Today’s topic for Faith ‘n’ Fiction Saturday — a day set aside each week to examine the intersection of faith and fiction — is book club picks for a Christian (fiction) book club:
Finding good books for book club can be really difficult. Generally, you want a book that raises questions so that you have something to discuss. Christian fiction often provides discussion questions (even in romance novels!) but I’m not always sure the books themselves have that much to discuss. Today I thought it would be fun if we compiled a list of books that would make good book club books for Christian book clubs. Since this is faith and FICTION Saturday, I’m asking you to keep your answers to works of fiction. The books, however, do not need to be published by a Christian publishing house, but they should have some elements that would make them appealing to Christian book groups to discuss.
I’ve never been in such a book club (actually, I’ve never been a member of any book club), but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to be.
Using the filter of when-I read-this-I-really-wanted-to-talk-about-it-with-someone-like-minded, I’d recommend:
• Silence by Shusaku Endo definitely fits the bill (as My Friend Amy suggested).
• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Others that broach good topics for discussion:
• Francine Rivers’ The Scarlet Thread, The Last Sin Eater
• Julie Lessman’s Daughters of Boston series (I had a great discussion with a friend about some of the characters in these books)
• Robert Morgan’s The Truest Pleasure
• Most any of Penelope Stokes’ books (Well, I wouldn’t recommend her historical fiction for this purpose, but other than that, yes.) — The Amber Photograph may be my favorite
Most of these books are on the Image Journal Top 100 list. It’s comprised of creative writing published in the 20th century that “manifest(s) a genuine engagement with the Judeo-Christian heritage of faith.”
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Our book club just discussed The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom last Sautrday. In three years of book club, I think this was the best discussion. We have also had great discussion with Lynn Austin’s novels, Stephanie Whitson, Deb Raney, Nancy Moser, and Rene Gutteridge. Our upcoming selections are In His Steps, Saving Cicadas, and Leaving Yesterday. Once a year we discuss a non-fiction. This year everyone can choose between Blue Like Jazz and Crazy Love.