Recent book club picks

Somehow I ended up in two different book clubs, with very different perspectives on what makes for a good read. Here are some of our recent picks, in no particular order:

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
• A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant
• The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
• The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
• The Know It All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Man in the World by A.J. Jacobs
• Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
• No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and all the rest of the series by Alexander McCall Smith