Fire Up Your Book Club: A List of Hot Book Club Picks

Starting your own book club, but unsure of what titles to pick for your first bibliophile meeting?  We’ve got you covered. Book club picks should always be books that you know will generate discussion, and it’s even better if they’re topical and relevant. Here’s our list of the top five book club picks for your next book club, featuring new and debut titles, as well as recent prize-winners. Happy reading!

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman:

This title is a great pick for your book club. Having remained on the top ten charts every week pretty much since its release date in June 2017, this book has taken readers by storm, and was also the Costa First Novel Book Award Winner (2017).

Sometimes you hear so much about a book before you read it, you wonder if it can possibly live up to expectations. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is one of those books – perhaps the most anticipated book of the first half of 2018. And we’re delighted to report, it is as good as they say: A one-of-a-kind, extremely funny, moving and entirely satisfying read. Definitely book club material.

The Nowhere Child by Christian White:

Talk about a successful debut! This absolute cracker of a novel by debut author Christian White has broken the record for the fastest selling Australian debut novel ever. The film rights for the novel have also been purchased, so we can expect a movie adaption in the coming years – all great talking points for a book club!

The Nowhere Child is a combustible tale of trauma, cult, conspiracy and memory. It is the remarkable debut of Christian White, an exhilarating new Australian talent who is attracting worldwide attention.

The Life to Come by Michelle De Kretser:

Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2018, The Life To Come by Michelle De Kretser is an outstanding book club choice.

Profoundly moving as well as bitingly funny, The Life to Come reveals how the shadows cast by both the past and the future can transform, distort and undo the present. This extraordinary novel by Miles Franklin-winning author Michelle de Kretser will strike to your soul.

Scrublands by Chris Hammer:

Nothing quite gets the book club banter rolling like an Aussie crime novel. Set in a fictional Riverina town at the height of a devastating drought, Scrublands is one of the most powerful, compelling and original crime novels to be written in Australia, and has steadily remained on the weekly top ten best-sellers list since its release in July.

The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein:

The Trauma Cleaner is a book so impressive that it is near impossible to summarise its success in a brief paragraph. Having won five major literary awards and prizes in 2018, and been shortlisted/long-listed for six others, this book has a lot of people vouching for its sheer amazing-ness – us included.

The Trauma Cleaner is an extensively researched, rich, honest and beautifully written biography. Sandra, despite the significant struggles of her life, shows remarkable resilience, humanity and a strong sense of empathy for those on the extreme margins. An exceptional book club pick.