Book Questions to Ask People

Open questions about whatever book someone is reading, with a follow-up for each.

Book Questions to Ask People

Where would you have started the story?

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What would be on your first page?

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How it works

These 102 book questions to ask people fit any book, because no title or author is named. Six sets follow a reader from the middle of the story to the last page, and on to the argument afterwards.

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Questions to ask someone about a book

Ask where they are first. Before the last page suits a reader in the middle: Who in the story do you trust least so far? Once the book is finished, turn to The ending: What did the last page answer, and what did it leave open? If you had written it turns a reader into an editor.

When the group did not agree

For a group that disagreed is built for a split room: What is the strongest case for the book from someone who disliked it? For a child who has just finished a book keeps the words short: Which picture did you look at the longest?

  • For interesting book conversation topics at a club, read one card aloud and let two people answer before anyone replies.

Questions and answers

What are good conversation questions to ask about a book?

Ones with no right answer: Which small detail do you think will matter later? Who is the book kindest to, and who does it treat hardest?

What are interesting questions to ask about a book I have not read?

Ask the reader to change it: Where would you have started the story? Whose point of view was missing from the book? The reader does the telling, so these work when you have never opened the book.

What are random questions to ask about a book?

Ones that work wherever the reader has got to: Which place in the story can you picture most clearly? Who in the book made you laugh, on purpose or not? With no set chosen, the deck mixes all six.

Are these get to know you questions about books?

Not quite. Every card is about one book that someone is reading or has finished, not about reading habits. For favorite genres and reading spots, open the book club icebreakers linked below.

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All 102 questions

Before the last page 17

  • If the book stopped at the page you are on, what would it be saying? Follow-up: What is still missing for that to feel finished?
  • What are you afraid will happen before the end? Follow-up: What makes you think the author might go there?
  • What do you think the title is pointing at? Follow-up: How has your guess about the title moved since page one?
  • What does the main character want right now, and what stands in the way? Follow-up: What would you do in the same spot?
  • What has the book promised you that it has not delivered yet? Follow-up: By which chapter do you expect it to pay up?
  • What is the book slower or quicker about than you expected? Follow-up: What does that pace tell you about what the book cares about?
  • What kept you reading past the first chapter? Follow-up: At which point did you nearly put it down?
  • What would make you stay up late to finish it? Follow-up: How far do you get in one sitting?
  • Where are you in the book, and what do you think happens next? Follow-up: Which clue is that guess built on?
  • Which chapter so far would you describe to a friend? Follow-up: How would you tell that chapter in two sentences?
  • Which mood does the book put you in when you pick it up? Follow-up: At what time of day do you usually read it?
  • Which place in the story can you picture most clearly? Follow-up: Which detail made that place real for you?
  • Which question are you reading on to find the answer to? Follow-up: What is your best guess at the answer today?
  • Which small detail do you think will matter later? Follow-up: Where did that detail first show up?
  • Which two people in the story are headed for a clash? Follow-up: Whose side are you on before it begins?
  • Who in the story do you trust least so far? Follow-up: What did that person do to lose your trust?
  • Who is telling the story, and how far do you believe them? Follow-up: What do you suspect the teller has left out?

People in the book 17

  • Which friendship or family tie in the book rang true? Follow-up: Which moment between those two proved it?
  • Which name in the book suited its owner best? Follow-up: What would you have named that person?
  • Which person from the book would you want on your side in an argument? Follow-up: What would they say to open the case?
  • Which person in the book did you change your mind about? Follow-up: Which scene turned you round?
  • Which person in the book felt most real, and what made them so? Follow-up: Who from your own life do they remind you of?
  • Which person would you like to check on a year after the story ends? Follow-up: What do you hope they are doing by then?
  • Who from the book would you least want beside you on a long journey? Follow-up: What would they talk about the whole way?
  • Who had the best entrance in the story? Follow-up: What did you make of them in that first moment?
  • Who in the book made you laugh, on purpose or not? Follow-up: Which line of theirs did it?
  • Who in the book wanted the wrong thing? Follow-up: What did that person need in its place?
  • Who in the story knows the most and says the least? Follow-up: What do you think they were holding back?
  • Who is the book kindest to, and who does it treat hardest? Follow-up: Which of the two earned that treatment?
  • Who paid the highest price in the story? Follow-up: Whose choice were they paying for?
  • Who was easy to dislike, and what was the best thing about them? Follow-up: How did the book want you to feel about them?
  • Who would play the lead if your friends acted the book out? Follow-up: Who gets the part nobody wants?
  • Whose choice in the story did you argue with out loud? Follow-up: What should they have chosen?
  • Whose point of view was missing from the book? Follow-up: How would one chapter read in that missing voice?

