Book Discussion Resources

Civic Discussions

The Center for Civic Reflection has an excellent collection of online resources, including a how-to guide for the entire process; a searchable database with several hundred suggested readings for civic reflection; and a forum for facilitators to learn from each other.

Other models for atopical discussion programs include the Kettering Foundation’s National Issues Forum and Brown University’s Choices for the 21st Century. Both of these are aimed more at classroom use, but have often been adapted by libraries.

Reading Group Choices

Reading Group Choices is an independent source for discussible books, with suggested discussion topics for reading groups; the company distributes an annual guide to libraries, reading groups, book stores, community book festivals, and individuals.

Book Group Buzz

Offering “Book group tips, reading lists & lively talk of literary news from the experts at Booklist Online,” this blog offers a wealth of book club information, including reading guides, 25 Ways for Libraries to Support Book Groups, and other book group tips.

Individual Title Discussion Guides

Discussion guides for individual titles developed by ALA’s Public Programs Office, arranged in alphabetical order by title and separated by type—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and short stories.

Fiction

• The Adventures of Augie March (pdf) by Saul Bellow
• Adventures of Huck Finn (pdf) by Mark Twain
• Angle of Repose (pdf) by Wallace Stegner
• The Antelope Wife (pdf) by Louise Erdrich
• Beloved (pdf) by Toni Morrison
• Clear Pictures (pdf) by Reynolds Price
• Cold Mountain (pdf) by Charles Frazier
• The Color Purple (pdf) by Alice Walker
• The Day of the Locust (pdf) by Nathanael West
• Fair and Tender Ladies (pdf) by Lee Smith
• Farewell, My Lovely (pdf) by Raymond Chandler
• The Feast of Love (pdf) by Charles Baxter
• The Floatplane Notebooks (pdf) by Clyde Edgerton
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (pdf) by Flannery O’Connor
• The Grapes of Wrath (pdf) by John Steinbeck
• Ishi in Two Worlds (pdf) by Theodora Kroeber
• Look Homeward, Angel (pdf) by Thomas Wolfe
• Main Street (pdf) by Sinclair Lewis
• Native Son (pdf) by Richard Wright
• The Nick Adams Stories (pdf) by Ernest Hemingway
• The Octopus (pdf) by Frank Norris
• On the Road (pdf) by Jack Kerouac
• Pocho (pdf) by Jose Antonio Villareal
• Ramona (pdf) by Helen Hunt Jackson
• Rich in Love (pdf) by Josephine Humphreys
• Them (pdf) by Joyce Carol Oates
• Their Eyes Were Watching God (pdf) by Zora Neale Hurston
• A Thousand Acres (pdf) by Jane Smiley

Nonfiction

• A Sand County Almanac (pdf) by Aldo Leopold
• Ordeal by Hunger (pdf) by George R. Stewart
• Living Stories of the Cherokee, edited by Barbara R. Duncan
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (pdf) by Frederick Douglass
• Slaves in the Family (pdf) by Edward Ball
• Slouching Towards Bethlehem (pdf) by Joan Didion
• Tales of the South (pdf) by William Gilmore Simms
• Townships, edited by Michael Martone
• Twilight—Los Angeles 1992 (pdf) by Anna Deavere Smith
• The Woman Warrior (pdf) by Maxine Hong Kingston

Poetry

• Chicago Poems (pdf) by Carl Sandburg
• Selected Poems (pdf) by Gwendolyn Brooks