Southwest Public Libraries: Great Reads


			You are here: Great Reads > Oprah Book Club

			Oprah Book Club Titles
				Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan This is the most recent selection. Selected: September 2009 Through the sanitized windows of our televisions and newspapers, the truth about the pervasive poverty and violence that exists in so many African nations comes only in fits and starts, clouded by physical distance and apathy toward what we may feel we cannot relate to or change. In his first collection of stories, Say You're One of Them, Akpan brings to life the issues facing children in one of the most beleaguered places on earth, so that their voices will no longer go unheard. Reserve Say You're One of Them

				The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski Selected: September 2008 Set in Wisconsin, this riveting saga of an American family captures the deep and ancient alliance between humans and dogs, and the power of fate through one boy's epic journey into the wild. Reserve The Story of Edgar Sawtelle

				A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle Selected: January 2008 Building on the astonishing success of The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle presents readers with an honest look at the current state of humanity: He implores us to see and accept that this state, which is based on an erroneous identification with the egoic mind, is one of dangerous insanity. Reserve A New Earth

				The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet Selected: November 2007 A spellbinding epic set in twelfth-century England, The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known...of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect-a man divided in his soul...of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame...and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state, and brother against brother. Reserve The Pillars of the Earth

				Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Selected: October 2007 From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds three people's lives together for more than 50 years with humorous sagacity and consummate craft. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises--joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising. Reserve Love in the Time of Cholera

				Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Selected: June 2007 Spanning eight decades, Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. Eugenides was named one of America's best young novelists by both Granta and The New Yorker. Reserve Middlesex

				The Road by Cormac McCarthy Selected: March 2007 At once brutal and tender, despairing and rashly hopeful, spare of language and profoundly moving, this work is a fierce and haunting meditation on the tenuous divide between civilization and savagery, and the essential, sometimes terrifying power of filial love. Reserve The Road

				The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography by Sidney Poitier Selected: January 2007 In this candid memoir, the legendary actor reveals the spiritual depth, passion, and intellectual fervor for issues that has driven his life. His memoir spans his involvement in the early days of segregation to the Civil Rights conflicts and up to modern day cultural struggles. Reserve The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography

				Night by Elie Wiesel Selected: January 2006 A terrifying account of the Nazi death camp horror that turns a young Jewish boy into an agonized witness to the death of his family . . . the death of his innocence . . . and the death of his God. Penetrating and powerful, as personal as The Diary of Anne Frank, Night awakens the shocking memory of evil at its absolute and carries with it the unforgettable message that this horror must never be allowed to happen again. Reserve Night

				A Million Little Pieces by James Frey Selected: September 2005 Intense, unpredictable, and instantly engaging, this is a story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation as it has never been told before. Recounted in visceral, kinetic prose, and crafted with a forthrightness that rejects self-pity, it brings readers face-to-face with a provocative understanding of the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery. Reserve A Million Little Pieces

				Light in August by William Faulkner Selected: August 2005 Lena Grove and Joe Christmas are both searching�Lena, for the father of her unborn child, and Joe, for his place in this world. Their parallel journeys will lead to horrific tragedy�and a small ray of hope. In a small town everyone knows everyone's business, but who really knows the heart of a man? Reserve Light in August

				The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner Selected: July 2005 First published in 1929, Faulkner created his "heart's darling," the beautiful and tragic Caddy Compson, whose story Faulkner told through separate monologues by her three brothers-the idiot Benjy, the neurotic suicidal Quentin and the monstrous Jason. Reserve The Sound and the Fury

				As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Selected: June 2005 This novel is the harrowing account of the Bundren family's odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Told in turns by each of the family members-including Addie herself-the novel ranges in mood from dark comedy to the deepest pathos. Reserve As I Lay Dying

				The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck Selected: September 2004 Pearl S. Buck presents a graphic view of a China when the last emperor reigned and the vast political and social upheavals of the twentieth century were but distant rumblings for the ordinary people. This moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan is must reading for those who would fully appreciate the sweeping changes that have occurred in the lives of the Chinese people during this century. Reserve The Good Earth

