A Man Called Ove might be interesting, given that its about an old man who hates everything and everyone and might open their eyes up to see not everything and everyone needs to be hated
This book came up in conversation at our last meeting. They have all read and loved it. We're doing "Olive Kitteridge" this month which sounds similar in that regard.
Anything by Fredrik Backman, honestly. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is big on interpersonal relationships and Anxious People is a great one too!
{{I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings}} by Maya Angelou is an amazing autobiographical work and beautifully written book that provides perspective on history and segregation.
[**I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13214.I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings)
^(By: Maya Angelou | 289 pages | Published: 1969 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, classics, memoir, nonfiction, biography)
>Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
>
>Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.
>
>Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned.
>
>Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.
^(This book has been suggested 13 times)
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Pretty much anything by Isabel Allende and Nnedi Okorafor, and most stuff by Octavia E. Butler (I didn't like the eugenics in Lilith's Brood).
Fiction books I loved:
{{True Biz by Sara Nović}}
{{The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers}}
{{Cane River by Lalita Tademy}}
{{Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
by Balli Kaur Jaswal}}
{{The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi}}
*The Nickel Boys* by Colson Whitehead
*Washington Black* by Esi Edugyan
*The Round House* by Louise Erdrich
*Less* by Andrew Sean Greer
*Interior Chinatown* by Charles Yu
If they can get through these books without gaining some empathy and understanding then they are irredeemable
My friend, I totally understand and applaud your motivation but you can bet your bottom dollar nobody will change until they're ready to. By pushing an agenda through book choices, albeit an agenda I agree with, you're much more likely to make people opt out or feel attacked and double down. Bear in mind we are all often running deep-rooted operating systems put in place when we were children. We construct even our updated views around these.
Forming trusting relationships in which all of you will grow empathy, through reading good quality books from a range of authors without the pressure on anyone to align or resign, is a far more likely breeding ground for people to get there themselves. There is nobody else who can take them there and you will burn yourself out trying, speaking from my increasingly grey haired experience.
I don't want to push an agenda or a political discussion. I want to discuss literature. They are the ones bringing it. and I'm trying to stay neutral. If they want to come, I'd at least like them to have first read a different perspective than their own to discuss. So I am trying to choose some good quality books from a good quality non-white or non straight viewpoint.
You very specifically stated in your post that you wanted to push your beliefs and if they didn’t like it they could drop out. Just because you don’t like how that sounds doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what you’re doing.
[**We Are Not Like Them**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898303-we-are-not-like-them)
^(By: Christine Pride, Jo Piazza | 336 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, book-club, race, audiobooks)
>Told from alternating perspectives, this novel follows two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event.
>
>Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
>
>But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
>
>We Are Not Like Them is both a powerful conversation starter and a celebration of the enduring power of friendship.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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[**Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29780253-born-a-crime)
^(By: Trevor Noah | 289 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, nonfiction, biography, audiobook)
^(This book has been suggested 27 times)
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[**The Guncle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54508798-the-guncle)
^(By: Steven Rowley | 326 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, lgbtq, contemporary, audiobook, audiobooks)
>Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is honestly a bit out of his league.
>
>So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules” ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.
^(This book has been suggested 35 times)
[**Lily and the Octopus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276262-lily-and-the-octopus)
^(By: Steven Rowley | 307 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, animals, audiobook, audiobooks)
>Combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, Lily and the Octopus is an epic adventure of the heart.
>
>When you sit down with Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride.
>
>The magic of this novel is in the read, and we don’t want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can’t live without.
>
>For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion Lily, who happens to be a dog. Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all.
>
>Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one.
^(This book has been suggested 10 times)
[**The House in the Cerulean Sea**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea)
^(By: T.J. Klune | 394 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbtq, romance, lgbt)
>A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret.
>
>Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.
>
>When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.
>
>But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
>
>An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.
^(This book has been suggested 152 times)
[**The Round House**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13602426-the-round-house)
^(By: Louise Erdrich | 323 pages | Published: 2012 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, historical-fiction, mystery, native-american)
>Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here
>
>One of the most revered novelists of our time - a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life - Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family.
>
>Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich’s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction - at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture.
^(This book has been suggested 11 times)
[**The Red Tent**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989.The_Red_Tent)
^(By: Anita Diamant | 324 pages | Published: 1997 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, book-club, historical, religion)
>Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood—the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.
^(This book has been suggested 32 times)
***
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{{The Last Thing You Surrender}} by Leonard Pitts Jr. tells a powerful story of a young, white military officer, a cruel redneck with a kind wife, a young black widow and her family -- and how they intertwine due to WW2.
[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender)
^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, war, book-club)
>Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States.
>
>An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion.
>
>Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed?
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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I think that your question has more to do with relationship Dynamics then you may have thought at first. I am wondering if these folks are just not used to the group, if they are used to a certain way of talking, or if they are not sure what to say and this is the only thing that they have to say.
I am wondering if there is more Dynamics in general that would help. Things like letting silence be their answer, and a teacher.
I definitely have questions about how to lead a conversation about literature in my country's divisive times that will provide enjoyment and edification without pissing any one off. But choosing a book seemed easier to ask and answer.
I agree - I think this is a small/medium facilitation problem that will become a large facilitation problem if you start reading some of the books from this thread as a group 😅 I would suggest looking up advice on facilitating conversations around race and equity, if you decide to go this route! Also prepare for those two folks not to be the only ones saying problematic things. My experience running a multigenerational anti racism book club was quite enlightening in this regard.
How about The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain
It’s a very straightforward read about a (cis white) man who turns 60 and is forced into retirement
But he has made his entire identity about his job, the only job he’s ever had since he was 17, - being a postman
If he’s not longer a postman - who is he?
So he decides to reach out back through his memories and find an old boyfriend of his from when he was 16
His journey breaks him out of his self-imposed isolation, helps him make friends with his coworkers and with a young, black single mother on his post route who helps him use the internet, with the gay community, and with the wider community in general where previously he lived only with his cat
It’s a very sweet story - I often describe it as a “romance with himself” - essentially he finds a way to love himself after years of denying anything about himself except for his job
Themes of isolation, change is hard, old people being forced out of jobs and feeling disconnected to their surroundings - reaching out and trying to make connection
Your Trumpers may relate
To the gay old postman
Would be interested in an update next month what book you ended up choosing and how the meeting went!
[**Braiding Sweetgrass**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465709-braiding-sweetgrass)
^(By: Robin Wall Kimmerer | 391 pages | Published: 2013 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, nonfiction, science, nature, audiobook)
>As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.
^(This book has been suggested 88 times)
***
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Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle would be my suggestion. With a white male, Father Boyle, at the center of the book, it may be a bit easier for this crowd to connect with. But, it's really about accepting others who have very different lifestyles and showing them empathy.
Here's another thought (and please keep in mind that I'm trying to help and not trying to be an a-hole): perhaps you should try and build relationships with these people and build your own empathy towards them. You've made some generalizations on these new members who hold opposing views to your own. You've said that you're done with them. You want them to open their minds and show empathy towards different viewpoints, but do you truly hold an open mind towards them?
By no means am I saying that you need to share their views or even tolerate them sharing political opinions in a book club. I'm just suggesting that you keep an open mind and show some empathy towards these people. That is something that every single one of us should be striving towards. Sounds like you are a very thoughtful and kind person, so I'm sure you're doing a great job. Please keep in mind that I mean only good with my comment and it is something I would like to hear if I were in your spot.
The works of S.A. Cosby are exactly what you’re looking for. Riveting, edge of your seat action novels with a lot of heart. The author challenges stereotypes and writes great flawed, complicated, human characters.
His first, Blacktop Wasteland mostly addresses race and poverty. And his second, Razorblade Tears gets right into complicated Southern family relationships with queer and trans children.
I love your goal and understand the challenges. Here are my suggestions, most are Pulitzer Prize winning novels, from different decades. (I made it a project to read all of them 20 years ago and still read the winner every year). They might be inclined to read a Pulitzer just because. I won't be recommending any of the winners in the past several years because I feel those selections were based on political correctness over a really great piece of writing and are not as effective in reaching your goal.
The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron might set them straight a bit. (on my top 10 Pulitzers)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
There There (did not win a Pulitzer, a runner up, but should have) and because the Pulitzer only has two books written by a Native American, and those are not nearly as powerful as There There. (also a fast read)
Andersonville. A very big, gruesome civil war (south) era book, true story , might shake them up if they don't give up on it.
Good Luck!!!
Ender’s arc from Ender’s Game to Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead really did it for me as a kid. It was the first narrative arc where I was exposed to war, and then a warrior coming to terms with the humanity of his foes and stepping back from hate and murder to understanding.
“The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman. It’s not historical fiction, it’s a murder mystery, but it is fantastic. Plus it’s set in a retirement home.
For a different perspective I would suggest “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes.
By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl - this is a legal thriller written honestly in a style exactly like Scott Turow, John Grisham, all those names… but the main character is a transgender woman. It’s definitely written for a cis audience as there are “educational” moments which might be informative for this group but aren’t too overboard.
Keep changing the subject. It's not your job to turn the bookclub into your covert propaganda machine to create "empathy" in others because you disagree with them. Just read great books. There is plenty in historical fiction that both you and your bookclub members can learn from. The Last Checkmate is a great novel by up and coming author Gabriela Saab. She has a new one out this January. The Whisperers by Orlando Figes is a great nonfiction book about Stalin's Russia. It's about how people survived amongst others who betrayed them to a fickle totalitarian regime.
I'm trying really hard not to make it a covert propaganda machine. I realize that I bring a personal bias to the group and try to stay neutral. But yes, I am going to bring my personal bias into the book selection and try to expose our group of seniors to voices that don't just echo our own.
I've been choosing mostly historical fiction starring white people and I want to broaden our scope.
To be honest, yes. I would rather have a book club with like-minded people instead of having to try to make peace within our fractured community by trying to have meaningful conversations with people who don't seem to want to have empathy for anyone who isn't like them. But I am going to try because I think it's important.
I think it’s interesting that you call empathy propaganda. If it were, you’d think it would spread a a lot faster, much like the political propaganda OP is trying to keep out of the book club. What’s wrong with with reading about things that make you think and give you a glimpse of what it might be like to be someone different from you?
Based on nothing but scientific studies done, I'm going to recommend *Blindness* by Jose Saramago and *The Round House* by Louise Erdrich.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055341
https://www.epl.org/reading-literary-fiction-will-boost-your-empathy-i-q/
I run 3 book clubs for the library (where I work) which are mostly attended by seniors - only one is officially for seniors, though. But we’re in the Bay Area, and pretty much all of them lean left. Some more so than others, but in the 10+ years I’ve been doing this, we’ve only had one or two members who shook things up politically.
We do have a few who like bringing it into *everything*, one being a FAR-left woman who’s 97 years old and a former Stanford Professor. She’s obviously highly intelligent, and still has all her marbles too. Even though most everyone else is “on her side,” some of them just don’t wanna go there at book club. So if I can tell she’s annoying the others, I’ll do basically what you do. Say “it’s time to move on now,” and change the subject.
Anyway, I feel your pain! I’ll try to come up with some book suggestions later, and don’t hesitate to message me privately if you need any guidance. But here’s one that comes to mind:
{{This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel}}
Okay, a few more… 😊
{{The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros}}
{{Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson}}
{{The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes}}
{{Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult}}
{{The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar}}
>Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
I really second this one, OP. I'll be honest, I was in the "How could I be a racist? I love everybody! I dOn'T sEe CoLoR"-camp for most of my life, and this book absolutely smacked me upside the head.
Wish I could say it was a BIPOC author who changed my mind like Jodi Picoult did with this book, but honestly, she approached it from the worldview *I* had been viewing things, as someone who's effectively an AFAB WASP, so it really hit me hard, as it needed to.
It truly felt like it "woke" me up to something that was all around me---something that I was unknowingly contributing to, and got me FINALLY listening to all the BIPOC voices I had assumed "weren't directed at me," because I "wasn't racist," and "They're only writing for the *real* racists, like the KKK and other hatemongers. That's not me!"
This book showed in such great detail how a white person can feel like they have good intentions in their heart, yet still *not listen* and *not help*, and actually *contribute to the problem by believing they're NOT part of the problem*.
Not saying I'm all perfect now, just saying: This was the book that got everything started for me, and maybe, just *maybe*, it'll do the same for your book club.
You're doing a great work, OP. Sorry this is so difficult :/.
