman: Published in 2020 and the first installment in a series set in the Coopers Chase retirement community, this novel is a favorite of fans of “cozy mysteries.”
  • Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: Ng draws on the COVID-19 pandemic in this 2022 dystopian novel, exploring themes of family, storytelling, and racism.
  • West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge: This coming-of-age story recounts the experiences of a 1930s teenager driving two giraffes across the US.
  • Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips: This 2023 work of historical fiction, set in post-Civil War West Virginia, won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
  • A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall: The winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction details how the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict complicate the aftermath of a bus crash.

Generating and Refining Book Club Ideas

Where to Find Inspiration

Bestseller lists are great places to mine when struggling to come up with book ideas for book club. The New York Times’ bestseller lists include both weekly and monthly lists, which are divided into different subtypes (fiction versus nonfiction, hardcover versus paperback, etc.). Publisher’s Weekly, a trade magazine for the publishing industry, also tracks bestsellers in different formats, while the American Booksellers Association lets you look at bestsellers by region. The IndieNext List is a monthly list aggregated by independent booksellers across the US. To narrow things further, check out SuperSummary’s deep dive on The “Best” Best Sellers, which examines a decade’s worth of data from the NYT lists.

If you’re seeking top book club picks that are vetted by experts, consider recent winners (or nominees) of various literary prizes. These major prizes will offer you the best of the best fiction and nonfiction published each year:

If general awards like the ones listed above provide too many choices or otherwise don’t suit the club’s needs, consider genre-based or audience-specific awards to find the absolute best of the best book club books:

  • The Edgar Awards are presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America to honor exceptional works of crime or mystery.
  • The Hugo Awards are presented annually by the World Science Fiction Society and honor individual works, authors or artists across their careers, or serial publications.
  • The Nebula Awards are presented annually by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
  • The Michael L. Printz Award honors each year’s best books in young adult literature.
  • The Newbery Medal is presented annually to the best contribution to American children’s literature.
  • The Coretta Scott King Book Awards honors children’s and young adult literature by African American authors and illustrators.

For book club reading tips that go beyond title recommendations, social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok are great resources. Each has a vibrant reader-based community (“Bookstagram” and “BookTok”) where people share not only what they’re reading but how they’re reading. You might find that using color-coded highlighters or Post-it notes does more than create a great aesthetic; it could help you organize your thoughts to generate even more thought-provoking questions for your next book club meeting.

Book discussion forums can also provide globally sourced insight into how to pick book club reads. Reddit has general book channels (called subreddits) as well as specific ones for different genres, themes, or even tropes. Goodreads also offers discussion forums, though users note that some channels are more active than others. If you’re looking for an indie option, The StoryGraph is like Goodreads in function and provides a “buddy read” option that lets users connect with other readers.

Curating a Monthly Book Club Reading List

Most book clubs choose books on a month-by-month basis, choosing the next title during or soon after the previous meeting. However, planning out a year’s worth of book club reads can save time on the organizational end and make things easier on the member end (which translates into better attendance and more robust conversations). Knowing what books will be up for discussion over the next several months can also be a boon to budget-conscious book club members, who may prefer to get their books from libraries (which sometimes have long hold periods).

When planning a year’s worth of choices, seek diverse book club reads—in all meanings of the word. Plan a balance of different genres, themes, styles, and time periods to ensure that there’s something for everyone, no matter their tastes. SuperSummary’s book lists can help plan a year where you focus on questions of loyalty and betrayal one month before shifting to genre and exploring magical realism. Make space for different perspectives and focus one month on Chicanx Literature, or spend some time exploring Disability Studies. If you’re trying to plan ahead and keep your book club up to date with current releases, consult “anticipated release” lists in publications like Kirkus Review or Time magazine.

What Book Clubs Are Reading Right Now

Though each book club has its own preferences, many book clubs seek titles that blend fun with provoking ideas and debate.

Cozy fantasy is currently having a moment, with titles like Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes illustrating that high fantasy doesn’t have to be synonymous with high stakes. If your favorite part of Lord of the Rings is the Shire, cozy fantasy may be for you. Other popular cozy fantasy titles include:

Romance, with all its subgenres, remains a reliable source for popular book club books. Romance authors like Collen Hoover, Ruby Dixon, and Jennifer L. Armentrout have seen immense popularity on BookTok, and romance titles frequently enjoy long stays on various bestseller lists. Some of the most popular titles from 2024 include:

If these two genres sound interesting but not quite right, you might be interested in romantasy, a popular genre term for books that combine fantasy elements with a strong romance narrative. This is a genre that has taken 2024 by storm with hit titles such as:

Other popular book club trends from 2024 include memoir (The Woman in Me by Britney Spears), historical fiction (The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride), and titles adapted to TV or film (Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus).

Finally, if all these great titles still leave you with a TBR that’s too long and nothing selected for next month’s meeting, consider checking out SuperSummary’s most popular Book Club Books, based on readers’ choices.

Making the Final Decision

Choosing the right book club read can be a detailed task, but putting in the work ahead of time means that your book club members will show up eager to share their thoughts and reactions. By combing through the above strategies, considering your members and their needs, and keeping each month’s titles fresh and engaging, you’ll end up with the ideal book club selection for your club. Then your meetings will be the kind where everyone is surprised when the hour is over, not where you’re counting down the minutes in silence.