				The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers Selected: April 2004 John Singer, a deaf-mute, becomes the confidant for various misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine finds solace in her music. The novel, wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, is written with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South. Reserve The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

				One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Selected: January 2004 The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buend� a family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. A classic novel known throughout the world, this book is one of the 20th century's enduring works of art and the ultimate achievement in the author's Nobel Prize-winning career. Reserve One Hundred Years of Solitude

				Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton Selected: October 2003 Paton's deeply moving story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set against the backdrop of a land and people driven by racial inequality and injustice, remains the most famous and important novel in South Africa's history. Reserve Cry, The Beloved Country

				East of Eden by John Steinbeck Selected: June 2003 This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Reserve East of Eden

				Sula by Toni Morrison Selected: April 2002 Written by one of the most important novelists in America today, Sula is a rich and moving novel that traces the lives of two black heroines--from their growing up together in a small Ohio town, through their sharply divergent paths of womanhood, to their ultimate confrontation and reconciliation. Reserve Sula

				Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald Selected: January 2002 Moving from Cape Breton Island to the bleak landscape of World War I and the emerging jazz scene in New York City, this epic tale tells the story of four unforgettable sisters. This is a story of inescapable family bonds, of terrible secrets, of miracles, murder, passion and forbidden love. Reserve Fall on Your Knees

				A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry Selected: November 2001 The time is 1975; the place is India, in an unnamed city by the sea. The corrupt and brutal government has just declared a State of Emergency, and the country is on the edge of chaos. In these precarious circumstances, four strangers are forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. A Fine Balance is a touching, heart-wrenching and exquisite novel. Reserve A Fine Balance

				The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen Selected: September 2001 A comic, tragic masterpiece of an American family breaking down in an age of easy fixes, Franzen's third novel brings an old-time America of freight trains and civic duty into wild collision with the era of home surveillance and New Economy speculation. Reserve The Corrections

				Cane River by Lalita Tademy Selected: June 2001 Based on the author's own search of her family's past, this is an epic novel based on the lives of four generations of African-American women. This saga that sweeps from the early days of slavery through the Civil War and into a pre-Civil Rights South--a unique and moving slice of America's past that will resonate with readers for years to come. Reserve Cane River

				Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir Selected: May 2001 The adopted daughter of the king of Morocco, whose father was arrested and executed for a 1972 attempt to assassinate the king, tells the story of how she, her mother, and her five siblings endured years of imprisonment in a desert penal colony. Reserve Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail

				Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio Selected: March 2001 Icy Sparks is an unforgettable story of a 10-year old orphan named Icy Sparks who lives in the hills of Kentucky. Growing up is never easy, but Icy Sparks lives with a dreaded secret which she calls "my urges." She has loud hiccups, nervous tics and angry outbursts at playmates and teachers. Soon she's nicknamed "the frog child" and this undiagnosed disorder consumes her life. It's both funny and painful. Reserve Icy Sparks

				We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates Selected: January 2001 Moving away from the sometimes dark and harrowing tone of her previous novels, including Zombie and What I Lived For, Oates's storytelling takes a profound and luminous turn in a tale that spans 25 years in the life of one American family--its rise, fall, and ultimate redemption. Reserve We Were The Mulvaneys

				House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III Selected: November 2000 This riveting novel follows three fragile yet determined people, each with competing desires for the same house, doomed by their inability to understand each other. Oprah's FAVORITE READ of the Year. Reserve House of Sand and Fog

				Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwartz Selected: September 2000 Deftly written and emotionally powerful, Drowning Ruth is a stunning portrait of the ties that bind sisters together and the forces that tear them apart, of the dangers of keeping secrets and the explosive repercussions when they are exposed. A mesmerizing and achingly beautiful debut. Reserve Drowning Ruth

				Open House by Elizabeth Berg Selected: August 2000 In this superb novel by the beloved author of Talk Before Sleep, The Pull of the Moon, and Until the Real Thing Comes Along, a woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening up her house and her heart. It is a love story about what can blossom between a man and a woman, and within a woman herself. Reserve Open House