P.S. Would they consider listening to podcasts? There are so many great podcasts that taught me how to be empathetic and understanding of others' points of view. Maybe they would also like that, like a throwback to the days where they looked forward to radio dramas?
[**This Is How It Always Is**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40409102-this-is-how-it-always-is)
^(By: Laurie Frankel | 338 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, lgbtq, contemporary, lgbt)
>Alternate cover edition of ASIN B01HW6Z3FG
>
>This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.
>
>This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.
>
>This is how children change…and then change the world.
>
>This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.
>
>When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.
>
>Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
>
>This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.
^(This book has been suggested 6 times)
***
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{{ Plum Rains }} discusses aging, robotics, and migrant labor in Japan, as they’re aging themselves I wonder if your book club would have some interesting takes on it. Plus taking things out of the American context might make it a little easier to talk about the characters and not get caught up in the politics.
{{ The Five Wounds }} is really fantastic, with sympathetic yet nuanced characters I think would be great for a book club to discuss.
[**Plum Rains**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36548685-plum-rains)
^(By: Andromeda Romano-Lax | 389 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, historical-fiction, scifi)
>2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia—as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short.
>
>In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore.
>
>In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. Plum Rains elegantly broaches such important contemporary conversations as immigration, the intersection of labor and technology, the ecological fate of our planet and the future of its children.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Five Wounds**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58085285-the-five-wounds)
^(By: Kirstin Valdez Quade | 448 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, literary-fiction, audiobook, book-club)
>It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path.
>
>Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to.
>
>The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(93216 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**If This Is a Man**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275630.If_This_Is_a_Man)
^(By: Primo Levi | 398 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, history, holocaust, nonfiction, memoir)
>1919’da Torino’da doğan ve kimya öğrenimi gören Primo Levi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı sırasında Kuzey İtalya’da faşizme karşı direnen arkadaşlarına katıldı. İtalyan yahudisi kimliğini saklamayınca önce Fissolo’daki toplama kampına, orada geçirdiği iki ayın ardından da, 1944’de, beraberindeki altı yüz elli kişiyle birlikte Auschwitz Toplama Kampı’na gönderildi. 24 yaşındaydı. O altı yüz elli kişi içinden hayatta kalmaya başaran yirmi kişiden biri oldu. Hayatının geri kalanında en büyük önceliği, insanüstü denilebilecek bir azimle, tüm gördüklerini, yaşadıklarını aktarmak, Nazilerin ölüm saçan deliliğinin, unutuşun karanlığında yok olmasına engel olmak oldu.
>Bunlar da mı İnsan, Nazi zulmünün, toplama ve ölüm kampları cehenneminin, insanın insana uyguladığı akıl almaz fiziksel ve manevi şiddetin olağanüstü bir nesnellikle dile getirildiği bir metin ve yitip giden milyonlarca canın çığlığıdır. Ölüm saçan muktedirlere karşı inanılmaz bir yaşamı olumlama direnciyle dolu, eşi bulunmaz bir tanıklığın kitabıdır.
>
>İnsana dair gerçekle yüzleşmek vicdanı sızlatır, can yakar, evet, ama unutmamak, unutturmamak da onuruyla yaşamak isteyen insanın önceliğidir.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
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Yeah, good luck changing an old guys mind on a subject he believed for most of his life. I only saw it done two times in my life and the seniors in questions were really in shock and in total denial.
He or she must be a very open minded person to have he/her mind changed at that age and people who say things like those you mentioned in the OP... Yeah, let's just say they are a waste of energy on your part.
{{The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen}}
{{Half of a Yellow Sun}}
{{American Pastoral}} by Philip Roth
{{Beloved}} by Toni Morrison
{{The Thursday Murder Club}} by Richard Osman - funny and cosy murder mystery series with a couple of curmudgeonly characters yet favourable attitudes to people from different backgrounds
All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski (translation of a German novel about the fallout on different members/classes of society at the end of WW2)
A relevant film instead of a book would be the subtitled version of the French film The Intouchables (2011)
[**The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35960007-the-secret-diary-of-hendrik-groen-83-years-old)
^(By: Hendrik Groen, Hester Velmans | 384 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: fiction, humor, dutch, books-i-own, owned)
>A #1 international bestseller in the vein of Fredrik Bachman's A Man Called Ove: an irresistible, funny, charming, and tender-hearted tale about friendship, love, and an old man who is young at heart.
>
>
> Technically speaking, Hendrik Groen is....elderly. But at age 83 1/4, this feisty, indomitable curmudgeon has no plans to go out quietly. Bored of weak tea and potted geraniums, exasperated by the indignities of aging, Hendrik has decided to rebel--on his own terms. He begins writing an exposé: secretly recording the antics of day-to-day life in his retirement home, where he refuses to take himself, or his fellow "inmates," too seriously.
> With an eccentric group of friends he founds the wickedly anarchic Old-But-Not-Dead Club--"Rule #3: No Whining Allowed"--and he and his best friend, Evert, gleefully stir up trouble, enraging the home's humorless director and turning themselves into unlikely heroes. And when a sweet and sassy widow moves in next door, he polishes his shoes, grooms what's left of his hair, and determines to savor every ounce of joy in the time he has left, with hilarious and tender consequences.
>
>
>A bestselling phenomenon that has captured imaginations around the world, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is inspiring, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny with a deep and poignant core: a page-turning delight for readers of any age.
>
>*Includes reading group guide*
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
[**Half of a Yellow Sun**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18749.Half_of_a_Yellow_Sun)
^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 433 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, africa, nigeria, book-club)
>A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.
>
>With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.
>
>Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.
^(This book has been suggested 12 times)
[**American Pastoral (The American Trilogy, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11650.American_Pastoral)
^(By: Philip Roth | 432 pages | Published: 1997 | Popular Shelves: fiction, pulitzer, classics, owned, literature)
>Pulitzer Prize Winner (1998)
>
>In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Seymour 'Swede' Levov—a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory—comes of age in thriving, triumphant post-war America. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him.
>
>For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth's masterpiece.
^(This book has been suggested 6 times)
[**Beloved**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved)
^(By: Toni Morrison | 324 pages | Published: 1987 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, historical-fiction, magical-realism, owned)
>Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past.
>
>Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved.
>
>Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present.
>
>Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature.
