Looking for something to read? Something your friends and neighbors thought worth sharing? Here is a great book list contributed by a second local group that has been talking about books for many years. Bold type means the library currently owns the book.
(List #1)
1995 |
Title |
Author |
March |
Aquamarine |
Carol Anshaw |
April |
Moon Tiger |
Penelope Lively |
May |
Country Girls Trilogy |
Edna O’Brien |
June |
Coffee Will Make You Black |
April Sinclair |
July |
Questions of Power |
Bessie Head |
August |
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent |
Julia Alvarez |
September |
Jasmine |
Bharati Mukherjee |
October |
Tell Me a Riddle The Shawl |
Tillie Olsen Cynthia Ozick |
November |
Bastard Out of Carolina & Two or Three Things I Know for Sure |
Dorothy Allison |
December |
Animal Dreams & Bean Trees |
Barbara Kingsolver |
1996 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Them |
Joyce Carol Oates |
February |
Their Eyes Were Watching God Delta Wedding |
Zora Neale Hurston Eudora Welty |
March |
I, Rigoberto Menchu |
Rigoberto Menchu |
April |
Stone of Laughter Nine Parts of Desire |
Hoda Barakat Geraldine Brooks |
May |
Deals with the Devil Two Old Women |
Pearl Cleage Velma Wallis |
June |
Paula |
Isabelle Allende |
July |
On Persphone’s Island |
Mary Simeti |
August |
Red Azalea |
Anchee Min |
September |
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams |
Ellen Gilchris |
October |
Dream of Water |
Kyoko Mori |
November |
Violet Shyness of Their Eyes |
Barbara Scot |
December |
Mr. Ive’s Christmas |
Oscar Hijuelos |
1997 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Bastard Out of Carolina – the Movie |
Dorothy Allison |
February |
Reviving Ophelia |
Mary Pipher |
March |
Written on the Body |
Jeanette Winterson |
April |
Failure is Impossible (bio of Susan B. Anthony) |
Lynn Sherr |
May |
Frankenstein Vindication of the Rights of Women |
Mary Shelly Mary Shelly Wolstencraft |
June |
Mama Day |
Gloria Naylor |
July |
Solar Storms |
Linda Hogan |
August |
Kindred |
Octavia Butler |
September |
The Last Time I Saw Mother |
Arlene Chai |
October |
Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood |
Rebecca Wells |
November |
T. C. Boyle |
|
December |
Caught Up in the Rapture |
Sheneska Jackson |
1998 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Towards Amnesia |
Sarah Van Arsdale |
February |
Alias Grace |
Margaret Atwood |
March |
The Woman Who Walked into Doors |
Roddy Dole |
April |
Stones from the River |
Ursula Hegi |
May |
One True Thing |
Anna Quindlen |
June |
Strange Pilgrims |
Gabriel Garcia Marquez |
July |
Gate to Women’s Country |
Sheri Tepper |
August |
Fall on your Knees |
Anne Macdonald |
September |
Mr. Sandman |
Barbara Gowdy |
October |
West with the Night I was Amelia Earhart |
Beryl Markham Jane Mendelsohn |
November |
Indian Killer |
Sherman Alexie |
December |
None to Accompany Me |
Nadine Gordimer |
1999 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Kissing the Witch |
Emma Donaghue |
February |
Charming Billy |
Alice McDermott |
March |
The Finishing School |
Gail Godwin |
April |
Memoirs of a Geisha |
Arthur Golden |
May |
Chimney Sweeper’s Boy |
Barbara Vine |
June |
Possessing the Secret of Joy |
Alice Walker |
July |
Journey with Elsa Cloud |
Leila Hadley |
August |
Song of the Lark |
Willa Cather |
September |
Beloved |
Toni Morrison |
October |
Seven Moves |
Carol Anshaw |
November |
Book of Ruth |
Jane Hamilton |
December |
Undiscovered Country |
Samantha Gillison |
2000 |
Title |
Author |
January |
A Gracious Plenty |
Sheri Reynolds |
February |
Prayer for Owen Meany |
John Irving |
March |
Woman: An Intimate Geography |
Natalie Angier |
April |
The Love of a Good Woman |
Alice Munroe |
May |
Crossing to Safety |
Wallace Stegner |
June |
Ruby Fruit Jungle |
Rita Mae Brown |
July |
Sense and Sensibility |
Jane Austen |
August |
The Group |
Mary McCarthy |
September |
The White Bone |
Barbara Gowdy |
October |
Birds of America |
Lorrie Moore |
November |
The Hours |
Michael Cunningham |
December |
Riven Rock |
T.C. Boyle |
2001 |
Title |
Author |
January |
The Weight of Water |
Anita Shreve |
February |
Cathedral |
Raymond Carver |
March |
Wiseblood |
Flannery O’Connor |
April |
Disgrace |
J.M. Coetzee |
May |
Colors of the Mountain |
Da Chen |
June |
House of Sand and Fog |
Andre Dubus |
July |
Unquiet Earth |
Denise Giardinia |
August |
Sally Hemings |
Barbara Chase-Riboud |
September |
White Teeth |
Zadie Smith |
October |
God of Small Things |
Arundhati Roy |
November |
Blue Angel |
Francine Prose |
December |
Girl with a Pearl Earring Girl in Hyacinth Blue |
Tracy Chevalier Susan Vreeland |
2002 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Plainsong |
Kent Haruf |
February |
Jane Eyre Wide Sargasso Sea |
Charlotte Bronte Jean Rhys |
March |
Interpreter of Maladies |
Jhumpa Lahiri |
April |
The Red Tent |
Anita Diamant |
May |
Death of Vishnu |
Manil Suri |
June |
Traveling Mercies |
Annie Lamott |
July |
Bel Canto |
Ann Patchett |
August |
The Healing |
Gayle Jones |
September |
The Corrections |
Jonathan Franzen |
October |
The Spirit Catches you and you fall down |
Ann Fadiman |
November |
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse |
Louise Erdrich |
December |
Age of Grief |
Jane Smiley |
2003 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Bee Season |
