FICTION QUESTIONS
1. Overall—how did you experience the book while reading it? Were you immediately drawn into the story—or did it take a while? Did the book intrigue, amuse, disturb, alienate, or irritate, you?
2. Do you find the characters convincing? Are they believable? Compelling? Are they fully developed as complex, emotional human beings?
3. Which characters do you admire or dislike? What are their primary characteristics?
4. What motivates a given character’s actions? Do you think those actions are justified or ethical?
5. Do any characters grow or change during the course of the novel? If so, in what way?
6. Who in this book would you most like to meet? What would you ask—or say?
7. If you could insert yourself as character in the book, what role would you play?
8. Is the plot well-developed? Is it believable? Do you feel manipulated along the way, or do events unfold naturally?
9. Is the story plot or character driven? In other words, does the plot unfold quickly or focus more on characters’ inner lives?
10. Consider the ending. Did you expect it or were you surprised? Was it forced? Was it neatly wrapped up—too neatly? Or was it unresolved, ending on an ambiguous note?
11. If you could rewrite the ending, would you? In other words, was the ending satisfying?
12. Can you pick out a passage that strikes you as particularly profound or interesting—or perhaps something that sums up the central dilemma of the book?
13. Does the book remind you of someone—a friend, family member, co-worker, boss—or something—an event, problem—in your own life?
14. If you were to talk to the author, what would you want to know? (Many authors enjoy talking with book clubs. Contact the publisher to see if you can set up a phone chat.)
15. Have you read the author’s other books? Can you discern a similarity—in theme, writing style, structure—between them? Or are they completely
different?
NON-FICTION QUESTIONS
1. If your book offers a cultural portrait—of life in another country, or in a different region of your own country, start with questions a, b, and c …
a. What does the author celebrate or criticize in the culture? Consider family traditions, economic and political structures, the arts, language, food, religious beliefs.
b. Does the author wish to preserve or reform the culture? If reform, what and how? Either way—by instigating change or by maintaining the status quo—what would be gained or what would be at risk?
c. How does the culture differ from yours? What was most surprising, intriguing, difficult to understand? After reading the book, have you gained a new perspective—or did the book affirm your prior views?
2. Does the book offer a central idea or premise? What are the problems or issues raised? Are they personal, spiritual, societal, global, political, economic, medical, scentific?
3. Do the issues affect your life? How so—directly,on a daily basis, or more generally? Now or sometime in the future?
4. What evidence does the author give to support the book’s ideas? Does he/she use personal observations and assessments? Facts? Statistics? Opinions? Historical documents? Scientific research? Quotations from authorities?
5. Is the evidence convincing? Is it relevant or logical? Does it come from authoritative sources? (Is the author an authority?) Is the evidence
speculative…how speculative?
6. Some authors make assertions, only to walk away from them—without offering explanations. It’s maddening. Does the author use such unsupported claims?
7. What kind of language does the author use? Is it objective and dispassionate? Or passionate and earnest? Is it polemical, inflammatory, sarcastic? Does the language help or undercut the author’s premise?
8. Does the author—or can you—draw implications for the future? Are there long- or short-term consequences to the problems or issues raised in the book? If so, are they positive or negative? Affirming or frightening?
9. Does the author—or can you—offer solutions to the problems or issues raised in the book? Who would implement those solutions? How probable is success?
10. Does the author make a call to action to readers—individually or collectively? Is that call realistic? Idealistic? Achievable? Would readers be able to affect the desired outcome?
11. Are the book’s issues controversial? How so? And who is aligned on which sides of the issues? Where do you fall in that line-up?
12. Can you point to specific passages that struck you pesonally—as interesting, profound, silly or shallow, incomprehensible, illuminating?
13. Did you learn something new reading this book? Did it broaden your perspective about a difficult personal issue? Or a societal issue? About another culture in another country… or about another ethnic / regional culture in your own country?
DISCUSS STYLE
• Does the author’s use of language (diction and syntax) draw you in, or put you off?
• How would you describe the style: lyrical, pompous, complex and wordy, easy and straightforward, humorous, or offensive?
DISCUSS CHARACTER
• Are the characters convincing? Do they come alive for you? How would you describe them — as sympathetic, likeable, thoughtful, intelligent, innocent, naive, strong or weak? Something else?
• Do you identify with any characters? Are you able to look at events in the book through their eyes — even if you don’t like or approve of them?
• Are characters developed psychologically and emotionally? Do you have access to their inner thoughts and motivations? Or do you know them mostly through dialogue and action?
• Do any characters change or grow by the end of the story? Do they come to view the world and their relationship to it differently?
DISCUSS PLOT
• Does the plot hold your interest? Does it keep you turning pages? Does it move briskly or unfold slowly?
• What is the story’s central conflict? Is it between characters, a character and society, a character and nature? Is it internal—an emotional struggle within the character? Does the conflict create tension, even suspense, to hold your interest?
• How is the story told— in chronological order? Or does the author play with time, veering back and forth between past and present?
• Is the plot simple or complex? Are there subplots related to the main plot—or separate, distinct story lines, operating independently and merging at the end?
• Were you surprised by the ending? Was information withheld till the end? Were there cliff-hangers at the end of chapters? Did that irritate you or make you want to read on?
DISCUSS THE ELEMENTS
• Can you think of the work’s themes, or its larger meanings? What might the author be trying to get at, to say?
• Symbols intensify meaning. Can you identify any in the book—people, actions or objects that stand for something greater than themselves?
• Does the author use irony—a different outcome, or reality, than expected. Irony mimics real life: too often the opposite of what we want or intend happens.
• Can you find other uses of figurative language in the story? Similes, Metaphors, Personification, etc. How are they used? For what purpose?