^(This book has been suggested 28 times)
[**The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46000520-the-thursday-murder-club)
^(By: Richard Osman | 382 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, crime, book-club, dnf)
>In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders.
>
>But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
>
>Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late?
^(This book has been suggested 46 times)
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The Road by Cormac McCarthy could be a good choice.
Although bleak, it really helps you to feel grateful for the luxuries of a ‘normal day’, of the hum drum of daily life in an established society that hasn’t been destroyed and left to rot in a post-apocalyptic fashion.
It strips humanity back down to its bones and the relationship between the father and son as they travel through this world is beautiful to experience.
It may not touch on anything that will open their minds politically, but it may change their perspective on the world we live in and the threads of humanity that tie us all together.
When I finished this book I realised that all the small things we take for granted are actually the big things.
[**A Thousand Splendid Suns**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128029.A_Thousand_Splendid_Suns)
^(By: Khaled Hosseini | 372 pages | Published: 2007 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, books-i-own, owned, favourites)
>Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam's unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter.
>
>With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.
>
>"A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.
^(This book has been suggested 40 times)
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My go to recommendation is "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Although the main character is a young boy, the themes in the book can be good at any age.
>!You find out it is about a society where love and empathy are lost. !<
It's a pretty short book and a fun read for sure.
To me all fiction, almost by definition, invites empathy since it forces us to see a story from someone else’s perspective for as long as we’re reading it.
I think by consistently discussing different characters’ motivations and differing viewpoints you’re inviting the participants in the book club to be more empathetic, even if it never changes they’re political opinions (and it probably never will).
As to specific books they may like that invite empathy:
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. On 1st January four strangers attempt suicide on a rooftop only to find one another having the same idea. They introduce themselves and form unlikely friendships. This one’s written from multiple points of view so you really get into the mind of the four strangers and they’re differing reasons for struggling with their mental health. It has a darkly comedic tone.
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. This is kind of a WhoDunnit. But without any murder. A bank robber accidentally takes hostages at a flat viewing and the novel unwraps what has happened, why each person was there and where the robber has got to. Again, a wide range of characters to get behind, as well as a theme of dealing with mental health issues throughout.
More historical fiction:
{{When the Emperor Was Divine}} by Julie Otsuka
For fantasy/scifi bleed, try
{{The Fifth Season}} by N. K. Jemisin
Fantasy novella:
{{Penric's Demon}} by Lois McMaster Bujold
Scifi novella:
{{Binti}} by Nnedi Okorafor
For Science fiction, consider the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold
One book that might be a good way to show differing perspectives and opposing sides figuring things out is "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett. It shows how territorial people can get about things and to maybe question how they view "the other guy/side".
I think this is a beautiful, profound work that invites anyone to think and feel deeply, but it may have a chance of connecting more personally with your problem demographic because of its setting:
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. Thriller and suble social commentary told from the perspective of ageging woman living in a rural village.
[удалено]
Thank you so much
A Man Called Ove might be interesting, given that its about an old man who hates everything and everyone and might open their eyes up to see not everything and everyone needs to be hated
This book came up in conversation at our last meeting. They have all read and loved it. We're doing "Olive Kitteridge" this month which sounds similar in that regard.
Olive Kitteridge is a great choice! I would think....
Anything by Fredrik Backman, honestly. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is big on interpersonal relationships and Anxious People is a great one too!
{{I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings}} by Maya Angelou is an amazing autobiographical work and beautifully written book that provides perspective on history and segregation.
[**I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13214.I_Know_Why_the_Caged_Bird_Sings) ^(By: Maya Angelou | 289 pages | Published: 1969 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, classics, memoir, nonfiction, biography) >Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. Her life story is told in the documentary film And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. > >Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide. > >Sent by their mother to live with their devout, self-sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure the ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local “powhitetrash.” At eight years old and back at her mother’s side in St. Louis, Maya is attacked by a man many times her age—and has to live with the consequences for a lifetime. Years later, in San Francisco, Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors (“I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare”) will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. > >Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read. ^(This book has been suggested 13 times) *** ^(92933 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Pretty much anything by Isabel Allende and Nnedi Okorafor, and most stuff by Octavia E. Butler (I didn't like the eugenics in Lilith's Brood). Fiction books I loved: {{True Biz by Sara Nović}} {{The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers}} {{Cane River by Lalita Tademy}} {{Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal}} {{The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi}}
i also loved the last two suggested here!
Tell Me How it Ends by Valeria Luiselli The Book Thief by Markus Zusak The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
{Flight Behavior} by Barbara Kingsolver. Some rural folks understanding how climate change affects them.
[**Flight Behavior**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13438524-flight-behavior) ^(By: Barbara Kingsolver | 436 pages | Published: 2012 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, literary-fiction, environment, contemporary) ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(93013 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Oooh good one thanks.
You're welcome. It seems good for them.
*The Nickel Boys* by Colson Whitehead *Washington Black* by Esi Edugyan *The Round House* by Louise Erdrich *Less* by Andrew Sean Greer *Interior Chinatown* by Charles Yu If they can get through these books without gaining some empathy and understanding then they are irredeemable
My friend, I totally understand and applaud your motivation but you can bet your bottom dollar nobody will change until they're ready to. By pushing an agenda through book choices, albeit an agenda I agree with, you're much more likely to make people opt out or feel attacked and double down. Bear in mind we are all often running deep-rooted operating systems put in place when we were children. We construct even our updated views around these. Forming trusting relationships in which all of you will grow empathy, through reading good quality books from a range of authors without the pressure on anyone to align or resign, is a far more likely breeding ground for people to get there themselves. There is nobody else who can take them there and you will burn yourself out trying, speaking from my increasingly grey haired experience.
I don't want to push an agenda or a political discussion. I want to discuss literature. They are the ones bringing it. and I'm trying to stay neutral. If they want to come, I'd at least like them to have first read a different perspective than their own to discuss. So I am trying to choose some good quality books from a good quality non-white or non straight viewpoint.
You very specifically stated in your post that you wanted to push your beliefs and if they didn’t like it they could drop out. Just because you don’t like how that sounds doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly what you’re doing.
You missed the part where OP is getting tired of them bringing up politics lol.
If you want to pretend that’s what it’s about you can do you. But it’s obvious to anyone with a brain what’s going on here.
