Reading suggestions for Reading Groups
Fiction A - Z by author: p2 Classics A - Z by author: p19 Non-Fiction A - Z by author: p21 Prize winners: p25
Reading Groups may borrow any title from our catalogue, as long as we hold enough copies for your group and have a couple left in circulation for individual customers.
To help your group choose their books we have created this list: we have enough copies of these titles in stock to meet the needs of our average sized group. Some titles may be available in alternative formats (Large Print &/or Audio) - please enquire when placing orders.
The list is based in part on the requests made by the 350+ Reading Groups supported by West Sussex Library Service, but inclusion on the list is not necessarily a recommendation of excellence.
Ordering in advance increases the chances of supplying sufficient copies by your desired collection date, please use our online form or phone our hotline 03302 225588 (Monday-Friday, 10am-4pm)
Please avoid requesting newly published titles, as these will still be in demand with our individual customers.
If a title has a long waiting list we will need to satisfy paid requests from individuals before we accept reading group requests. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
FICTION
A Ashdown Isabel 33 Women Achebe Chinua Beautiful Liars Things Fall Apart Flight Hurry Up and Wait Aciman Andre Lake Child Call Me by Your Name Find Me Ashton Juliet Fall and Rise of Sadie McQueen Adebayo Ayobami Stay With Me Atkins Dani Million Dreams Adichie Chimamanda Americanah Atkinson Kate Half of a Yellow Sun Behind the Scenes at the Museum Case Histories (Jackson Brodie No 1) Ahern Cecelia God in Ruins (Todd Family No 2) Lyrebird Life After Life (Todd Family No 1) Marble Collector Transcription
Alam Rumaan Atwood Margaret Leave the World Behind Alias Grace Blind Assassin Alderman Naomi Hag-seed, the Tempest retold Power Handmaid’s Tale (Handmaid’s Tale No 1) Heart Goes Last Alderton Dolly Testaments (Handmaid’s Tale No 2) Ghosts B Ali Monica Brick Lane Backman Fredrik Britt-Marie was Here Allan Nina Man Called Ove Dollmaker My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologies Allende Isabel In the Midst of Winter Baily Virginia Japanese Lover Early One Morning Long Petal of the Sea Baker Jo Archer Jeffrey Longbourn Heads You Win Country Road, a tree Nothing Ventured (William Warwick No 1) Only Time Will Tell (Clifton Chronicles No 1) Bakewell Joan She’s Leaving Home
2 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Banks Iain This Year it will be Different Quarry Wasp Factory Bivald Katarina Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend Banville John Mrs Osmond Boyd William Snow Good Man in Africa Love is Blind Barker Pat Stars and Bars Life Class (Brooke Family No 1) Sweet Caress, the Many Lives of Amory Regeneration (Regeneration Trilogy 1) Clay Silence of the Girls Trio Waiting for Sunrise Barnes Julian Noise of Time Boyne John Only Story Heart’s Invisible Furies Sense of an Ending History of Loneliness Ladder to the Sky Barnett Laura Greatest Hits Bradbury Ray Versions of Us Fahrenheit 451
Barry Sebastian Bragg Melvyn Days Without End Now is the Time Secret Scripture (McNulty Family No 2) Temporary Gentleman (McNulty Family No Braithwaite Oyinkan 3) My Sister, the Serial Killer
Barton Fiona Bray Carys Widow (Kate Barton No 1) Museum of You Song for Issy Bradley Bauer Belinda Beautiful Dead Brett Simon Exit Clutter Corpse (Decluttering Mysteries No Rubbernecker 1) Shut Eye Corpse on the Court Snap Liar in the Library
Beatty Paul Britton Fern Sellout Coming Home Daughters of Cornwall Benjamin Chloe Newcomer Immortalists Postcard
Bennett Alan Brodesser-Akner Taffy Uncommon Reader Fleishman is in Trouble
Binchy Maeve Buchan Elizabeth Chestnut Street Museum of Broken Promises
3 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
New Mrs Clifton New Boy, Othello retold Remarkable Creatures Burnet Graeme Macrae Single Thread His Bloody Project Christie Agatha Burns Anna Death Comes as the End Milkman They Came to Baghdad
Burton Jessie Clark Clare Confession In the Full Light of the Sun Miniaturist Muse Cleeves Ann Crow Trap (Vera Stanhope No 1) Bussi Michel Long Call (Two Rivers No 1) After the Crash Black Water Lilies Clements Rory Corpus (Tom Wilde No 1) C Cline Emma Candlish Louise Girls Other Passenger Our House Clinton Bill Swimming Pool President is Missing Those People Coe Jonathan Cannon Joanna Middle England Three Things About Elsie Mr Wilder & Me Trouble with Goats and Sheep Coelho Paulo Capote Truman Alchemist Breakfast at Tiffany’s Coetzee J M Carey Peter Disgrace Amnesia Long Way From Home Cohen Julie Together Carr J L Month in the Country Cole Daniel Ragdoll (Ragdoll No 1) Carty-Williams Candice Queenie Coleman Rowan Memory Book Catton Eleanor Summer of Impossible Things Luminaries We Are All Made of Stars
Chevalier Tracy Collins Bridget At the Edge of the Orchard Betrayals Last Runaway Binding
4 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Connolly Cressida Doughty Louise After the Party Platform Seven
Crace Jim Drabble Margaret Harvest Dark Flood Rises Melody Pure Gold Baby
Crouch Julia Du Beke Anton Her Husband’s Lover One Enchanted Evening (One Enchanted Tarnished Evening No 1)
Cummins Jeanine Du Maurier Daphne American Dirt Frenchman’s Creek My Cousin Rachel Cusk Rachel Rebecca Outline (Outline No 1) Dunmore Helen D Birdcage Walk Exposure Dalcher Christina Girl, Balancing & other stories Vox Lie Spell of Winter Day Elizabeth Party E
De Bernieres Louis Eberlen Kate Captain Corelli’s Mandolin Miss You Dust That Falls From Dreams So Much Life Left Over Edugyan Esi Washington Black, a novel Delany J P Playing Nice Egan Jennifer Manhattan Beach De Waal Kit Trick to Time Eggers Dave Heroes of the Frontier Diffenbaugh Vanessa Language of Flowers Ekback Cecilia We Never Asked for Wings Wolf Winter
Doerr Anthony Ellis Janet All the Light We Cannot See Butcher’s Hook
Donoghue Emma Elton Ben Akin Identity Crisis Pull of the Stars Time and Time Again Room
5 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Enright Anne Fitzgerald Penelope Actress Blue Flower Green Road Bookshop
Ephron Nora Flagg Fannie Heartburn Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café Erskine Barbara Darkest Hour Flanagan Richard Ghost Tree Narrow Road to the Deep North Sleeper’s Castle Fleming Leah Evans Diana Girl Under the Olive Tree Ordinary People Last Pearl Postcard Evans Harriet Garden of Lost and Found Foley Lucy Wildflowers Guest List Hunting Party Evans Lissa Last Letter from Istanbul Crooked Heart Old Baggage Follett Ken Their Finest (Their Finest Hour and a Half) Pillars of the Earth
Evaristo Bernardine Forster Margaret Girl, Woman, Other Diary of an Ordinary Woman, 1914-1995 How to Measure a Cow F Unknown Bridesmaid
Faulks Sebastian Forsyth Frederick Day of the Jackal Birdsong
Paris Echo Week in December Fowler Karen Joy Where My Heart Used to Beat We are all Completely Beside Ourselves
Fellowes Julian Fowles John Belgravia French Lieutenant’s Woman Past Imperfect Magus
Ferrante Elena Franzen Jonathan My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan No 1) Corrections
Filer Nathan Fremantle Elizabeth Shock of the Fall Poison Bed
Finn A J French Dawn Woman in the Window According to Yes Because of You Oh Dear Silvia
6 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Tiny Bit Marvellous Glaister Seni Mr Doubler Begins Again French Nicci House of Correction Glasfurd Guinevere Lying Room Year Without Summer
