The Grafton Public Library presents…

Lunch Box Book Group Suggested Titles:

The Great American Read Books

Tuesday, October 23, 2018 12-1:30 pm

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    Book

Author

Dewey Number

Description

1984

Orwell, George

FIC ORW

Composed, logically derived, this grim forecasting blueprints the means and methods of mass control, the techniques of maintaining power, the fundamentals of political duplicity, and offers as arousing a picture as the author's previous Animal Farm.

A Prayer for Owen Meany

Irving, John

FIC IRV

Eleven-year-old Owen Meany, playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire, hits a foul ball and kills his best friend's mother. Owen doesn't believe in accidents; he believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul is both extraordinary and terrifying.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Twain, Mark

FIC TWA

Mark Twain was one of the nineteenth century’s greatest chroniclers of childhood, and of all his works his beloved novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer most enchantingly and timelessly captures the sheer pleasure of being a boy.

The Alchemist

Coelho, Paulo

FIC COE

 

Paulo Coelho's masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different—and far more satisfying—than he ever imagined.

Americanah

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi

FIC ADI

A sensitive portrayal of distant love, broken affinities and culture clash by Nigerian novelist Adichie.

Beloved

Morrison, Toni

FIC MOR

Morrison's truly majestic fifth novel—strong and intricate in craft; devastating in impact.

The Book Thief

Zusak, Markus

FIC MAR

When Death tells a story, you pay attention. Liesel is a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany, and Death tells her story as “an attempt—a flying jump of an attempt—to prove to me that you, and your human existence, are worth it.”

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Haddon, Mark

FIC HAD

A kind of Holden Caulfield who speaks bravely and winningly from inside the sorrows of autism: wonderful, simple, easy, moving, and likely to be a smash.

The Da Vinci Code

Brown, Dan

FIC BRO

An ingenious code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci.
A desperate race through the cathedrals and castles of Europe.
An astonishing truth concealed for centuries . . . unveiled at last.

Fifty Shades of  Grey

James, E.L.

FIC JAM

When literature student Anastasia Steele goes to interview young entrepreneur Christian Grey, she encounters a man who is beautiful, brilliant, and intimidating.

A Game of Thrones

Martin, George

FIC MAR

As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Atwood, Margaret

FIC ATW

The time is the not-so-distant future, when the US's spiraling social freedoms have finally called down a reaction, an Iranian-style repressive "monotheocracy" calling itself the Republic of Gilead--a Bible-thumping, racist, capital-punishing, and misogynistic rule

Hatchet

Paulsen, Gary

J FIC PAU

A prototypical survival story: after an airplane crash, a 13-year-old city boy spends two months alone in the Canadian wilderness.

The Help

Stockett, Kathryn

FIC STO

The relationships between white middle-class women and their black maids in Jackson, Miss., circa 1962, reflect larger issues of racial upheaval in Mississippi-native Stockett’s ambitious first novel.

The Hunger Games

Collins, Suzanne

YA COL

Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting.

Jane Eyre

Bronte, Charlotte

FIC BRO

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle.

The Joy Luck Club

Tan, Amy

FIC TAN

In 1949, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club.

Jurassic Park

Crichton, Michael

FIC CRI

An astonishing technique for recovering and cloning dinosaur DNA has been discovered. Now humankind’s most thrilling fantasies have come true.

The Little Prince

Saint-Exupery, Antoine de

FIC ANT

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language.

Lonesome Dove

McMurtry, Larry

FIC MCM

A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize— winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America.

The Lord of the Rings

Tolkien, J.R.R.

FIC TOL

The Lord of the Rings was forged by three wars. The first began 100 years ago. The second was its successor, a time of contending totalitarian visions. The third has in some respects never ended, pitting East against West, religion against religion.

The Notebook

Sparks, Nicholas

FIC SPA

Set amid the austere beauty of the North Carolina coast, The Notebook begins with the story of Noah Calhoun, a rural Southerner recently returned form the Second World War.

Outlander

Gabaldon, Diana

FIC GAB

The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles.

The Outsiders

Hinton, S.E.

FIC HIN

The Outsiders is about two weeks in the life of a 14-year-old boy. The novel tells the story of Ponyboy and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider.

The Pilgrim’s Progress

Bunyan, John

FIC BUN

This famous story of man's progress through life in search of salvation remains one of the most entertaining allegories of faith ever written.

The Pillars of the Earth

Follett, Ken

FIC FOL

Ken Follett is known as the master of suspense, but his bestselling book tells the tale of a monk driven to do the seemingly impossible: build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has ever known.

Ready Player One

Cline, Ernest

FIC CLI

In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS.

The Shack

Young, William P.

FIC YOU

Mack's youngest daughter has been abducted, and evidence that she may have been murdered is found in an abandoned shack. Years later Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Hurston, Zora Neale

FIC HUR

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a black woman in the '30s. Janie's quest for identity takes her through three marriages and into a journey back to her roots.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Lee, Harper

FIC LEE

The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960.

War and Peace

Tolstoy, Leo

FIC TOL

War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men.