Book Recommendations: Proceed with Caution?

Plus: Next Book Club Meeting!

I love novels. And I love book recommendations. They’ve led me to so many great stories that I’ve really admired. Few things are better than discussing a fascinating novel with others who also read and enjoyed it. That’s what made our first Book Club meeting last week so much fun (see more info below), and if you missed it hopefully you can join the next one.

But am I the only one who also feels book recommendations are fraught with peril?

The novels we like say so much about us - our interests, our worldview, our vulnerabilities, what entertains us, what moves us. I’m not sure there’s anything that can tell us about another person more quickly than perusing their Goodreads profile. And people who read regularly often take a lot of pride in the books they select, as they should.

So what if someone recommends a novel to you that they say really spoke to them, meant so much to them, and they can’t wait to talk about it with you? And then you read it and your reaction is…meh. Or worse. Can you tell them? Do you?

Troy Abernathy shares his concerns about this issue to Julia McGinnis in Open Bar (coming August 12):

I avoid book recommendations anyway. If you end up not liking the book, the person thinks you rejected them.

I still welcome book recommendations - please send them all my way! But they do often seem laced with danger.

And then there’s the issue of telling others about your book recommendations. I’m all for it. I even started a Substack full of recommended novels.

But these can sometimes be dicey too. For example, take All Fours, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago. I really appreciated and connected with this book. But other people I know told me they found it just too weird, and some couldn’t even finish it. Should I be concerned about what they think it says about me that I very much liked this novel that they found so strange and unappealing?

Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy on Unsplash

Ultimately I’m just going to be open and honest about what books I think are great, no matter the consequences. I’m not sure I can always say the same about books people recommend to me. These are issues I’m still navigating.

So does anyone else feel book recommendations are exciting but also at times dangerously stressful? No? Okay, maybe it is just me.

Next Book Club Selection

Thank you to everyone who attended our first Book Club meeting last week, and especially to author Jacqueline Friedland for a very interesting and lively discussion about her latest novel Counting Backwards, her writing process, and the real historical events that inspired this book!

Our next Book Club selection is North Woods by Daniel Mason, which is described as “A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.”

I haven’t read this one yet but have heard great things about it. I’m very much looking forward to diving in and discussing at our next meeting on Tuesday, June 17 at 8pm! Registration is open here.

I’m really excited about this growing reader/writer community we’re building, so feel free to attend even if you don’t have time to read the book before then, and of course please pass on the info to anyone else who might be interesting in attending!

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