French Tana Godden Rumer In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad No 1) Black Narcissus Wych Elm Gowar Imogen Hermes Fry Stephen Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Making History Grant Linda Fuller Clare Dark Circle Bitter Orange Stranger City Swimming Lessons Gregory Philippa Furnivall Kate Lady of the Rivers (Plantagenet & Tudors Betrayal No 1) Survivors Tidelands (Fairmile No 1)
G Grenville Kate Room Made of Leaves Gaiman Neil Secret River (Thornhill Family No 1) Fragile Things Ocean at the End of the Lane Griffiths Elly Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway No 1) Galbraith Robert Stranger Diaries Cuckoo’s Calling (Cormoran Strike No 1) Zig Zag Girl (Stephens & Mephisto No 1)
Gale Patrick Gruen Sarah Friendly Fire Water for Elephants Notes from an Exhibition Place Called Winter Gyasi Yaa Rough Music Homegoing Take Nothing With You Whole Day Through H
Gardam Jane Haddon Mark Old Filth (Old Filth No 1) Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time Gayle Mike Porpoise All the Lonely People Half a World Away Hadley Tessa Man I Think I Know Late in the Day
Genova Lisa Haig Matt Still Alice How to Stop Time Midnight Library
7 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Halls Stacey Haruf Kent Familiars Our Souls at Night Foundling Harvey Samantha Hamer Kate Western Wind Crushed Doll Funeral Haynes Natalie Girl in the Red Coat Thousand Ships
Hamid Mohsin Healey Emma Exit West Elizabeth is Missing Whistle in the Dark Hancock Sheila Miss Carter’s War Hendricks Greer Wife Between Us Hanks Tom Uncommon Type, some stories Herron Mick Slow Horses (Slough House No 1) Hannah Kristin Great Alone Heyer Georgette Nightingale Convenient Marriage True Colors Highsmith Patricia Harkness Deborah Strangers on a Train Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy No 1) Hill Susan Dolly, a ghost story Harper Jane From the Heart Dry Force of Nature Hislop Victoria Lost Man Cartes Postales From Greece Island Harris Joanne Last Dance and Other Stories Chocolat (Vianne Rocher No.1) One August Night Different Class Return Gentlemen and Players Sunrise Those Who are Loved Harris Robert Thread Conclave Imperium (Cicero No 1) Hogan Ruth Munich Keeper of Lost Things Officer and a Spy Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel Pompeii Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes Second Sleep V2 Hollinghurst Alan Sparsholt Affair Harris S J Stranger’s Child Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder
8 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Honeyman Gail Never Let Me Go Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Remains of the Day
Hope Anna Iturbe Antonio Ballroom Librarian of Auschwitz Expectation Wake Ivey Eowyn Snow Child Hore Rachel To the Bright Edge of the World House on Bellevue Gardens Last Letter Home J Love Child Silent Tide Jackson Shirley Haunting of Hill House Hornak Francesca We Have Always Lived in the Castle Seven Days of Us James Erica Hornby Gill Letters From the Past Miss Austen Swallowtail Summer
Hornby Nick James Marlon Juliet, Naked Brief History of Seven Killings Just Like You James Peter Horowitz Anthony Absolute Proof House of Silk (Sherlock Holmes No 1) Billionaire Magpie Murders (Magpie Murders No 1) Dead Simple (Roy Grace No 1) Word is Murder (Det. Hawthorne No 1) Faith House on Cold Hill (Cold Hill No 1) Hosseini Khaled Perfect People And the Mountains Echoed Kite Runner Jefferies Dinah Thousand Splendid Suns Before the Rains Missing Sister Hourston Alex Sapphire Widow In My House Silk Merchant’s Daughter Love After Love Tuscan Contessa
Howard Rosie Jewell Lisa Homecoming (Havenbury No 1) Family Upstairs Invisible Girl I Then She Was Gone Watching You
Imrie Celia Johnson Daisy Not Quite Nice (Bellevue-Sur-Mer No 1) Everything Under Sail Away
