Literary fiction book club questions
Discussion guides we've filed under Literary fiction, listed A to Z. 14 guides for your next meeting, each with themes, read-alikes, and where to find a copy.
Beartown
In a small forest town that lives for its junior hockey team, a single violent act forces everyone to choose between loyalty to the team and standing with the person harmed.
A modern book club favorite
The Children
Two siblings written into their late mother's beloved fantasy series confront the dark reality behind the magical childhood her readers imagine.
Read with Jenna (Today), June 2026
The Correspondent
Told entirely in letters, the story of a sharp, solitary retired lawyer who, as her sight and her certainties fade, finally faces the relationships and the loss she has long kept at arm's length.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 (winner)
Country People
A California academic family decamps to rural Vermont for a year, where the folklorist father tumbles into a world of eccentric locals and the blurry line between logic and magic.
Good Morning America Book Club, July 2026
Dominion
In a Mississippi Delta town ruled by a powerful preacher and his golden-boy son, two women watch the family's polished image crack, with devastating consequences.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist
Flashlight
After a father vanishes on a beach in Japan, leaving his young daughter the sole survivor, the mystery reverberates across four generations and the hidden history of one Korean family.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist
Heart the Lover
A college love triangle among three literature students burns bright, falls apart, and returns to haunt them decades later.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist
Kingfisher
A creative-writing academic becomes obsessed with an older, famous poet, and his devotion curdles into a question of how much of another person one is allowed to take.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist
Little Wonder
A migrant mother and her piano-prodigy son are separated in a crowded Beijing train station and spend years trying to find their way back to each other.
Oprah's Book Club, June 2026
The Mercy Step
In 1960s Bradford, a fiercely observant girl narrates her own childhood in a hard immigrant household, finding refuge in books and plotting her way toward a life of her own.
Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist
My Friends
A teenager obsessed with a famous painting sets out to uncover the story of the four friends who made it, a story of art, refuge, and a bond that outlasts them.
A modern book club favorite
Taiwan Travelogue
In 1930s Japanese-ruled Taiwan, a Japanese novelist and her Taiwanese interpreter travel the island eating their way through it, as attraction and the weight of colonial power pull against each other.
International Booker Prize 2026 (winner)
Us Against You
With Beartown reeling and its hockey club near collapse, an escalating rivalry with the neighboring town hardens loyalty into something dangerous. (Book 2 of the Beartown trilogy.)
A modern book club favorite
The Winners
Two years after the events that shook Beartown, an approaching storm and a boiling-over rivalry force the town to reckon with its old wounds. (Book 3 of the Beartown trilogy.)
A modern book club favorite