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The Nod Book Club | Virtual | Fiction 

The Nod Book Club 

A virtual literary hangout where we handpick one unputdownable book every month

Good People

Why ‘Good People’ is our June book club pick 

About: The Sharaf family is the picture of success. Successful, rich, happy. They came to this country as refugees with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. And now, after years of hard work, they live in the most exclusive neighborhood, their growing family attending the most prestigious schools. Zorah, the eldest daughter, is the apple of her father’s eye.When an unthinkable tragedy strikes, everyone is left reeling and the family is thrust into the court of public opinion. There is talk that behind closed doors the Sharafs’ happy household was anything but. Did the Sharaf family achieve the American dream? Or was the image of the model immigrant family just a façade?Release date: February 3, 2026

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'Good People' by Patmeena Sabit

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Kiran Desai in conversation with Sonam Kapoor for The Nod Book Club

Getting Kiran Desai and Sonam Kapoor in a room to talk about 'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny' (and then some) was pure magic. There was laughter, goosebumps, a few misty eyes—and everything in between. We couldn’t have dreamed up a better duo to kick off The Nod Book Club’s very first event.

About: When Daphne Fuller and her husband Jonathan visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, they notice an older, white-haired gentleman following them. The man turns out to be Eddie Triplett, her former stepfather, who had been married to her mother for a little more than year when Daphne was nine. Now fifty-three, Daphne hasn’t seen Eddie for many years, not since the fateful event that changed the direction of both their lives. Meeting again, time falls away; while their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both, and now that they are reunited, they have no intention of ever being separated again.Whistler is a story about two adults looking back over the choices they made, and the choices that were made for them. It’s a story about bravery, memory, the often small yet consequential moments that define our lives, and the endless stream of loss that in time comes for us all. Beautiful in its simplicity, it is ultimately about how love endures, and how the feeling of being known by one other person, even for a short period of time, can change everything.

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Whistler by Ann Patchett

About: On a windswept peninsula stretching out into the Atlantic, Tomás and his reluctant son, Liam, are working for the great Ordnance Survey project to map the whole of Ireland. The year is 1865, and in a country not long since ravaged and emptied by the Great Hunger, the task is not an easy one. Tomás, however, is determined that his maps will be a record of the disaster.The British soldiers in charge are due to arrive any day, expecting the work to be completed, but Tomás is sent off course by an unsettling encounter in a copse. His life, and those of his family, will never be the same again. Liam is terrified by the sudden change in his taciturn father. What was it that caused such cracks to open in Tomás and how is Liam, aged only ten, going to finish the mapping, and get them both home?

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Land by Maggie O'Farrell

About: When Caroline Lash arrives in Greenhead, Massachusetts, she falls head-over-heels for Van Whittaker, a fleece-wearing, litter-collecting, kayak enthusiast with long, floppy hair and the personality of a Border collie. Born and raised in this picturesque coastal village, Van runs with the same crowd he did as a His ex-girlfriend, Bailey, a beautiful girl who attracts men like moths to a flame; Augusta, old money, horsey, and snobbish; and Fran, surrounded by brothers and sons, too fed up with boys to ever consider marrying one.Together, the group runs wild through the marshes, beaches, and bars of Greenhead, drinking on houseboats, spending long afternoons sunbathing with their children, and playing games the way they always have. But when Bailey discovers that she is pregnant with Van’s baby, the delicate balance of the group’s friendship is thrown off. Soon Caroline is cast out of the circle and what she does next—in a potent mix of fury and heartbreak—exposes long-held secrets and works the entire town of Greenhead into a lather. Dazzlingly funny, sexy, and as juicy as it is astute, The Shampoo Effect is a story of late-night parties, early mornings with small children, the dawn of midlife, and a group of old friends finally growing up despite all their best efforts to the contrary.

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The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson

About: Broke and directionless, our young man takes a job in the Italian countryside as the all-purpose assistant to Lisabetta, known to her friends as Coco - a strong-willed, wealthy widow of great local renown.Trained as an archivist, he thinks he's been hired to catalogue the contents of the beautiful, crumbling mansion nestled in the green Tuscan hills... but what are his actual duties? Days are spent ridding the house of a marten - whatever that is - locating the antediluvian septic system, entertaining an endless carousel of guests (from bohemian painters to elderly princesses to unnervingly handsome nephews), attending a funeral in order to make off with the urn, and not inadvertently sabotaging Coco's great and final plan-to locate the lost love of her life and be reunited before it's too late.As summer turns into autumn and the Italian countryside begins to work its magic on our protagonist, the secrets of Villa Coco and its inhabitants are slowly brought to light - and with them, an unforgettable story of the enduring power of friendship.