				While I Was Gone by Sue Miller Selected: May 2000 While I Was Gone is an exquisitely suspenseful novel about how quickly and casually a marriage can be destroyed, how a good wife can find herself placing all she holds dear at risk. In expert strokes, Sue Miller captures the precariousness of even the strongest ties, the ease with which we abandon each other, and our need to be forgiven. An extraordinary book, her best, from a beloved American writer. Reserve While I Was Gone

				The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Selected: April 2000 The Bluest Eye is the first novel written by Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is the story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove - a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others - who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different. This is the story of the nightmare at the heart of her yearning and the tragedy of its fulfillment. Reserve The Bluest Eye

				Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver Selected: April 2000 In her most highly acclaimed book to date, Kingsolver presents a compelling exploration of religion, conscience, imperialist arrogance, and the many paths to redemption, telling the story of an American missionary and his family in the Congo in 1959. Reserve Poisonwood Bible

				Back Roads by Tawni O'Dell Selected: March 2000 Nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer struggles to keep it all together. With his father dead and mother in jail for the murder, he juggles two low-paying jobs and the care of his three younger sisters. His only escape is the occasional six-pack, and the beautiful young woman whose attentions provide Harley with pretty much the only pleasure in his life. Reserve Back Roads

				Daughter of Fortune by Isabelle Allende Selected: February 2000 From the author of The House of the Spirits and Paula comes this bestselling historical novel of the California Gold Rush, a sweeping portrait of an unconventional woman carving her own destiny in an era marked by violence, passion, and adventure. This novel is empowering, romantic and full of adventure. Reserve Daughter of Fortune

				Gap Creek by Robert Morgan Selected: January 2000 This New York Times Notable Book comes from the "poet laureate of the Carolinas". Gap Creek is the gripping story of one young woman's courage in the face of the hardships of 19th-century country life. In Julie Harmon, a woman of strength, grace and immeasurable courage, Robert Morgan has created one of the most admirable and unforgettable heroines in modern American literature. Reserve Gap Creek

				Map of the World by Jane Hamilton Selected: December 1999 This spectacular, taut drama is about a Midwestern family whose lives and community are irrevocably altered by one startling event. It chronicles one family's decay through guilt and betrayal. The result is a piercing story about family bonds and a disappearing rural American life. Reserve Map of the World

				Vinegar Hill by A. Manette Ansay Selected: November 1999 In a stark, troubling, yet ultimately triumphant celebration of self-determination, award-winning author Ansay re-creates a stifling world of guilt and pain, and the tormented souls who inhabit it. It is 1972 when circumstance carries Ellen Grier and her family back to Wisconsin. Dutifully accompanying her newly unemployed husband, Ellen has brought her two children into the home of her in-laws on Vinegar Hill--a loveless house suffused with the settling dust of bitterness and routine. Reserve Vinegar Hill

				Tara Road by Maeve Binchy Selected: October 1999 Set in Ireland and New England, Tara Road tells the story of two women who switch lives, and by so doing, learn much about each other and themselves. A moving story rendered with the deft touch of a master artisan, Tara Road is Maeve Binchy at her very best--utterly beautiful, hauntingly unforgettable, entirely original, and wholly enjoyable. Reserve Tara Road

				River, Cross My Heart by Breena Clark Selected: October 1999 Five-year-old Clara Bynum is dead, drowned in the Potomac River in the shadow of a seemingly haunted rock outcropping known locally as the Three Sisters. This debut novel by a wonderfully gifted storyteller tells what effect Clara's absence has on the people she has left behind. Reserve River, Cross My Heart

				Mother of Pearl by Melinda Hayes Selected: June 1999 Capturing all the rueful irony and racial ambiavalence of small-town Mississippi in the late 1950's, Melinda Haynes' celebrated novel is a wholly unforgettable exploration of family, identity, and redemption. Reserve Mother of Pearl

				White Oleander by Janet Fitch Selected: May 1999 When a woman murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life, her daughter must navigate a new reality--that of a series of foster homes, each its own universe, each with its own limits and dangers. Reserve White Oleander

				The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve Selected: March 1999 Kathryn Lyons' life turns to chaos when her pilot husband is killed in a plane crash. As she struggles with her grief, Kathryn faces shocking revelations about the secrets a man can keep and the actions a woman is willing to take. This gripping novel is by the author of The Weight of Water. Reserve The Pilot's Wife

