"Read Like a Writer" Book Club Picks for the Rest of 2025

These are gonna be so good...

Hello, Protagonists! In this post, you’ll find:

📚 Our Book Club Picks for the Rest of 2025

• 🥳 RSVP for my Virtual Launch Party + Origami Workshop!

📖 Behind the Scenes: How I Choose our Book Picks

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Photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

📚 2025 Book Picks

We're nearly done with our first half book picks, so it’s time to reveal what we’re reading the rest of this year!

(While it was fun to do some non-fiction this year, I think we’ll stick with fiction for the remainder of 2025.) ☺️

June:

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - This is a beautifully tender story that slowly peels back the layers of a woman’s life as she works at an aquarium. We’ll discuss how the author shares backstory bit by bit while weaving in the present, as well as the unique incorporation of an octopus’s point of view.

July:

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

What makes an addictive beach read? We’ll dig into this international bestseller about, well, crazy rich Asians, as well as the question of why readers like “guilty pleasures” when summer hits. For fun, we’ll also compare the book to the movie (and the screenplay, if we can get our hands on a copy).

August:

The Incredible Kindness of Paper

🥳 LAUNCH PARTY + ORIGAMI WORKSHOP

There’s no book I know better than my own, so let’s dive deep behind-the-scenes into how it was written!

**This book club meeting will be OPEN (free!) TO EVERYONE, since it’s part of my book launch celebration.**

The Incredible Kindness of Paper is the most narratively complex book I’ve ever written:

• 4 timelines, told from 2 perspectives = 8 storylines to juggle!

• Different types of writing:

  • present action,

  • flashbacks to the past, and

  • epistolary (letter exchange/penpal relationship)

• Eight points of view

  • How did I weave in POV chapters of six secondary characters while balancing with the main story of Chloe and Oliver?

• Author mission

  • When is it appropriate to write with a message or theme in mind?

  • How do you make sure the story itself still guides the book, rather than hitting the reader over the head with a “moral”?

+ Origami Rose Workshop

At the end of our book talk, I will teach you how to make a paper rose, just like the ones in The Incredible Kindness of Paper.

I had so much fun doing the origami workshop with book influencers, so now I want to do it again—WITH YOU! (I’ll be the teacher).

Date & Time: Sunday, August 17, 2025 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT

September:

Orbital by Samantha Harvey

Winner of the Booker Prize in 2024, I loved this short, poetic book that was part philosophical musing about humanity, part character portrait of six astronauts on the International Space Station, and part love letter to our planet.

However, other readers have thought this was an odd book with no plot… Looks like we’re in for a genial literary debate!

October:

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

This mind-bendy historical fantasy is from one of my auto-buy authors, Natasha Pulley. She’s a master at creating atmosphere out of words, and I admire the intricacy of her plots. This novel takes us to Victorian England and Japan during its civil war. I’m excited to share and discuss one of my favorite writers with you.

November/December: Holiday Party & Book Club

Because of all the holidays at the end of the year, we’ll combine November and December again and meet up in the beginning of December to discuss our final book of the year, as well as eat cookies together and celebrate what we’ve all accomplished creatively in 2025!

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

This is a story about friendship and ambition and creative genius and passion, and what success and fame can do to us, both good and bad. I didn’t think I’d be interested in a novel about video game design, but that’s not really what this book is about—it’s about being human and the ever-changing nature of our relationships.

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📖 Behind the Scenes: How I Choose our Book Picks

Based on my many years of running book clubs, I’ve come up with some guidelines for our Book Picks:

• We never read our members’ books — even though we discuss our book picks with kindness and curiosity, it’s still virtually impossible for a writer to listen to other people critique their work, especially if it’s already published and there is nothing they can do to change things. (And sometimes, hearing analysis from their friends is the hardest thing!) So if I ever accidentally choose one of your books (or one of a dear friend whom you’d rather not hear analyzed), please let me know and I’ll pick something else. We are a supportive community and I want everyone to feel buoyed by what we do! (The only exception is that I will occasionally do analyses of my own books, since I feel like I can give a lot of insight into the crafting of those stories and hopefully it’s helpful and interesting to you.)

• Paperbacks, not new releases — For the most part, I will pick books that have been out for a while and already in paperback, because this makes them more affordable to buy and/or accessible via libraries (because new releases tend to have longer wait lists). There may be occasional exceptions if you all are hankering to read a specific new release, though.

• Varying genres — We have writers and readers of all different genres in our wonderful community, so I’m going to try to reflect that. I find that even when a novel might not initially be what I’m normally inclined to read, I am often the most surprised and delighted by those very books. Plus, there is always something interesting to study and learn, no matter what the genre.

“Read Like a Writer” Book Club is for our community members who want to dive even deeper into how great books work. Come nerd out with us! 🤓

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