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Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

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In Ann Patchett’s latest novel, it’s a glass-half-full world 

Currently reading

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To know Goa, you need ‘Fish Curry and Rice’—the book, not the meal

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The Nod Book Club

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The bougiest corner shop in London has an India connection

Through the looking glass

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Loved ‘Yellowface’? This queer thriller should be on your TBR 

‘Workhorse’ is more feral than ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ 

About: At the turn of the millennium, editorial assistant Clodagh “Clo” Harmon wants nothing more than to rise through the ranks at the world’s most prestigious fashion magazine. There’s just one problem: She doesn’t have the right pedigree. Instead, Clo is a “workhorse” surrounded by beautiful, wealthy, impossibly well-connected “show horses” who get ahead without effort, including her beguiling cubicle-mate, Davis Lawrence, the daughter of a beloved but fading Broadway actress. Harry Wood, Davis’s boarding school classmate and a reporter with visions of his own media empire, might be Clo’s ally in gaming the system—or he might be the only thing standing between Clo and her rightful place at the top.In a career punctuated by moments of high absurdity, sudden windfalls, and devastating reversals of fortune, Clo wades across boundaries, taking ever greater and more dangerous risks to become the important person she wants to be within the confines of a world where female ambition remains cloaked. But who really is Clo underneath all the borrowed designer clothes and studied manners—and who are we if we share her desires?Themes: Workplace drama, Ambition, New York high society

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'Workhorse' by Caroline Palmer

‘The Correspondent’ is Virginia Evans’s first novel—and also her eighth

About: Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.&nbsp;Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.

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'The Correspondent' by Virginia Evans

Why ‘One Golden Summer’ is the perfect pick this February

About: Good things happen at the lake. That’s what Alice’s grandmother says, and it’s true. Alice spent just one summer there at a cottage with Nan when she was seventeen—it’s where she took that photo, the one of three grinning teenagers in a yellow speedboat, the image that changed her life.Now Alice lives behind a lens. As a photographer, she’s most comfortable on the sidelines, letting other people shine. Lately though, she’s been itching for something more, and when Nan falls and breaks her hip, Alice comes up with a plan for them both: another summer in that magical place, Barry’s Bay. But as soon as they settle in, their peace is disrupted by the roar of a familiar yellow boat, and the man driving it.Charlie Florek was nineteen when Alice took his photo from afar. Now he’s all grown up—a shameless flirt, who manages to make Nan laugh and Alice long to be seventeen again, when life was simpler, when taking pictures was just for fun. Sun-slanted days and warm nights out on the lake with Charlie are a balm for Alice’s soul, but when she looks up and sees his piercing green gaze directly on her, she begins to worry for her heart.Because Alice sees people—that’s why she is so good at what she does—but she’s never met someone who looks and sees her right back.

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'One Golden Summer' by Carley Fortune

19 years ago, she wrote a Booker-winning novel. Now she’s back with another contender

About: In the snowy mountains of Vermont, Sonia is lonely. A college student and aspiring writer homesick for India, she turns to an older artist for inspiration and intimacy, a man who will cast a dark spell on the next many years of her life. In Brooklyn, Sunny is lonely, too. A struggling journalist originally from Delhi, he is both beguiled and perplexed by his American girlfriend and the country in which he plans to find his future. As Sonia and Sunny each becomes more and more alienated, they begin to question their understanding of happiness, human connection, and where they belong.Back in India, Sonia and Sunny's extended families cannot fathom how anyone could be lonely in this great, bustling world. They arrange a meeting between the two—a clumsy meddling that only drives Sonia and Sunny apart before they have a chance to fall in love.The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is the sweeping tale of two young people navigating the many forces that shape their country, class, race, history, and the complicated bonds that link one generation to the next.&nbsp;Themes: Family saga, Immigration, Love

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'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny' by Kiran Desai

Why you need to read ‘A Guardian and a Thief’ by Megha Majumdar  

About: In a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine, Ma, her two-year-old daughter, and her elderly father are just days from leaving the collapsing city behind to join Ma’s husband in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After procuring long-awaited visas from the consulate, they pack their bags for the flight to America. But in the morning they awaken to discover that Ma’s purse, containing their treasured immigration documents, has been stolen.Set over the course of one week, A Guardian and a Thief tells two stories: the story of Ma’s frantic search for the thief while keeping hunger at bay during a worsening food shortage; and the story of Boomba, the thief, whose desperation to care for his family drives him to commit a series of escalating crimes whose consequences he cannot fathom. With stunning control and command, Megha Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.Themes: Climate change, Family saga, DisplacementRelease date: October 31, 2025

The Nod Book Club

JUNE PICK

Good People

By Ruhi Gilder

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