Book Club titles by theme 2020

Designed by Davidzydd / Freepik

To help you select titles for your reading year
each title has been allocated themes.

Alternative Love / Romance
Biographical fiction Mainstream
Classic Memoir / Biography
Coming of age Politics
Contemporary Psychological
Domestic / Family / Marriage Short stories
Fantasy Science fiction / Dystopia
Gothic Social and cultural issues
Historical Thriller / Mystery / Suspense
Humour / Quirky Travel
Indigenous True crime
Magical realism War
Literary Youth

HISTORICAL

All that I am by Anna Funder
All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr
The aunt’s house by Elizabeth Stead
Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie
Barbed wire and cherry blossoms by Anita Heiss
The blood of flowers by Anita Amirrezvan
Bridget Crack by Rachel Leary
Burial rites by Hannah Kent
Button man by Andrew Gross
Circe by Madeline Miller
Cold sassy tree by Olive Ann Burns
Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan
The dig tree by Sarah Murgatroyd
The dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Euphoria by Lily King
A few right thinking men by Sulari Gentil
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
A gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
Ghost empire by Richard Fidler
The golden age by Joan London
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

& Annie Barrows
Half of the human race by Anthony Quinn
The hare with amber eyes by Edmund de Waal
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
An imaginary life by David Malouf
In falling snow by Mary-Rose MacColl
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

HISTORICAL

Landfalls by Naomi J Williams
The last painting of Sarah de Vos by Dominic Smith
The last runaway by Tracy Chevalier
The library book by Susan Orlean
The light between oceans by M L Steadman
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Sanders
The miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
The nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The orchardist by Amanda Coplin
The Paris wife by Paula McLain
The pearler’s wife by Roxane Dhand
A reliable wife by Robert Goolrick
Sarah’s key by Tatiana de Rosnay
The secrets we kept by Lara Prescott
The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carre
Tangerine by Christinr Mangan
The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The underground railroad by Colson Whitehead
The vanishing act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
The various flavours of coffee by Anthony Capella
When the doves disappeared by Sofi Oksanen
Year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks
The zookeeper’s wife by Diane Acherman

HUMOUR/QUIRKY

The book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper
Boy swallows universe by Trent Dalton
Cold sassy tree by Olive Ann Burns
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
The elegance of the hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Fall girl by Toni Jordan
French exit by Patrick deWitt
Good Muslim boy by Osamah Sami
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

& Annie Barrows
The happiest refugee by Ahn Do
I have a bed made of buttermilk pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty
The improbability of love by Hannah Rothschild
Lost and found by Brook Davis
Love in a cold climate by Nancy Mitford
Love in small letters by Francesc Miralles
A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The marriage bureau for rich people by Farahad Zama
My sister, the serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Paradise Lodge by Nina Stubbe
Three graves full by Jamie Mason
The uncommon reader by Alan Bennett
The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow by A J Mackinnon
A walk in the woods by Bill Bryson
We are all made of glue by Marina Lewycka

MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

The amazing Mrs Livesey by Freda Marnie Nicholls
Any ordinary day by Leigh Sales
Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Butterfly on a pin by Alannah Hill
Danger music by Eddie Ayers
Dreams from my father by Barack Obama
Driving over lemons by Chris Stewart
Educated by Tara Westover
The erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
Flesh wounds by Richard Glover
The glass castle by Jeanette Walls
Good Muslim boy by Osamah Sami
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
The happiest refugee by Ahn Do
Hazel : my mother’s story by Sue Pieters-Hawke
Head over heels by Sam and Jenny Bailey
Hunger by Roxane Gay
I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou
The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Sloot
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The invisible woman by Claire Tomlin
Kitchen confidential by Anthony Bordain
Life is so good by George Dawson & Richard Glaubman
Listening to country by Ros Moriarty
The lost child by Martin Sixsmith
Mountains beyond mountains by Tracy Kidder
My Salinger year by Joanna Rakoff
No friend but the mountains by Behrouz Boochani
One hundred years of dirt by Rick Morton

MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

Only in New York by Caroline Overington
Rather his own man by Geoffrey Robertson
Reckoning by Magda Szubanski
The shark net by Robert Drewe
The shepherd’s life by James Rebanks
The skeleton cupboard by Tanya Bryon
Teacher by Gabbie Stroud
The trauma cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
Unpolished gem by Alice Pung
When breath becomes air by Paul Kalanthi
Without reservations by Alice Steinbach
Year of magical thinking by Joan Didion

