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Pageturners for book club patrons

Joy Hubert is a public services librarian at the Greater Victoria Public Library
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Oak Bay is a community of readers. I am constantly amazed by the number of people in Oak Bay who belong to book clubs. Nearly every day, someone asks for a specific title or recommendation for their club.

Sometimes, tracking down enough copies of a book can be a challenge, so GVPL offers Book Club Sets for our patrons. Book Club Sets are a bag of ten copies of the same book that you can check out and distribute to your book club members. The sets can be borrowed for six weeks, and they include discussion questions to prompt conversation.

There’s a lot to consider when choosing a book for your club. Do your members like light, pleasant fiction, or would they be interested in a darker tale that explores the human condition? Are they interested in classics or modern novels? How about prizewinners? Or nonfiction?

Regardless of the title, the discussion can be surprising. In a recent meeting I participated in, every single person disliked the chosen book, which had won major literary awards.

Here’s a list of titles I recommend for book clubs. GVPL carries all of these titles in our Book Club Sets.

419 by Will Ferguson. What would happen if you sent money to a Nigerian scammer? Read 419 to find out. This book looks at the problem of responding to internet scammers from many different sides, with sympathy for the Nigerians as well as their victims.

Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. I related to this story of people coming of age in my time, the 1960s and 1970s. The book follows a group of friends through many decades as they live their lives in surprising ways.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Station Eleven is a dystopia that forms when much of the population suddenly drops dead. The book inspires discussions around what the future could look like or what we would do in a similar situation.

Old Filth by Jane Gardam. Gardam is British and has written a trilogy about three friends who have known each other for many decades. The two male characters are enemies, all because one of the men’s wives may – or may not – have had a relationship with the other man. Each of the three books presents the viewpoint and experiences of one of the three characters

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. If you enjoy a good cry while reading, this is the book for you! A young girl is hired to become the caregiver of a man who’s been paralyzed in an accident. This is a heartfelt novel that could lead to discussions about what to do in the case of extreme disability.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This book can split a book club wide open, generating both love and hate and a lively discussion. The premise: A boy named Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger.

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada. A fictional treatment of a true story, this book follows ordinary citizens in Nazi Germany during the Second World War as they respond to the events around them in heroic ways. I recommend this book for readers who are not afraid of the dark side of the human condition.

The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. One of a genre I call “strange childhoods,” this book is a well-written look at a supremely dysfunctional family. The story isn’t tragic, but it can give rise to discussions about parents and children and how some people can thrive in spite of neglect.

In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. This is a stunning work of non-fiction about a supremely miscast American ambassador to Germany in the disintegrating Weimar Republic of the 1930s. How would you have done his job differently?

For more titles, search for “Book Club Set” in the library catalogue at gvpl.ca.

Joy Hubert is a public services librarian at the Oak Bay branch of the Greater Victoria Public Library. She writes here twice a month on book picks for children and adults.