Book clubs

Book club meetings are informal discussions about the current title and everyone is encouraged to contribute. The groups are small and inclusive of about 10-15 people in each book club.

Randwick City Library hosts eleven Book Clubs offering a space for book lovers to read and discuss books on a monthly basis.

Six clubs mainly reading fiction titles
Two clubs reading history titles only
One Gothic/Horror book club
Two children's book clubs

Randwick City Library also has a special collection for those who want to start their own book club. Book Club in a Box holds 10 books of the same title, discussion notes and a how-to guide to get anyone started with their own group.

What is discussed?

At the meetings aspects of the book are discussed, such as:

Writing style
Theme
Author
Impact it has had on the reader
A favourite scene or passage from the book

Current Book Club Reading List

Fiction Book Clubs

Location	Date	Time	Title for discussion
Lionel Bowen Library, Maroubra	2nd Wednesday of the month	1.30pm - 2.30pm	Dark emu by Bruce Pascoe
Malabar Community Library, Matraville	3rd Tuesday of the month	10am - 11am	No friend but the mountains by Behrouz Boochani
Margaret Martin Library, Randwick	3rd Thursday of the month	11am - 12pm	The hitch hiker's guide to the galaxy by Douglas Adams
Margaret Martin Library, Randwick	3rd Sunday of the month	1 - 2pm	A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Lionel Bowen Library, Maroubra	4th Tuesday of the month	6.30pm - 7.30pm	The fragments by Toni Jordan
Lionel Bowen Library, Maroubra	4th Tuesday of the month	6:30pm - 7:30pm	Erotic stories for Punjabi widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal

History Book Clubs

Location	Date	Time	Title for discussion
Malabar Community Library, Matraville	1st Tuesday of the month	10am - 11am	The only woman in the room by Marie Benedict
Margaret Martin Library, Randwick	4th Thursday of the month	6pm - 7pm	Theme: Music

Gothic/Horror Book Club

Location	Date	Time	Title for discussion
Lionel Bowen Library, Maroubra	3rd Thursday of the month	6.30pm - 7.30pm	Bird Box by Josh Malerman

How do I join?

If you are interested in joining a book club, please contact us. Some book clubs have an annual fee, while some are free and require you to source your own copy of the title to be discussed.

What has been previously read?

See below for all the books that have been read across our different book clubs dating back as far as 2005:

Fiction Book Club

Books read in 2019

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Esther by Jessica North
Dark Emu by Bruce Pascoe
Five Bells by Gail Jones
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
The Red and the Black by Stendal
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
The True Deceiver by Trove Jansson
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
The Helpline by Katherine Collette
No Friend But the Mountains by Behrouz Boochani
Amazons by John Man
Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss
Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmad Saadawi
The Fragments by Toni Jordan
The Spy and the Traitor by Ben Macintyre
Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff
Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
The Anarchy by William Dalrymple

Books read in 2018

Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman
Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Sweet Caress by William Boyd
The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst
Aunts up the Cross by Robin Dalton
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
Red and Black by Stendhal
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
Five Bells by Gail Jones
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

Books read in 2017

Women in Black by Madeleine St John
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alemeddine
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende
The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan
Sweet Caress by William Boyd
The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
Beauty is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan
Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
Eucalyptus by Murray Bail
Plainsong by Kent Haruf

Books read in 2016

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Golden Age by Joan London
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Rose Boys by Peter Rose
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Jonah by Louis Stone
After Darkness by Christine Piper
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
The Illuminations by Andrew O'Hagan
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Women in Black by Madeleine St John
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud

Books read in 2015

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Stoner by John Williams
The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
The Dinner by Herman Koch
What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Jonah by Louis Stone
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Golden Age by Joan London
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

Books read in 2014

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The Collini Case by Ferdinand von Schirach
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Fringe Dwellers by Nene Gare
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Flaubert's Parrot by Wallace Stegner
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Stoner by John Williams
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

Books read in 2013

Yellow Birds by Kevin Power
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
The Tree of Man by Patrick White
The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard Morais
Wake in Fright by Kenneth Cook
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

Books read in 2012

All That I Am by Anna Funder
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières
The Old School by P.M. Newton
Midnight in Peking by Paul French
The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott
A Town like Alice by Nevil Shute
The Cartographer by Peter Twohig
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet by David Mitchell
The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Nemesis by Philip Roth

Books read in 2011

Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob Zoet by David Mitchell
Merry-Go-Round in the Sea by Randolph Stow
Ransom by David Malouf
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Foe by J. M. Coetzee
Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Collected stories by Carson McCullers
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do
The Outsider by Albert Camus
The Man who Loved Children by Christina Stead

Books read in 2010

Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
The Outsider by Albert Camus
The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea by Randolph Stow
Foe by J. M. Coetzee
Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
Wanting by Richard Flanagan
The Art of the Engine Driver by Steven Carroll
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Lovesong by Alex Miller
This is How by M.J. Hyland
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Books read in 2009

The Boat by Nam Le
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Books read in 2008

Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers
Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Accordion Crimes by E. Annie Proulx
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
Things without a name by Joanne Fedler
The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

Books read in 2007

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan
The Zahir by Paulo Coelho
The Turning by Tim Winton
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
We Need to Talk About Kevin: a novel by Lionel Shriver
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Romulus, My Father by Raimond Gaita
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Books read in 2006

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
The Pomegranate Soup by Marsh Mehran
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Secret River by Kate Grenville
Child of the Revolution by Louis M Garcia
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Books read in 2005

Resurrectionists by Kim Wilkins
I for Isobel by Amy Witting
A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong
Matthew Flinder's Cat by Bryce Courtenay
Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee
Butterfly Song by Terri Janke
The Namesake by Jumpa Lahiri
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Feasting and Fasting by Anita Desai
May Contain Nuts by John O'Farrell
The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Dwakarum