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Looking to start or join a book club? Welcome! We're a book club networking site with listings for local groups, author events, and phone chats. View map of book clubs.

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Open Format

You'll note in our database that a number of listings are for 'reader's circles.' These are a new kind of book group where people attend with whatever they're reading. The only structure is if participants decide to have an 'optional book.' Otherwise, everyone just brings their own books, articles, magazines, and conversation goes from there. The idea is to loosen the usual format so participants can select their own reading and attend even if they're still in the middle of a book. Conversation inevitably covers the books brought and many other subjects as well.

Our Vision

Reader's Circle seeks to renew the spirit of dialogue that animated the coffeehouses of early modern England and the salons of Enlightenment France. Franklin's Junto and the Lyceums of the 19th century also suggest the tone of American life we hope to facilitate.

501(c)(3) Non-profit

Unlike some .org’s, which may in fact be for-profit businesses, Reader’s Circle is the real thing. All donations are used to support our mission: to build an inclusive community, the reading public brought together as a body instead of existing merely as an abstraction.

Lead Cities

Each year Reader's Circle serves 200,000 inquires for local book clubs in 5 countries. Top cities include: New York City, London, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Diego, Boston, Brooklyn, Portland, Cambridge, Minneapolis, Arlington, Houston, Austin, San Jose, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Phoenix.

