Posts Tagged ‘GMA Book Club’

Our Standout Book Club Picks (You Don’t Wanna Miss)

May 2nd, 2023

Reese, Jenna, GMA, Oprah—You get a book club, and you get a book club! In a sea of new reading recommendations, it can be overwhelming to find your next best pick. To help make choosing a little bit easier, we’ve rounded up some standout fiction and nonfiction picks so you can spend more time reading and less time searching. From electrifying dystopian thrillers to laugh-out-loud comedies, there’s something for everyone to add to their #TBRList!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Today’s #ReadwithJenna Book Club)  

“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale . . . Shockingly intimate and moving.” –Ron Charles, Washington Post 

Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black.  

Get an inside look | Buy the book


Tiny Beautiful Things Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (Reese’s Book Club) 

“A fascinating blend of memoir and self-help. Strayed is an eloquent storyteller, and her clear-eyed prose offers a bracing empathy absent from most self-help blather.” —Nora Krug, The Washington Post  

For more than a decade, thousands of people have sought advice from Dear Sugar—the pseudonym of bestselling author Cheryl Strayed—first through her online column at The Rumpus, later through her hit podcast, Dear Sugars, and now through her popular Substack newsletter. Tiny Beautiful Things collects the best of Dear Sugar in one volume, bringing her wisdom to many more readers. This tenth-anniversary edition features six new columns and a new preface by Strayed. Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way. 

Finished reading the book? Tiny Beautiful Things is now a Hulu series! 

 Read an excerpt | Buy the book


Klara and the Sun

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro (GMA Book Club)  

One of the most affecting and profound novels Ishiguro has written . . . A masterpiece that will make you think about life, mortality, the saving grace of love: in short, all of it.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR 

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love? 

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


Nightcrawling

Nightcrawling by Leila Mottley (Oprah’s Book Club) 

“Astonishing . . . Nightcrawling heralds a bold new voice in fiction.” —Associated Press 

A dazzling novel about a young Black woman who walks the streets of Oakland and stumbles headlong into the failure of its justice system. Rich with raw beauty, electrifying intensity, and piercing vulnerability, Nightcrawling marks the stunning arrival of a voice unlike any we have heard before.

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book

 


A Burning

A Burning by Megha Majumdar (Today’s #ReadwithJenna Book Club)  

“A story you’ll want to read in just one sitting . . . A thrilling and complex tale.” —CNN 

This National Bestseller follows three unforgettable characters who seek to riseto the middle class, to political power, to fame in the moviesand find their lives entangled in the wake of a catastrophe in contemporary India. Taut, symphonic, propulsive, and riveting from its opening lines, A Burning is an electrifying debut. 

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book

 


The Marriage Portrait

The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (Reese’s Book Club) 

“[O’Farrell] has spun pure gold out of this tragic history.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune 

The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court. Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival. 

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book

 


Lessons in Chemistry

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (GMA Book Club Pick) 

“Strikingly relevant . . . Darkly funny and poignant . . . Lessons in Chemistry’s excellent experiment [is] quirky and heartwarming.”—The Atlantic 

Meet Elizabeth Zott: a talented and self-assured chemist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show. Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist. 

Finished reading the book? Lessons in Chemistry is soon to be an Apple TV+ series!  

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Oprah’s Book Club) 

“Whitehead’s best work and an important American novel.” —The Boston Globe 

This Pulitzer Prize–winning novel chronicles a young slave’s adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman’s will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. 

Finished reading the book? Watch The Underground Railroad as a limited series on Amazon Prime Video!  

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


Beautiful Country

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang (Today’s #ReadwithJenna Book Club) 

“Incredibly important, exquisitely written, harrowing . . . Timely, yes, but more importantly it is a near-masterpiece that will make Qian Julie Wang a literary star.”—Shondaland 

The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world—an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent. Inhabiting her childhood perspective with exquisite lyric clarity and unforgettable charm and strength, Qian Julie Wang has penned an essential American story about a family fracturing under the weight of invisibility, and a girl coming of age in the shadows, who never stops seeking the light. 

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


The Secrets We Kept

The Secrets We Kept by Laura Prescott (Reese’s Book Club) 

“A gorgeous and romantic feast of a novel anchored by a cast of indelible secretaries.” —The New York Times 

A thrilling tale of secretaries turned spies, of love and duty, and of sacrifice—inspired by the true story of the CIA plot to infiltrate the hearts and minds of Soviet Russia, not with propaganda, but with the greatest love story of the twentieth century. Told with soaring emotional intensity and captivating historical detail, this is an unforgettable debut: a celebration of the powerful belief that a work of art can change the world.  

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


The Violin Conspiracy

The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb (GMA Book Club) 

“Such a page-turner . . . a musical bildungsroman cleverly contained within a literary thriller.”—The New York Times 

Ray McMillian is a Black classical musician on the rise—undeterred by the pressure and prejudice of the classical music world—when a shocking theft sends him on a desperate quest to recover his great-great-grandfather’s heirloom violin on the eve of the most prestigious musical competition in the world. Deeply fascinating and exhilarating, The Violin Conspiracy is an underdog tale that explores both the beautiful and the darkness of the classical music world.  

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book


Hidden Valley Road

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker (Oprah’s Book Club) 

“A feat of empathy and narrative journalism.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times 

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science’s great hope in the quest to understand the disease. With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family’s unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope. 

Read an excerpt | Get the reader’s guide | Buy the book