Six Picks...Books That Change Lives

  • THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak

    Both intimate and sweeping, THE BOOK THIEF is an unforgettable novel set just before and during WWIII among everyday German people living in a Munich suburb.  Death is the narrator, but he’s New Age, not the Death from Poe. One of the main characters is Liesl, and in her story, we find everything that human beings are capable of enduring, inflicting, bestowing and achieving:  from sorrow, sadness, and cruelty beyond comprehension to incredible compassion, kindness, and joy.
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  • A LESSON BEFORE DYING by Ernest Gaines

    History looms large here, for through Jefferson, the main character, Gaines cleverly and subtly indicts American society  for its failure to own up to its own glorious aims.  Jefferson’s sense of self emerges once he is taught to read and write, but that’s only one of the lessons in this  award-winning novel.
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  • THE GOOD EARTH by Pearl Buck

    A best-seller when it was first published, this classic has remained popular because it tells the simple and moving story that has great emotional impact on readers; the language is clear, elegant, and beautiful.  While the novel is set in China, it presents events and experiences that could happen in other times and other places.  Its story is the universal account of the different stages in human life (youth, maturity, and old age) and people’s encounters with hardship and temptation. Buck received the Nobel Prize for literature.
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  • THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Fitzgerald’s clear, polished prose evokes stunning poetic effects.  After years of fantasizing about the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby discovers that he is more in love with his memory of her than with the real Daisy.
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  • ANNA KARENINA by Count Leo Tolstoy

    ANNA KARENINA is a book that teaches us about life and people.  Significant is the interplay of historical life and personal life and how our personal life is a reflection of the times in which we live.  This resonates personally, loudly, and clearly.
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  • THE BOOK OF DANIEL by E.L. Doctorow

    This is an angry, raw, discursive work absolutely blistering in its power. Narrated by the adult son of an Ethel and Julius Rosenberg-like couple, the novel encompasses, in strikingly personal terms, the political and social turmoil of the 1950’s and 1960’s and the private consequences of public deeds.
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