Jonasson Jonas Ishiguro Kazuo Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it All Buried Giant
9 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of King Stephen the Window and Disappeared (100 Year Old Outsider Man No 1) Kingsolver Barbara Jones Ruth Flight Behaviour Never Greener Poisonwood Bible Us Three Unsheltered
Jones Sadie Knight Renee Snakes Disclaimer Secretary Jones Tayari An American Marriage Koch Emily Silver Sparrow If I Die Before I Wake
Joyce Rachel Koomson Dorothy Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy Brighton Mermaid (Harold Fry No 2) Flavours of Love (aka That Day You Left) Music Shop Friend Perfect That Girl from Nowhere Snow Garden and Other Stories Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Harold Kureishi Hanif Fry No 1) Buddha of Suburbia
K L
Keane Mary Beth Lampedusa Giuseppe Tomasi de Ask Again, Yes Leopard
Kelly Erin Lanchester John He Said/She Said Wall Stone Mothers
Lapena Shari Kennedy Douglas Couple Next Door Great Wide Open Someone we Know Isabelle in the Afternoon Stranger in the House
Unwanted Guest Kent Hannah
Burial Rites La Plante Linda
Widows (Dolly Rawlins No 1) Kidd Jess
Hoarder Things in Jars Le Carre John Constant Gardener Delicate Truth Kidd Sue Monk
Book of Longings Lee Harper Invention of Wings Go Set a Watchman Secret Life of Bees To Kill a Mockingbird
10 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Lefteri Christy M Beekeeper of Aleppo McAllister Gillian Leith Prue Everything but the Truth Food of Love. Book 1:Laura’s story Evidence Against You No Further Questions Leon Donna Death at La Fenice (Guido Brunetti No 1) McBride Eimear Girl is a Half-Formed Thing Levy Andrea Lesser Bohemians Long Song Small Island McCullers Carson Heart is a Lonely Hunter Levy Deborah Hot Milk McEwan Ian Man Who Saw Everything Atonement Children Act Lewis Susan Enduring Love Behind Closed Doors (Detective Andee Machines Like Me Lawrence No 1) Nutshell Home Truths On Chesil Beach My Lies, Your Lies One Minute Later McGrath Patrick Secret Keeper Wardrobe Mistress
Lewycka Marina McGregor Jon Good, the Bad and the Little Bit Stupid Reservoir 13 (Reservoir No 1) Lubetkin Legacy Short History of Tractors in Ukranian McGuire Ian North Water Lindsay Joan Picnic at Hanging Rock McInerney Lisa Glorious Heresies Lively Penelope How It All Began McLain Paula Moon Tiger Circling the Sun Love and Ruin Logan T M Holiday MacKintosh Clare After the End Lombardo Claire I Let You Go Most Fun We Ever Had I See You Let Me Lie Lupton Rosamund Quality of Silence MacLeod Alison Unexploded
MacNeal Elizabeth Doll Factory
11 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Magnusson Sally Minett G J Ninth Child Hidden Legacy Sealwoman’s Gift Lie in Wait
Mahmood Imran Mistry Rohan You Don’t Know Me Fine Balance
Mangan Christine Mitchell David Tangerine Bone Clocks Slade House Mantel Hilary Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell Trilogy No 1) Utopia Avenue
Marquez Gabriel Garcia Mitford Nancy Love in the Time of Cholera Love in a Cold Climate
Marr Andrew Moggach Deborah Children of the Master Carer Something to Hide Marshall Laura Tulip Fever Friend Request Three Little Lies Moggach Lottie Brixton Hill Martel Yann Under the Sun Life of Pi Montefiore Santa Mawer Simon Beekeeper’s Daughter Glass Room Italian Matchmaker Last Voyage of the Valentina Meek James Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree To Calais, in Ordinary Time Secret Hours Songs of Love and War (Deverill Chronicles Meyer Deon No 1) Temptation of Gracie Fever
Morgenstern Erin Michaelides Alex Night Circus Silent Patient Starless Sea
Miller Andrew Now We Shall be Entirely Free Moriarty Liane Big Little Lies (Little Lies) Miller Holly Husband’s Secret Nine Perfect Strangers Sight of You Truly, Madly, Guilty
