Start Your Own Book Club

Is there something that you want to read this year? With all this pandemic nonsense (it’s not actually nonsense, I’m just over it in like August and am referring breezily to something that has been very real and terrible for me lately), I am—like many people—really staring off at the horizon of 2021. Of course, there’s not too much going to change as the ball drops and we drunkenly mumble under a blanket of chip crumbs our way through “Auld Lang Syne.” But we can dream that during 2021 many things will be restored to us. At any rate, this turning of the year has a different significance from others, and I thought it would be fun for me and helpful for you to compile a list of book club ideas for 2021. And it might be cool or even healthy if you reached out on Zoom and started yourself a book club that—God willing—will turn into meeting in the park will turn into meeting at a coffee shop before this year closes. Some of the lists are meant especially for this awkward time in history, but some of them (toward the bottom) are a lot more adaptive to any time.

Note: I have not read the vast majority of these books. They are not recommendations as much as thematic lists that I might want to explore, as well. And you can explore them with a group: hate them or love them, rearrange them (though I did give some thought to the order), swap some titles out, tackle a re-read or a book that is entirely too long or deep for you to tackle in a month… The ones with more links (read: reviews) are ones in which I have read more of the titles. I gave swapping options where I thought you might need them, for whatever reason. There are likely to be spelling errors and possibly also books that are just plain on the wrong list. I can give no more than the hours I have already spent, but feel free to correct me in comments. Some lists have a combo of fiction and nonfiction.

GETTING OVER 2020 (Therapy for the Pandemic and Post-Pandemic through Books)

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Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy¸ David D. BurnsThe Happiness Trap, Russ HarrisThe Kindness Challenge, Shaunti FeldhahnAnxious for Nothing, Max Lucado (*Christian book* Option: Anxiety, Clair Bidwell Smith)Overwhelmed, Brigid SchulteThink Like a Monk, Jay ShettyGmorning, Gnight, Lin-Manuel Miranda (Option: Notes on a Nervous Planet, Matt Haig)Lives of the Stoics, Ryan HolidayIt’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, Lysa TerKeurst (*Christian book* Option: Don’t Feed the Monkey Mind, Jennifer Shannon)Dare, Barry McDonaghWhy Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, SapolskyBurnout, Nagoski and Nagoski (*book for women* Option: Rising Strong, Brene Brown)

DEALING WITH 2020 (Things You Might Need in a Pandemic Like Ours)

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Prepper’s Long-Term Survival Guide, Jim CobbThe Well-Centered Home, William HirschAdult Activity Book and Deadliest Enemy, Michael T. OsterholmThe Tassajara Bread Book, Brown and SureshaBeginner’s Guide to DIY and Home Repair¸ Jo Behari365 Days of Art/Creativity/Nature, Lorna Scobie (or a specific book for a new interest)Build Your Perfect Bog-Out Bag, Creek Stewart 399 Games, Puzzles, and Trivia Challenges, Nancy Linde (and According to Hoyle, Richard L. Frey)The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It, Seymour and HeadonThe Surprise Date Challenge Home Edition, Dana LamBobby at Home, Bobby Flay (Options: Modern Comfort Food, Ina Garten or Ottolenghi Simple, Yotam Ottolenghi)Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn

FOR THE NEW YEAR: A BETTER YOU (In No Particular Order, Books That Will Help with New Years’ Resolution-y Stuff All Year Long)

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Finding Your Way in a Wild, New World, Martha N. BeckThe Power of Habit, Charles DuhiggDrive, Daniel H. PinkHow to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale CarnegieThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey (Option: Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin)The Mind-Gut Connection, Emeran MeyerYear of Yes, Shonda RhimesGrit, Angela Duckworth (Option: You’re Not Lost, Maxie McCoy)Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori GottleibThe Blue Zones Kitchen, Dan BuettnerLifespan, David A. SinclairThe New Health Rules, Lipman and Claro

SOCIAL ISSUES (Novels and Nonfiction That Might Get You Talking and Thinking about Some Important Stuff)

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Beyond Hashtag Activism, Mae Elise Cannon (*Christian book* Options: see below)That Night, Amy Giles (Option: Thoughts & Prayers, Bryan Bliss)Grown, Tiffany D. JacksonHuman Flow, Ai, et alPunching the Air, Ibi Zoboi (or Dear Martin, Nic Stone or The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas)Blood and Earth, Kevin BalesA Very Large Expanse of Sea, Tahereh MafiOnce I Was You, Maria Hinojosa (or I Wish You All the Best, Nathan Deaver)Buried Beneath the Boabab Tree, Nwaubani and MazzaStamped, Reynolds and KendiThe Uninhabitable Earth, David Wallace-WellsWe Are the Champions, Bansal and Tak

MODERN WOMEN WRITERS (Lauded Books Written by Women in the Past Ten Years, Surprisingly Heavily About Social Issues and Nonfiction-Journalism)

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Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine BooWild, Cheryl StrayedNothing to Envy, Barbara DemickThe Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel WilkersonThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca SklootWave, Sonali DeraniyagalaThese Truths, Jill Lapore (Option: Dark Money, Jane Mayer)The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert (Option: This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein)The Invention of Nature, Andrea WulfSecondhand Time, Svetlana AlexievitchAll the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister (Option: A Little Life, Hanya Yanigahara)The Tiger’s Wife, Tea Obreht

(I couldn’t seem to keep this list to twelve, so here is a second one, more novel-heavy)

