The book group, run with firm control by Ava’s friend and neighbor, a librarian who takes her role very seriously, is a motley mix, including a grieving widower a local Providence, Rhode Island, actress who’s fighting breast cancer and a young hipster in a porkpie hat. Naturally, we expect their choices to reveal something profound about these characters, but in fact The Book That Matters Most is mainly about Ava North’s rediscovery of the power of literature to heal not just her latest heartache but a childhood trauma she’s long tried to ignore. The central conceit of Ann Hood’s seventh novel should be as irresistible to book groups as wine and cheese: An empty-nester, at loose ends after her husband of twenty-five years leaves her for another woman, joins a local book club, looking for “the comfort of people who wanted nothing more than to sit together and talk about books.” The group’s theme-of-the-year requires each of its ten members to pick the book that matters most to them.
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