MAGICAL REALISM

Exit west by Mohsin Hamid
Like water for chocolate by Laura Esquivel
The shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron

FANTASY

Circe by Madeline Miller
The first fifteen lives of Harry August
I have a bed made of buttermilk pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty
The ocean at the end of the land by Neil Gaiman

ALTERNATIVE

Life after life by Kate Atkinson
Tigerman by Nick Harkaway

LITERARY FICTION

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by Elif Shafak
The age of innocence by Edith Wharton
All that I am by Anna Funder
All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr
The amateur marriage by Anne Tyler
An American marriage by Tayari Jones
Americanah by Chimamanda Ggozi Adichie
Black rock white city by A S Patric
The blackwater lightship by Colm Toibin
The boat by Nam Lee
Brideshead revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Burial rites by Hannah Kent
Circe by Madeline Miller
Claire of the sea light by Edwidge Danticat
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
A constellation of vital phenomena by Anthony Marra
Did you ever have a family by Bill Clegg
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Exit west by Moshin Hamid
The eye of the sheep by Sofie Laguna
Fates and furies by Lauren Groff
A gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
The golden age by Joan London
The handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood
Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
History of the rain by Niall Williams
Home fire by Kamila Shamsie
Idaho by Emily Ruskovic

LITERARY FICTION

The idea of perfection by Kate Grenville
An imaginary life by David Malouf
Journey to the stone country by Alex Miller
Life after life by Kate Atkinson
Like water for chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Lincoln in the bardo by George Sanders
A little life by Hanya Yanagihara
The lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
The memory of love by Aminatta Forna
The memory of salt by Alice Melike Ulgezer
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
No country for old men by Cormac McCarthy
Normal people by Sally Rooney
On beauty by Zadie Smith
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The only story by Julian Barnes
Only the animals by Ceridwen Dovey
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The orchardist by Amanda Coplin
Our endless numbered days by Claire Fuller
Our souls at night by Kent Haruf
Out stealing horses by Per Pettersen
Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
The reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent
Room by Emma Donaghue
A room with a view by E M Forester
The shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The shipping news by Annie Proulx

LITERARY FICTION

The stone angel by Margaret Laurence
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Taboo by Kim Scott
The tea girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Theft by Peter Carey
The things they carried by Tim O’Brien
The travelling cat chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The underground railroad by Colson Whitehead
The wall by John Lanchester
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
We are completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
When all is said by Anne Griffin
When the night comes by Favel Parrett
Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens
The yellow house by Emily O’Grady
The yield by Tara June Winch

SHORT STORIES

The boat by Nam Lee
An elderly lady is up to no good by Helene Tursten
Foreign soil by Maxine Beneba-Clarke
Only the animals by Ceridwen Dovey
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
She knows how to look after herself by Michel Dignand
The things they carried by Tim o’Brien

CONTEMPORARY

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by Elif Shafak
An American marriage by Tayari Jones
Before I fall by Lauren Oliver
Black rock white city by A S Patric
The book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper
Book of lost threads by Tess Evans
Boy swallows universe by trent Dalton
The casual vacancy by J K Rowling
Claire of the sea light by Edwidge Danticat
The collected works of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon
The elegance of the hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
The happiness jar by Samantha Tidy
Home fire by Kamila Shamsie
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
A month of Sundays by Liz Byrski
My sister, the serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Normal people by Sally Rooney
Notes on a nervous planet by Matt Haig
The ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman
Siracusa by Delia Ephron
Small great things by Jodi Picoult
Tigerman by Nick Haraway
Utopia for realists by Rutger Bregman
Wearing paper dresses by Anne Brinsden
When all is said by Anne Griffin
The yellow house by Emily O’Grady