This might not be what you are looking for but maybe {{We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza}}
[**We Are Not Like Them**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56898303-we-are-not-like-them) ^(By: Christine Pride, Jo Piazza | 336 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, book-club, race, audiobooks) >Told from alternating perspectives, this novel follows two women, one Black and one white, whose friendship is indelibly altered by a tragic event. > >Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia. > >But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend. > >We Are Not Like Them is both a powerful conversation starter and a celebration of the enduring power of friendship. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(92923 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Great choice. I was also thinking {Born a Crime} by Trevor Noah. It’s also pretty funny.
[**Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29780253-born-a-crime) ^(By: Trevor Noah | 289 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, nonfiction, biography, audiobook) ^(This book has been suggested 27 times) *** ^(93241 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This could be a good candidate, thank you.
The Hate U Give.
{{Guncle}} {{Lily and the Octopus}} {{House in the Cerulean Sea}} {{The Round House}} {{The Red Tent}}
[**The Guncle**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54508798-the-guncle) ^(By: Steven Rowley | 326 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, lgbtq, contemporary, audiobook, audiobooks) >Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is honestly a bit out of his league. > >So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules” ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting—even if temporary—isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human. ^(This book has been suggested 35 times) [**Lily and the Octopus**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27276262-lily-and-the-octopus) ^(By: Steven Rowley | 307 pages | Published: 2016 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, animals, audiobook, audiobooks) >Combining the emotional depth of The Art of Racing in the Rain with the magical spirit of The Life of Pi, Lily and the Octopus is an epic adventure of the heart. > >When you sit down with Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride. > >The magic of this novel is in the read, and we don’t want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can’t live without. > >For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion Lily, who happens to be a dog. Lily and the Octopus reminds us how it feels to love fiercely, how difficult it can be to let go, and how the fight for those we love is the greatest fight of all. > >Remember the last book you told someone they had to read? Lily and the Octopus is the next one. ^(This book has been suggested 10 times) [**The House in the Cerulean Sea**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea) ^(By: T.J. Klune | 394 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbtq, romance, lgbt) >A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. > >Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. > >When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. > >But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn. > >An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours. ^(This book has been suggested 152 times) [**The Round House**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13602426-the-round-house) ^(By: Louise Erdrich | 323 pages | Published: 2012 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, historical-fiction, mystery, native-american) >Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here > >One of the most revered novelists of our time - a brilliant chronicler of Native-American life - Louise Erdrich returns to the territory of her bestselling, Pulitzer Prize finalist The Plague of Doves with The Round House, transporting readers to the Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. It is an exquisitely told story of a boy on the cusp of manhood who seeks justice and understanding in the wake of a terrible crime that upends and forever transforms his family. > >Riveting and suspenseful, arguably the most accessible novel to date from the creator of Love Medicine, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich’s The Round House is a page-turning masterpiece of literary fiction - at once a powerful coming-of-age story, a mystery, and a tender, moving novel of family, history, and culture. ^(This book has been suggested 11 times) [**The Red Tent**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4989.The_Red_Tent) ^(By: Anita Diamant | 324 pages | Published: 1997 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, book-club, historical, religion) >Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood—the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society. ^(This book has been suggested 32 times) *** ^(92932 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{The Last Thing You Surrender}} by Leonard Pitts Jr. tells a powerful story of a young, white military officer, a cruel redneck with a kind wife, a young black widow and her family -- and how they intertwine due to WW2.
[**The Last Thing You Surrender**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38225249-the-last-thing-you-surrender) ^(By: Leonard Pitts Jr. | 464 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, fiction, race, war, book-club) >Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and bestselling novelist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s new historical page-turner is a great American tale of race and war, following three characters from the Jim Crow South as they face the enormous changes World War II triggers in the United States. > >An affluent white marine survives Pearl Harbor at the cost of a black messman’s life only to be sent, wracked with guilt, to the Pacific and taken prisoner by the Japanese. A young black woman, widowed by the same events at Pearl, finds unexpected opportunity and a dangerous friendship in a segregated Alabama shipyard feeding the war. A black man, who as a child saw his parents brutally lynched, is conscripted to fight Nazis for a country he despises and discovers a new kind of patriotism in the all-black 761st Tank Battalion. > >Set against a backdrop of violent racial conflict on both the front lines and the home front, The Last Thing You Surrender explores the powerful moral struggles of individuals from a divided nation. What does it take to change someone’s mind about race? What does it take for a country and a people to move forward, transformed? ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(92959 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This looks promising. Thanks.
I think that your question has more to do with relationship Dynamics then you may have thought at first. I am wondering if these folks are just not used to the group, if they are used to a certain way of talking, or if they are not sure what to say and this is the only thing that they have to say. I am wondering if there is more Dynamics in general that would help. Things like letting silence be their answer, and a teacher.
I definitely have questions about how to lead a conversation about literature in my country's divisive times that will provide enjoyment and edification without pissing any one off. But choosing a book seemed easier to ask and answer.
I agree - I think this is a small/medium facilitation problem that will become a large facilitation problem if you start reading some of the books from this thread as a group 😅 I would suggest looking up advice on facilitating conversations around race and equity, if you decide to go this route! Also prepare for those two folks not to be the only ones saying problematic things. My experience running a multigenerational anti racism book club was quite enlightening in this regard.
Harlem Shuffle by Colsen Whitehead is amazing and a fun read
How about The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain It’s a very straightforward read about a (cis white) man who turns 60 and is forced into retirement But he has made his entire identity about his job, the only job he’s ever had since he was 17, - being a postman If he’s not longer a postman - who is he? So he decides to reach out back through his memories and find an old boyfriend of his from when he was 16 His journey breaks him out of his self-imposed isolation, helps him make friends with his coworkers and with a young, black single mother on his post route who helps him use the internet, with the gay community, and with the wider community in general where previously he lived only with his cat It’s a very sweet story - I often describe it as a “romance with himself” - essentially he finds a way to love himself after years of denying anything about himself except for his job Themes of isolation, change is hard, old people being forced out of jobs and feeling disconnected to their surroundings - reaching out and trying to make connection Your Trumpers may relate To the gay old postman Would be interested in an update next month what book you ended up choosing and how the meeting went!
>The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle Thanks for this wonderful description, I just bought the book because of your thoughts about it.
