We discuss Paul Beatty's 2016 Booker Prize winning novel The Sellout and Hillbilly Elegy, Jack Vance's memoir of growing up in a poor Appalachian town. Does Vance's book explain the rise of Donald Trump, as many commentators claimed? Did The Sellout make us laugh, as the blurb promised it would? And did these two books make good book club reads? We also talk to Howard Green whose book clubs explore a sense of community and spiritual reflection and meditation.