Recreation

Oprah's fictionOprah's Fiction

Oprah's Book Club has featured these novels, all to be found in our collections and all guaranteed excellent reads. So go ahead and try:

2004

Gabriel Garcia Marquez One hundred years of solitude
In the early 19th century Idealistic Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife Ursula found a village and dynasty. Six generations of their descendants experience life in an interconnected way that represents the history of Latin America
Carson McCullers The heart is a lonely hunter
A quiet sensitive girl searches for beauty in a small, but damned Southern town
Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
A beautiful passionate Russian woman escapes the restrictions and boredom of her marriage through a love affair with a charming soldier

2003

John Steinbeck East of Eden
Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas valley, this novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons whose generations helplessly re-enact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry between Cain and Abel
Alan Paton Cry the beloved country
A zulu country parson arrives in Johannesburg and finds that his sister has become a prostitute and his son a murderer

2002

Toni Morrison Sula
There is a bond between two women Sula and Nel, a friendship whose intensity first sustains then injures
Ann-Marie MacDonald Fall on your knees
Moving from Cape Breton Island to the bleak landscape of World War I and the emerging jazz scene in New York City, this epic tale tells the story of four unforgettable sisters. This is a story of inescapable family bonds, of terrible secrets, of miracles, murder, passion and forbidden love.

2001

Rohinton Mistry A fine balance
This sweeping story is set in a nameless Indian city amid the political and social turbulence of the 1970s, where misfortunes multiply and a drop of good luck has to last a long time.
Jonathan Franzen The Corrections
After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and her three grown children have problems of their own. A comic and tragic modern tale of a family breaking down.
Lalita Tademy Cane River
Follows four generations of African American women from slavery to the early twentieth century as they struggle for economic security and the future of their families along the Cane River in rural Louisiana
Malika Oufkir La Prisonniere
(also published as "Stolen Lives: 20 years in a desert jail) A shocking true story of resilience in the face of extreme deprivation and of the courage and humor with which one family faced their tormented fate
Gwyn Hyman Rubio Icy Sparks
Icy Sparks lives with a dreaded secret which she calls "my urges." She has loud hiccups, nervous tics and angry outbursts at playmates and teachers. Soon she's nicknamed "the frog child" and this undiagnosed disorder consumes her life.
Joyce Carol Oates We were the Mulvaneys
The Mulvaneys are a happy family, but something happens on Valentine's Day, 1976 - an incident that is hushed up in the town and never spoken of in the Mulvaney home.

2000

Robert Morgan Gap Creek
The story of a young woman's struggles in early 20th century Appalachia
Andre Dubus III House of sand and fog
Three fragile yet determined people become dangerously entangled in a relentlessly escalating crisis
Christina Schwarz Drowning Ruth
This is a haunting novel about the ties that bind families together and the insidious secrets that can rend them apart.
Elizabeth Berg Open house
A woman re-creates her life after divorce by opening up her house and her heart
Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood bible
An evangelical Baptist minister takes his wife, four daughters and his mission from a small town in Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959
Sue Miller While I was gone
When an old housemate settles in her small town, Jo's life begins to unravel: she begins a dangerous flirtation
Toni Morrison The Bluest eye
The story of black 11 year-old Pecola Breedlove who prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful as all the blond, blue-eyed children in America
Tawni O'Dell Back Roads
Nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer is trapped - father dead, mother in jail for murder, three sisters to care for, and a fiery aggressive libido that rages against his will
Isabel Allende Daughter of fortune
Eliza Sommers, a young Chilean girl raised to be a proper English lady, stows away on a ship bound for California

1999

A Manette Ansay Vinegar Hill
Young couple move back to the oppressive, unforgiving Midwest community of the title
Jane Hamilton A map of the world
Woman unjustly accused of abusing child; filmed with Sigourney Weaver
Robert Morgan Gap Creek
A young bride named Julie lives a hard life in 1900 Appalachia
Breena Clarke River, cross my heart
Story of the drowning of a six year old child and its effects on family and residents of black community in the 1920s
Melinda Haynes Mother of pearl
Friendship across race lines between white teenager and black man in 1950s' South
Maeve Binchy Tara Road
Ria lived on Tara Road in Dublin with her dashing husband, Danny, and their two children. She fully believed she was happily married, right up until the day Danny told her he was leaving her to be with his young, pregnant girlfriend
Janet Fitch White oleander
Girl whose mother is in prison is shuttled between foster homes
Bret Lott Jewel
Moving tale of backwoods' woman's devotion to child who's both burden and blessing
Bernhard Schlink The reader
German lawyer discovers woman he loves was once an Auschwitz prison guard; very powerful novel about German war guilt
Anita Shreve The pilot's wife
When her husband is killed in a crash, pilot's wife learns more about his past

1998

Chris Bohjalian Midwives
Respected midwife accused of murder when woman in her care dies
Billie Letts Where the heart is
Pregnant girl abandoned in small Midwest town where she's rescued by the kindness of strangers; film version with Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman and Sally Field
Edwidge Danticat Breath, eyes, memory
Haitian girl learns to cope with life at home and in New York
Wally Lamb I know this much is true
Big ambitious novel about man from dysfunctional family who has to take care of his own life and that of his schizophrenic twin brother
Pearl Cleage What looks like crazy on an ordinary day
Black woman who's HIV positive tries for happiness with man who has a past to overcome
Toni Morrison Paradise
Four unconventional women in small all-black Oklahoma town in the 1970s
Alice Hoffman Here on Earth
Woman returns to childhood home with daughter and resumes passionate affair with her manipulative first lover
Anna Quindlen Black and blue
Victim of domestic violence helped by social agency to relocate to new town with new identity

1997

Ernest J Gaines A lesson before dying
Young black man unjustly accused of murder in 1940s' Louisiana
Kaye Gibbons A virtuous woman
Touching tale of couple who meet when she's 20 and he's 40 and stay together
Kaye Gibbons Ellen Foster
11 year old girl, motherless with abusive father, searches for a place to belong
Wally Lamb She's come undone
Tough times of overweight woman who overcomes terrible trauma with humour and courage
Ursula Hegi Stones from the river
Dwarf woman's experiences in Germany during and after the war
Sheri Reynolds The rapture of Canaan
Teenager faces unwed motherhood in midst of a rural fundamentalist community
Mary McGarry Morris Songs in ordinary time
Small town divorcee is prey of travelling con man

1996

Jacquelyn Mitchard The deep end of the ocean
Parent's worst nightmare, child goes missing; filmed with Michelle Pfeiffer
Toni Morrison Song of Solomon
A black man, heir to a fortune, makes voyage of self discovery
Jane Hamilton The book of Ruth
A woman grows up and struggles to survive in small town America (also published as "The frogs are still singing")

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