Looking for something good to read? Take a look at these book lists. You will need Adobe Reader or a .pdf reader to view these lists.
Children's Book Lists
Mysteries Book List
Historical Fiction Book List
Books for Boys
Books for Girls
Cinderella Books - (Includes Picture, Children's, and Teen books.)
Children's and Teen Books on CD
Teen Book Lists
Mysteries Book List
Historical Fiction Book List
Fairy Tales Remixed
Cinderella Books - (Includes Picture, Children's, and Teen books.)
Dystopian Books - The future of the world gone awry. (Includes Teen and Adult books.)
Children's and Teen Books on CD
Adult Book Lists
Adult Mysteries
Beyond Pride and Prejudice - Sequels, prequels, and adaptations of almost every sort based on the novels of Jane Austen.
"On the Safe Side" Reads - A list of 'clean reads.'
LDS Fiction
Dystopian Books - The future of the world gone awry. (Includes Teen and Adult books.)
Gothic & Horror
Award Books
2009 Beehive Award Nominees
2008 Beehive Award Nominees
Past Beehive Award Winners
The following is a list of books that have been enjoyed by book groups in the area. There are several copies of each at the Pleasant Grove City Library. Visit the library for more book group titles.
A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich
The classic story of Abbie and Will Deal, pioneers who left everything behind for the promise of a new life on America's frontier.
Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender
A fascination with Amish quilts led Sue to live with the Amish in their seemingly timeless world, a landscape of immense
inner quiet. This privilege, rarely bestowed upon outsiders, taught her about simplicity and commitment and the contentment
that comes from accepting who you are.
Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
What happens when a woman who has devoted herself to ushering life into the world finds herself charged with responsibility
in a patient's tragic death?
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
The story of a Chinese peasant and his passionate, dogged accumulation of land and more land, while weathering famine,
drought, and revolution.
The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter
The author recalls his life with his Eastern Cherokee Hill country grandparents and gives a touching account of 1930s
depression-era life.
My Antonia by Willa Cather
Antonia Shimerda moves to the harsh Nebraska heartland with her impoverished Bohemian family when she is still a girl.
For young Jim Burden, who lives with his grandparents on a homestead nearby, Antonia is an embodiment of the female
pioneer - self-sufficient, vigorous, and determined to withstand the daily challenges of maintaining home and family
in a primitive countryside.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Edna Pontellier, wife and mother, awakens to the pangs of passion and desire for the first time in her life. As she
grows in her feelings of freedom, she becomes more aware of how repressed her life in society has been and longs for
the courage to reach for fewer restrictions in her social life.
Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Sensitive to the social context of crime, Collins surrounds the enigma with an intriguingly diverse gallery of characters:
a beautiful heiress in danger, a suave yet sinister nobleman, a young drawing master torn between love and propriety, and
a "new woman" of extraordinary spirit and intelligence.
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
When her older brother dies in a Viking attack, the brilliant young Joan assumes his identity and enters a Benedictine
monastery where, as Brother John Anglicus, she distinguishes herself as a scholar and healer. Eventually drawn to Rome,
she soon becomes enmeshed in a dangerous mix of passion and politics that threatens her life even as it elevates her to
the highest throne in the western world.
Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
For months after her death, the memory of Rebecca de Winter continues to dominate everyone at her former home, Manderley,
one of the most famous English country houses.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Golden presents the world of the geisha, where appearances are paramount, where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the
highest bidder, where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men, and where love is scorned as illusion.
A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
A woman coming of age early in the century had few choices, unless she had independent means. Bess Steed Garner inherits
a legacy of wealth, determination, and desire.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South and the heroism of one man in the
face of blind and violent hatred.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the present, this is the unforgettable, beautifully told
story of the friendship between two boys growing up in Kabul.
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
When Lily Owen and her black "stand-in" mother escape the racism of a small town in South Carolina, they are taken in by
an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters named May, June, and August.
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The engrossing story of quirky, feverish Baptist preacher Nathan Price who hauls his family off on a mission to the Belgian
Congo in 1959.
Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour
L'Amour writes about growing up in North Dakota and his lifelong love affair with learning, recalling many of the books he
read, the places he visited, and the people he met that catalyzed his evolution as a writer.
Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis
The correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation
of an ordinary young man.
Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Drawing inspiration from the shells on the shore, Lindbergh's musings on the shape of a woman's life bring new understanding
to both men and women at any stage of life.
The Giver Lois Lowry
Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in
his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Pi Patel, the son of a zookeeper, and his family emigrate from India to North America with their animals. When the cargo
ship sinks, Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a Bengal tiger. Can Pi's fear, knowledge,
and cunning keep him alive until they reach land?
Atonement by Ian McEwan
On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses the flirtation between her older sister and the son of
a servant. Her incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all
their lives, through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely
handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.
Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
Julie and Hank discover that the modern world is complex, grinding ever on without pause or concern for their hard work. To survive, they must find out whether love can keep chaos and madness at bay.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
Prof. Nafisi resigned from her job as professor of English Literature at a university in Tehran in 1995 due to repressive
government policies. For the next 2 years, until she left Iran, she gathered 7 young women, former students, at her house
every Thursday morning to read and discuss works of Western literature forbidden by the new regime
Mayada, daughter of Iraq: one woman's survival under Saddam Hussein by Jean Sasson
Mayada grew up surrounded by wealth and royalty until Saddam Hussein's Baath Party seized power in Iraq in 1968. She never
suspected that she could become a target of his secret police until one nightmarish day in 1999 when she was thrown into
Cell 52 with seventeen other nameless, faceless women.
The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
Delightfully cunning and enormously engaging Precious Ramotswe is drawn to her profession to help people with the problems
in their lives. In her first case she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, follow a wayward daughter,
and find a missing boy who may have been snatched by witch doctors.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, settled the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley. They helplessly reenact
the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.
Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
Ave Maria Mulligan is the thirty-five-year-old self-proclaimed spinster of Big Stone Gap who is content with her life of
doing errands and negotiating small details, until she discovers a skeleton in her family's formerly tidy closet that
completely unravels her quiet, unconventional life.
These Is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
Based on the real-life exploits of the author's great-grandmother, this fictionalized diary vividly details one woman's
struggles with life and love in frontier Arizona at the end of the last century.
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
The eccentricities of three generations of crazy bayou debutantes trying to survive marriage, motherhood, and pain, relying
always on their love for each other.
Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker
In the wheat country of central Montana in the early 1940's we meet Ellen Webb, a willowy, strong-willed girl who can drive
a truck, thresh wheat, milk cows, pluck chickens and turkeys, sit on a tractor seat all day long, and still have time to
worry with her parents about paying off the combine and the mortgage.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
Ethan struggles to eke out a bare existence on his poor farm with his difficult wife. But he becomes obsessed with their
"hired girl," and the scene is set for this tragic trio to race toward their destinies.
This list and many other book lists are available at the library.
Choosing books
Many groups find it is helpful to plan a year in advance. Some groups meet every month, while others skip December or the summer months, selecting a longer book to discuss when they reconvene.
Some book discussion leaders take a leading role in choosing the books for discussion. Some things to consider:
- What are the interests of your group? Do they like literary challenges, light reading, and/or nonfiction, etc.?
- How much input do you want from the group about the books you read? You may prepare a list and invite them to read more about them on the Internet and/or ask them for suggestions.
Some groups invite all the members to select one or two books to be considered for the year's reading. Then the group meets during the yearly planning session to collectively select the books for the year.
Getting people involved
Invite the members of your group to get involved. Find out those who are willing to lead a discussion, host the group at their home, or bring refreshments. Some groups like to divide the work each month while others prefer to have one person host the meeting, lead the discussion and provide refreshments each month.
Create a handout and/or a bookmark for the group that outlines the year's schedule and includes phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses of the group members.
Many groups find it helpful to take turns calling or emailing members of the group to remind them of the meeting.
Rules
Set up rules for your book group and make sure everyone is aware of them. Some things to consider:
- Can members bring babies or other children?
- Do members have to read the book to attend?
- Should the host be responsible for reminding everyone each month?
- What if someone finds a book offensive or dislikes it too much to read it?
- Can members bring a friend or visitor to a discussion?
- What are the requirements for joining the group? Can anyone join?
Preparing the discussion
When preparing the discussion, the leader might:
- Research the author
- Learn about how the book has been critically accepted
- Prepare questions for discussion. These can sometimes be found on the publisher's internet site or other book sites.
- Share personal experiences that relate to the book. For example:
- For Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters one discussion leader who had lived in Egypt showed some wonderful slides and souvenirs.
- For the book Simple Abundance by Sara Ban Breathnach one group had its members read the entries for their birthdays and discuss those.
Food
Some groups choose to serve refreshments while others provide a dinner. Some groups have a pot-luck or eat out at a restaurant occasionally. If possible, it's fun to serve food that matches a theme from the book. For example, one group served Angel Food Cake and Devil's Food Cake after the discussion on C.S. Lewis's book The Screwtape Letters. Another group had Chinese food when they read Wild Swans by Jung Chang. For a book like Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson the possibilities are endless.
Additional ideas
There are many ideas that can add interest and variety to your group. Some examples are:
- Read a book and then see the movie or play together and compare them.
- Choose a book related to a seminar at BYU or UVU or a documentary on TV. After reading the book, attend the seminar together or watch the documentary and discuss it.
- Invite spouses to read the book and attend the discussion and/or have a mother/daughter discussion.
- Invite an author or content expert to speak to your group.
For more questions about book groups contact Tammra Salisbury at the library at 785-3950.