I assembled this list for book groups or book lovers looking for something new to read and discuss — with an emphasis on the books being both readable and discussable. We enjoyed "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" by Alexander McCall Smith, for example, but it doesn't make for a great discussion. The titles are alphabetized by the first letter of the MAIN first word of the title, so you will find “A Fine Balance” in the F section, for example.

Clicking on a title, in blue, should take you to an amazon.com page for the title, where you can learn more about the book.

I've provided links below to other good lists from which to find book club selections. There's a particular emphasis in this list on fiction, although some nonficton is included. (At a "summit" of book groups at Politics & Prose, we noticed that men's groups tended to read more nonfiction; one men's group alternated nonfiction books one month with sports events the next.) If you google "study guide" and the name of a book, you may find useful guides to discussion -- as I did, for example, for Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood.

· Achebe, Chinua, Things Fall Apart
· Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi, Purple Hibiscus
· Albom, Mitch, Tuesdays With Morrie
· Alexie, Sherman, Reservation Blues
· Allende, Isabel, Daughter of Fortune
· Allende, Isabel, The House of the Spirits
· Alvarez, Julia, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
· Amis, Kingsley, Lucky Jim
· Angelou, Maya, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
· Angelou, Maya, The Heart of a Woman
· Atwood, Margaret, Cat's Eye
· Atwood, Margaret, Oryx and Crake
· Atwood, Margaret, The Blind Assassin
· Atwood, Margaret, The Handmaid's Tale
· Austen, Jane, Persuasion
· Bainbridge, Beryl, Master Georgie
· Baldwin, James, Go Tell It on the Mountain
· Banks, Russell, Cloudspitter
· Banks, Russell, Continental Drift
· Banks, Russell, The Sweet Hereafter
· Barker, Pat, Regeneration
· Baum, L. Frank, The Wizard of Oz
· Benitez, Sandra, The Weight of All Things
· Berendt, John, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
· Berg, Elizabeth, The Art of Mending
· Berger, Thomas, Little Big Man
· Bernieres, Louis de, Corelli’s Mandolin
· Binchy, Maeve, Tara Road
· Blunt, Judy, Breaking Clean
· Bock, Charles, Beautiful Children: A Novel
· Bohjalian, Chris, Midwives
· Bohjalian, Chris, The Buffalo Soldier
· Boyd, William, Armadillo
· Boyle, T. Coraghessen, The Tortilla Curtain
· Bronte, Emily, Wuthering Heights
· Brooks, Geraldine, March
· Brooks, Geraldine, The Year of Wonders: Novel of the Plague
· Brown, Dan, The Da Vinci Code
· Buchan, Elizabeth, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman
· Buck, Pearl S., The Good Earth
· Buckley, Christopher, Thank You for Smoking
· Burroughs, Augusten, Dry
· Byatt, A.S., Possession
· Caldwell, Ian and Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four
· Canin, Ethan, Carry Me Across the Water
· Carr, J. L., A Month in the Country
· Cather, Willa, My Antonia
· Chabon, Michael, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
· Chang, Jung, Wild Swans
· Chessman, Harriet Scott, Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper
· Chevalier, Tracy, The Girl with a Pearl Earring
· Chevalier, Tracy, The Virgin Blue
· Cleage, Pearl, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day
· Coelho, Paulo, The Alchemist
· Coetzee, J., Elizabeth Costello
· Coetzee, J. M., Disgrace
· Coetzee, J. M., Waiting for the Barbarians
· Conlon, Edward, Blue Blood
· Conroy, Pat, The Great Santini
· Conway, Jill Ker, Road from Coorain
· Coomer, Joe, The Loop
· Cortazar, Julio, Hopscotch
· Cotton, Eddie Joe, Hobo: A Young Man's Thoughts on Trains and Tramping in America
· Courtemanche, Gil, Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
· Cunningham, Michael, The Hours
· Danticat, Edwidge, Breath, Eyes, Memory
· Danticat, Edwidge, The Dew Breaker
· Davies, Robertson, Fifth Business
· Deane, Seamus, Reading in the Dark
· DeLillo, Don, Libra
· DeLillo, Don, Underworld
· DeLillo, Don, White Noise
· Desai, Anita, Fasting, Feasting
· Desai, Kiran, The Inheritance of Loss
· Diamant, Anita, The Red Tent
· Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel
· Didion, Joan, The Last Thing He Wanted
· Didion, Joan, The Year of Magical Thinking
· Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee, The Mistress of Spices
· Doctorow, E. L., The March
· Doctorow, E.L., Loon Lake
· Doerr, Harriett, Stones for Ibarra
· Doig, Ivan, Bucking the Sun
· Doig, Ivan, Dancing at the Rascal Fair
· Dorris, Michael, Yellow Raft in Blue Water
· Drehle, David Von, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
· Dubus III, Andre, House of Sand and Fog
· Dufresne, John, Louisiana Power and Light
· Duncan, David James, The Brothers K
· Duras, Marguerite, North China Lover
· Ebershoff, David, The Danish Girl
· Edwards, Kim, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
· Eggers, Dave, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
· Ehrenreich, Barbara, Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America
· Eliot, George, Middlemarch
· Elkin, Stanley, Mrs. Ted Bliss
· Ellis, Joseph J., Founding Brothers
· Enger, Leif, Peace Like a River
· Englander, Nathan, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
· Eprile, Tony, The Persistence of Memory
· Erdrich, Louise, Love Medicine
· Erdrich, Louise, The Beet Queen
· Erdrich, Louise, The Master Butchers Singing Club
· Esquivel, Laura, Like Water for Chocolate
· Eugenides, Jeffrey, Middlesex
· Faulkner, William, As I Lay Dying
· Faulkner, William, Light in August
· Finney, Jack, Time and Again
· Fitch, Janet, White Oleander
· Fitzgerald, F. Scott, The Great Gatsby
· Fitzgerald, Penelope, Blue Flower
· Foer, Jonathan, Everything Is Illuminated
· Forster, E.M., A Passage to India
· Fowles, John, The French Lieutenant's Woman
· Fox, Paula, Desperate Characters
· Franklin, Miles, My Brilliant Career
· Franzen, Jonathan, The Corrections
· Frazier, Charles, Cold Mountain
· Freed, Lynn, House of Women
· Fremont, Helen, After Long Silence