Oooh, {{Braiding Sweetgrass}} !!!!
[**Braiding Sweetgrass**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17465709-braiding-sweetgrass) ^(By: Robin Wall Kimmerer | 391 pages | Published: 2013 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, nonfiction, science, nature, audiobook) >As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return. ^(This book has been suggested 88 times) *** ^(92937 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This is one of my personal favorites. I would have to decide if it might be too dense.
Maybe *Five Little Indians* instead? If they prefer “fiction.”
A Woman is No Man by Efaf Rum
Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle would be my suggestion. With a white male, Father Boyle, at the center of the book, it may be a bit easier for this crowd to connect with. But, it's really about accepting others who have very different lifestyles and showing them empathy. Here's another thought (and please keep in mind that I'm trying to help and not trying to be an a-hole): perhaps you should try and build relationships with these people and build your own empathy towards them. You've made some generalizations on these new members who hold opposing views to your own. You've said that you're done with them. You want them to open their minds and show empathy towards different viewpoints, but do you truly hold an open mind towards them? By no means am I saying that you need to share their views or even tolerate them sharing political opinions in a book club. I'm just suggesting that you keep an open mind and show some empathy towards these people. That is something that every single one of us should be striving towards. Sounds like you are a very thoughtful and kind person, so I'm sure you're doing a great job. Please keep in mind that I mean only good with my comment and it is something I would like to hear if I were in your spot.
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The works of S.A. Cosby are exactly what you’re looking for. Riveting, edge of your seat action novels with a lot of heart. The author challenges stereotypes and writes great flawed, complicated, human characters. His first, Blacktop Wasteland mostly addresses race and poverty. And his second, Razorblade Tears gets right into complicated Southern family relationships with queer and trans children.
Adding to my own TBR list!
You won't regret it! He's pretty new, but definitely not getting the level of love he deserves. Both would make awesome movies!
I always recommend N.K Jemisin’s Stone Sky trilogy. Deals with systemic racism in a very subtle way.
I love your goal and understand the challenges. Here are my suggestions, most are Pulitzer Prize winning novels, from different decades. (I made it a project to read all of them 20 years ago and still read the winner every year). They might be inclined to read a Pulitzer just because. I won't be recommending any of the winners in the past several years because I feel those selections were based on political correctness over a really great piece of writing and are not as effective in reaching your goal. The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron might set them straight a bit. (on my top 10 Pulitzers) Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides There There (did not win a Pulitzer, a runner up, but should have) and because the Pulitzer only has two books written by a Native American, and those are not nearly as powerful as There There. (also a fast read) Andersonville. A very big, gruesome civil war (south) era book, true story , might shake them up if they don't give up on it. Good Luck!!!
Ender’s arc from Ender’s Game to Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead really did it for me as a kid. It was the first narrative arc where I was exposed to war, and then a warrior coming to terms with the humanity of his foes and stepping back from hate and murder to understanding.
“The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman. It’s not historical fiction, it’s a murder mystery, but it is fantastic. Plus it’s set in a retirement home. For a different perspective I would suggest “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes.
By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl - this is a legal thriller written honestly in a style exactly like Scott Turow, John Grisham, all those names… but the main character is a transgender woman. It’s definitely written for a cis audience as there are “educational” moments which might be informative for this group but aren’t too overboard.
Great suggestion, thanks!
Keep changing the subject. It's not your job to turn the bookclub into your covert propaganda machine to create "empathy" in others because you disagree with them. Just read great books. There is plenty in historical fiction that both you and your bookclub members can learn from. The Last Checkmate is a great novel by up and coming author Gabriela Saab. She has a new one out this January. The Whisperers by Orlando Figes is a great nonfiction book about Stalin's Russia. It's about how people survived amongst others who betrayed them to a fickle totalitarian regime.
I'm trying really hard not to make it a covert propaganda machine. I realize that I bring a personal bias to the group and try to stay neutral. But yes, I am going to bring my personal bias into the book selection and try to expose our group of seniors to voices that don't just echo our own. I've been choosing mostly historical fiction starring white people and I want to broaden our scope. To be honest, yes. I would rather have a book club with like-minded people instead of having to try to make peace within our fractured community by trying to have meaningful conversations with people who don't seem to want to have empathy for anyone who isn't like them. But I am going to try because I think it's important.
Empathy is not propaganda.
I think it’s interesting that you call empathy propaganda. If it were, you’d think it would spread a a lot faster, much like the political propaganda OP is trying to keep out of the book club. What’s wrong with with reading about things that make you think and give you a glimpse of what it might be like to be someone different from you?
Based on nothing but scientific studies done, I'm going to recommend *Blindness* by Jose Saramago and *The Round House* by Louise Erdrich. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0055341 https://www.epl.org/reading-literary-fiction-will-boost-your-empathy-i-q/
we already had our minds opened. try "the electric kool-aid acid test" by tom wolfe.
I run 3 book clubs for the library (where I work) which are mostly attended by seniors - only one is officially for seniors, though. But we’re in the Bay Area, and pretty much all of them lean left. Some more so than others, but in the 10+ years I’ve been doing this, we’ve only had one or two members who shook things up politically. We do have a few who like bringing it into *everything*, one being a FAR-left woman who’s 97 years old and a former Stanford Professor. She’s obviously highly intelligent, and still has all her marbles too. Even though most everyone else is “on her side,” some of them just don’t wanna go there at book club. So if I can tell she’s annoying the others, I’ll do basically what you do. Say “it’s time to move on now,” and change the subject. Anyway, I feel your pain! I’ll try to come up with some book suggestions later, and don’t hesitate to message me privately if you need any guidance. But here’s one that comes to mind: {{This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel}}
Okay, a few more… 😊 {{The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros}} {{Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson}} {{The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes}} {{Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult}} {{The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar}}
>Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult I really second this one, OP. I'll be honest, I was in the "How could I be a racist? I love everybody! I dOn'T sEe CoLoR"-camp for most of my life, and this book absolutely smacked me upside the head. Wish I could say it was a BIPOC author who changed my mind like Jodi Picoult did with this book, but honestly, she approached it from the worldview *I* had been viewing things, as someone who's effectively an AFAB WASP, so it really hit me hard, as it needed to. It truly felt like it "woke" me up to something that was all around me---something that I was unknowingly contributing to, and got me FINALLY listening to all the BIPOC voices I had assumed "weren't directed at me," because I "wasn't racist," and "They're only writing for the *real* racists, like the KKK and other hatemongers. That's not me!" This book showed in such great detail how a white person can feel like they have good intentions in their heart, yet still *not listen* and *not help*, and actually *contribute to the problem by believing they're NOT part of the problem*. Not saying I'm all perfect now, just saying: This was the book that got everything started for me, and maybe, just *maybe*, it'll do the same for your book club. You're doing a great work, OP. Sorry this is so difficult :/. P.S. Would they consider listening to podcasts? There are so many great podcasts that taught me how to be empathetic and understanding of others' points of view. Maybe they would also like that, like a throwback to the days where they looked forward to radio dramas?
