Book Club Fiction

Love: the idea of "book club fiction," discussed by lit agent Nathan Bransford on his blog, This Week in Publishing. 

From his post: 

Around the publishing industry there has long been a hankering for a certain type of book that is both literary and yet commercial, familiar and yet exotic, well-written but not too dense, accessible but with some depth. They are books that are kind of tough to categorize, because they don't exactly fit into any one genre. I'd often hear people calling them either literary commercial fiction or commercial literary fiction.

But during my last trip to New York I heard an apt label for this category: book club fiction*. And lots of editors want it.

What books are in this category? Think:
LIFE OF PI
CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME
THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE
THE KITE RUNNER
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
THE LOVELY BONES
SECRET LIFE OF BEES

Link to the posting is here, but check out This Week in Publishing in general for some helpful tips on querying lit agents, publishing insight and other good inside-baseball (inside-publishing) tidbits.