Read This Next: Your 500 New Favorite Books

Smart and bracingly funny, novelists Mittelmark (Age of Consent) and Newman (The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Every Done) collaborate a second time on a rollicking addition to the reading group guide genre. Using the same tongue-in-cheek approach as they did in How Not to Write a Novel, the authors pepper their book descriptions with intriguing morsels of literary gossip, like V.S. Naipaul's adultery, and historical trivia regarding eunuchs. Their picks are unexpected and diverse, spanning a multitude of genres, from literary fiction and non-fiction to romance, mystery, and sci-fi. The 500-book list is organized by theme (love, politics, and humor to name a few), making this an easy one to dip into. Yet readers may find themselves enjoying this book cover to cover, carried along by a lively and nimble voice and a treasure trove of once-famous, now-forgotten titles. (Nov.)