Metafilter discussion

We've got a list of suggestions going for what book we should read.

I've never been in any reading club, and looking at the list so far, I'm wondering if there are any qualities that make a book esp good or bad for reading with a group.

I'm wondering about things like very long books v short ones, fiction v nonfiction, books that raise social/political issues v books that are just rattling good yarns etc.

What kind of things do people like to talk about in book clubs?

Hmm, why it appealed or didn't, noticing language, theme and characterization, fitting that book in with others by the author, finding out what certain references relate to in the author's real life, seeing how the book fits into a literary pattern or genre or development . . . ,

For what it's worth, imho it works better to talk about fiction, and fiction with some literary heft at that. That way the discussion tends not to be diverted from the book.

Others may feel differently and frankly I like books of many inks, and talking about them, so I'll be fine with whatever we settle on.

That's books of many ilks. Missed my iPads erroneous "correction."

It is a very good question but a difficult one to answer, as every book club is different. Of course, the biggest requirement is a book that everyone will finish.

After that, for me, I've always been in book clubs that discussed fiction, so I think the books that worked best there were the ones with at least some moral or other ambiguity where you were likely to encounter some lively back and forth, as opposed to "i liked it ... me too."

One of the books I really liked that didn't work well in our book club was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. We just didn't have that much to talk about. In contrast, two books I probably liked less (in practice if not theory)--The History of Love and You Don't Love Me Yet--worked better because people had stronger opinions one way or the other (pro in the former; con in the latter).

tl;dr - contentious books? The books that really turn me *off* are the pop stuff. The last two book club killers for me (a while ago)) were About a Boy and ... The Da Vinci Code. I *did* read the whole thing (very quickly), but I felt so dirty. I couldn't imagine a good conversation about it.

I will read anything that is suggested. Mostly because if I don't like it, then I have a whole group of people to explain why I didn't like it to, and maybe come away with a different perspective.

I agree that fiction works well in a book club, although something that more in the literary nonfiction tradition like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil or the Orchid Thief could work, in that there are more evidently authorial decisions to talk about. I also agree that "hefty" fiction works better (I'd love to dig into "Infinite Jest" with this group, unrealistic as that may be) provides more material for discussion than "pop" fiction. Love it or hate it, in order to spark a really good discussion, a book needs to have some ambition, some meat to dig into. As much as I love a good story, I feel like the best discussions happen about books where there's some distinctive about the way the story is told.