Literary fiction · Book club
Of Mice and Men book club questions
Here are 12 book club questions for Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. Copy them, print them, or bring them up one at a time.
Of Mice and Men is a short novel — really a novella — published in 1937, two years before The Grapes of Wrath, and it covers much of the same Depression-era California ground in concentrated form.
John Steinbeck · 1937 · 2h 0m
Full summary and key takeaways →The 12 questions
- 1.
George has been carrying Lennie for years, at real cost to himself. Is their relationship mutual, or is George giving far more than he receives?
- 2.
The novel ends with George shooting Lennie. Is this a mercy killing, a murder, a sacrifice, or something that requires a different word entirely?
- 3.
Crooks tells Lennie that everyone who doesn't have someone to talk to 'goes nuts.' Is Crooks right? What does the novel say about the relationship between loneliness and sanity?
- 4.
Curley's wife is portrayed sympathetically — she has dreams, she is trapped — but she also says something vicious to Crooks. How do you hold both of those things at once?
- 5.
The farm dream is almost certainly impossible. Does George believe in it, or is it a story he tells Lennie? Does the distinction matter?
- 6.
Candy offers his life savings to be part of the dream. What does that tell us about what the dream represents beyond its literal content?
- 7.
Compare Candy's failure to shoot his dog with George's decision at the end. Is there a moral distinction, or is Steinbeck making them equivalent?
- 8.
The novel was written to be staged as a play. Does reading it feel different from other novels? Does its theatrical structure limit or concentrate its effect?
- 9.
Of Mice and Men is one of the most frequently challenged books in schools. On what grounds? Do you find those grounds convincing?
- 10.
The Burns epigraph frames failure as a universal condition. Does that universality let the novel off the hook politically — making structural conditions feel like fate?
- 11.
At what points in your own life have you held a dream the way George and Lennie hold theirs — as something necessary to function, regardless of its likelihood?
- 12.
Steinbeck gives Lennie's mental disability no clinical label and no explanation. Is that a strength of the portrayal, or does it flatten a complex condition into a plot mechanism?
How to run the discussion
- Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
- Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
- Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
- Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.
Themes worth steering toward
If the conversation stalls, these are the threads that usually restart it.
Common questions
What are good book club questions for Of Mice and Men?
Here are 12 book club questions for Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, ordered to open easily and end somewhere worth arguing about. The strongest openers ask what each reader noticed rather than what they concluded, and the discussion usually turns on dreams and their failure, loneliness, friendship.
How long should a book club discussion of Of Mice and Men last?
Most groups run 60 to 90 minutes of actual discussion. That is roughly six to eight questions, not all of them, so pick the ones that suit your group rather than working down the list in order.
What are the main themes in Of Mice and Men?
Dreams and their failure, Loneliness, Friendship, Powerlessness, Mercy and violence. Those are the threads most likely to divide a room, which makes them the useful places to steer a discussion that has gone quiet.
Picking the next one? See books like Of Mice and Men or questions for other book club picks.