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Citizen, Claudia RankineSing Unburied Sing, Jesmyn WardQuiet, Susan CainMy Brilliant Friend, Elena FerranteMating in Captivity, Esther PerelThe New Jim Crow, Michelle AlexanderCirce, Madeline MillerHomegoing, Yaa GyasiThe Leavers, Lisa KoStation Eleven, Emily St. John MandelThe Night Circus, Erin MorgensternRed at the Bone, Jacqueline Woodson (Option: Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng)

WORLD VOICES (A Small Amount of Books to Represent a Great Big World)

Beer in the Snooker Club, Waguih GaliThings Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (Option: Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie)A Fine Balance, Rohinton MistryRashomon and Seventeen Other Stories, Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Option: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami)The Master and Margarita, Mikhail BulkagovThe Wonderful Adventures of Nils¸ Selma Lagerlof or Independent People, Halldor LaxnessThe House of the Spirits, Isabel AllendeThe Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman AlexieWhale Rider, Witi IhimaeraThe Kite Runner, Khaled HousseniA Suitable Boy, Vikram SethThe Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin

CLASSICS (Some of the Best Classics, In My Opinion, to Re-Introduce Someone, with a Couple Modern Classics in which I Tried to Spread Out the Hefty Ones)

Jane Eyre , Charlotte Bronte Ethan Frome , Edith WhartonAnna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy The Scarlet Letter , Nathaniel HawthorneEmma, Jane AustenLes Miserables, Victor Hugo The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass ¸ Lewis Caroll Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte The Old Man and the Sea , Ernest Hemingway To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee

POPULAR HISTORICAL FICTION (A List I Compiled Because It Gives My Brain a Bit of a Break)

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Outlander, Diana GabaldonThe City of Brass, S.A. ChakrobortyJonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna ClarkeThe Golem and the Jinni, Helene WeckerThe Lost Queen, Signe PikeThe Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter, Theodora GossA Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. SchwabThe Philosopher’s Flight, Tom MillerThe Poppy War, R.F. KuangAll the Light We Cannot See, Anthony DoerrThe Pillars of the Earth, Ken FollettThe Nightingale, Kristin Hannah

VICTORIAN LITERATURE (This Seemed Fun, Although Random, and Includes No Author Repeats)

Jane Eyre , Charlotte Bronte Wuthering Heights , Emily BronteMiddlemarch, George EliottVanity Fair, William Makepeace ThackerayTess of the D’Ubervilles, Thomas HardyDracula, Bram StokerThe Woman in White, Wilkie CollinsThe Warden, Anthony TrollopeBleak House, Charles DickensThe Picture of Dorian Grey, Oscar WildeNorth and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (Option: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , Anne Bronte)The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde¸ Robert Louis Stephenson

AROUND THE WORLD (Since We Can’t Physically Travel Much in a Pandemic, Why Not Go in the Pages of Books?)

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The Travels of Ibn Buttata, Ibn ButtataThe Innocents Abroad, Mark TwainBlack Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca WestChina Along the Yellow River, Cao JinqingThe Rings of Saturn, W.G. SebaldOn the Road, Jack KerouacLetters to a Young Novelist, Mario Vargas LlosaTravels with Charley, John SteinbeckThe Beach, Alex GarlandOur Man in Havana, Graham GreeneZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. PirsigWhen the Going Was Good, Evenlyn Waugh (Option: Video Night in Kathmandu, Pico Iyer)

THROUGH TIME (This Also Seemed Fun; Travelling Through Time. Read a Book from Each Century!)

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The Odyssey, Homer or BeowulfMetamorphoses, Ovid or Medea, EuripidesThe Tale of Gengi, Murasaki ShikibuHistories of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey of MonmouthThe Travels of Marco Polo, Marco PoloThe Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey ChaucerLe Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory or Hamlet, William ShakespeareDon Quixote, Miguel de CervantesRobinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe or Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan SwiftWuthering Heights, Emily BronteThe Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger or The Great Gatsby , F. Scott FitzgeraldThe Road, Cormac McCarthy or The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

TIME TRAVEL (Because It Is My Husband’s Favorite “Genre” and I Bought Him Like Four Books for Christmas, with Two Bigfoot Books at the End because That’s His Other Favorite “Genre”)

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Here and Now and Then, Mike ChenThe Time Machine, H.G. WellsThe Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey NiffeneggerDark Matter, Blake Crouch11/22/63, Stephen KingTime and Again, Jack FinneySlaughterhouse Five, Kurt VonnegutDooms Day Book, Connie WillisKindred, Octavia E. ButlerOutlander, Diana GabaldonDevolution, Max BrooksThe Beast of Boggy Creek, Lyle Blackburn

MAGIC REALISM (Because It Is My Favorite Genre and You Could Also Read Benevolent, by Me)

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia MarquezThe House of Spirits, Isabel AllendeMidnight’s Children, Salman RushdieBeloved, Toni MorrisonLike Water for Chocolate, Laura EsquivelKafka on the Shore, Haruki MurakamiThe Master and Margarita, Mikhail BulgakovChocolat, Jane HarrisBone Gap¸ Laura RubyThe Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee BenderThe Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, Leslye WaltonThe Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

You could also easily visit one of my best ofs lists and choose twelve books from any of those. These lists include:

ComedyAutobiographies and MemoirsTravelHistoryScience FictionFantasyPicture BooksChildren’sMiddle GradesYAPoetryNonfiction and JournalismFoodCookbooksGraphic NovelsLiterary FictionPlaysScreenplaysWorld Literature (broken up by regions)2000s2010sWritingChristianityReligionPhilosophyClassicsShort StoriesShort Story CollectionsHolidays