In January 2005 a reading panel of community members from Boone and Callaway counties reviewed the list of titles suggested. The panel then narrowed that list down to ten books (highlighted below) and presented three of those to the public to vote on in April.
The reading panel considers the following when narrowing the list of books:
The panel is looking for books the community will enjoy reading and discussing, that have a broad-based appeal to readers of different backgrounds and reading levels, and that address themes, issues and topics that will encourage and sustain spirited discussion.
The 2004 One Read pick was “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich. In 2003, the community read “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, and in 2002 the public chose Kent Haruf’s “Plainsong.”
Suggestions Submitted by the Public
8 Days
Barri Bumgarner
Adam Bede
George Eliot
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain
All Over But the Shoutin'
Rick Bragg
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Michael Chabon
And Never Let Her Go
Ann Rule
Angels and Demons
Dan Brown
Annie On My Mind
Nancy Gardner
Antelope Wife
Louise Erdich
Bandit Queen of India
Phoolan Devi
Birth of Venus
Sarah Dunant
Blessings
Anna Quindlen
Blindness
Jose Saramago
Blue Highways
William
Least Heat Moon
Born to Buy
Juliet Schor
Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
Alissa Quart
Cabbage Requiem
R. L. Paul
Center of Everything
Laura Moriarty
Chinese in America
Iris Chang
Chosen
Chaim Potok
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Gregory Maguire
Cordelia Underwood
Van Reid
Crimson Petal and the White
Michel Faber
Cruelest Journey
Kira Salak
Cry the Beloved Country
Alan Paton
Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown
Desert Solitaire
Edward Abbey
Dogs of Babel
Carolyn Parkhurst
East of Eden
John Steinbeck
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
Bill McKibben
Ex Libris
Ross King
Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury
Fast Food Nation
Eric Scholsser
Federalist Papers
Alexander Hamilton
Finding Darwin's God
Kenneth Miller
Five People You Meet in Heaven
Mitch Albom
Free Money to Pay Your Bills
Michael Lesko
Fresco
Sheri Tepper
Friendly Persuasion
Jessamyn West
Gathering of Old Men
Earnest J. Gaines
Giver
Lois Lowry
Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
Great Plains
Ian Frazier
Green Age of Asher Witherow
Allen Cunningham
"Guns, Germs and Steel"
Jared Diamond
Had Enough?
James Carville
Haj
Leon Uris
Hell at the Breech
Tom Franklin
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
House of Sand and Fog
Andre Dubus
House of the Scorpion
Nancy Farmer
House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros
How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)
Ann Coulter
How Wal-Mart is Destroying America (and the World)
Bill Quinn
I am Charlotte Simmons
Tom Wolfe
Into the Blue
Susan Edsall
Into Thin Air
Jon Krakauer
Into the Wild
Jon Krakauer
Jim the Boy
Tony Earley
Jungle
Upton Sinclair
Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini
Known World
Edward Jones
Letters of a Woman Homesteader
Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Lexus and the Olive Tree
Thomas L. Friedman
Lies My Teacher Told Me
James Loewen
Life of Pi
Yann Martel
Little Children
Tom Perrotta
Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches
Gaetan Soucy
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fist Fight in Heaven
Sherman Alexie
Long Gray Line
Rick Atkinson
Lovely Bones
Alice Sebold
Majic Bus: An American Odyssey
Douglas Brinkley
Making the Most of College
Richard Light
Marathon Man
William Goldman
Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Art Spiegelman
Meat You Eat
Kenneth Midkiff
Middlesex
Jeffrey Eugenides
Montana 1948
Lawrence Watson
My Brother's Keeper
Marcia Davenport
My Invented Country
Isabel Allende
My Sister's Keeper
Jodi Picoult
My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience
Juan Williams
Namesake
Jhumpha Lahiri
Nickel and Dimed
Barbara Ehrenreich
Odd Thomas
Dean Koontz
Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen
Bob Greene
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Oney
M J Clark
Our Town
Thornton Wilder
Out of the Dust
Karen Hesse
Pacific and Other Stories
Mark Helprin
Paradox of American Power
Joseph Nye
Party's Over
Richard Heinberg
Passing for Thin: Losing Half My Weight & Finding Myself
Frances Kuffel
Peace Like a River
Leif Enger
People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present
Howard Zinn
Piano Shop on the Left Bank
Thaddeus Carhart
Pleasure of My Company
Steve Martin
Plot Against America
Philip Roth
Poisonwood Bible
Barbara Kingsolver
Prodigal Summer
Barbara Kingsolver
"Professor & the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity & the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary"
Simon Winchester
Quarantine
Jim Crace
Race Manners
Bruce Jacobs
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books
Azar Nafisi
Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland
Glenn Beck
Red Sky at Morning: America & the Crisis of the Global Environment
James Speth
Riding the Bus with My Sister
Rachel Simon
Rocket Boys (October Sky)
Homer Hickam
Rule of Four
Ian Caldwell
Savage Inequalities
Jonathan Kozol
"Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language & Culture"
Michael Savage
Scientification of Love
Michael Odent
Seabiscuit
Laura Hillenbrand
Second Chair
John Lescroat
Secret Life of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd
Shadow Divers
Robert Kurson
Shadow of the Wind
Carlos Ruiz Zafron
Shoot the Moon
Billie Letts
Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut
Snow
Orhan Pamuk
Speed of Dark
Elizabeth Moon
Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down
Anne Fadiman
Standing in the Rainbow
Fannie Flagg
Tender Land
Kathleen Finneran
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
Thwonk
Joan Bauer
Time Traveler's Wife
Audrey Niffenegger
Tortilla Curtain
T. C. Boyle
Toward Zero
Agatha Christie
Truman
David McCullough
Two O'Clock Eastern War Time
John Dunning
Under the Banner of Heaven
Jon Krakauer
West of Kabul, East of New York
Mir Tamim Ansary
What's the Matter with Kansas?
Thomas Frank
When Presidents Lie
Eric Alterman
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops
George Carlin
Working Poor
David K. Shipler
Year Down Yonder
Richard Peck
Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks
