Reading alongside a group of people is one of the greatest joys of being a literature enthusiast. We, at Platform, love finding new books and voices that book clubs around the world are reading, since it is a wonderful way to acquaint ourselves with essential, unique reads. Explore a list of the books that book clubs around the world are reading now, along with a reading recommendation from the Platform team at the end.
The Candid Book Club
Comprising of five women of colour who lend their voices to books new, old and borrowed across different genres, from fiction to non-fiction, classic and contemporary, The Candid Book Club is reading Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World by Adele Zeynep Walton, a book that calls for an urgent reclamation of our digital world. The book pushes us to introspect on our relationship with social media and the ways in which Big Tech continuously fails us by capitalising on our insecurities, instincts and desires, causing dangerous, unavoidable impacts on human beings.
The Bookshop Inc’s Shelf Life
Known for its celebration of South Asian writing, The Bookshop Inc, Delhi, pays homage to translations, feminist, queer, and Dalit literature, amongst others. Nestled in Lodhi Colony, it offers an intimate, welcoming space for reflection. Shelf Life is the bookstore’s 20th century classics driven book club, and they are reading letters this month. Some of these books include Virginia Woolf’s Love Letters, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road and In Her Own Words by Ismat Chugtai.
Babelfish Bookclub
Babelfish Book Club champions fiction in translation, and is reading Anne Serre’s A Leopard Skin Hat, translated by Mark Hutchinson. The book follows the story of an intense friendship between ‘the Narrator’ and his close childhood friend, Fanny, who suffers from profound psychological disorders. Anne Serre poignantly depicts the bewildering back and forth between hope and despair involved in such a relationship, while playfully calling into question the very form of the novel.
Reese’s Book Club
Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club has been reading Once Upon a Time in Dollywood by Ashley Jordan, a debut novel about a playwright who must grapple with her difficult year and writer’s block while falling for a single dad living next door to her. What starts out as a fling quickly becomes more serious, and it’s not long before she is running scared once again. She’s loved and lost in every possible way, and risking it one more time could finally break her. Black womanhood and Black motherhood is written beautifully and engagingly.
Service95 Book Club
Popstar Dua Lipa’s Service95 Book Club is reading This House of Grief by Helen Garner. In this utterly compelling book, Helen Garner tells the story of a man and his broken life. She presents the theatre of the courtroom with its actors and audience, all gathered for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth, players in the extraordinary and unpredictable drama of the quest for justice. If you are willing to confront one terrible act for 300 pages, Helen Garner leads you through it with unmatched precision and compassion.
Platform’s Pick
The Platform team loves all things to do with books. We’re all set to bury our noses into James by Percival Everett, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2024. James is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, written from Jim’s point of view. Jim is a slave who runs away when he finds out he is going to be sold and separated from his family. The plan is to somehow get himself free and then find enough money to also free his wife and daughters. He teams up with Huck, who stages his own death to get away from his violent father. All kinds of adventures and mishaps follow.
Words Platform Desk
Date 22-8-2025