Each winter, the public submits suggestions for next year’s book. In January, a panel of community members reviews the suggestions, narrowing that list down to 10 titles, and then chooses two or three books to present for a public vote.
Final 10 Selections
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini - The Air We Breathe: A Novel
Andrea Barrett - The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel
Garth Stein - Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell
Janet Wallach - In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
Michael Pollan
- Interpreter of Maladies
Jhumpa Lahiri - People of the Book: A Novel
Geraldine Brooks - Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood
Ibtisam Barakat - Unaccustomed Earth
Jhumpa Lahiri - You’re Not You
Michelle Wildgen
Other Suggested Titles
- The Alchemist
Paul Coelho - All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque - All Saints
Liam Callanan - America America: A Novel
Ethan Canin - American Wife: A Novel
Curtis Sittenfeld - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver - Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand - Becoming Strangers
Louise Dean - The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath - Bible
- Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters
Rose George - Black Swan Green: A Novel
David Mitchell - The Bookseller of Kabul
Asne Seierstad - The Book Thief
Marcus Zusak - The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World
Michael Pollan - A Brief History of Time
Stephen Hawking - Castle Waiting
Linda Medley - Change of Heart: A Novel
Jodi Picoult - City of Thieves: A Novel
David Benioff - Conan the Adventurer
Robert E. Howard - Dark Angel
David Klass - Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Bill McKibben - Devil and the White City
Erik Larsen - Dewey: A Small-Town Cat Who Touched the World
Vicki Myron - The Double Bind
Chris Bohjalian - Dreaming in Cuban
Cristina Garcia - Eat, Pray, Love
Elizabeth Gilbert - Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father
John Matteson - The End of Nature
Bill McKibben - Ender’s Game
Orson Scott Card - Enrique’s Journey
Sonia Nazario - A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix
Edwin H. Friedman - Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature , and Climate Change
Elizabeth Kolbert - Flowers for Algernon
Daniel Keyes - Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Stephen D. Levitt - The Freedom Writers Diary
Freedom Writers (Erin Gruwell) - Gang Leader for a Day
Sudhir Venkatesh - Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
Elizabeth Royte - Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations
Georgina Howell - The Girls, a novel
Lori Lansens - The God of Animals: A Novel
Aryn Kyle - The Good life
Helen and Scott Nearing - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows - The Ha-Ha: A Novel
Dave King - The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood - Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression
Studs Terkel - Harry Potter
J.K. Rowling - Hattie Big Sky
Kirby Larson - Heart in the Right Place
Carolyn Jourdan - Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Clay Shirky - The Highest Tide: A Novel
Jim Lynch - The Host: A Novel
Stephenie Meyer - Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Thomas L. Friedman - The House at Sugar Beach
Helene Cooper - How Full Is Your Bucket?
Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou - Iguana Dreams: New Latino Literature
Delia Poey - In Praise of Slowness
Carl Honore - In the Land of Invisible Women
Qanta Ahmed - Infidel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali - Ishmael
Daniel Quinn - The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini - The Last Lecture
Randy Pausch - The Legal Limit
Martin Clark - Life of Pi
Yann Martel - Living Downstream: A Scientist’s Personal Investigation of Cancer and the Environment
Sandra Steingraber - The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family
Martha Raddatz - The Long Run: A Novel
Leo Furey - Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Ishmael Beah - The Lost Boys of Sudan
Mark Bixler - The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Dean
- The Mammouth Cheese
Sheri Holman - March: A Novel
Geraldine Brooks - The Master Butcher’s Singing Club a Novel
Louise Erdrich - The Memorist
M. J. Rose - The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Kim Edwards - Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog
Ted Kerasote - Middlesex: A Novel
Jeffrey Eugenides - The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker
Mike Rose - The Ministry of Special Cases
Nathan Englander - Missing Plane
Susan Sheehan - Mountains beyond Mountains
Tracy Kidder - Mudbound: a novel
Hillary Jordan - My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King
Reymundo Sanchez - New Moon
Stephenie Meyer - No Country For Old Men
Cormac McCarthy - No! I Don’t Want to Join a Book Club
Virginia Ironside - Of Beetles and Angels: A True Story of the American Dream
Mawi Asgedom. - The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Michael Pollan - On the Edge of Reason
Miroslav Krleza - One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All
Mark R. Rank - Oracle Bones: A Journey through Time in China
Peter Hessler - Outliers: The Story of Success
Malcolm Gladwell - Peace Like a River
Leif Enger - Peony in Love: A Novel
Lisa See - Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
Mariane Satrapi - Playing with Matches
Brian Katcher - The Rescue Artist
Edward Dolnick - River-Horse: Across America by Boat
William Least Heat-Moon - River Town
Peter Hessler - The River Wife: A Novel
Jonis Agee - The RiverKeepers
John Cronin & Robert Kennedy - The Road
Cormac McCarthy - Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey
William Least Heat-Moon - Rocket Boys: A True Story (October Sky: a Memoir)
Homer Hickam - Rules for Old Men Waiting: A Novel
Peter R. Pouncey - Run: A Novel
Ann Patchett - Sand Country Almanac
Aldo Leopold - The Senator’s Wife
Sue Miller - The Shack
William P. Young - Shantaram
Gregory David Roberts - The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein - Simple prosperity
David Wann - Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel
Chris Bohjalian - Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered
E. F. Schumacher - Smiles to go
Jerry Spinelli - So Brave, Young and Handsome: A Novel
Leif Enger - The Soloist
Mark Salzman - Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel
Peter Cameron - Specials
Scott Westerfeld - Still Life
Louise Penny - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel
David Wroblewski - Suite Francaise
Irene Nemirovsky and Sandra Smith - The Tale of Despereaux
Kate DiCamillo - Teach with your heart
Erin Gruwell - The Ten-Year Nap
Meg Wolitzer - There Are No Children Here
Alex Kotlowitz - These Is My Words
Nancy Turner - Thoreau at Walden (graphic version)
John Porcellino - Those Who Save Us
Jenna Blum - Three Cups of Tea
Greg Mortenson - The Tiger in the Attic
Edith Milton - The Time Traveler’s Wife
Audrey Niffenegger - Touching Spirit Bear
Ben Mikaelsen - Twilight
Stephenie Meyer - West of Kabul, East of New York
Tamim Ansary - What Is the What
Dave Eggers - Where Rivers Change Direction
Mark Spragg - Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs
Wallace Stegner - Where Trouble Sleeps
Clyde Edgerton - The White Mary: A Novel
Kira Saliek - The World is Flat
Thomas L. Friedman - World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
Max Brooks - The Worst Hard Time
Tom Egan