Book and Reading Discussion Collection
The Book Discussion Collection contains multiple copies of books designed for use by book groups. Check the library catalog for a complete list of library holdings. If you would like a set of books set aside for your group or if we can help you prepare for your discussion, please contact the Reader Services Desk at 847-729-7500, ext. 7600.
(Last updated: October 1, 2011)Book and Reading Discussion Collection list (PDF) 
| Author | Title | # of copies |
| *Adiga, Aravind | The White Tiger | 22 |
| *Alexander, Robert | The Kitchen Boy | 21 |
| Alexie, Sherman | The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian | 21 |
| Allende, Isabel | Daughter of Fortune | 12 |
| Alvarez, Julia | How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents | 13 |
| Anaya, Rudolfo A. | Bless Me, Ultima | 10 |
| *Ansay, A. Manette | Blue Water | 20 |
| *Atwood, Margaret | Alias Grace | 11 |
| *Atwood, Margaret | The Blind Assassin | 8 |
| *Austen, Jane | Persuasion | 20 |
| Bahr, Howard | The Year of Jubilo: A Novel of the Civil War | 18 |
| Baum, Dan | Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans | 10 |
| *Benioff, David | City of Thieves: A Novel | 18 |
| *Berendt, John | City of Falling Angels | 19 |
| Berendt, John | Midnight in the Garden of the Good and Evil | 11 |
| *Berg, Elizabeth | Dream When You're Feeling Blue | 13 |
| Bloom, Amy | Love Invents Us | 12 |
| *Boyd, William | Restless | 20 |
| Boyne, John | The Boy in the Striped Pajamas: A Fable | 22 |
| *Bradbury, Ray | Fahrenheit 451 | 16 |
| *Brooks, Geraldine | March | 17 |
| *Brooks, Geraldine | People of the Book | 22 |
| Bryson, Bill | In a Sunburned Country | 17 |
| Bryson, Bill | Notes from a Small Island | 18 |
| *Bryson, Bill | A Walk in the Woods | 20 |
| Buford, Bill | Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-quoting Butcher in Tuscany | 10 |
| *Campbell, Helen | Turnip Blues | 13 |
| Chatwin, Bruce | In Patagonia | 20 |
| Chavez, Denise | Face of an Angel | 14 |
| *Chevalier, Tracy | The Lady and the Unicorn | 13 |
| *Child, Julia | My Life in France | 18 |
| Ciresi, Rita | Sometimes I Dream in Italian | 22 |
| Clayton, Meg Waite | The Wednesday Sisters | 18 |
| Cohan, Tony | On Mexican Time: A New Life in San Miguel | 16 |
| *Conroy, Pat | South of Broad | 22 |
| *Dai, Sijie | Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress | 16 |
| Dallas, Sandra | The Diary of Mattie Spenser | 15 |
| Davies, Peter Ho | The Welsh Girl | 24 |
| Dean, Debra | Madonnas of Leningrad | 19 |
| De Rosa, Tina | Paper Fish | 18 |
| *De Rosnay, Tatiana | Sarah's Key | 22 |
| Desai, Kiran | The Inheritance of Loss | 19 |
| Dickens, Charles | A Tale of Two Cities | 20 |
| Divakaruni, Chitra | The Mistress of Spices | 14 |
| Doctorow, E.L. | The March | 20 |
| *Doig, Ivan | The Whistling Season | 20 |
| *Dunant, Sarah | Birth of Venus | 19 |
| Edwards, Kim | The Memory Keeper's Daughter | 14 |
| Ehrenreich, Barbara | Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America | 20 |
| Enger, Leif | Peace Like a River | 13 |
| Ephron, Amy | A Cup of Tea: A Novel of 1917 | 19 |
| Feiler, Bruce S. | Learning to Bow: Inside the Heart of Japan | 16 |
| Feiler, Bruce S. | Walking the Bible | 20 |
| Fisher, M. F. K. | Two Towns in Provence | 19 |
| Fleming, Peter | Brazilian Adventure | 16 |
| *Foer, Jonathan Safran | Everything is Illuminated | 20 |
| *Friedman, Thomas | The World is Flat | 24 |
| Fuller, Alexandra | Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood | 20 |
| Gallagher, Dorothy | How I Came into My Inheritance: And Other True Stories | 17 |
| Geoffrian, Alan | Brokentrail | 23 |
| Gibbons, Kaye | Ellen Foster | 13 |
| Gibbons, Kaye | On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon | 17 |
| Gilbert, Elizabeth | Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia | 13 |
| Gill, Michael Gates | How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privlege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else | 8 |
| *Glass, Julia | Three Junes | 16 |
