The DEN's Dozen
As we score our books it is very easy for us to pick out and recommend The Den's Dozen. This could be a good starting point for your book club as these are all superb reads and much loved in book clubs.
- for people who love books -
EDUCATED
By Tara Westover
An astonishing and wonderful memoir from Tara Westover about growing up in a strict Mormon family in rural Idaho before discovering the power of education.
A remarkable story
380 pages
MADAME BOVARY
By Gustave Flaubert
If you are looking for a classic read, this could be the time to try or re-visit Madame Bovary. And discover an original desperate housewife. Flaubert gets under the skin of his characters and this is a passionate and erotically charged novel.
311 pages
ON CHESIL BEACH
By Ian McEwan
On Chesil Beach is a short intense story of two young lovers in the 60s - when honeymoons were often a couple’s first sexual experience. As in the case of the McEwan’s characters - Edward & Florence. Great McEwan novel and recently released as a film.
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166 pages
ALIAS GRACE
By Margaret Atwood
Make room in your Den for a Margaret Atwood novel. Alias Grace is a dark but addictive murder story, based on a true mid 19th century scandal. Alias Grace revisits the domestic murder scene and the suspects, one of them being a young house girl.
450 pages
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW
By Amor Towles
The Den's favourite book of the year and we are excited to welcome this epic love story to the Den's Dozen. Richly deserved.
Alluring, Amororous Adventure ...
462 pages
THE GOLDFINCH
By Donna Tartt
A modern day epic adventure, kicking off with a bomb explosion in the NYC’s Metropolitan Museum and follows the child survivor who escapes with a piece of art, The Goldfinch and finds himself sucked in to an intoxicating criminal underworld.
850 pages
SHANTARAM
By Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram weaves a story of the author's own rollercoaster adventures in the eighties. Starting out as an Australian fugitive we are taken on his journey to Mumbai where he lies low as a back-packer but soon loses his ID and valuables and ends up facing slum-life.
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800 pages
DAYS WITHOUT END
By Sebastian Barry
Costa Book of the Year (2016) Days Without End is set in mid-19th century America but it is still a story of our time. It follows two young orphaned Irish immigrants arriving in the ‘land of the free’ who are unwittingly caught up in the gruesome cross fire of war.
250 pages
CUTTING FOR STONE
By Abraham Verghese
Cutting for Stone is simply a stunning, tremendous read and unanimously made it into the Den's Dozen. Ask any one in the den (and beyond) and Cutting for Stone will usually make a book club's 'favourite read' list.​
530 pages
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
By Harper Lee
Originally published in 1960 To Kill A Mocking Bird uses warmth and humour to deal with the issues of rape and racial inequality in America. A Pulitzer Prize winner the novel has become a classic of modern American literature. And reading it again is a delight!
300 pages
The WASP FACTORY
By Iain Banks
A disturbing cult read and definitely the wildest card in the Den's Dozen. The Wasp Factory was Iain Bank's debut novel, written in 1984. A modern gothic horror story about a psychopathic teenager living on a remote Scottish island.
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240 pages
CROW LAKE
By Mary Lawson
Crow Lake tells the story of a young orphaned family, their devastating memories of trauma and their survival tactics which are presented against the natural landscape of their home which is beautiful and fragile, harsh and unkind.