We’re thrilled to announce the Read With Us summer selection: The Friend by Sigrid Nunez!
Winner of the 2018 National Book Award for Fiction, The Friend is a deeply moving and quietly powerful novel about grief, literature, and the unexpected ways love and healing enter our lives. At the center of the story is a woman mourning the sudden loss of her closest friend—and the large Great Dane he left behind. What begins as an act of reluctant caretaking becomes a meditation on loss, solitude, the creative life, and the profound companionship of animals.
Nunez’s writing is spare, elegant, and laced with both literary reflection and emotional honesty. It’s the kind of book that feels intimate and expansive all at once—a perfect choice for thoughtful discussion.
Why we chose The Friend
- It explores grief and healing in a unique and compassionate way
- It's full of literary insight—perfect for readers who love books about books
- It offers rich discussion points on friendship, mental health, writing, and the human-animal bond
- No nuns :-)
- We had chosen another book but were still a bit unsure about the choice. At the last minute we changed our minds. The Friend has been made into a movie with Naomi Watts and Bill Murray. Our hope is that we can read the book, watch the movie, and compare and contrast. We'll be providing more details about this later.
Kym, Carole,
and I will be talking about the book, giving additional information,
and doing promotional posts through July. Discussion day for The Friend is scheduled for Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 7:00 pm Eastern time, so mark your calendars. We'll ask questions on our blogs that day and then host the always fun, educational, and entertaining Zoom discussion.
Whether you're new to Sigrid Nunez or already a fan, we hope you'll Read With Us and discover (or revisit) this beautifully written novel.
Tom and I watched the movie last Saturday night, and both of us really enjoyed it. (Okay. I enjoyed it a lot more than Tom did, but he ended up liking it quite a bit more than I expected.) I hope having a movie version of our book selection . . . is a fun way for our Read With Us group to engage with our summer reading selection.
ReplyDeleteI laughed at "No nuns" because that is such a great thing for this book group to be known for! Haha! Strangely... I remember those nun books more than I remember The Friend, which I had previously read! I will be rereading and finding time to watch the movie (even though it was not on my radar at all!)
ReplyDeleteNo nuns! Looking forward to this one. The audio is available from my library with no wait, but I think if I listen now I won't remember in September. I hope there's not a huge demand for it between now and later in the summer!
ReplyDeleteLike Sarah, I'm going to wait until later to read this one. Hopefully I'll be able to get it quickly. Even though I'm not really into movies, I'm looking forward to this! No nuns...hahahahaha
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