| *Goodwin, Doris Kearns | Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir | 13 |
| Gough, Laurie | Kite Strings of the Southern Cross: a Woman's Travel Odyssey | 16 |
| Greenway, Alice | White Ghost Girls | 25 |
| *Grisham, John | A Painted House | 25 |
| *Gruen, Sara | Water for Elephants | 13 |
| Haddon, Mark | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time | 11 |
| *Haddon, Mark | A Spot of Bother | 20 |
| Haigh, Jennifer | Baker Towers | 17 |
| Halpin, Brendan | Donorboy | 25 |
| *Hamilton, Jane | When Madeline was Young | 20 |
| Hamilton, Marsha | The Camel Bookmobile | 25 |
| *Hammett, Dashiell | The Maltese Falcon | 17 |
| Hansen, Eric K. | Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with Strangers | 19 |
| *Hart, John | The Last Child | 22 |
| *Haruf, Kent | Eventide | 19 |
| *Haruf, Kent | Plainsong | 16 |
| Heat Moon, William Least | River-Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America | 16 |
| Hemingway, Ernest | A Moveable Feast | 18 |
| *Hillenbrand, Laura | Seabiscuit: an American Legend | 16 |
| *Horan, Nancy | Loving Frank | 24 |
| Horn, Dara | The World to Come | 15 |
| Hornby, Nick | About a Boy | 19 |
| *Horwitz, Tony | Blue Latitudes : Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before | 18 |
| *Hosseini, Khaled | The Kite Runner | 21 |
| Houpt, Simon | Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft | 10 |
| House, Silas | Clay's Quilt | 20 |
| Hurston, Zora Neale | Their Eyes Were Watching God | 9 |
| Irwin, Terri | Steve and Me | 10 |
| Ishiguro, Kazuo | Never Let Me Go | 18 |
| *Jacobs, Kate | The Friday Night Knitting Club | 24 |
| *James, Henry | Washington Square | 18 |
| Janzen, Rhoda | Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home | 18 |
| *Jenkins, Peter | A Walk Across America | 20 |
| Jordan, Hillary | Mudbound | 22 |
| *Junger, Sebastian | A Death in Belmont | 22 |
| Kalish, Mildred Armstrong | Little Heathens: Hard Times and Hard Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression | 8 |
| Kaplan, Alice Yeager | French Lessons: A Memoir | 13 |
| *Kay, Terry | To Dance with the White Dog | 18 |
| *Kidder, Tracy | Mountains Beyond Mountains | 24 |
| King, Laurie | The Beekeeper's Apprentice | 24 |
| Kingsolver, Barbara | Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life | 22 |
| Kohn, Rebecca | The Gilded Chamber: A Novel of Queen Esther | 24 |
| Kokoris, Jim | The Rich Part of Life | 14 |
| Konik, Michael | Ella in Europe: An American Dog's International Adventures | 20 |
| Kotlowitz, Alex | Never a City So Real: A Walk in Chicago | 20 |
| Krakauer, Jon | Into the Wild | 20 |
| Krauss, Nicole | The History of Love | 20 |
| Lahiri, Jhumpa | The Namesake | 10 |
| *Larsson, Stieg | The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo | 22 |
| Larson, Erik | The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America | 10 |
| Lawson, Mary | Crow Lake | 19 |
| *Letts, Billie | The Honk and Holler Opening Soon | 15 |
| Letts, Elizabeth | Family Planning | 19 |
| Letts, Tracy | August: Osage County | 22 |
| Lewis, Sara | The Answer is Yes | 20 |
| Liftin, Hilary | Dear Exile: The True Story of Two Friends Separated (for a year) by an Ocean | 19 |
| Lipman, Elinor | The Inn at Lake Devine: A Novel | 14 |
| Luttrell, Marcus | The Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 | 10 |
| *Martel, Yann | Life of Pi: A Novel | 10 |
| Mattison, Alice | The Book Borrower | 15 |
| *McCall Smith, Alexander | The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency | 10 |
| McEwan, Ian | Saturday | 20 |
| *Medina, Pablo | The Cigar Roller | 20 |
| Mehran, Marsha | Pomegranate Soup | 18 |
| Miller, Arthur | The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts | 25 |
| Miller, Arthur | Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem | 11 |
| Miller, Sue | For Love | 25 |
| *Miller, Sue | The Senator's Wife | 18 |
| Moaveni, Azadeh | Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran | 18 |
| *Mortenson, Greg | Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time | 8 |