What Alice Forgot Miller Madeline
Circe Song of Achilles Morris Heather Cilka’s Journey (Tattooist of Auschwitz 2) Tattooist of Auschwitz
12 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Morrison Toni Ng Celeste Beloved Everything I Never Told You Little Fires Everywhere Morton Kate Clockmaker’s Daughter Nicholls David Lake House One Day Sweet Sorrow Moss Sarah Us Ghost Wall Noble Elizabeth Mosse Kate Letters to Iris (aka Love, Iris) Burning Chambers (Burning Chambers No Things I Want My Daughter to Know 1) Taxidermist’s Daughter Norton Graham Winter Ghosts Holding Home Stretch Moyes Jojo Keeper Giver of Stars Last Letter From Your Lover O Me Before You (Me Before You Trilogy No 1) Obioma Chigozie One Plus One Fishermen Orchestra of Minorities Mozley Fiona Elmet O’Brien Edna Girl Mukherjee Abir Little Red Chairs Rising Man (Sam Wyndham No 1) O’Farrell Maggie Murakami Haruki Hamnet Killing Commendatore Instructions for a Heatwave This Must be the Place Murata Sayaka Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Convenience Store Woman O’Leary Beth Murdoch Iris Flatshare Sea, the Sea Switch
N Ondaatje Michael English Patient Nemirovsky Irene Warlight Suite Francaise Owens Delia Nesbo Jo Where the Crawdads Sing
Bat (Harry Hole No.1)
Blood on Snow (Blood on Snow No 1)
Macbeth
13 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
P Persaud Ingrid Love After Love Page Libby 24-hour Café Picoult Jodi Lido Book of Two Ways Leaving Time Paris B A Lone Wolf Dilemma Small Great Things Spark of Light Parsons Tony Your Neighbour’s Wife Pinborough Sarah Dead to Her Patchett Ann Bel Canto Porter Max Commonwealth Grief is the Thing With Feathers Dutch House Lanny State of Wonder Powers Richard Patrick Phaedra Overstory Library of Lost and Found Secrets of Sunshine Proulx E Annie Barkskins Paver Michelle Shipping News Wakenhyrst Pullman Philip Pearce A J Book of Dust Vol 1. La Belle Sauvage Dear Mrs Bird Book of Dust Vol 2. Secret Commonwealth
Pears Tim Purcell Laura Horseman Bone China Corset Pearse Lesley Silent Companions Forgive Me House Across the Street Q Without a Trace Woman in the Wood Quinn Anthony You’ll Never See Me Again Curtain Call (Curtain Call No 1) Our Friends in Berlin Pendziwol Jean Lightkeeper’s Daughters Quinn Julia Duke & I (Bridgertons No 1) Penney Steff Tenderness of Wolves Quintana Jenny Under a Pole Star Missing Girl
Perry Sarah After Me Comes the Flood Essex Serpent Melmoth
14 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
R Rushdie Salman Quichotte Reid Taylor Jenkins Daisy Jones and the Six Ryan Donal From a Low and Quiet Sea Rhodes Kate Hell Bay (Ben Kitto No 1) Ryan Jennifer Chilbury Ladies Choir Rhys Jean Wide Sargasso Sea S
Rhys Rachel Sahota Sanjeev Dangerous Crossing Year of the Runaways
Riley Lucinda Salinger J D Butterfly Room Catcher in the Rye Love Letter Olive Tree Sansom C J Seven Sisters, Maia’s story (Seven Sisters Dissolution (Shardlake No 1) No 1) Dominion
Winter in Madrid Robertson Robin Long Take Saunders George Lincoln in the Bardo Rodriguez Deborah Little Coffee Shop of Kabul (Little Coffee Schmidt Sarah Shop of Kabul No 1) See What I Have Done Zanzibar Wife Searle Nicholas Rooney Sally Good Liar Conversations With Friends Normal People Seethaler Robert Tobacconist Roper Richard Whole Life Something to Live For Semple Maria Rothschild Hannah Today Will be Different Improbability of Love Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
Rowling J K Setterfield Diane Casual Vacancy Once Upon a River Thirteenth Tale Roy Arundhati God of Small Things Shafak Elif Ministry of Utmost Happiness 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World Rusbridge Jane Rook