Author Chats & Book Recommendations

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	The Monk Woman's Daughter Susan Storer Clark "My mother said she was a nun. That may have been a lie." So begins the eye-opening and entertaining tale of Vera St. John’s chaotic upbringing amid the turbulence of 19th-century urban America. Sometimes rollicking and sometimes terrifying, Vera’s story features a...
	America's War for the Greater Middle East Andrew J. Bacevich From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Bacevich, one of the...
	Second Coming D. B. Borton Hank Jones isn’t your typical alien abductee. There were no tractor beams, probes, or government conspiracies involved—no, Hank met his kidnappers at a bar. They weren’t exactly hard to miss—Elvis, a seven-foot tall Elvis clone, and Lawrence, a grounded European gent, were the only...
	The Nordic Theory of Everything Anu Partanen A Finnish journalist, now a naturalized American citizen, asks Americans to draw on elements of the Nordic way of life to nurture a fairer, happier, more secure, and less stressful society for themselves and their children. Moving to America in 2008, Anu Partanen quickly went...
	Alien Hitman Jay Cannon This prequel to the Euclidian series follows the exploits of Adar, an alien from the Ossuary System, hired as an elite assassin aboard the Euclidian resource ship Andrea. Adar was sent to retrieve, dead or alive, renegade aliens who started a gang war on their home planet and killed a group of...
	Reconstruction: Unfinished Revolution Eric Foner Foner chronicles the way in which Americans responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery, addressing the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of...
	Last Exit to Montauk Phillip Vega When he approaches her at the market, he has no idea the next three weeks of his life would change him forever. It's the late 1980s, summertime, on the North Shore of Long Island. The air stirs with possibilities as it often does during this time of year. And so begins the romance between one...
	Some Rain Must Fall Karl Ove Knausgaard The fifth book of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s powerful My Struggle series is written with tremendous force and sincerity. As a nineteen-year-old, Karl Ove moves to Bergen and invests all of himself in his writing. But his efforts get the opposite effect — he wants it so much that he gets...
	Beyond Our Degrees of Separation Judith Ravin & Muhammad Hassan Miraj A narrative weave of testimonial non-fiction, Beyond Our Degrees of Separation evokes points of intersection between the US and Pakistan. Hailing from oxymoronic bureaucracies, the co-authors transcend their respective realms of diplomacy and military...
	The Shock of the Anthropocene Christophe Bonneuil & Jean-Baptiste Fressoz The Earth has entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene. What we are facing is not only an environmental crisis, but a geological revolution of human origin. In two centuries, our planet has tipped into a state unknown for millions of years. How did we get to this point? Refuting...
	Inheritance Rachel Adair Alhanna is devastated by the violent loss of her loving parents. Alone and submerged in a torturous grief she learns of an Inheritance. An estate in Northern Ireland, dominated by a monstrous Tower, what awaits inside may unlock her destiny. Yet a dark malevolent force pursues her as she begins on...
	Black Earth Timothy Snyder In this epic history of extermination and survival, Timothy Snyder presents a new explanation of the great atrocity of the twentieth century, and reveals the risks that we face in the twenty-first. Based on new sources from eastern Europe and forgotten testimonies from Jewish survivors...
	The Clothes That Make You L.S. Kilroy It's 1967, the world is changing - and so is a quiet misfit named Sally Fiore. After the sudden death of her father, Sally turns to comfort in the small things – her beloved books, her new interest in sewing, and her slight infatuation with the handsome, young custodian at...
	Alienation Rahel Jaeggi The Hegelian-Marxist idea of alienation fell out of favor after the postmetaphysical rejection of humanism and essentialist views of human nature. Jaeggi draws on the Hegelian philosophical tradition, phenomenological analyses grounded in modern conceptions of agency, and recent...
	Memories of a Mad Man Don Spector Mad Men. Don Spector didn’t just watch them on television. He was one of them. Starting in a Madison Avenue ad agency in the ‘60’s, he actually lived the life captured in the TV show. In "Memories of a Mad Man" he shares with us an unforgettable era filled with humor...
	Karl Marx Gareth Stedman Jones As the 19th century unfolded, its inhabitants had to come to terms with an unparalleled range of economic, political, religious and intellectual challenges. Distances shrank, new towns sprang up, and inventions transformed the industrial landscape. In the aftermath of Waterloo, a European...
	Anonymous Caller Susan Parker Caitlin Rourke is a young, restless reporter who feels like she's going nowhere fast, that is until she gets a fateful phone call from a woman reporting a rape, which propels her into a world of corruption and organized crime. Her car is torched and her dog is poisoned to scare Caitlin off the story. Her...
	Faith as an Option Hans Joas Many people these days regard religion as outdated and are unable to understand how believers can intellectually justify their faith. Nonbelievers have long assumed that progress in technology and the sciences renders religion irrelevant. Believers, in contrast, see religion as vital to...
	Cloud Dancer Gary L. Henson Ravi was enchanted by clouds. The majestic images and shifting configurations were dreamlike, hypnotic, and they held the mysteries and dark secrets of life. The boy’s imagination wandered and danced in the purity of silence, and his inner visions beheld the truth of past and future days. Cloud...
	The Fire Next Time James Baldwin At once an evocation of Baldwin's early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of racial injustice, this book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two "letters," written on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, exhorting Americans to attack the legacy of racism...
	Empire of Glass Kaitlin Solimine In the mid-1990s, an American teenager, named Lao K in Chinese, stands on Coal Hill, a park in Beijing, a loop of rope in her hand. Will she assist her Chinese homestay mother, Li-Ming, who is dying of cancer, in ending her life, or will she choose another path? Twenty years later, Lao K...
	The Idea of Socialism Axel Honneth The idea of socialism has given normative grounding and orientation to the outrage over capitalism for more than 150 years, and yet today it seems to have lost much of its appeal. Despite growing discontent, many would hesitate to invoke socialism when it comes to envisioning life...
	The True Story of Women's Harpoon Hally Abbott The True Story of Women's Harpoon is the autobiographical tale of a magazine's creation, and its journey from beginning to end. At the beginning of the feminist humor craze of the early 1990s a single mother with the desire for a women's humor magazine set out to...
	The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack...
	Shady Place David Byrne Shady Place is a fifty-five and up planned community in Florida. It's full of vibrant seniors enjoying the the sunset years of their lives. Shady Place the novel is about those people. Shady Place follows the antics and exploits of Jim Phillips, are tired police detective from Philadelphia, as he...
	Fuel on the Fire Greg Muttitt The departure of the last U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 left a broken country and a host of unanswered questions. What was the war really about? Why did the occupation drag on for nearly nine years, while most Iraqis, Britons, and Americans desperately wanted it to end? And why did the...
	Memoirs of an Unknown God Jill Garrison A chance encounter with Tonnie, an exceptionally beautiful student, turned jaded professor Mario Clegg’s life upside down. Fighting his instincts, he risked everything to pursue his love for the troubled youth – standing by him through a sex change, violent assault and mental...
	A New View of Society Robert Owen In his early works Owen argues that, since individuals are wholly formed by their environment, education is the crucial factor in transforming them. Later he came to adopt far more radical positions, proposing nothing less than 'the emancipation of mankind' and the creation of a 'new...
	Madisonville J. A. Huff Something isn’t right at Madisonville, Idaho’s most secluded penitentiary for its hardened criminals, and prisoners keep disappearing. Six college students are sentenced to Madisonville after almost getting away with the perfect crime. After a few short weeks behind bars, the six...
	Capital in the Twenty-First Century Thomas Piketty What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But...
	The MacBrides: Logan and RJ J.L. Petersen Logan, the eldest of the MacBride clan, is thrilled at his brother Clay's pending nuptials to Sandy. But when Sandy's sister RJ arrives at the family's ranch, Logan's world is turned upside down. However, the sisters' shared past has created scars and barriers against love...