| *Nafisi, Azar | Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books | 10 |
| *Obama, Barack | The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream | 20 |
| *Obama, Barack | Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance | 22 |
| *O'Brien, Tim | The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction | 19 |
| O'Faolain, Naula | Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman | 14 |
| *O'Flynn, Catherine | What Was Lost | 25 |
| O'Nan, Stewart | The Good Wife | 18 |
| O'Reilly, James | Travelers' Tales, Thailand: True Stories | 16 |
| Otsuka, Julie | When the Emperor Was Divine | 10 |
| *Packer, Ann | Songs Without Words | 18 |
| *Patchett, Ann | Bel Canto | 5 |
| Paulsen, Gary | Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod | 10 |
| *Pausch, Randy | The Last Lecture | 10 |
| Pausch, Randy | La Ultima Leccion | 10 |
| Perry, Michael | Truck: A Love Story | 10 |
| Picoult, Jodi | My Sister's Keeper | 7 |
| Proulx, Annie | Close Range: Wyoming Stories | 18 |
| Proulx, Annie | The Shipping News | 10 |
| Quindlen, Anna | Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City | 16 |
| Robinson, Marilynne | Housekeeping | 17 |
| *Rodriguez, Deborah | Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil | 18 |
| Roiphe, Anne Richardson | An Imperfect Lens | 25 |
| Roth, Philip | American Pastoral | 11 |
| *Roth, Philip | The Plot Against America | 19 |
| Ruiz Zafon, Carlos | Shadow of the Wind | 15 |
| Russert, Tim | Big Russ and Me: Father and Son, Lessons of Life | 10 |
| Salinger, J.D. | The Catcher in the Rye | 22 |
| Santiago, Esmeralda | When I Was Puerto Rican | 15 |
| Saramago, Jose | Journey to Portugal | 20 |
| *Schlink, Bernhard | The Reader | 10 |
| *Sebold, Alice | The Lovely Bones | 9 |
| *Seierstad, Asne | The Bookseller of Kabul | 19 |
| *See, Lisa | Shanghai Girls | 22 |
| *See, Lisa | Snow Flower and the Secret Fan | 10 |
| *Shaffer, Mary Ann | The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society | 8 |
| Shanman, Ellen | Everything Nice | 25 |
| *Shreve, Anita | The Pilot's Wife | 15 |
| *Shreve, Anita | Sea Glass | 20 |
| *Shreve, Anita | The Weight of Water | 17 |
| Smith, Diane | Letters from Yellowstone | 20 |
| Stegner, Wallace | Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West | 20 |
| Steinbach, Alice | Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman | 20 |
| Stewart, Chris | Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Spain | 20 |
| Strout, Elizabeth | Olive Kitteridge | 36 |
| *Suberman, Stella | The Jew Store | 17 |
| Swift, Graham | Last Orders | 17 |
| Theroux, Paul | Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town | 24 |
| Theroux, Paul | The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia | 18 |
| Thesiger, Wilfred | Arabian Sands | 17 |
| Truong, Monique T. D. | The Book of Salt | 25 |
| Tsukiyama, Gail | The Samurai's Garden | 10 |
| Tucker, Lisa | The Song Reader | 20 |
| *Turner, Nancy E. | These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881 - 1901: Arizone Territories | 7 |
| *Tyler, Anne | The Amateur Marriage | 19 |
| *Tyler, Anne | Back When We Were Grownups | 17 |
| *Tyler, Anne | Digging to America | 11 |
| Udall, Brady | The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint | 20 |
| Umrigar, Thrity N. | The Space Between Us | 19 |
| Updike, John | Gertrude and Claudius | 20 |
| Vonnegut, Kurt | Mother Night | 12 |
| Walls, Jeannette | The Glass Castle: A Memoir | 18 |
| Ward, Amanda Eyre | Sleep Toward Heaven | 19 |
| Waugh, Evelyn | The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy | 20 |
| Weiner, Eric | The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World | 16 |
| *West, Dorothy | The Wedding | 17 |
| *White, Bailey | Quite a Year For Plums | 20 |
| Wolfe, Swain | The Lake Dreams the Sky | 19 |
| Wolff, Tobias | The Night in Question: Stories | 17 |
| Yglesias, Helen | The Girls | 20 |
| Yoshikawa, Mako | One Hundred and One Ways | 15 |
| Yoshimoto, Banana | Kitchen | 14 |
| * Copy available in Large Type collection | ||
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