THRILLER / MYSTERY / SUSPENSE

Anatomy of a scandal by Sarah Vaughan
Burial rites by Hannah Kent
The butterfly man by Heather Rose
Button man by Andrew Gross
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon
Defending Jacob by William Landy
The dinner by Herman Koch
Drive your plow over the bones of the dead by Olga Tursten
The dry by Jane Harper
A few right thinking men by Sulari Gentil
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Gone girl by Gillian Flynn
Goodwood by Holly Throsby
Idaho by Emily Ruskovic
In her blood by Annie Hauxwell
The lake house by Kate Morton
Lullaby by Leila Slimani
Lunch with Mussolini by Derek Hanson
A malice of waves by Mark Douglas-Homes
Man in the corner by Nathan Besser
The midnight dress by Karen Foxlee
Miracle creek by Angie Kim
My sister, the serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
The natural way of things by Charlotte Wood
No country for old men by Cormac McCarthy
The other wife by Michael Robotham
Scrublands by Chris Hammer
The seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

THRILLER / MYSTERY / SUSPENSE

The shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The shark net by Robert Drewe
The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carer
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie by Alan Bradley
This sweet sickness by Patricia Highsmith
Three grave full by Jamie Mason
The vanishing act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
White crocodile by K T Medina

WAR STORIES

All that I am by Anna Funder
All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr
Barbed wire and cherry blossoms by Anita Heiss
A constellation of vital phenomena by Anthony Marra
Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan
The dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
Exit west by Mohsin Hamid
Half of the human race by Anthony Quinn
Hotel on the corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
In falling snow by Mary-Rose MacColl
The nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Sarah’s key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The things they carried by Tim O’Brien
When the doves disappeared by Sofi Oksanen
The zookeeper’s wife by Diane Ackerman

DOMESTIC / FAMILY

The amateur marriage by Anne Tyler
An American marriage by Tayari Jones
Between a wolf and a dog by Georgia Blain
The blackwater lightship by Colm Toibin
Burning down by Venero Aramanno
Button man by Andrew Gross
Clade by James Bradley
Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Commuters by Emily Gray Tredrowe
Currawalli Street by Christopher Morgan
Did you ever have a family by Bill Clegg
Fates and furies by Lauren Groff
Flesh wounds by Richard Glover
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The landing by Susan Johnson
Lost and found by Brooke Davis
The lost child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith
The lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
On beauty by Zadie Smith
Only in New York by Caroline Overington
The other side of the world by Stephanie Bishop
The place on Dalhousie by Melina Marchetta
The shipping news by Annie Proulx
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
The summer without men by Siri Hustvedt
Too much lip by Melissa Lucashenko
Unpolished gem by Alice Pung
We are completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

DOMESTIC / FAMILY

We are all made of glue by Marina Lewycka
Wearing paper dresses by Anne Brinsden
When the night comes by Favel Parrett
The wife by Meg Wolitzer
The world beneath by Cate Kennedy
The year of magical thinking by Joan Didion
The yellow house by Emily O’Grady
The yield by June Tara Winch

LOVE / ROMANCE

Delicious! By Ruth Reichl
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Fall girl by Toni Jordan
Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Guernsey and Literary Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

& Annie Barrows
Journey to the stone country by Alex Miller
Like water for chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Love in small letters by Francesc Miralles
The memory of salt by alice Melike Ulgezer
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Our souls at night by Kent Haruf
A room with a view by E M Forester
The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
The various flavours of coffee by Anthony Capella

MAINSTREAM / LIGHT

Barbed wire and cherry blossoms by Anita Heiss
Between a wolf and a dog by Georgia Blain
Book of lost threads by Tess Evans
The collected works of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Delicious! By Ruth Richel
The dry by Jane Harper
The enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
An elderly lady is up to no good by Helene Tursten
Gone girl by Gillian Flynn
Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet by Jamie Ford
The improbability of love by Hannah Rothschild
The innocents by Francesca Segal
The landing by Susan Johnson
Major Pettigrew’s last stand by Helen Simonson
A man called Ove by Fredrik Bachman
A month of Sundays by Liz Byrski
My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante
The other hand by Chris Cleave
The other wife by Michael Robothom
The pearler’s wife by Roxane Dhand
The place on Dalhousie by Melina Marchetta
The school of essential ingredients by Erica Bauermeister
Scrublands by Chris Hammer
The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Small great things by Jodi Piccoult
Wearing paper dresses by Anne Brinsden
The wife by Meg Wolitzer