Myla Goldberg |
February |
I Capture the Castle |
Dodi Smith |
March |
Bridge of San Luis Rey |
Thornton Wilder |
April |
Fall of the Sparrow |
Robert Hellenga |
May |
Maybe the Moon |
Armistead Maupin |
June |
Life of Pi |
Yann Martel |
July |
The Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency |
Alexander Smith |
August |
Prodigal Summer |
Barbara Kingsolver |
September |
Disobedience |
Jane Hamilton |
October |
Atonement |
Ian McEwan |
November |
Three Junes |
Julia Glass |
December |
The Book of Daniel |
E L Doctorow |
Title |
Author |
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January |
Share a poem, story, article, essay, idea |
-- |
February |
The Garden Party and Other Stories |
Katherine Mansfield |
March |
Appetites |
Caroline Knapp |
April |
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May |
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June |
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July |
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August |
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September |
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October |
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November |
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December |
Oryx and Crake |
Margaret Atwood |
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Riding the Bus With My Sister: A True Life Journey by Rachel Simon
The Way the Crow Flies by Anne Macdonald
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
The Dogs of Babel: A Novel by Carolyn Parkhurst
2005 |
Title |
Author |
January |
?? |
|
February |
The Wife |
Meg Wolitzer |
March |
The Known World |
Edward P. Jones |
April |
Behind the Scenes at the Museum |
Kate Atkinson |
May |
Eva Moves the Furniture |
Margot Livesey |
June |
Mating |
Norman Rush |
July |
Devil in the White City |
Eric Larsen |
August |
NO BOOK |
|
September |
Prince Edward |
Dennis McFarland |
October |
The Time Traveler's Wife |
Audrey Niffenegger |
November |
The Falls |
Joyce Carol Oates |
December |
Vernon God Little |
DBC Pierre |
2006 |
Title |
Author |
January |
The Sari Shop |
Rupa Bajwa |
February |
Guns, Germs and Steel |
Jared Diamond |
March |
The Darling |
Russell Banks |
April |
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City |
Nick Flynn |
May |
Housekeeping |
Marilynne Robinson |
June |
The Good Wife |
|
July |
March, Little Women |
Geraldine Brooks, Louisa May Alcott |
August |
NO BOOK |
|
September |
On Beauty |
Zadie's Smith |
October |
Eventide |
Kent Haruf |
November |
Geographer's Library |
Jon Fasman |
December |
The Year of Magical Thinking |
Joan Didion |
2007 |
Title |
Author |
January |
Blink |
Malcolm Gladwell |
February |
Gilead |
Marilynne Robinson |
March |
How to Be Good |
Nick Hornby |
April |
Truth and Beauth: A Friendship |
Ann Patchett |
May |
Maps |
Nuruddin Farah |
June |
Lolita |
Nabokov |
July |
Bird Artist |
Howard Norman |
August |
NO BOOK |
|
September |
Anna Karenina |
Tolstoy |
October |
Water for Elephants |
Sara Gruen |
November |
Collapse |
Jared Diamond |
December |
Year of Wonders |
Geraldine Brooks |
2008 |
Title |
Author |
January |
The Loop |
Joe Coomer |
February |
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March |
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April |
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May |
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June |
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July |
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August |
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September |
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October |
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November |
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December |
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Here's the list of books under consideration
1. The omnivore's dilemma: a natural history of 4 meals by Michael Pollan
2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a year of food life by Barbara Kingsolver
3. Snow by Orhan Pamuk
4. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
5. The Danish Girl by David Evershoff
6. Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
7. Run by Ann Patchett
8. Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
9. Possession by A S Byatt
10. Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
11. Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra
12. books by Walker Percy (Love in the ruins; The moviegoer )
13. books by Henry James (Portrait of a lady , Washington Square, The Bostonians, Daisy Miller, The Golden Bowl)
14. books by Ernest Hemingway ( A farewell to arms , To have and have not , The sun also rises , For whom the bell tolls )
15. stories by Alice Munro
16. books by Edna O'Brien ( The light of evening In the forest , Wild Decembers, Down by the river )
17. books by J. M. Coetzee ( Slow man , Elizabeth Costello, Waiting for the Barbarians, Youth)
18. books by T.C. Boyle ( Talk talk , A friend of the earth , Tooth and Claw, The inner circle , Drop City )
19. books by Doris Lessing, most recent recipient of the Nobel Prize ( The golden notebook )
20. books or stories by William Trevor ( Fools of fortune, The hill bachelors, The story of Lucy Gault or short stories)
21. Keith Donaghue's Stolen Child (local author)