				The Reader by Bernard Schlink Selected: February 1999 A fifteen-year-old boy, Michael Berg becomes embroiled in a passionate, clandestine love affair with an older woman, an event that has a profound impact on his life, especially years later, when he, now a law student, encounters her as a criminal on trial. Mr. Schlink tells his story with marvelous directness and simplicity. Reserve The Reader

				Jewel by Bret Lott Selected: January 1999 A mother fights for the dignity of her youngest daughter against the backdrop of a pure and simple way of life in the backwoods of Mississippi in 1943. In this story of a woman's devotion to the child who is both her burden and God's singular way of smiling on her, Bret Lott has created a mother-daughter relationship of matchless intensity and beauty, and one of the finest, most indomitable heroines in contemporary American fiction. Reserve Jewel

				Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts Selected: December 1998 Talk about unlucky sevens. An hour ago, seventeen-year-old, seven months pregnant Novalee Nation was heading for California with her boyfriend. Now she finds herself stranded at a Wal-Mart in Sequoyah, Oklahoma, with just $7.77 in change. But Novalee is about to discover hidden treasures in this small Southwest town. Reserve Where the Heart Is

				Midwives by Chris Bohjalian Selected: November 1998 In the pastoral community of Reddington, Vermont, during the harsh winter of 1981, Sibyl Danforth makes a life-or-death decision based on fifteen years of experience as a respected midwife. It's a decision intended to save a child, a decision that will change her life forever. Reserve Midwives

				What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage Selected: September 1998 In a remarkable debut novel that sizzles with sensuality, crackles with life-affirming energy and moves the reader to laughter and tears, author Pearl Cleage creates a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding. After a decade of luxe living in Atlanta, Ava Johnson has returned to tiny Idlewild, Michigan -- her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits on one dark truth. Reserve What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day

				I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb Selected: June 1998 This novel is a heartbreaking story and multigenerational saga of the bonds of destruction and the power of forgiveness, witnessed through the eyes of identical twin brothers. Reserve I Know This Much is True

				Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Danticat Selected: May 1998 An unforgettable novel that shimmers with the wonder and terror of its author's native Haiti. Set in the island's impoverished villages and in New York's Haitian community, this is the story of Sophie Caco, who was conceived in an act of violence, abandoned by her mother and then summoned to America. In New York, Sophie discovers that Haiti imposes harsh rules on its own. Reserve Breath, Eyes, Memory

				Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen Selected: April 1998 Fran Benedetto tells a spellbinding story of how a passionate marriage became a nightmare, and what finally makes her run away to start a new life with her son, under a new name. Living in fear of discovery, yet also with increasing confidence, freedom, and hope, Fran unravels the complex threads of family, identity, and desire that shape a woman's life, even as she struggles to create a new one. Reserve Black and Blue

				Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman Selected: March 1998 After 19 years in California, March Murray returns to the small Massachusetts town where she grew up and reignites her relationship with Hollis. As her past catches up with her, March discovers the heartbreaking and complex truth about the reckless and romantic love with her childhood sweetheart. Reserve Here on Earth

				Paradise by Toni Morrison Selected: January 1998 Toni Morrison's first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature opens with a horrifying scene of mob violence then chronicles its genesis in a small all-black town in rural Oklahoma. Paradise is a tour de force of storytelling power, richly imagined and elegantly composed. Reserve Paradise

				The Meanest Thing to Say by Bill Cosby Selected: December 1997 In the first installment in a new early readers series by the acclaimed actor and comedian, Little Bill wonders how he can still be a nice guy when he plays a game where the only way to win is by being mean. Bill Cosby tackles the challenge of not only outsmarting mean-spirited bullies, but understanding them, too. Reserve The Meanest Thing to Say

				The Best Way to Play by Bill Cosby Selected: December 1997 Longing for the new Space Explorers video game, Little Bill and his friends are disappointed when their parents refuse to buy the game and wonder how they can still have fun without it. Well-loved comedian Bill Cosby encourages kids to get creative in this simple story of how your own imagination can take you farther into outer space than any TV show or video game ever could. Reserve The Best Way to Play