15 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Shaffer Mary Ann Smith Dodi Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie I Capture the Castle Society Smith Zadie Shamsie Kamila NW God in Every Stone Swing Time Home Fires White Teeth
Shaw William Spark Muriel Birdwatcher Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Salt Lane (DS Alexandra Cupidi No 1) Song from Dead Lips (Breen & Tozer No 1) Spufford Francis Golden Hill Shreve Anita Stars are Fire Steadman Catherine Something in the Water Shriver Lionel Mandibles:a family 2029-2047 Stedman M L Motion of the Body Through Space Light Between Oceans Property, a collection We Need to Talk About Kevin Strout Elizabeth Anything is Possible (Lucy Barton No 2) Shute Nevil My Name is Lucy Barton (Lucy Barton No On the Beach 1) Town Like Alice Olive, Again (Olive No 2) Olive Kitteridge (Olive No 1) Simsion Graeme Best of Adam Sharp Suskind Patrick Rosie Project (Don Tillman No 1) Perfume, the story of a murderer Two Steps Forward Swanson Peter Sinha Umi Rules for Perfect Murders Belonging Swift Graham Sittenfeld Curtis Here We Are American Wife Mothering Sunday Eligible Rodham T You Think It, I’ll Say It, stories
Tan Twang Eng Slimani Leila Garden of Evening Mists Lullaby
Tartt Donna Smith Ali Goldfinch Autumn (Seasonal Quartet No 1) Secret History How to be Both
Public Library and other stories
16 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Taylor Andrew Trenow Liz Ashes of London (James Marwood & Cat Under a Wartime Sky Lovett No 1) Trollope Joanna Tey Josephine City of Friends Daughter of Time Soldier’s Wife Unsuitable Match Thien Madeleine Do Not Say We Have Nothing Truss Lynne Shot in the Dark (Constable Twitten No 1) Thomas Bev Good Enough Mother Tudor C J Burning Girls Thomson Lesley Chalk Man Detective’s Daughter (Detective’s Daughter Other People No 1) Taking of Annie Thorne
Titchmarsh Alan Turton Stuart Bring Me Home Devil and the Dark Water Mr Gandy’s Grand Tour Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle Scarlet Nightingale Tyce Harriet Toibin Colm Blood Orange Brooklyn Lies You Told Nora Webster Testament of Mary Tyler Anne Accidental Tourist Toole John Kennedy Clock Dance Confederacy of Dunces If Morning Ever Comes Ladder of Years Towles Amor Redhead by the Side of the Road Gentleman in Moscow Spool of Blue Thread Rules of Civility Vinegar Girl
Treloar Lucy U Salt Creek Underdown Beth Tremain Rose Witchfinder’s Sister Gustav Sonata Islands of Mercy V Merivel, a Man of His Time Road Home Vaughan Sarah
Anatomy of a Scandal Tremayne S K Fire Child Verghese Abraham Ice Twins Cutting for Stone Just Before I Died
17 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Vickers Salley West Juliet Cleaner of Chartres Before the Fall Cousins Faithful Grandmothers Librarian Whitehead Colson Underground Railroad W Wilson Patricia Walker Alice Greek Island Escape Color Purple Island of Secrets
Walters Minette Winman Sarah Last Hours (Last Hours No 1) Tin Man Year of Marvellous Ways Ward Sarah In Bitter Chill (DC Childs Mystery No 1) Winterson Jeanette Oranges are not the Only Fruit Ware Ruth Gap of Time, the Winter’s Tale retold Death of Mrs Westaway In a Dark, Dark Wood Winton Tim Lying Game Shepherd’s Hut One by One Turn of the Key Y Woman in Cabin 10 Yanagihara Hanya Wark Kirsty Little Life Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle Z Waters Sarah Little Stranger Zafon Carlos Ruiz Paying Guest Shadow of the Wind (Cemetery of Forgotten Books No 1) Webb Katherine Hiding Places Zusak Marcus Misbegotten Book Thief Bridge of Clay Weir Alison Dangerous Inheritance
18 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
CLASSICS
A E
