Modern Classic Book Club Picks

The Lost Daughter examines the parts of motherhood people don’t always talk about—the exhaustion, the desire for independence, and, at moments, the guilt. The book follows Leda, a divorced woman in her forties, on vacation in Italy. The solitude seems to be agreeing with her—until she becomes enraptured by a mother and her daughter. 

Leda finds herself sinking into bittersweet consideration of her relationship with her two daughters as she becomes more entangled with the young family. When Leda discovers the young girl’s doll left behind and buried in the sand, she’s carried away on waves of memory. 

Maud, an 82-year-old woman suffering from dementia, is convinced that her best friend, Elizabeth, has disappeared. Despite everyone around her insisting that nothing is wrong, Maud is determined to find out the truth. However, her failing memory makes her investigation frustrating and unreliable—she constantly forgets clues, misplaces notes, and struggles to make sense of the world around her.

As Maud frantically searches for Elizabeth, the line between past and present becomes hazy. Elizabeth’s loss begins to blur with the unsolved disappearance of Maud’s sister, Sukey. The two mysteries intertwine as Maud’s fragmented memories reveal long-buried secrets. Even as those around her dismiss her concerns, Maud’s instincts push her closer to the truth about both disappearances.

Told through the eyes of Thomas Fowler, a cynical British journalist who has spent years in Vietnam, The Quiet American is set around the French Indochina War. His calm existence is interrupted when he meets Alden Pyle. The young, optimistic American believes in bringing democracy to Vietnam, no matter what the cost may be.

Pyle is Fowler’s foil—naïve, ambitious, and deeply convinced that American intervention can have a positive impact on the country. Their professional differences soon become personal when Pyle falls in love with Phuong, Fowler’s beautiful Vietnamese mistress. As the love triangle grows spikier, so does a deeper, more dangerous game of espionage and covert operations. 

In this Booker Prize finalist, Madeline, often referred to as Linda, is growing up in a rural area in northern Minnesota. She struggles to fit in at school, and her home life is distant and strange. When a young family moves in across the lake, Linda is drawn to them—especially to their four-year-old son, Paul.

She begins babysitting Paul and finds herself fascinated by his seemingly perfect parents. But as time passes, Linda begins to feel like something isn’t right. The family's kindness hides secrets. As Linda watches events unfold, she struggles with what she knows and whether she should speak up.

Brave New World conjures a frightening world in which humans are bred into different castes. Set in London in 2540, or 632 AF, the story follows Bernard Marx, a psychologist. 

When he and another citizen leave to observe the native peoples on a reservation in New Mexico, they encounter a culture that’s startlingly different from theirs. But when they bring back a man and a woman from the Savage Reservation, they unwittingly expose the problems within their own society.

Set in a near-future America, now called Gilead, the people live under a theocratic regime where women have lost all rights. The story follows Offred, a woman forced into servitude as a Handmaid. Handmaids exist solely to bear children for the ruling class.

Offred remembers a time before the oppressive state of Gilead, when she had a husband, a daughter, and a normal life. Now she lives in a surveillance state, and is forced to follow strict rules to avoid punishment—or worse, death. As she navigates her new existence, she finds herself drawn into dangerous relationships, from the Commander who bends the rules for her to his rebellious wife, Serena Joy.

Americanah follows Ifemelu, a young Nigerian woman who moves to the United States for college. Back home in Lagos, she had a passionate relationship, but when she leaves for America, their lives take different paths.

In the U.S., Ifemelu faces the realities of being Black in America, something she never had to think about in Nigeria. She battles cultural differences and overt racism. As she works on finding her place, she starts a popular blog about race and identity from the perspective of a "Non-American Black." 

The Secret History tells the story of Richard Papen, a working-class student who gets admitted to a small college in Vermont. He quickly falls in with a group of students studying ancient Greek. The five are eccentric, well-moneyed, and enraptured with their professor. 

But beneath their refined exterior, this exclusive group hides something darker. As Richard becomes more entangled in their secretive lives, he discovers they have committed a terrible crime—and will do anything to keep it hidden.

Toni Morrison’s novel is set in the Black community of Medallion, Ohio, and follows two childhood friends, Nel Wright and Sula Peace. The two are thick as thieves as children, but as they grow older, their lives go in different directions. Nel chooses a conventional life—marriage, motherhood, and respectability—while Sula rejects societal expectations, leaving town and returning years later as a fiercely independent woman. Her return disrupts the tight-knit community, and she’s branded as dangerous and immoral in the uproar. But beneath the town’s judgment lies something deeper: Sula forces people to confront truths about themselves they would rather ignore.

Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall in love as teenagers. They exchange secret letters and dream of a future together, but Fermina eventually rejects Florentino and marries a respectable doctor.

Heartbroken but determined, Florentino vows to wait for her, even as he embarks on countless affairs to ease his pain. Meanwhile, Fermina builds a life with her husband, filled with stability and routine.