12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks That Will Keep The Conversation Flowing

As the season transitions and the days grow shorter, there’s nothing quite like gathering with friends, sipping on hot beverages, and diving into a captivating book as part of a book club. Fall is the perfect time to cozy up with a thought-provoking read that sparks meaningful conversations and strengthens the bonds of your book club community.
 
From critically acclaimed bestsellers to hidden literary gems, these book club picks cater to a range of literary preferences, ensuring there’s something for every member to enjoy. With rich characters, page-turning plots, and thought-provoking ideas, these books will both entertain and engage your book club members.
 
And if you want to also see these stories brought to life, the last five of these Fall book club picks are also releasing on screen by the end of the year!
 

12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks

I’m Not Done with You Yet

by Jesse Q. Sutanto
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
A struggling midlist writer whose novels barely command four figures, Jane feels trapped in an underwhelming marriage, just scraping by to pay a crippling Bay Area mortgage for a house–a life–she’s never really wanted.
 
There’s only ever been one person she cared about, one person who truly understood her: Thalia. Jane’s best and only friend nearly a decade ago during their Creative Writing days at Oxford. It was the only good year of Jane’s life. . But then one blood-soaked night ruined everything and Thalia disappeared without a trace.
 
When she discovers a post from Thalia on her website about attending a book convention in New York City in a week–“Can’t wait to see you there!”–Jane can’t wait either. She’ll go to New York City, too, credit card bill be damned. And this time, she will do things right. Jane won’t lose Thalia again.
 
What To Talk About: Suspense is always a great choice to match the vibes of Fall. From the author of ‘Dial A for Aunties’, this new psychological thriller centered on a friendship will be great to dive into with your own friends.
 

Enchanted to Meet You

by Meg Cabot
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
In her teenage years, lovelorn Jessica Gold cast a spell that went disastrously wrong, and brought her all the wrong kind of attention—as well as a lifetime ban from the World Council of Witches. So no one is more surprised than Jess when, fifteen years later, tall, handsome WCW member Derrick Winters shows up in her quaint little village of West Harbor and claims that Jess is the Chosen One.
 
Not chosen by West Harbor’s snobby elite to style them for the town’s tricentennial ball—though Jess owns the chicest clothing boutique in town. And not chosen finally to be on the WCW, either—not that Jess would have said yes, anyway, since she’s done with any organization that tries to dictate what makes a “true” witch.
No, Jess has been chosen to help save West Harbor itself…
 
What To Talk About: A fun and witchy rom-com for October from the author of the Princess Diaries series.
 

Under the Influence

by Noelle Crooks
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Harper may not be familiar with self-help guru Charlotte Green, but her relentless optimism and charismatic can-do spirit has created a cult-like following of women across the country. When she selects Harper among thousands of other applicants in less than twenty-four hours, it’s obvious she sees something she likes. Despite the pressure to accept the offer just as quickly as she’s been given it, Harper decides to take a leap of faith and become the newest member of The Greenhouse.
 
Accepting the job means a move to Nashville, and Harper is quickly dazzled by the glamorous world Charlotte has built in Music City. The Greenhouse is more than a workplace—it’s a family—and Harper soon finds herself swept into its inner circle. At first, she loves working in such an inspirational environment, where mandatory dance parties, daily intentions, and group bonding activities make up for long hours and Charlotte’s persistent demands for loyalty. But the deeper Harper is pulled into Charlotte’s world, the more she realizes that having it all and being it all comes with a price.
 
What To Talk About: The dark side of being a #girlboss in this The Devil Wears Prada meets The Assistants debut novel.
 

The Secret History

by Donna Tartt
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.
What To Talk About: This might be THE classic Fall novel. It also introduced the Dark Academia aesthetic that numerous fans and authors have grown from it’s influence.
 

12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks

The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece

by Tom Hanks
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Part One of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for twenty-three years.
 
Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing underground comic books in Oakland, California, reconnects with his uncle and, remembering the comic book he saw when he was five, draws a new version with his uncle as a World War II fighting hero.
 
Cut to the present day: A commercially successful director discovers the 1970 comic book and decides to turn it into a contemporary superhero movie.
 
What To Talk About: Tom Hanks decides to try writing a novel. Does he do it well? And will the movie being developed as an adaptation be better or worse?
 

