# Book club questions that work for any novel

> It is your turn to lead the evening and you have finished the book, but you have no idea what to ask. Here are questions that work for almost any novel, a set for non-fiction, and how to write your own in a quarter of an hour.

Updated 29 October 2026. Source: https://timetoread.now/book-club-questions/

**The short answer.** Good book club questions are about **what the book did to you, the characters' choices, who is telling the story and how it ends**. Those work for any novel, and three or four are plenty for one evening. For questions about a particular book, search for its title with ‘book club questions’ or ‘reading group guide’: publishers such as [Penguin](https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/book-clubs) and [Pan Macmillan](https://www.panmacmillan.com/national-year-of-reading-monthly-book-picks) post them for many of their titles, and The Reading Agency's Book Club Hub shares them for new releases.

## Questions that work for any novel

The questions below are in groups, in the order an evening usually runs: first what the book did to you, then the people in it, how it was made and what it is about, then the ending, and finally what it has to do with you. Do not work through them all. Choose three or four for an evening, ideally from different groups, and keep the rest for the next book.

### First impressions

1. What question did you walk in with tonight?
2. Did you race through it in a few evenings, or have to drag yourself to the end? Was that the book or your week?
3. Did you get the book the blurb promised?
4. Was there a moment when you had to put it down for a while?

### The characters

1. What does the main character want, and is that what they need?
2. Who changes over the course of the book, and who stays exactly the same?
3. Who did you misjudge at the start?
4. Who would you have liked to read more about?
5. Which relationship between two characters felt the most real?
6. Could you be friends with the main character? Would they want to know you?

### The narrator

1. Who is this story actually being told to?
2. What do you know as a reader that the characters do not, or the other way round?
3. What does the narrator leave out? Where did you feel something was not being said?
4. Where does the book stay close to one character, and where does it watch from a distance?

### Structure, pace and style

1. Why does the book start exactly there, and not a day earlier or a year later?
2. Where did it rush, and where did it drag?
3. Which scene could have gone? And which one is missing?
4. Read out a paragraph that shows how this book sounds. Why did you choose that one?
5. Does the setting matter, or could the story have happened anywhere?

### What the book is about

1. What question does the book ask, and does it answer it?
2. Where does the author take a side, and where are you left to decide?
3. Which image, object or word keeps coming back? What is it doing there?
4. What does the book say about money, class or background, even when it seems to be about something else?
5. Could this book have been written twenty years ago?

### The ending

Keep these for last, and check first that everyone has finished.

1. Did you see the ending coming? From which page?
2. What do the characters do on the day after the last page?
3. If you could rewrite the ending, what would you change, and what would the book lose?
4. Read the first page again. What do you notice, now that you know how it ends?

### You and the book

1. What would you have done when it came to the crunch?
2. What memory did the book bring back?
3. Did this book come at the right moment in your life, or should you have read it earlier or later?
4. Which other book did you keep thinking of while you read it?
5. What would you ask the author?

> A good question has more than one good answer.

## Questions for non-fiction

With non-fiction many of the questions above do not work. There is usually no narrator to distrust and no ending to argue about. The conversation is about what the book claims, and whether it convinced you.

1. What do you know now that you did not before, and what will you tell someone tomorrow?
2. What does the author want you to think or do, and did it work on you?
3. Where did you disagree? What would you say back?
4. How does the author know what they claim? Which example convinced you, and which did not?
5. Whose voice is missing from this book?
6. Could this have been a long article, or does the subject really need a book?
7. For a memoir: how honest is the author about themselves, and about the other people in it?

## Writing your own questions, in five steps

General questions get you started. Questions about this particular book are what make an evening memorable. You can write them in a quarter of an hour, if you prepare while you read.

1. **Mark three pages while you read**: one that surprised you, one that annoyed you and one you read twice. A sticky note or a photo on your phone is enough.
2. **Turn each page into a question** without your own opinion in it. Not ‘wasn't it awful that she left?’ but ‘why do you think she left at that moment?’
3. **Find the choice.** Almost every novel has a moment where a character could have gone either way. Ask what the group would have done.
4. **Check the question has two answers.** If everyone will say the same thing, it is a fact, not a question.
5. **End with the reader.** One question about the group's own lives, kept for the last half hour, when people have warmed up.

## Where to find questions for a particular book

Many publishers write reading group guides for their own titles. Search for the book's title with ‘book club questions’ or ‘reading group guide’ and the publisher's page usually comes near the top.

- [Penguin's book club page](https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/book-clubs) has discussion question ideas and lists, and a [long list of general book club questions](https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/the-ultimate-list-of-book-club-questions).
- [Pan Macmillan](https://www.panmacmillan.com/national-year-of-reading-monthly-book-picks) posts monthly picks with downloadable reading group questions, and has question pages for individual titles.
- [Book Club Hub](https://bookclubhub.co.uk/resources), run by The Reading Agency, shares resources for new releases, including book club questions.

Publishers' questions are written to sell the book as well as discuss it, so they are kinder to it than your club may be. Use one or two, and add your own.

Penguin, Pan Macmillan and Book Club Hub were checked on their own websites on 29 October 2026.

## Using the questions on the evening

- **Start with a round.** Everyone gives a mark out of ten and one sentence. Now everybody has spoken once.
- **Ask, then wait.** Leave a silence after a question. The second answer is often better than the first.
- **Follow the conversation, not the list.** If the room has found something to argue about, let it. The list is for when it goes quiet.
- **Keep the ending for last**, and ask before you start on it.
- **Close with the next book.** Agree on the title and the date before anyone leaves.

Between meetings, the conversation often moves to a group chat, and that is where spoilers happen. In a [Time to Read club](https://timetoread.now/#clubs) each member's progress shows as a bar, and a message from someone further into the book stays hidden until you tap it. For choosing the next title, see [how to choose book club books](https://timetoread.now/book-club-books/).

## Frequently asked questions

### How many questions do you need for a book club?

Three or four for an evening of about two hours. A good question can carry half an hour on its own. Bring a few more in reserve, but do not try to get through a list of twenty: the best conversations wander away from the list.

### What is a good first question for a book club?

One everyone can answer in a sentence, such as ‘did you enjoy it, and what would you give it out of ten?’ Go round the room so that each person speaks once early on. The quieter members are much more likely to join in later.

### Where can I find questions for a specific book?

Search for the title with ‘book club questions’ or ‘reading group guide’. Publishers such as Penguin and Pan Macmillan post them for many of their books, and Book Club Hub shares them for new releases. These pages were checked on 29 October 2026.

### What if nobody in the club liked the book?

That often makes the best evening. Ask what exactly did not work, whether anyone can make the case for it, and who the book might be right for. Disliking a book together is still talking about a book.

### How do you deal with spoilers when not everyone has finished?

Keep the ending for the last half hour and ask before you start on it. Those who have not finished can choose to stay or step out for a cup of tea. Say at the start how far everyone has got.

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**Talk about the book without spoiling it.** In a Time to Read club everyone's progress shows as a bar, and in the chat a message from further into the book stays hidden until you tap it. So the conversation can start before everyone has finished. Seven days free, then a subscription you can cancel any time; the price is shown in the app. App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/time-to-read-book-club/id6799412901. Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timetoread.app