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
- The Book Thief
Marcus Zusak - The Chosen
Chaim Potok - Half the Sky
Nicholas Kristof - The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell Hammett - Rin Tin Tin
Susan Orlean
- The Submission
Amy Waldman - *The Tiger’s Wife (Winner)
Tea Obreht - *Turn of Mind (Runner-up)
Alice La Plante - Unfamiliar Fishes
Sarah Vowell - Year of Wonders
Geraldine Brooks
Other Suggested Titles
- 1984
George Orwell - Afterwards
Rachel Seiffert - The All -True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
Jane Smiley - Almost President
Scott Farris - Angela’s Ashes
Frank McCourt - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver - The Art of Racing in the Rain
Garth Stein - Assumption: A Novel
Percival Everett - The Barbarian Nurseries
Hector Tobar - Battlefield of the Mind
Joyce Meyer - The Beautiful and the Dangerous
Barbara Tedlock - Beyond Earth and Sky
Jamie Zeppa - The Bible
- The Big Burn
Timothy Egan - The Big Short
Michael Lewis - Big Thirst
Charles Fishman - Bitter End
Jennifer Brown - Bone Fire
Mark Spragg - Bone in the Throat
Anthony Bourdain - Breaking Night
Liz Murray - The Bridge of San Luis Ray
Thornton Wilder - The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Diaz - Caught Between Three Fires
Thomas A. Rafiner - Cemetery Bird
Bridget Bufford - The Children’s Story
James Clavell - Chocolate Flava
Zane - Citizens of London
Lynn Olson - The Color of Rain
Michael and Gina Spehn - Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran
Robert Spencer - A Confederacy of Dunces
John Kennedy Toole - Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time
Mark Haddon - Cutting for Stone
Abraham Verghese - Day After Night
Anita Diamant - Deadly Monopolies
Harriet Washington - Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
Vicki Myron - Einstein’s Dreams
Alan Lightman - Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life
Neil Strauss - Empire of the Summer Moon
S.C. Gwynne - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer - Fahrenheit 451
Ray Bradbury - Fool Me Twice
Shawn Otto - The Friday Night Knitting Club
Kate Jacobs - Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls - The Grace of Silence
Michele Norris - The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck - The Greater Journey
David McCullough - The Gulag Archipelago
Aleksandr Solzhenit?syn - Half Broke Horses
Jeannette Walls - Hamlet’s Blackberry
William Powers - The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers - The Help
Kathryn Stockett - Holy Ghost Girl
Donna Johnson - Homecoming of Samuel Lake
Jenny Wingfield - House of Tomorrow
Peter Bognanni - Howl’s Moving Castle
Diana Wynne Jones - The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins - I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Maya Angelou - The Imperfectionists
Tom Rachman
- Invisible Wall
Harry Bernstein - Just Like Us
Helen Thorpe - The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini - Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Lisa Randal - Leaving Microsoft to Change the World
John Wood - A Life of Her Own
Emilie Carles - Like Water for Chocolate
Laura Esquivel - Little Bee
Chris Cleave - Little Brother
Cory Doctorow - Lost Memory of Skin
Russell Banks - The Memory Palace
Mira Bartok - Miracle at St Anna
James McBride - Moonflower Vine
Jetta Carlton - Mrs. Adams in Winter
Michael O’Brien - Never Let Me Go
Ishiguro Kazuo - Neverwhere
Neil Gaiman - Nothing to Envy
Barbara Demick - One Hundred Names for Love
Diane Ackerman - The Other Wes Moore
Wes Moore - Outliers
Malcolm Gladwell - Outwitting College Professors
John Janovy - The Paris Wife
Paula McLain - Pay It Forward
Catherine Ryan Hyde - The Peach Keeper
Sarah Addison Allen - Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny…
Michio Kaku - Playing with the Enemy
Gary W. Moore - Rainwater
Sandra Brown - Rats, Lice and History: Being…History of Typhus Fever
Hans Zinsser - The Reading Promise
Alice Ozma - Restless Heart
Wynonna Judd - Rocket Boys
Homer H. Hickam - Saints at the River: A Novel
Ron Rash - School Blues
Daniel Pennac - The Scorpio Races
Maggie Stiefvater - The Shack
William P. Young - Shame the Devil
Deb Brenegan - Shanghai Girls
Lisa See - Shapers’ Veil
M.C. Chambers - Skyjack: The Hunt for D.B. Cooper
Geoffrey Gray - Small Island
Andrea Levy - Someone knows my name
Lawrence Hill - Stealing Buddha’s Dinner
Bich Minh Nguyen - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston - A Thousand Acres
Jane Smiley - Time and Distance Overcome/Notes from No Man’s Land
Eula Biss - To Kill a Mocking bird
Harper Lee - Town and the City
Jack Kerouac - Unbroken
Laura Hillebrand - Watchmen
Alan Moore - Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen - Wesley the Owl
Stacey O’Brien - What Is Left the Daughter
Howard A. Norman - When She Woke
Hillary Jordan - When the Stars Fall to Earth
Rebecca Tinsley - Working
Studs Terkel - Worm: The First Digital World War
Mark Bowden - You Know When the Men are Gone
Siobhan Fallon - Your Medical Mind
Jerome Groopman - Zeitoun
Dave Eggers