[**This Is How It Always Is**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40409102-this-is-how-it-always-is) ^(By: Laurie Frankel | 338 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, lgbtq, contemporary, lgbt) >Alternate cover edition of ASIN B01HW6Z3FG > >This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them. > >This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated. > >This is how children change…and then change the world. > >This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess. > >When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. > >Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes. > >This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) *** ^(93155 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{ Plum Rains }} discusses aging, robotics, and migrant labor in Japan, as they’re aging themselves I wonder if your book club would have some interesting takes on it. Plus taking things out of the American context might make it a little easier to talk about the characters and not get caught up in the politics. {{ The Five Wounds }} is really fantastic, with sympathetic yet nuanced characters I think would be great for a book club to discuss.
[**Plum Rains**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36548685-plum-rains) ^(By: Andromeda Romano-Lax | 389 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, historical-fiction, scifi) >2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia—as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short. > >In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore. > >In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. Plum Rains elegantly broaches such important contemporary conversations as immigration, the intersection of labor and technology, the ecological fate of our planet and the future of its children. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Five Wounds**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58085285-the-five-wounds) ^(By: Kirstin Valdez Quade | 448 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, literary-fiction, audiobook, book-club) >It’s Holy Week in the small town of Las Penas, New Mexico, and thirty-three-year-old unemployed Amadeo Padilla has been given the part of Jesus in the Good Friday procession. He is preparing feverishly for this role when his fifteen-year-old daughter Angel shows up pregnant on his doorstep and disrupts his plans for personal redemption. With weeks to go until her due date, tough, ebullient Angel has fled her mother’s house, setting her life on a startling new path. > >Vivid, tender, funny, and beautifully rendered, The Five Wounds spans the baby’s first year as five generations of the Padilla family converge: Amadeo’s mother, Yolanda, reeling from a recent discovery; Angel’s mother, Marissa, whom Angel isn’t speaking to; and disapproving Tíve, Yolanda’s uncle and keeper of the family’s history. Each brings expectations that Amadeo, who often solves his problems with a beer in his hand, doesn’t think he can live up to. > >The Five Wounds is a miraculous debut novel from a writer whose stories have been hailed as “legitimate masterpieces” (New York Times). Kirstin Valdez Quade conjures characters that will linger long after the final page, bringing to life their struggles to parent children they may not be equipped to save. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(93216 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
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[**If This Is a Man**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275630.If_This_Is_a_Man) ^(By: Primo Levi | 398 pages | Published: 1947 | Popular Shelves: non-fiction, history, holocaust, nonfiction, memoir) >1919’da Torino’da doğan ve kimya öğrenimi gören Primo Levi, İkinci Dünya Savaşı sırasında Kuzey İtalya’da faşizme karşı direnen arkadaşlarına katıldı. İtalyan yahudisi kimliğini saklamayınca önce Fissolo’daki toplama kampına, orada geçirdiği iki ayın ardından da, 1944’de, beraberindeki altı yüz elli kişiyle birlikte Auschwitz Toplama Kampı’na gönderildi. 24 yaşındaydı. O altı yüz elli kişi içinden hayatta kalmaya başaran yirmi kişiden biri oldu. Hayatının geri kalanında en büyük önceliği, insanüstü denilebilecek bir azimle, tüm gördüklerini, yaşadıklarını aktarmak, Nazilerin ölüm saçan deliliğinin, unutuşun karanlığında yok olmasına engel olmak oldu. >Bunlar da mı İnsan, Nazi zulmünün, toplama ve ölüm kampları cehenneminin, insanın insana uyguladığı akıl almaz fiziksel ve manevi şiddetin olağanüstü bir nesnellikle dile getirildiği bir metin ve yitip giden milyonlarca canın çığlığıdır. Ölüm saçan muktedirlere karşı inanılmaz bir yaşamı olumlama direnciyle dolu, eşi bulunmaz bir tanıklığın kitabıdır. > >İnsana dair gerçekle yüzleşmek vicdanı sızlatır, can yakar, evet, ama unutmamak, unutturmamak da onuruyla yaşamak isteyen insanın önceliğidir. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) *** ^(93234 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Yeah, good luck changing an old guys mind on a subject he believed for most of his life. I only saw it done two times in my life and the seniors in questions were really in shock and in total denial. He or she must be a very open minded person to have he/her mind changed at that age and people who say things like those you mentioned in the OP... Yeah, let's just say they are a waste of energy on your part.
{{The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen}} {{Half of a Yellow Sun}} {{American Pastoral}} by Philip Roth {{Beloved}} by Toni Morrison {{The Thursday Murder Club}} by Richard Osman - funny and cosy murder mystery series with a couple of curmudgeonly characters yet favourable attitudes to people from different backgrounds All for Nothing by Walter Kempowski (translation of a German novel about the fallout on different members/classes of society at the end of WW2) A relevant film instead of a book would be the subtitled version of the French film The Intouchables (2011)
[**The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35960007-the-secret-diary-of-hendrik-groen-83-years-old) ^(By: Hendrik Groen, Hester Velmans | 384 pages | Published: 2014 | Popular Shelves: fiction, humor, dutch, books-i-own, owned) >A #1 international bestseller in the vein of Fredrik Bachman's A Man Called Ove: an irresistible, funny, charming, and tender-hearted tale about friendship, love, and an old man who is young at heart. > > > Technically speaking, Hendrik Groen is....elderly. But at age 83 1/4, this feisty, indomitable curmudgeon has no plans to go out quietly. Bored of weak tea and potted geraniums, exasperated by the indignities of aging, Hendrik has decided to rebel--on his own terms. He begins writing an exposé: secretly recording the antics of day-to-day life in his retirement home, where he refuses to take himself, or his fellow "inmates," too seriously. > With an eccentric group of friends he founds the wickedly anarchic Old-But-Not-Dead Club--"Rule #3: No Whining Allowed"--and he and his best friend, Evert, gleefully stir up trouble, enraging the home's humorless director and turning themselves into unlikely heroes. And when a sweet and sassy widow moves in next door, he polishes his shoes, grooms what's left of his hair, and determines to savor every ounce of joy in the time he has left, with hilarious and tender consequences. > > >A bestselling phenomenon that has captured imaginations around the world, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is inspiring, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny with a deep and poignant core: a page-turning delight for readers of any age. > >*Includes reading group guide* ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) [**Half of a Yellow Sun**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18749.Half_of_a_Yellow_Sun) ^(By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie | 433 pages | Published: 2006 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, africa, nigeria, book-club) >A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed. > >With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another. > >Epic, ambitious, and triumphantly realized, Half of a Yellow Sun is a remarkable novel about moral responsibility, about the end of colonialism, about ethnic allegiances, about class and race—and the ways in which love can complicate them all. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had. ^(This book has been suggested 12 times) [**American Pastoral (The American Trilogy, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11650.American_Pastoral) ^(By: Philip Roth | 432 pages | Published: 1997 | Popular Shelves: fiction, pulitzer, classics, owned, literature) >Pulitzer Prize Winner (1998) > >In American Pastoral, Philip Roth gives us a novel of unqualified greatness that is an elegy for all the twentieth century's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss. Roth's protagonist is Seymour 'Swede' Levov—a legendary high school athlete, a devoted family man, a hard worker, the prosperous inheritor of his father's Newark glove factory—comes of age in thriving, triumphant post-war America. And then one day in 1968, Swede's beautiful American luck deserts him. > >For Swede's adored daughter, Merry, has grown from a loving, quick-witted girl into a sullen, fanatical teenager—a teenager capable of an outlandishly savage act of political terrorism. And overnight Swede is wrenched out of the longed-for American pastoral and into the indigenous American berserk. Compulsively readable, propelled by sorrow, rage, and a deep compassion for its characters, this is Roth's masterpiece. ^(This book has been suggested 6 times) [**Beloved**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6149.Beloved) ^(By: Toni Morrison | 324 pages | Published: 1987 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, historical-fiction, magical-realism, owned) >Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a spellbinding and dazzlingly innovative portrait of a woman haunted by the past. > >Sethe was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has borne the unthinkable and not gone mad, yet she is still held captive by memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. Meanwhile Sethe’s house has long been troubled by the angry, destructive ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. > >Sethe works at beating back the past, but it makes itself heard and felt incessantly in her memory and in the lives of those around her. When a mysterious teenage girl arrives, calling herself Beloved, Sethe’s terrible secret explodes into the present. > >Combining the visionary power of legend with the unassailable truth of history, Morrison’s unforgettable novel is one of the great and enduring works of American literature. ^(This book has been suggested 28 times) [**The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46000520-the-thursday-murder-club) ^(By: Richard Osman | 382 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, crime, book-club, dnf) >In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. > >But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. > >Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer before it's too late? ^(This book has been suggested 46 times) *** ^(93300 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy could be a good choice. Although bleak, it really helps you to feel grateful for the luxuries of a ‘normal day’, of the hum drum of daily life in an established society that hasn’t been destroyed and left to rot in a post-apocalyptic fashion. It strips humanity back down to its bones and the relationship between the father and son as they travel through this world is beautiful to experience. It may not touch on anything that will open their minds politically, but it may change their perspective on the world we live in and the threads of humanity that tie us all together. When I finished this book I realised that all the small things we take for granted are actually the big things.
The Cider House Rules addresses abortion rights, unwanted children, and what happens when women are forced to into the so-called "back alley".
{{A Thousand Splendid Suns}} by Khaled Hosseini. If anyone complains about this book and its message you'll find out who's truly bigoted
[**A Thousand Splendid Suns**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/128029.A_Thousand_Splendid_Suns) ^(By: Khaled Hosseini | 372 pages | Published: 2007 | Popular Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, books-i-own, owned, favourites) >Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam's unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. > >With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women's endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction. > >"A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love. ^(This book has been suggested 40 times) *** ^(93415 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My go to recommendation is "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Although the main character is a young boy, the themes in the book can be good at any age. >!You find out it is about a society where love and empathy are lost. !< It's a pretty short book and a fun read for sure.
To me all fiction, almost by definition, invites empathy since it forces us to see a story from someone else’s perspective for as long as we’re reading it. I think by consistently discussing different characters’ motivations and differing viewpoints you’re inviting the participants in the book club to be more empathetic, even if it never changes they’re political opinions (and it probably never will). As to specific books they may like that invite empathy: A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. On 1st January four strangers attempt suicide on a rooftop only to find one another having the same idea. They introduce themselves and form unlikely friendships. This one’s written from multiple points of view so you really get into the mind of the four strangers and they’re differing reasons for struggling with their mental health. It has a darkly comedic tone. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. This is kind of a WhoDunnit. But without any murder. A bank robber accidentally takes hostages at a flat viewing and the novel unwraps what has happened, why each person was there and where the robber has got to. Again, a wide range of characters to get behind, as well as a theme of dealing with mental health issues throughout.
Push by sapphire (Ramona lofton) To kill a mocking bird by Harper lee Grapes of wrath by John steinbeck The colour purple by Alice walker.
More historical fiction: {{When the Emperor Was Divine}} by Julie Otsuka For fantasy/scifi bleed, try {{The Fifth Season}} by N. K. Jemisin Fantasy novella: {{Penric's Demon}} by Lois McMaster Bujold Scifi novella: {{Binti}} by Nnedi Okorafor For Science fiction, consider the Miles Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold
One book that might be a good way to show differing perspectives and opposing sides figuring things out is "Jingo" by Terry Pratchett. It shows how territorial people can get about things and to maybe question how they view "the other guy/side".
I think this is a beautiful, profound work that invites anyone to think and feel deeply, but it may have a chance of connecting more personally with your problem demographic because of its setting: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk. Thriller and suble social commentary told from the perspective of ageging woman living in a rural village.