Book Discussion Kits

Short List by Author

The Kits: All adult titles, with summaries | All adult titles, by author | All adult titles, by title | All youth titles, by title | New Adult Titles | New Youth Titles | Information about the Kits

Kits by Genre or Age: Contemporary Fiction | Historical Fiction | Memoir/Autobiography | Mystery | Nonfiction | Grades 4-5 | Grades 6-9

Authors: A-E | F-L | M-Q | R-Z

• Abu-Jaber, Diana. Crescent.
• Ackerman, Diane. The Zookeeper's Wife.
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Half of a Yellow Sun.
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus.
• Albom, Mitch. The Five People You Meet in Heaven.
• Albom, Mitch. For One More Day.
• Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie.
• Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.
• Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune.
• Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
• Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil.
• Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
• Atwood, Margaret. The Blind Assassin.
• Bakopoulos, Dean. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon.
• Barker, Pat. Regeneration.
• Barr, Nevada. Winter Study.
• Barry, Brunonia. The Lace Reader
• Berg, Elizabeth. Home Safe.
• Berg, Elizabeth. Open House.
• Bloom, Amy. Away.
• Bloom, Stephen. Postville.
• Bohjalian, Chris. The Double Bind.
• Bohjalian, Chris. Water Witches.
• Bourdain, Anthony. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly.
• Boyle, T.C. The Women.
• Brooks, Geraldine. The People of the Book.
• Bryson, Bill. In a Sunburned Country.
• Bryson, Bill. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.
• Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalacian Trail.
• Buford, Bill. Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany.
• Burke, James Lee. The Tin Roof Blowdown.
• Burns, Olive Ann. Cold Sassy Tree.
• Campbell, James. The Ghost Mountain Boys: Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea, the Forgotten War of the South Pacific
• Cather, Willa. My Antonia.
• Chabon, Michael. The Yiddish Policemen's Union.
• Chang, Jung. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China.
• Chevalier, Tracy. Girl with a Pearl Earring.
• Codell, Esme. Educating Esme.
• Crombie, Deborah. A Share in Death.
• De los Santos, Marisa. Belong to Me.
• De los Santos, Marisa. Love Walked In.
• Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss.
• DeVita, James. The Silenced.
• Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
• Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
• Divakaruni, Chitra Bannerjee. Sister of My Heart.
• Doig, Ivan. Dancing at the Rascal Fair.
• Dorris, Michael. A Yellow Raft in Blue Water.
• Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi: a Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America.
• Edwards, Kim. The Memory Keeper's Daughter.
• Edwards, Kim. The Secrets of a Fire King.
• Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America.
• Enger, Leif. Peace Like a River.
• Ephron, Nora. I Feel Bad About My Neck.
• Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex.
• Fadiman, Anne. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures.
• Flagg, Fannie. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.
• Ford, Jamie. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.
• Fowler, Karen Joy. The Jane Austen Book Club.
• Frazier, Charles. Thirteen Moons.
• Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. One Hundred Years of Solitude.
• Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat, Pray, Love.
• Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking.
• Glass, Julia. Three Junes.
• Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season.
• Goolrick, Robert. A Reliable Wife.
• Grafton, Sue. T Is for Trespass.
• Graham, Katharine. Personal History.
• Gruen, Sara. Water for Elephants.
• Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars.
• Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
• Haddon, Mark. A Spot of Bother.
• Hamilton, Jane. When Madeline Was Young.
• Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon.
• Harr, Jonathan. A Civil Action.
• Harris, Joanne. Chocolat.
• Haruf, Kent. Eventide.
• Haruf, Kent. Plainsong.
• Hillenbrand, Laura. Seabiscuit: An American Legend.
• Hockenberry, John. Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence.
• Hoeg, Peter. Smilla's Sense of Snow.
• Horan, Nancy. Loving Frank.
• Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner.
• Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns.
• Jones, Edward. The Known World.
• Kallos, Stephanie. Broken for You.
• Kennedy, Pagan. Confessions of a Memory Eater.
• Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees.
• Kingsolver, Barbara. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
• Kingsolver, Barbara. The Bean Trees.
• Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer.
• Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Interpreter of Maladies.
• Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake.
• Landvik, Lorna. Welcome to the Great Mysterious.
• Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City.
• Larson, Erik. Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History.
• Lawton, John. Black Out.
• Lopez, Steve. The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music.
• Maraniss, David. They Marched Into Sunlight.
• Martel, Yann. Life of Pi.
• Martinez, Ruben. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail.
• Mayes, Frances. Under the Tuscan Sun.
• McBride, James. The Color of Water.
• McCall Smith, Alexander. The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.
• McCall Smith, Alexander. The Tears of the Giraffe.
• McCarthy, Cormac. The Road.
• McCullough, David. 1776.
• McEwan, Ian. Atonement.
• McEwan, Ian. Saturday.
• Miller, Sue. The Senator's Wife.
• Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas.
• Moriarty, Laura. The Center of Everything.
• Morrison, Toni. A Mercy.
• Mortenson, Greg. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations-- One School at a Time.
• Myron, Vicki. Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World.
• Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran.
• Nemirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise.
• Niffenegger, Audrey. The Time Traveler's Wife.
• Packer, Ann. The Dive from Clausen's Pier.
• Pamuk, Orhan. Snow.
• Patchett, Ann. Bel Canto.
• Patchett, Ann. Run.
• Penny, Louise. Still Life.
• Perry, Michael. Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time.
• Perry, Michael. Truck: A Love Story.
• Pickard, Nancy. The Virgin of Small Plains.
  Picoult, Jodi. Change of Heart.
• Picoult, Jodi. Handle With Care.
• Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper.
• Picoult, Jodi. Nineteen Minutes.
• Picoult, Jodi. The Tenth Circle.
• Picoult, Jodi. Vanishing Acts.
• Pollan, Michael. In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
• Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals.
• Quindlen, Anna. Blessings.
• Quindlen, Anna. Rise and Shine.
• Reichl, Ruth. Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.
• Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead.
• Roth, Philip. The Plot Against America.
• Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things.
• Russo, Richard. Bridge of Sighs.
• Salzman, Mark. The Soloist.
• Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis.
• Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.
• Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones.
• Sedaris, David. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
• See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
• Seierstad, Asne. The Bookseller of Kabul.
• Seliy, Shauna. When We Get There.
• Senna, Danzy. Caucasia.
• Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale.
• Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
• Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries.
• Shields, Carol. Unless.
• Shreve, Anita. Testimony.
• Sijie, Dal. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress.
• Smith, Zadie. On Beauty.
• Stefaniak, Mary Helen. The Turk and My Mother.
• Stein, Garth. The Art of Racing in the Rain.
• Stegner, Wallace. Crossing to Safety.
• Talarigo, Jeff. The Ginseng Hunter.
• Tolan, Sandy. Lemon Tree.
• Tolle, Eckhart. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose.
• Tsukiyama, Gail. Women of the Silk.
• Tyler, Anne. Digging to America.
• Vargas, Fred. Have Mercy on Us All.
• Wallach, Janet. Desert Queen: the Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Advisor to Kings….
• Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir.
• Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us.
• Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.
• Wood, Patricia. The Lottery.
• Wroblewski, David. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.