The ending 17

  • How did the ending change what you thought of the first chapter? Follow-up: What would you notice on a second read?
  • How would the story feel if it had stopped one chapter earlier? Follow-up: What would be lost with that last chapter?
  • What did the ending ask you to accept? Follow-up: How willingly did you go along with it?
  • What did the last page answer, and what did it leave open? Follow-up: Which open question do you mind the most?
  • What did you do in the first minute after finishing? Follow-up: Who did you want to tell about it?
  • What do you think the last sentence is doing? Follow-up: What would you have put there in its place?
  • What happens on the morning after the last page? Follow-up: Who in the story wakes up first?
  • What is the book about, now that you know how it ends? Follow-up: What did you think it was about at the halfway mark?
  • What were you feeling when you closed the book? Follow-up: How long did the feeling stay with you?
  • What would you tell someone who stopped fifty pages from the end? Follow-up: How much of the ending would you give away?
  • When did you first see the ending coming? Follow-up: What tipped you off?
  • Where were you sitting when you read the last page? Follow-up: What was going on around you just then?
  • Which ending did you get: the one you wanted, the one you feared or neither? Follow-up: Which ending had you been hoping for?
  • Which final image stays with you? Follow-up: What do you think makes that image stick?
  • Which goodbye in the book was the hardest? Follow-up: Who in the story took that goodbye best?
  • Which loose thread do you keep pulling at? Follow-up: What is your own theory about it?
  • Who got what they deserved in the end, and who did not? Follow-up: Whose ending would you soften?

If you had written it 17

  • How would you tell this story in a single page? Follow-up: Which one scene must stay on that page?
  • What did the author do that you would never have dared? Follow-up: How well did the risk pay off?
  • What would you add: a map, a family tree or a list of who is who? Follow-up: Where in the book did you need it most?
  • What would you have left unexplained? Follow-up: What does a mystery like that add?
  • What would you have put on the cover? Follow-up: What would you leave off the cover on purpose?
  • What would you have told the reader sooner? Follow-up: And what would you have held back for longer?
  • What would you write on a note to slip inside the next reader's copy? Follow-up: Between which pages would you tuck the note?
  • Where would you have started the story? Follow-up: What would be on your first page?
  • Where would you set the story if you had to move it? Follow-up: What would have to change along with the place?
  • Which chapter would you move to another place in the book? Follow-up: What changes once that chapter moves?
  • Which conversation in the book should have gone differently? Follow-up: What should have been said in it?
  • Which moment that happens off the page would you write in? Follow-up: Who is in the room when it happens?
  • Which person in the book would you have given a happier day? Follow-up: What happens on that happier day?
  • Which point of view would you have chosen to tell it from? Follow-up: What would the reader lose by that change?
  • Which rule did the author set for this book, and where was it bent? Follow-up: What would you have done at that point?
  • Which scene would you have made longer? Follow-up: What more did you want to see in that scene?
  • Whose story would you have told in place of this one? Follow-up: Where would their story begin?

For a group that disagreed 17

  • What did another reader notice that you missed? Follow-up: How does that change your reading?
  • What did tonight's argument make you want to reread? Follow-up: What will you watch for on the reread?
  • What did you bring to this book that another reader could not? Follow-up: Where in your reading did that show?
  • What is the disagreement really about: this book, or what books are for? Follow-up: What does each of us want from a story?
  • What is the strongest case for the book from someone who disliked it? Follow-up: What is the fairest complaint from someone who loved it?
  • What should the next book give us that this one did not? Follow-up: Who gets to choose it?
  • What was the book trying to do, and how well did it do that? Follow-up: How is that different from whether you liked it?
  • What would you need to believe to enjoy this book more? Follow-up: What do the readers who loved it already believe?
  • What would you say to a friend who asks whether to read it? Follow-up: Which kind of reader would you warn off?
  • Where did the book lose you, if it did? Follow-up: What would have kept you with it?
  • Which line would you read aloud to make your case? Follow-up: Which line would the other side read back?
  • Which one word would each of us pick for the book? Follow-up: Which two of those words are furthest apart?
  • Which part did everyone agree on? Follow-up: What made that the easy part?
  • Which person in the book do we read most differently? Follow-up: What is the evidence on each side?
  • Which scene split the room? Follow-up: What did each side see in that scene?
  • Who loved it, who did not, and who is still deciding? Follow-up: What would move the ones still deciding?
  • Who was this book written for, in your view? Follow-up: How close are you to that reader?

For a child who has just finished a book 17

  • How did the story make you feel at the end? Follow-up: Where in the book did that feeling start?
  • How was the main character different by the end? Follow-up: What was it that changed them?
  • What did someone in the story learn? Follow-up: What happened to teach them that?
  • What do you think they all do the next day? Follow-up: Who would be in the next story?
  • What should your next book have in it? Follow-up: Where could we look for one like that?
  • What was the problem in the story, and how did it get fixed? Follow-up: Who helped to fix it?
  • What was the scariest or saddest bit, if there was one? Follow-up: What made it turn out all right?
  • What would you do if you were inside the story? Follow-up: Who would you want in there with you?
  • What would you draw to show someone what this book is about? Follow-up: Which colors would you need for the drawing?
  • What would you tell the person who made this book? Follow-up: Which part would you ask them to make longer?
  • Which page would you read again right now? Follow-up: What is on that page?
  • Which part of the book did you like best? Follow-up: What happened just before that part?
  • Which part of the book made you laugh? Follow-up: How would you tell that part to a friend?
  • Which picture did you look at the longest? Follow-up: What did you spot in that picture?
  • Which word in the book was new to you? Follow-up: What do you think that word means?
  • Who should hear this story at bedtime next? Follow-up: Which part will that person like?
  • Who was your favorite in the story? Follow-up: What did they do that you liked so much?