As promised last week, here is a list of the books Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust readers believed resulted in the best book club discussions, plus a couple of my own suggestions.  First, here is the premise behind Pearl’s picks:

I think the best books for groups to discuss are those in which the ending is deliberately ambiguous, so that every reader will have a different answer to the question “Well, what really did happen?” Or books in which the main character is faced with a difficult choice that resonates with readers no matter their age or race or ethnicity.

Here is the list:

Deborah Schupack’s The Boy on the Bus  

    begins with every parent’s worst nightmare—the disappearance of your child. Only in this case, a boy who looks a lot like Meg’s eight-year-old son, Charlie, gets off the school bus at the end of the day. The problem is, he seems to be very different from the real Charlie in some definable ways (he doesn’t have asthma and Charlie did) and in some indefinable ways (Meg just knows it’s not her son). Many readers will no doubt wonder why the family doesn’t just do a DNA test to find out, but the questions the novel raises about identity are fascinating.

Leah Hager Cohen’s novel Heart, You Bully, You Punk

What makes it perfect for a book group is that it poses an interesting dilemma: when your head tells you one thing and your heart another, which one should you listen to? The answer to this conundrum will change the lives of the three main characters: a teenage girl, her father, and her math teacher at the private school she attends. One question to begin with is “What does the novelist think about the role of the heart in decision making?”  (By the way, Bookslut has a nice review of this novel on her site…)

The Romantic by Barbara Gowdy  

asks us to consider yet another human dilemma—what it means to try to save the person we love best from destroying themselves, while knowing full well that they’re hell-bent on making that task impossible for us. Louise, who has loved Abel since both were children, must decide how much responsibility she has for ensuring his well-being when she realizes that Abel is becoming increasingly self-destructive and seems determined to drink himself to death.

Spilling Clarence and The Disapparation of James by Anne Ursu  

In Spilling Clarence, a chemical that causes people to remember everything in their lives infects a city’s population—and everyone has a different reaction to being bombarded by their memories. Some characters are comforted, while others find the return of the past too difficult to bear.

The second, The Disapparation of James, has an inconclusive and mysterious ending that will drive some readers crazy. Physician Hannah and stay-at-home dad Justin Woodrow take their children—Greta, seven, and James, five—to the circus for Greta’s birthday; everyone in the family is thrilled when James is selected to appear on stage as part of the last act of the evening. The magician’s final stunt is supposed to make James disappear, but it backfires horribly when James actually does disappear. Ursu takes us inside the lives of all the characters, including the magician, the policeman who is assigned to the case, and of course James’s immediate family, offering parallel realities and alternative possibilities of what really happened.

The last selection is the only one I have read and I agree that it is a great discussion-starter: 

The Dive From Clausens Pier by Ann Packer
       

The novel begins with a young woman, Carrie, who has fallen out of love with her high school sweetheart / fiancee and is on the verge of leaving him.  Unfortunately, he “dives from Clausen’s pier” and becomes paralyzed.  The protagonist must decide whether to stay with him or not.  As you can imagine, questions arise, like “What are we willing to sacrifice for the significant people in our lives?”A secondary strength of this novel is how well it portrays its two primary settings: Madison, Wisconsin and New York City.  This is one of the novels I have on the bedside table in my guest room because it is engaging and quick (and the cover matches the color scheme ).  My mother-in-law picked it up last time she visited and also enjoyed it.

A couple of other interesting discussion starters…

Personally, I think many of Jodi Picoult’s novels result in interesting discussions, too.  Reading Piccoult, however, is a bit like eating too much chocolate — so good at the time, but I feel a bit queasy at the end.  With the exception of Nineteen Minutes, her endings can feel a bit “movie of the week” to me.  But they sure are fun to read!  I haven’t read her latest, but it is already the #1 seller on the Twin Cities’ list…

After reading the discussion on Books on the Brain regarding Eat, Pray, Love, I think Gilbert’s memoir would find a place on this list, too.

Any other books that have resulted in great discussions in your book clubs?

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