Choosing the Book

Beginning in January a reading panel of community members from Boone and Callaway counties reviewed the list of titles suggested by the public in December. The panel will choose eleven books (indicated in bold) and presented three of those to the public to vote on in the spring.

The reading panel considers the following when narrowing the list of books:

1. Is the book written by a noted author?
2. Does the book contain thought-provoking subject matter that encourages discussion?
3. Will the book appeal to a cross-generational audience?
4. Will the book appeal to a diverse audience?
5. Is the book easy to read and follow?
6. Is the book available in paperback and other various formats?

The panel looks 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.

 

Previous One Read Selections

2005 "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card
2004 “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”
   by Barbara Ehrenreich
2003 “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee
2002 “Plainsong” by Kent Haruf

 

 

Suggestions Submitted by the Public

• 1776
• 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
• 1984
• 8 Days
• Accordion Crimes
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• An Alchemy of Mind : The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain
• All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
• Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation
• Amber Room
• Atlas Shrugged
• Bean Trees: A Novel
• Bellwether
• The Bible
• The Birth of Venus
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
• Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ship's Boy
• Blue Highways: A Journey int America
• Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
• Bookseller of Kabul
• The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World
• Brothers Karamazov
• Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
• Company Car
• Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War
• Cork Boat
• Covenant Betrayed
• Cup of Light
• Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
• Diversity of Life
• Do They Hear You When You Cry
• Eldest
• The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World
• Enemy Women
• Epitaph for a Peach
• Eragon
• Exclusive
• Eye of the World
• Face
• The FairTax Book
• The Falls
• Fast Food Nation
• Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between Religion and Evolution
• Fire Sale
• First Man
• For Us the Living
• The Fountainhead
• Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea
• Franny and Zooey
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
• Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, A Dream
• From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life: 1500 to Present
• Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
• Giant's House
• Gilead
• The Giver
• The Good Earth
• Goose Girl
• A Great and Terrible Beauty
• Grid
• Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
• The Handmaid's Tale
• Happiness: Lessons from a New Science
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
• High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis
• How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent
• In the Time of Butterflies
• Inkheart
• Into the Wild
• Ishmael
• Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
• Journey to the End of Night
• Journo's Diary
• Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
• Kite Runner
• The Known World
• The Language of Baklava
• Lantern in Her Hand
• Life of Pi
• Limbo: Blue Collar Roots, White Collar Dreams
• The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
• Lonesome Traveler
• Lying Awake
• A Million Little Pieces
• The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker
• The Mismeasure of Man
• Miss Bishop
• Mountains Beyond Mountains : The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
• My Ishmael
• My Sister's Keeper
• Never Let Me Go
• No Place to Hide
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• The Other Mother: A Woman's Love for the Child She Gave Up for Adoption
• Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis
• The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
• Play for a Kingdom
• Playing Indian
• Plot Against America
• Poisonwood Bible
• Purpose Driven Life
• The Railway Children
• Rain of Gold
• Real Meaning of Life
• The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
• River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze
• Samurai's Garden
• Saturday
• Saving Fish from Drowning
• Schizomania: Split Society, Perilous Economy, 1990-2020: An Economics of the Long Run
• Self-Reliance : The Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson as Inspiration for Daily Living
• Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning
• Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto
• Short History of Nearly Everything
• Silent Spring
• A Simple Gift
• Slipping
• Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on Terror
• Something Wicked This Way Comes
• Spiritwalker
• Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream
• Summerland
• Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door
• They Cage the Animals at Night
• Things Fall Apart
• Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
• The Tortilla Curtain
• Truth About Diamonds
• The Truth (With Jokes)
• Under the Bridge
• An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas
• Voyage of the Beagle
• Watership Down
• Whale and the Supercomputer: On the Northern Front of Climate Change
• Whale Talk
• What's the Matter with Kansas?
• When Bad Things Happen to Good People
• When the Emperor Was Divine
• When the Mississippi River Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes
• Where the Red Fern Grows
• White Bird Flying
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
• Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
• Winter Solstice
• Women of the Silk
• World Is Flat
• A Wrinkle in Time
• The Year of Magical Thinking