A glass of wine in one hand, a dog-eared, spine-bent book in the other – this can only mean one thing. It’s another fun book club meeting with the girls! Check out these five books that are sure to spark some lively discussion among your literary group.

 

 

Publication date: July 24, 2012

Available soon, this is the sixth book from the author of chick lit favourites Something Borrowed and Something Blue. In her latest book, Giffin tells the story of 36-year-old Marian Caldwell who, with a fabulous career and great relationship, is living life exactly how she wants—until 18-year-old Kirby Rose shows up, shaking up Marian’s world and causing memories she had buried of a love affair from long ago to resurface. If your book club has taken a break for the summer, this is the perfect read to take with you to the beach. Once you reconvene in the fall, you and your gal pals will want to pore over every detail of this captivating story about the intertwinement–and unravelling–of two women’s lives.

 

 

Publication date: February 2, 2010

Meet Henrietta Lacks—the real-life African-American woman whose cancerous tumour cells were taken from her, unsuspectingly, and then cultured to create an immortal cell line for medical research. To date, HeLa cells (get it?) have played an essential role in numerous scientific discoveries, including developing the polio vaccine and uncovering secrets of cancer, as well as helping lead to scientific advances such as in vitro fertilization and cloning. Yet no one knew anything about Lacks until now. Skloot used interviews, medical records, and legal documents to recreate, as accurately as possible, a portrait of who Lacks was. The result is a dramatic and riveting tale of one woman’s life and the incredible legacy she unknowingly left behind. This is a work of non-fiction that you’ll find hard to put down, and that you won’t be able to stop mulling over.

 

 

Publication date: April 3, 2012

Move over Twilight and Hunger Games, Fifty Shades is the trilogy that’s got book clubs talking these days! In the first novel of James’ erotic fiction trifecta, we meet the innocent and inexperienced Anastasia Steele who is drawn to the beautiful and brilliant Christian Grey. Filled with intrigue, suspense, and (of course) the requisite sex scenes, this steamy read is sure to be a wickedly fun topic of discussion for a night in with your girlfriends. And, if it happens to leave you hot and bothered by the time you head home, we have no doubt your man will be happy you joined a reading group.

Publication date: February 10, 2009

Though the characters are fictitious, this story is set during a factual historical period—the African-American civil rights movement. It’s 1962, and Aibileen and Minny are two black women employed as maids by white socialites. As was typically the fashion in the Deep South at this time, not only were the maids responsible for the upkeep of the house, they tended to be the ones who reared their employers’ children, from infancy through to young adulthood, thereby often causing these young charges to develop a tight-knit bond to their caregivers. Such is the case for young, ambitious, and privileged Skeeter who anonymously pens a tell-all book in which Aibileen, Minny and other black maids share their personal accounts (also anonymously) of what it’s like working for the well-to-do (and often ungrateful) white folk. If your group hasn’t read this best-selling novel, it’s about time you did.

 

 

Publication date: February 14, 2012

Poppy Wyatt has lost not only her engagement ring (gasp!), but also her mobile phone (double gasp!). Poppy winds up finding someone else’s phone and decides to use it as her own–except now she keeps receiving calls and texts from the owner who rightfully wants his phone back. In the meantime, rather than fess up to what’s happened, Poppy continues to go about planning her wedding, all the while trying to keep her left hand out of sight from her fiancé and future in-laws. Kinsella, creator of the lovable and fiscally-challenged character Becky Bloomwood from the Shopaholic series, brings us yet another light-hearted read with an endearing protagonist who has us rooting for her until the very end. Our predictions on what your group will think of this book? U’LL LUV IT!