Great Reads for Book Clubs
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Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Vegetable Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Novelist Kingsolver and her family move to southern Appalachia from the arid southwest, and vow to live for one year eating only home grown or local food. Well-written, thoughtful, appealing, filled with information on agriculture, cuisine and the environment and raising many issues about our current lifestyle.
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Ami Mckay
The Birth House
In early 20th century Nova Scotia, Dora Rare becomes an apprentice midwife/healer. Her story is told against the backdrop of the arrival of modern medicine (promising sterile, painless births) and the role of women.
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Vincent Lam
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures: Stories
Winner of the Giller Prize for 2006, these interlocking stories track four medical students through classes, graduation, and into jobs as full-time doctors. Lam’s strength is to show the imperfect human being behind the surgical mask.
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Lawrence Hill
The Book of Negroes
Based on a real person, this novel is the story of a female African slave, whose name was recorded in the Book of Negroes, an extant record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the U.S. for resettlement in Nova Scotia.
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Can you Hear the Nightbird Call?
Anita Rau Badami
This tale of three Indian women explores the concept of belonging. The novel spans more than fifty years, covering the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan, along with subsequent conflicts and confrontations, and culminating in the explosion of Air India Flight 182 off the Irish coast in 1985.
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Wayne Johnston
The Custodian of Paradise
The life story of (fictional) Sheilagh Fielding, Joey Smallwood’s conscience in Johnson’s earlier masterpiece The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Near the end of WWII, Fielding retreats to an almost deserted island, along with her letters, journals and Scotch.
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Sara Gruen
Water for Elephants
Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski looks back on his life in the circus during the Great Depression, where he cared for the animals, and became especially close to Rosie, the elephant and Marlena, the wife of the psychotic animal trainer.
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Hisham Matar
In the Country of Men
A lyrical and powerful account of how a revolution and subsequent reign of terror affect children, this tale set in 1979 Libya is told by 9-year old Suleiman, whose father has spoken out against Moammar Gaddafi's government. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006.
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Deborah Rodrigues
The Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil
Rodrigues went to Afghanistan in 2002, volunteering as a nurse’s aide, but found her skills as a trained hairdresser were more in demand. This is the true story of how she founded the country’s first beauty training school and learned to deal with lack of supplies, negative attitudes toward women, and government interference.
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Antonia Fraser
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
Fraser goes behind the well-known tales of accomplishments and follies to explore the influence of women and female love on the life of France's dazzling Sun King. A fascinating glimpse into the life of a seventeenth century lady of the court.
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Heather O’Neill
Lullabies for Little Criminals
A coming-of-age story about Baby, a 12-year-old girl who lives sometimes with her drug-addled father in Montreal’s seedy area, sometimes in foster homes, and sometimes on the street. Gritty and yet oddly charming. Canada Reads winner for 2007.
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Mary Lawson
The Other Side of the Bridge
Two brothers - steady, dependable, dull Arthur and charming, self-centred Jake -are rivals for their parents’ attention as well as the love of the beautiful Laura. Good story-telling laced with historical detail (the Depression, WWII) and moral dilemmas.
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Lisa See
Peony in Love
Set in 17th century china, this novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history.
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Cormac McCarthy
The Road
A father and son walk along a road in a futuristic post-apocalyptic America, where most plants, animals and humans have been destoyed. The man struggles to maintain his memories and humanity, but must do what he can to survive. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
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Irène Némirovsky
Suite Française
Written mere months after the events they describe, this novel has a rare sense of immediacy about the German invasion of Paris in 1940 and life in occupied France. Nemirovsky’s masterful story-telling combines the intimate with the grand.
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Diane Setterfield
The Thirteenth Tale
Margaret Lea, a young lonely bookstore assistant, is asked by famous novelist Vida Winter, long known for making up stories about her past, to write the true biography. A contemporary gothic tale paying homage to du Maurier and the Brontes.
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