Alcott Louisa May Eliot George Little Women Adam Bede Daniel Deronda Austen Jane Middlemarch Emma Mill on the Floss Mansfield Park Silas Marner, the weaver of Raveloe Northanger Abbey Persuasion F Pride and Prejudice Sense & Sensibility Fitzgerald F Scott Great Gatsby B Flaubert Gustave Blackmore R D Madame Bovary, Provincial lives Lorna Doone Forster E M Bronte Anne Howards End Tenant of Wildfell Hall Passage to India Room with a View Bronte Charlotte Jane Eyre G
Bronte Emily Gibbons Stella Wuthering Heights Cold Comfort Farm
C Golding William Lord of the Flies Collins Wilkie Moonstone Greene Graham Woman in White Brighton Rock
Conrad Joseph H Heart of Darkness Hardy Thomas D Far from the Madding Crowd Tess of the d’Urbervilles Dickens Charles Bleak House Hartley L P Christmas Carol Go-Between Great Expectations Tale of Two Cities Hasek Jaroslaw Good Soldier Svejk
19 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Heller Joseph Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Catch-22 Frankenstein
Hemingway Ernest Stevenson R L Farewell to Arms Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Old Man and the Sea Steinbeck John Huxley Aldous Grapes of Wrath Brave New World Of Mice and Men
J Stoker Bram Dracula James Henry Turn of the Screw T
Jerome Jerome K Thackeray William Makepeace Three Men in a Boat Vanity Fair
L V
Lawrence D H Verne Jules Lady Chatterley’s Lover Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
M W
Maugham W. Somerset Waugh Evelyn Of Human Bondage Handful of Dust Scoop, a Novel About Journalists O Wells H G Orczy Baroness Time Machine Scarlet Pimpernel War of the Worlds
Orwell George Wharton Edith Animal Farm, a fairy story Age of Innocence Nineteen Eighty Four Ethan Frome
R Wilde Oscar Picture of Dorian Gray Remarque Erich Maria All Quiet on the Western Front Woolf Virginia Mrs Dalloway S Orlando To the Lighthouse
Scott Sir Walter Ivanhoe
20 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
NON-FICTION
A Bryson Bill Body, a guide for occupants Adie Kate Notes From a Small Island Fighting on the Home Front, the legacy of Road to Little Dribbling women in World War One Walk in the Woods
Anand Anita Bythell Shaun Sophia, princess, suffragette, revolutionary Diary of a Bookseller
Angelou Maya C I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Cameron David Athill Diana For the Record Alive, Alive oh! And other things that matter Capote Truman In Cold Blood B Clare Horatio Bakewell Joan Down to the Sea in Ships Stop the clocks, thoughts on what I leave behind Coleridge Nicholas Glossy years, magazines, museums and Balding Clare selective memoirs My Animals and Other Family Cumming Laura Bartlett Graham (with Peter James) On Chapel Sands, my mother and other Babes in the Woods missing persons Death Comes Knocking, policing Roy Grace’s Brighton D
Bauby Jean-Dominique Davies Hunter Diving-bell and the Butterfly Co-op’s Got Bananas
Bayley Sally De Waal Edmund Girl With Dove, life built by books Hare with Amber Eyes
Bennett Alan Dunlop Tessa Lady in the Van Bletchley Girls
Berry Mary Durrell Gerald Recipe for Life, the Autobiography My Family and Other Animals
Brittain Vera Testament of Youth
21 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
E J
Eddo-Lodge Reni Johnson Alan My Why I'm no Longer Talking to White Long and Winding Road People About Race Please Mister Postman, a memoir This Boy F Jung Chang Forster Margaret Empress Dowager Cixi, the concubine who My Life in Houses launched modern China
Frank Anne Junor Penny Diary of a Young Girl Duchess, the untold story
