I love this Book Club Kit for Miss Benson's Beetle almost more than I loved the book!

I listened to the audiobook of this novel by Rachel Joyce last month (January 2021), and this is the perfect "physical" companion for that experience. Its beautifully-designed landscape-formatted pages include:

- Group Discussion Questions, such as: "How do Margery's core beliefs - about herself, about the world - change throughout the novel?"
- Beetle Facts, like "25% of all life on earth is a type of beetle." (Fascinating!)
- An Interview with Margery Benson and Enid Pretty, where Rachel Joyce does a Q&A with the novel's fictional characters. (Adorable!)
- An interview with Rachel Joyce, which made me understand - and appreciate - this story even more.
- A map of New Caledonia (Yes! This is exactly the type of thing audiobook listeners miss out on when choosing that format over print.)
- Food & Drink suggestions (I doubt anyone will make the recipe for Bougna, but the drink ideas are lovely.)
- Further viewing movie suggestions to continue celebrating female friendship, like A League of Their Own.

This kit is a book club host's holy grail. Well done!

Book Club Kit is designed to be a companion to Rachel Joyce's MISS BENSON'S BEETLE, the top pick for the November 2020 Library Reads selections. This work of historical fiction (set in 1950) is an adventure story (mainly on an island in the South Pacific) involving an unlikely friendship; the title also received a starred review from Library Journal ("a delightful book ... sure to be a hit with book clubs") and Publishers Weekly. The Book Club Kit appears similar to the discussion questions which appear in the novel, but there is plenty in this roughly 20 page "kit:" "interviews" with the main characters and the author (whose earlier work includes The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry), map, food, drinks and a list of related movies. It's a great idea to have it here on Net Galley, too!