For book clubs seeking stories of reinvention…

Free Love by Tessa Hadley

It’s 1967. While London comes alive with the new youth revolution, the suburban Fischer family seems to belong to an older world of conventional stability: pretty, dutiful homemaker Phyllis is married to Roger, a devoted father with a career in the Foreign Office.

But when the twenty-something son of an old friend pays the Fischers a visit one hot summer evening, and kisses Phyllis in the dark garden after dinner, something in her catches fire. Newly awake to the world, Phyllis makes a choice that defies all expectations of her as a wife and a mother. Read our review

For book clubs enjoying translated fiction…

Strangers I Know by Claudia Durastanti (translated by Elizabeth Harris)

Every family has its own mythology, but in this family none of the myths match up. Claudia’s mother says she met her husband when she stopped him from jumping off a bridge. Her father says it happened when he saved her from an attempted robbery. Both parents are deaf but couldn’t be more different. Into this unlikely union, our narrator is born. She comes of age with her brother in this strange, and increasingly estranged, household split between a village in southern Italy and New York City.

For book clubs interested in what is left unsaid…

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au

A young woman accompanies her mother on a holiday in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafés and restaurants and walk along the canals at night.

All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? Read our review

For book clubs exploring contemporary social issues…

The Cost of Labour by Natalie Kon-Yu

Natalie Kon-yu was nine weeks pregnant when the trembling began. Two weeks later she checked herself into a mental health unit. Rather than a woman with a health concern, the GPs, nurses and psychiatrists saw Natalie as a vessel carrying precious cargo.

The loss of agency carried on through her pregnancy, childbirth and early years as a mother. Natalie discovered that she was far from alone. In fact, her experience typifies the harsh inequalities that weigh heavily on child-bearing women. Read our review

For book clubs ready for a glittery thriller…

Real Easy by Marie Rutkoski

It’s 1999, and Samantha has danced for years at the Lovely Lady strip club. She’s not used to taking anyone under her wing. But when Samantha overrides her better judgment to drive a new dancer home, they are run off the road. The police arrive at the scene of the accident - but find only one body.

Georgia, another dancer, is drawn into the investigation as she tries to assist Holly, a detective with a complicated story of her own. As they get closer to the truth they must each confront a fundamental question: How do women live their lives knowing that men can hurt them?

For book clubs interested in the forces & choices that shape us…

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Eleanor Bennett won’t let her own death get in the way of the truth. So when her estranged children - Byron and Benny - reunite for her funeral in California, they discover a puzzling inheritance. First, a voice recording in which everything Byron and Benny ever knew about their family is upended.

Second, a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe with a long history that Eleanor hopes will heal the wounds of the past. Read our review

For book clubs interested in who controls history…

Making Australian History by Anna Clark

Each piece of history has a message and context that depends on who wrote it and when. History isn’t just about understanding what happened and why. It also reflects the persuasions, politics and prejudices of its authors.

Making Australian History is bold and inclusive: it catalogues and contextualises changing readings of the past, it examines the increasingly problematic role of historians as national storytellers, and it incorporates the stories of people. Read our review

For book clubs wanting though-provoking short fiction from a master of the written word…

Recitatif by Toni Morrison

Meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other’s throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.