· Gaines, Ernest J., A Lesson Before Dying
· Gautreaux, Tim, The Clearing
· Gautreaux, Tim, The Next Step in the Dance
· Glass, Julia, Three Junes
· Godwin, Gail, Good Husband
· Goldberg, Myla, Bee Season
· Golden, Arthur, Memoirs of a Geisha
· Golding, William, Lord of the Flies
· Goldstein, Jan, All That Matters
· Goodman, Allegra, Intuition
· Goodwin, Doris Kearns, Team of Rivals
· Gowdy, Barbara, The White Bone
· Green, Graham, The Quiet American
· Greene, Graham, A Burnt-Out Case
· Greene, Graham, Brighton Rock
· Greene, Graham, The End of the Affair
· Greene, Graham, The Heart of the Matter
· Greene, Melissa Fay, Praying for Sheetrock
· Greenway, Alice, White Ghost Girls
· Grossman, David, Be My Knife
· Gruen, Sara, Water for Elephants
· Gunther, John, Death Be Not Proud
· Guterson, David, Snow Falling on Cedars
· Haddam, Jane, Skeleton Key
· Haddon, Mark, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
· Halprin, Mark, Winter's Tale
· Hamilton, Jane, A Map of the World
· Hamilton, Jane, The Book of Ruth
· Hansen, Ron, Mariette in Ecstasy
· Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure
· Haruf, Kent, Eventide
· Haruf, Kent, Plainsong
· Hay, Elizabeth, A Student of Weather
· Hegi, Ursula, Stones from the River
· Helprin, Mark, A Soldier of the Great War
· Hemingway, Ernest, The Sun Also Rises
· Hersey, John, A Bell for Adano
· Hillenbrand, Laura, Seabiscuit
· Hoffman, Alice, Here on Earth
· Hornby, Nick, How To Be Good
· Hosseini, Khaled, The Kite Runner
· Hosseini, Khaled, A Thousand Splendid Suns
· Hulme, Keri, The Bone People
· Hurston, Zora Neale, Their Eyes Were Watching God
· Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World
· Irving, John, A Prayer for Owen Meany
· Irving, John, The Ciderhouse Rules
· Ishiguro, Kazuo, Never Let Me Go
· Ishiguro, Kazuo, The Remains of the Day
· James, P.D., Original Sin
· Japrisot, Sebastien, A Very Long Engagement
· Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer, Heat and Dust
· Jin, Ha, Waiting
· Johnson, Charles, Middle Passage
· Johnson, Denis, Jesus’ Son
· Johnson, Diane, Le Divorce
· Jones, Edward P., The Known World
· Junger, Sebastian, The Perfect Storm
· Kanon, Joseph, The Good German
· Karr, Mary, The Liar’s Club
· Kaysen, Susanna, Girl, Interrupted
· Kernan, Michael, The Secret Diary of Frans Hals
· Kesey, Ken, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
· Kidd, Sue Monk, The Secret Life of Bees
· Kincaid, Jamaica, Autobiography of My Mother
· Kingsolver, Barbara, Pigs in Heaven
· Kingsolver, Barbara, Prodigal Summer
· Kingsolver, Barbara, The Bean Trees
· Kingsolver, Barbara, The Poisonwood Bible
· Krakauer, Jon, Into Thin Air
· Krakauer, Jon, Under the Banner of Heaven
· Krauss, Nicole, The History of Love
· Kundera, Milan, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
· L'Engle, Madeleine, A Wrinkle in Time
· Lahiri, Jhumpa, Interpreter of Maladies
· Lahiri, Jhumpa, The Namesake
· Lamb, Wally, I Know This Much Is True
· Lamb, Wally, She's Come Undone
· Lamott, Anne, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
· Lamott, Anne, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
· Landvik, Lorna, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
· Larson, Erik, The Devil in the White City
· Lawrence, D.H., The Rainbow
· Lawson, Mary, Crow Lake
· Laxness, Halldor, Independent People
· LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
· Lee, Chang-Rae, A Gesture Life
· Lee, Harper, To Kill A Mockingbird
· LeGuin, Ursula, A Wizard of Earthsea
· Lehane, Dennis, Mystic River
· Leiner, Katherine, Digging Out
· Leonard, Elmore, Stick
· Letts, Billie, Where the Heart Is
· Lewis, C.S., The Screwtape Letters
· Lively, Penelope, The Photograph
· Lodge, David, Therapy

· MacDonald, Ann-Marie,