Why do book groups all read the same books?

Read on. IIRC the law is still in force.

My DH is Tintin fan too. That article shed light on why all my continental European boyfriends always loved Tintin but British men don't (I don't think Tintin is particularly a girl thing).

No I didn't. DH quite likes Tintin

Just found it online, and at this:

"IT IS one of Europe?s more startling laws. In 1949 France banned children?s books and comic strips from presenting cowardice in a ?favourable? light, on pain of up to a year in prison for errant publishers."

Cote - did you read the recent excellent article about Tintin in the Economist? Christmas edition or the one after.

Am in two book groups (old town and new). Between the two have read:

Drowning Ruth
Farewell to Arms
The Boy in Striped Pyjamas
Blood River
Madame Bovary
Cannery Row
By Grand Central Station I sat down and wept
The Gathering
The Damned United
The Two of US: My life with John Thaw
Saturday
Naming the Dead
No Time for Goodbye
Carter Beats the Devil
Year of Wonders
When we were Orphans
Tender is the Night
I'm Not scared
An Equal Music
Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance

and lots of others i can't remember at the moment.

I think it sounds a great idea.

I'd love to join that Book Club.

I would just love to do a book group reading of French and English children's classics from a comparable era and contrast what they tell us about the cultures and the nature of childhood.

I am fascinated by Babar (the original Jean de Brunhoff ones)...

I also wanted The Outsider by Albert Camus

Our book group has tried to get books from the library and we are stuck because they can never get enough of the ones we want to read and are rather stuck with the list of the usual books available... we do buy our books generally but it gets expensive. We'd love to do A Town Like Alice but can't get it...

Takver just googled the dispossessed, it's going on my list.

I felt cold just reading Tenderness, admit I was expecting something more gory. (Recently went to see Far North, VERY gory, but then I am a delicate flower).

piscesmoon. I really enjoyed The Outcast. Although it had a very mixed reaction in the book group. It reminded me of Catcher in the Rye.

It is set in a small English village immediately after the war. I really enjoyed how the author captured the post war gloom. The characters are 'flaky' and some of the group found the main character hard to emphathise with. I really enjoyed it and would definately recommend it.

OP is right. Unfortunately.

We are in France so have no idea what goes on with Richard & Judy. It's not that. It is that wretched "Bestsellers" list that dooms us to reading the same mediocre books written by nameless novice authors for the least common denominator and marketed mercilessly by publishing houses. (It's a pet hatred of mine, can you tell?)

Our book club read:

Secret Life Of Bees
1000 Splendid Suns
The Book Thief
Memory Keeper's Daughter

All "Bestsellers". All written to pull at heartstrings, no brain required. All toe-curlingly dull.

Those of us who have chosen these books for the Book Club actually said that they were the recommendations of their friends in other Book Clubs, so yes, there is definitely a "let's read the same books" thing.

Since two people have asked me if it is the same book group I think it goes to prove that OP is right!
I liked Tenderness of Wolves, Nancysgarden, especially the descriptions of Canada, all the more remarkable since the author hasn't been. It was an interesting book-not for anyone who likes the endings all tied up.

Would you recommend 'The Outcast', newpup? I have picked it up twice and put it down again.

Ohhh, dispossessed - Ursulla LeGuin (is that right) Enjoyed that a loonnnng time ago. Must put Women on the edge onto our book club recommendations

We have done 3/4 of your list, but we manage to get away from standard book group reads by having themed suggestions - eg for valentines eveyone has to come up with a romance (granted, our choice last Feb was 1984 perhaps not one of the great Romances of all time) Thinking up themes challenges up to read outside of the 'reading group contemporary literature' box that I would personally slide dangerous into on too many occasions. So, themes have been the obvious genres (horror, sci-fi, biography, play, poetry) but also slightly more random (eg husbands choices, graphic novels, kids book, book that you have always meant to read but never have, something feminist)

We also try to do a 'genuine' classic every 3/4 months.

Piscesmoon, are you in my bookgroup? We've read loads from your list!

Our library runs three book groups, so they have a long list of very mixed books that they have multiple copies of. We mostly choose from the list unless anyone is desperate to recommend something else.

Next week, I'll be recommending Richard Yates Revolutionary Road. It's one of my favourite books, and it would be good to re-read before the film comes out.

Sleepycat, Mrs Dalloway and the Book Thief have both gone down like a cup of cold sick at our group.

There are seven in our book group and only two of us knew each other beforehand so we are a very mixed group in terms of age and background ( although four of us are or were teachers ). We meet every 6 weeks and agree the book choice between us. Some have been suggested by one person, some are current best sellers. We never have anthing to do with R & J.

We have so far read;

On Chesil Beach
The Catcher in the Rye
A Gathering Light
The Accidental Tourist
Fortunes Rocks
The Suspicions of Mr Witcher
The Secret life of Bees
The Outcast

and our next read is Barrack Obama's Dreams from my Father.

Quite a diverse collection!

Nancysgarden I also like WotEoT a lot (in fact I need a new copy as mine has fallen apart. Do you also like the Dispossessed which is my other favourite utopia novel for depressed moments?
Re book groups, I know my Mum struggles endlessly with trying to get together enough copies via the library of almost anything. Leicestershire do have a central point to collect multiple copies, apparantly they have a list of books where there are more than 12 in the county, it is pretty short, and there are long waiting lists for most of them.

We have several Americans in our group so sometimes read some great books that are big in the States but not really known over here! Currently reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan which is a really good read - I've learnt a lot whilst enjoying the emotional side of it!

Haven't read any of books in OP, we have also decided that we are going to change from a book club to a book swap club.

Glad I am not alone!

Pisces what did you think of tenderness of wolves?

My book group is reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, I'm really enjoying it.
Last one they did was called The Welsh girl, I didn't enjoy that one it was awful.

My book group gets boxes of books from the library and we're given a list of what it available and choose which ones we'd like over the next x amount of months. I often wonder why there are never any lighter reads on the list like Sophie Kinsella and the like.

No nancy! I adored Woman on the Edge of Time. As a bloke it was my first and loved intro. into 'feminist' fiction - it was eye-opening on one level, a "ripping yarn" on another, very sensual on another and made me stop and question my reading of science-fiction as well.

I ALWAYS know where my copy of this is, though other books get lost.

I love the futuristic utopia in woman on the edge of time. I waded through the rest of the stuff to my beloved sub-plot. Surely I am not alone in this? Am I a philistine?

I am no longer member of my bookgroup due to other commitments but we used to (and probably still do) comprise a fairly mixed bunch, so although we read some of those more typical books, we also got through some less typical reads amongst which were: Philip Roth, Dostoyevski, Khauo Ishiguro, Guenter Grass and Paul Auster.

We've done, among others:
The Great Gatsby
The Warden
The Lovely Bones (stereotypical book group choice)
The Story of Lucy Gault
The House of Sleep
The Book Thief (most of us didn't like much)
East of Eden
Atonement
Star of the Sea
(Piscesmoon, you are not in our book group are you?)
We are about to do
The House in the Strand
Middlemarch