The Freedom Clause

by Hannah Sloane
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Dominic and Daphne met in their first week of college, and they’ve been happily married for three years. They love each other deeply but perhaps have become too comfortable, and their sex life isn’t what anyone would call thrilling. So, on New Year’s Day, Dominic blurts out a suggestion before it’s fully worked out in his mind: what if they open up their marriage? Daphne agrees–with conditions. They can sleep with one other person, one night a year, and the agreement has a five-year expiration date. It’s not a total free-for-all on their vows, but an amendment. They call it the Freedom Clause.
 
It isn’t long before Daphne and Dominic find themselves–and their marriage–altered in unexpected ways. Embracing the spirit of the Clause, Daphne pushes herself to be more assertive in asking for what she wants. She begins chronicling her journey of self-discovery in an anonymous newsletter, sharing recipes inspired by her conquests, and soon realizes that one night off a year isn’t a small change…it’s a seismic one.
 
What To Talk About: Could one night off a year save a marriage–or destroy it? Romance isn’t always sweet and sappy, diving into the messiness can always lead to interesting conversations.
 

The Hurricane Blonde

by Halley Sutton
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Hollywood is a sickness. Few people understand this better than Salma Lowe, progeny of Hollywood royalty and a former child-star turned guide of the Stars Six Feet Under tour bus. Her own sister, Tawney, dubbed the “Hurricane Blonde” for her off-camera antics, was murdered in the mid-’90s, and the case remains unsolved. Salma herself has sworn off acting and just hopes to stay out of trouble…until a real dead body is discovered on her tour, on the property where her sister once lived.
 
Salma soon realizes something uncanny: it’s not just that this woman is dead at her sister’s address—she also looks just like her, and is wearing Tawney’s distinctive hair clip. But the search for the truth will take her deep into the rot of Hollywood past and present, into her family’s own long-buried and terrible secrets.
 
What To Talk About: A nepo-baby noir mystery that dives into the seedy side of what Hollywood families will do to protect themselves, and the kids who have to grow up and live with it.
 

12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks

Upcoming Adaptations

Lessons in Chemistry

by Bonnie Garmus
Release Info: The limited series starts airing October 13th on AppleTV+, with weekly episode drops.
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
 
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
 
What To Talk About: This book has spent over a year on the New York Times Best-Seller list. Do you think Brie Larson and Lewis Pullman are good casting choices?
For even more information on the adaptation check out this blog post.
 

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

by Suzanne Collins
Release Info: The movie releases in theaters November 17th.
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capital, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.
 
The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined — every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute… and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.
 
What To Talk About: Does the prequel live up to the rest of the Hunger Games trilogy.
 

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

by David Grann
Release Info: The movie will be released in theaters of October 20th
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
 
Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.
 
As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations.
 
What To Talk About: This is based on a true story in American history.
For even more information on the adaptation check out this blog post.
 

All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr
Release Info: The limited series is scheduled for all 4 episodes to be released November 2nd on Netflix.
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
 
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance.
 
What To Talk About: This book won a Pulitzer Prize! The series specifically searched for a limited-vision/blind actress to play the lead.
For even more information on the adaptation check out this blog post.
 

The Marsh King’s Daughter

by Karen Dionne
Release Info: The film will be released in theaters on October 6th
bookshop.org // Amazon // Audiobook
Helena Pelletier has a loving husband, two beautiful daughters, and a business that fills her days. But she also has a secret: she is the product of an abduction. Her mother was kidnapped as a teenager by her father and kept in a remote cabin in the marshlands of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Helena, born two years after the abduction, loved her home in nature, and despite her father’s sometimes brutal behavior, she loved him, too…until she learned precisely how savage he could be.
 
More than twenty years later, she has buried her past so soundly that even her husband doesn’t know the truth. But now her father has killed two guards, escaped from prison, and disappeared into the marsh.
 
What To Talk About: Familial relationships always have their own extra layers.
Daisy Ridley is playing the lead in this movie.
For even more information on the adaptation check out this blog post.
 

Happy Reading!!
~Alison

12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks That Will Keep The Conversation Flowing

 
Hi there! I’m Alison in Libraryland, and I’ll be here for all your book related needs. Many of you know me as the girl with the book recommendations. Don’t be shy! Ask me! If you’re looking for a good book or movie adaptation, let me help you find it. I’ll be here for all your literary needs. This is a book blog run on an obsession for shiny new books worn-through old classics, just like these 12 Intriguing Fall Book Club Picks That Will Keep The Conversation Flowing