In her article “10 Twists on the Same Ole Book Club,” Sally Allen, author of Unlocking Worlds: A Reading Companion for Book Lovers and inveterate book-list maker, suggests an interesting alternative to the monthly book club selection: Read single themes instead of single books.
Whether it’s a specific topic (mother-daughter memoirs, books about books), setting (World War II novels, novels set in Paris), genre (contemporary literary fiction) or some other creative criteria (bestsellers published in 2005), choosing themes allows club members to explore the books they find most interesting while still having something in common to share back to the group.
Allen says these themes “can lead to a fascinating discussion of how different authors circle around and explore the same questions, problems and longings.” In the spirit of Allen’s suggestion, we’ve included three thematic groupings from this month’s BookTrib Book Club Network selections, along with some suggested discussion topics.
Pairing #1: Secrets
Her Three Lives by Cate Holahan
Ruby Falls by Deborah Goodrich Royce
These two books deal with a similar topic: How well do we really know the ones we love? How much of ourselves should we share with another? What convinces us to trust others, and how does that trust erode? Can we even trust ourselves?
In Her Three Lives, Jade Thompson is an up-and-coming social media influencer, and she has a beautiful new home and a successful architect, Greg, for a fiancé. But when a savage home invasion leaves Greg house-bound with a traumatic brain injury and glued to the live feeds from his ubiquitous security cameras, doubt creeps in. As the police investigate the crime, Jade begins to wonder what he may know about their attackers. On Greg’s part, he wonders whether the break-in was really a random burglary — and whether he’s worth more to Jade if he were dead than alive.
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Ruby Falls is a nail-biting tale of a fragile young woman, the new husband she barely knows, and her growing suspicion that the secrets he harbors may eclipse her own. When a little girl is abandoned by her father in a cave, can she grow up to be healthy and whole? Eleanor Russell is an actress at the top of her game when scars from a childhood wound begin to unravel the threads of her life. Fired from her show, she bolts to Europe and marries Orlando Montague, a man she has only just met. But soon her husband reveals a sinister side, secrets from the past are unearthed, and the specter of the cave becomes unavoidable.
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Pairing #2: Truths
Surrender by Marylee MacDonald
No More Dodging Bullets by Amy Herrig
Dealing with two very different but equally challenging life experiences, these two memoirs leave us asking ourselves: How do such profound experiences shape who we are and what we believe? Do we learn by our mistakes? Or do our decisions guide us to what we most need to learn?
Adopted at birth, Marylee’s parents told her she was a “chosen child.” She tried her hardest to make them proud, but her parents’ divorce sent her into the comforting arms of a handsome boy where she surrendered to passion. Unfortunately, it was 1961. Pregnant girls were sent away, and their babies given up for adoption. Surrender explores the age-old question of nature vs. nurture: Which plays a greater role in who adoptees become: the family they are raised in, or the parents they never knew? In telling her adult son the story of his birth, can Marylee find compassion for her own wounded inner child? A truthful account laced with the passion of youth and the wisdom of age, this funny and poignant memoir explores how we grow up, grow old, and learn to accept ourselves.
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After overcoming a heroin addiction in her teenage years, Amy Herrig faced an entirely different addiction 20 years later: money. No More Dodging Bullets is the story of a desperate struggle for financial and legal survival. Amy and her father were thriving as successful local business owners when a government lawsuit threatened to take both their livelihoods and their freedom. Accused of crimes she hadn’t committed, Amy spent the next four years fighting to stay out of prison, but that wasn’t all she had to fight along the way. As one life-altering change after another shook her world, Amy gained a new perspective on herself and on what matters most in life. While she hadn’t done anything illegal, she had let the allure of money guide her decisions rather than using her moral compass. The shocking turn of events that resulted from those decisions led to profound changes and made a lasting impact on Amy’s life.
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Pairing #3: The Past Reimagined
First Dog on Earth by Irv Weinberg
Rock & Roll Murders by Phillip B. Chute
Whether it’s set at the dawn of civilization or just a decade or two ago, historical fiction has the power to transport us back in time. It also gives us much to discuss: How is historical fact transformed into fiction? What role does imagination play in bringing history to life? How do such books use storytelling to find meaning in the past and connect the past with the present?
At the dawn of civilization, wolf-dog Oohma befriends an old hunter and helps him revive his alpha powers among his human tribe. These are the first humans Oohma’s pack has ever seen — Ish the old hunter, Lut the gifted young medicine woman and Hun the brutal tribe leader whose jealousy forces him out of the tribe. Together with the wolf pack, Oohma and Ish discover a new way of life — a shared odyssey of survival and trust that grows into the most successful partnership the Earth has ever known, changing dogs and humans forever. First Dog on Earth a poetic story set against the ancient Chauvet Cave in France with its remarkable cave art and the footprints of a small boy and his dog as they walk together side by side as companions, not prey.
Based on a true, untold story, with information taken from actual court transcripts, Rock & Roll Murders is set in the Inland Empire region of Southern California from the 1970s to 90s. Raymond McDade started out running a small radio station from a van outside his apartment, eventually buying a struggling radio station with a very powerful signal. After a name change and new Rock & Roll format, it became a regional success. Now wealthy and lonely, it was time for a bride — and young, ambitious Alice fit this role perfectly. At the pinnacle of his success, though, his life dissolves into a quicksand of greed, extortion, infidelity, lost love and murder. He becomes obsessed with keeping his wife and successful radio station … but at what cost? What ensues is a circus of chaos leading to a million-dollar courtroom trial where he maintains his innocence. Will anyone believe him? Would you?
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Visit our April Book Club Network page for more information about the titles above.
Not a member of our Network? Find out how your book club can receive a free copy of each of our monthly picks here.