PYSCHOLOGICAL

10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by ELif Shafak
Best boy by Eli Gottlieb
The dinner by Herman Koch
Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng
Gone girl by Gillian Flynn
Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum
I’m not scared by Niccolo Ammaniti
The language of flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
A little life by Hanya Yangihara
Man in the corner by Nathan Besser
One hundred years of dirt by Rick Morton
The only story by Julian Barnes
A reliable wife by Robert Goolrick
Room by Emma Donaghue
The skeleton cupboard by Tanya Bryon
Stoner by John Williams
Tangerine by Christine Mangan
This sweet sickness by Patricia Highsmith
The vanishing act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell
When all is said by Anne Griffin

INDIGENOUS

Dark emu by Bruce Pascoe
Listening to country by Ros Moriarty
Taboo by Kim Scott
Too much lip by Melissa Lucashenko
The yield by June Tara Winch

COMING-OF-AGE

Boy swallows universe by Trent Dalton
Goodwood by Holly Throsby
Great expectations by Charles Dickens
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
Our endless numbered days by Claire Fuller
Out stealing horses by Per Pettersen
Paradise Lodge by nina Stibbe
Peace like a river by Leif Enger
The shark ney by Robert Drewe
A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens

BIOGRAPHICAL FICTION

Ines of my soul by Isabel Allende
Lola Bensky by Lily Brett
My brother Jack by George Johnston
The Paris wife by Paula McLain
The secrets we kept by Lara Prescott
The tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris
White houses by Amy Bloom
The zookeeper’s wife by Diane Ackerman

POLITICS

Americanah by Chimamanda Ggozi Adichie
Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress by Dai Sijie
Home fire by Kamila Shamsie
No friend but the mountains by Behrouz Boochani
Utopia for realists by Rutger Bregman

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ISSUES

Any ordinary day by Leigh Sales
Best boy by Eli Gottlieb
Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Danger music by Eddie Ayers
The erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Half the human race by Anthony Quinn
Major Pettigrew’s last stand by Helen Simonson
A man called Ove by Fredrik Bachman
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Notes on a nervous planet by Matt Haig
The other hand by Chris Cleave
Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe
The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Small great things by Jodi Piccoult
The stone angel by Margaret Laurence
The tea girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See
Teacher by Gabbie Stroud
The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
White houses by Amy Bloom
Year of magical thinking by Joan Didion

TRUE CRIME

Joe Cinque’s consolation by Helen Garner
The library book by Susan Orlean

SCIENCE FICTION / DYSTOPIAN

The bees by Laline Paull
The children of men by P D James
Clade by James Bradley
The girl with all the gifts by M R Carey
The handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood
Station Eleven by Emily St John
The wall by John Lanchester

TRAVEL

Driving over lemons by Chris Stewart
Ghost empire by Richard Fidler
The unlikely voyage of Jack de Crow by A J Mackinnon
Violin lessons by Arnold Zable
A walk in the woods by Bill Bryson
Without reservations by Alice Steinbach

CLASSIC

The age of innocence by Edith Wharton
Brideshead revisited by Evelyn Waugh
The enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
Far from the madding crowd by Thomas Hardy
Great expectations by Charles Dickens
The spy who came in from the cold by John le Carre
Stoner by John Williams

YOUTH

All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr
Barbed wire and cherry blossoms by Anita Heiss
Before I fall by Lauren Oliver
Between the world and me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Boy swallows universe by Trent Dalton
Cold sassy tree by Olive Ann Burns
The curious incident of the dog in the nightime by Mark Haddon
Dark emu by Bruce Pascoe
The dig tree by Sarah Murgatroyd
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman
Everything I never told you by Celeste Ng
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The girl with all the gifts by M.R. Carey
Good Muslim boy by Osamah Sami
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer
The handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood
The happiest refugee by Ahn Do
Hunger by Roxane Gay
I have a bed made of buttermilk pancakes by Jaclyn Moriarty
I’m not scared by Niccola Ammaniti
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
The last runaway by Tracey Chevalier
Like water for chocolate by Laura Esquivel
A man called Ove by Frederick Backman

YOUTH

The midnight dress by Karen Foxlee
Paradise Lodge by Nina Stibbe
My Salinger year by Joanna Rakoff
The ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman
The other hand by Chris Cleave
The reader on the 6:27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent
A room with a view by E.M. Forster
The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Small great things by Jodi Piccoult
Station Eleven by Emily St. John
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie by Alan Bradley
A tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The uncommon reader by Alan Bennett
Unpolished gem by Alice Pung
Where the crawdads sing by Delia Owens
Year of wonders by Geraldine Brooks

rrl.nsw.gov.au/