				The Treasure Hunt by Bill Cosby Selected: December 1997 Searching his house for his best treasure, Little Bill is surprised when he learns the value of his own talents and the people whom he loves. Bill Cosby's Little Bill books are engaging and uplifting, entertaining and, at the same time, educational. Reserve The Treasure Hunt

				Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons Selected: October 1997 One of the most talked-about and endearing first novels in years bears the story of a female Huck Finn and her search for a true home. Wise, funny, affectionate and true, Ellen Foster is a lovely, sometimes heart-wrenching novel. Reserve Ellen Foster

				Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons Selected: October 1997 When Blinking Jack Stokes met Ruby Pitt Woodrow, she was 20 and he was 40. She was the daughter of Carolina gentry. He was a skinny tenant farmer who had never owned anything in his life. They didn't fall in love so much as they simply found each other and held on for dear life. Kaye Gibbons transcends her early promise, creating a multilayered and indelibly convincing story. Reserve Virtuous Woman

				A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines Selected: September 1997 Set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s, this is an enormously moving novel of one man condemned to die for a crime he did not commit and a young man who visits him in his cell. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. Reserve A Lesson Before Dying

				Songs in Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris Selected: June 1997 A novel set in a small town in Vermont in 1960 offers the story of Marie Fermoyle, a lonely and vulnerable divorcee, her three children, and dangerous con-man Omar Duvall. Songs in Ordinary Time is a fully realized world wrought with fearless detail. Reserve Songs in Ordinary Time

				The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou Selected: May 1997 The Heart of a Woman sings with Maya Angelou's eloquent prose and is filled with unforgettable vignettes of famous people, from Billie Holiday to Malcolm X. Even more central is Maya Angelou's chronicle of the joys and the burdens of being a black mother in America and how the son she has cherished so intensely and worked for so devotedly finally grows to be a man. Reserve The Heart of a Woman

				The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds Selected: April 1997 Reynolds gives us a stunning story woven around the themes of innocence and miracles in everyday life. When the granddaughter of the founder of an isolated religious community in South Carolina is discovered to be pregnant, no amount of punishment will make her recant her statement that a holy child grows inside her. Reserve The Rapture of Canaan

				Stones from the River by Ursula Heg Selected: February 1997 This daring, dramatic and complex novel of life is set in Burgdorf,a small fictional German town, between 1915 and 1951. The protagonist is Trudi Montag, a Zwerg -- the German word for dwarf woman. As a dwarf she is set apart, the outsider whose physical "otherness" has a corollary in her refusal to be a part of Burgdorf's silent complicity during and after World War II. Reserve Stones from the River

				She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb Selected: January 1997 In his extraordinary coming-of-age odyssey, Wally Lamb invites readers to hitch a wild ride on a journey of love, pain, and renewal with the most heartbreakingly comical heroine to come along in years. Meet 13-year-old Delores Price. She's left her childhood behind, and spends her adolescence munching in front of the TV. When she orbits into young womanhood at 257 pounds, she is no stronger and life is no kinder. But this time she's determined to rise to the occasion and give herself one more chance before Reserve She's Come Undone

				The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton Selected: November 1996 A standout in the crowd of first novels, Ruth narrates a story that confronts real-life issues of alienation and violence from which Hamilton creates a stunning testament to the human capacity for mercy, compassion, and love. Winner of the 1989 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. Reserve The Book of Ruth

				Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison Selected: October 1996 Song of Solomon explores the quest for cultural identity through an African American folktale about enslaved Africans who escape slavery by fleeing back to Africa. The novel tells the story of Macon "Milkman" Dead, a young man alienated from himself and estranged from his family, his community, and his historical and cultural roots. Reserve Song of Solomon

				Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard Selected: September 1996 Both highly suspenseful and deeply moving, The Deep End of the Ocean imagines every mother's worst nightmare--the disappearance of a child--as it explores a family's struggle to endure, even against extraordinary odds. Filled with compassion, humor, and brilliant observations about the texture of real life, here is a story of rare power, one that will touch readers' hearts and make them celebrate the emotions that make us all one. Reserve Deep End of the Ocean

Oprah Book Club Titles