The Grafton
Public Library presents… Lunch Box Book
Group Suggested Titles: The Great American Read Books Tuesday, October
23, 2018 12-1:30 pm Home - Hours - Contact Us |
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. |
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. |