Fraser Antonia K My History, a memoir of growing up Kalanithi Paul Fry Stephen When Breath Becomes Air Fry Chronicles Heroes Kay Adam Mythos This is Going to Hurt, secret diaries of a junior doctor G Keyes Marian Goslett Miles Making it Up as I Go Along An Inconvenient Death L H Langford Sarah Harari Yuval Noah In Your Defence, stories of life and law 21 Lessons for the 21st Century Sapiens, a brief history of mankind Lawrence Lee Louder I will Sing Hawking Jane Travelling to Infinity, my life with Stephen Le Bas Damian Hawking Stopping Places, a journey through gypsy Britain Higashida Naoki Reason I Jump Lee Laurie Cider With Rosie Hilsum Lindsey In Extremis, the life of war correspondent Leith Prue Marie Colvin Relish, my life on a plate
Hunniford Gloria Lewis-Stempel John My Life Where Poppies Blow
22 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Liptrot Amy O’Grady Paul Outrun Open the Cage, Murphy Paul O’Grady’s Country Life M Owen Amanda MacDonald Helen Yorkshire Shepherdess H is for Hawk P MacFarlane Robert Wild Places Packham Chris Fingers in the Sparkle Jar, lessons in life MacIntyre Ben and death Agent Sonya, lover, mother, soldier, spy Spy and the Traitor Paling Chris Spy Among Friends, Kim Philby and the Reading Allowed great betrayal Peterson Jordan B Mangan Lucy 12 Rules for Life, an antidote to chaos Bookworm, a memoir of childhood reading Pope-Hennessy James Mannix Kathryn Quest for Queen Mary With the End in Mind, how to live and die well Preston John Very British Scandal Marsh Henry Do No Harm, stories of life, death, and R brain surgery
Ranganathan Romesh Michell Tom Straight Outta Crawley Penguin Lessons
Rebanks James Mortimer Roger Shepherd’s Life, a tale of the Lake District Dear Lupin…., Letters to a Wayward Son Reeve Simon Step by Step, the life in my journeys N Rosling Hans Nicolson Juliet Factfulness House Full of Daughters S O Sanghera Sathnam Obama Michelle Boy with the Topknot Becoming Sissay Lemn O’Farrell Maggie My Name is Why, a memoir I am, I am, I am, seventeen brushes with death
23 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Smith Emma Weir Alison Great Western Beach, a memoir of a Lost Tudor Princess, a life of Margaret Cornish childhood between the wars Douglas, Countess of Lennox
Soames Mary Westover Tara Daughter’s Tale, the memoir of Winston Educated and Clementine Churchill’s youngest child Winn Raynor Strayed Cheryl Salt Path Wild, a journey From lost to found Winterson Jeanette Suchet David Why be Happy When You Could be Normal? Poirot & Me Wolff Michael Summerscale Kate Fire and Fury, inside the Trump White Wicked Boy, an infamous murder in House Victorian London Worth Jennifer T In the Midst of Life
Tomalin Claire Y Life of My Own Young Rosamund Tree Isabella Secret Life of Cows Wilding, the return to nature of a British farm Yousafzai Malala I am Malala, the girl who stood up for Tremain Rose education Rosie, scenes from a vanished life
Trumpington Jean Coming Up Trumps
V
Van Es Bart Cut Out Girl, a story of war & family, lost & found
W
Walker Matthew
Why We Sleep
Watson Chrissie Language of Kindness, a nurse’s story
24 Please note, titles are subject to availability. Reading suggestions for Reading Groups Updated May 2021
Prizewinners from the last 10 years
Man Booker Prize Women’s Prize for Fiction
2012 2012 Hilary Mantel – Bring Up the Bodies Madeline Miller – Song of Achilles
2013 2013 Eleanor Catton – Luminaries A M Homes – May We Be Forgiven
2014 2014 Richard Flanagan –Narrow Road to the Eimer McBride – Girl is a Half-Formed Thing Deep North 2015 2015 Ali Smith – How to be Both Marlon James –Brief History of Seven Killings 2016 Lisa McInerney – Glorious Heresies 2016 Paul Beatty – Sellout 2017 Naomi Alderman – Power 2017 George Saunders – Lincoln in the Bardo 2018 Kamila Shamsie – Home Fires 2018 Anna Burns – Milkman 2019 Tayari Jones – An American Marriage 2019 Margaret Atwood – Testaments & 2020 Bernardine Evaristo – Girl, Woman, Other Maggie O’Farrell – Hamnet
2020 2021 Douglas Stuart – Shuggie Bain To be announced
2021 To be announced
25 Please note, titles are subject to availability.