Today I thought I'd share some more of our 10th Anniversary Contest Results. Here are the top 10 classic books for book club (in alphabetical order):
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: The doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky, set against 19th-century Russia.
Reading Group Guide »
- Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton: A beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set in the troubled and changing South Africa of the 1940s.
Reading Group Guide »
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck: Steinbeck's passionate and exhilarating epic re-creates the seminal stories of Genesis through the intertwined lives of two American families.
Reading Group Guide »
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell: The beloved story of courtship and romance during the height of the Civil War in the South.
- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck: The moving, classic story of the honest farmer Wang Lung and his selfless wife O-lan, and their struggles and triumphs while working their farm.
Reading Group Guide »
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age story of self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby and his unrequited love and quest for the affections of the elusive Daisy Buchanan.
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: The classic tale of obsession, delusion and morality between a man and his 14-year-old stepdaughter.
Reading Group Guide »
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: In an inversion of the classic “Cinderella” fairytale, when the hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy, first sees the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, at a ball, he refuses to dance with her.
Reading Group Guide »
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the trial, violence and crisis of conscience that rocked it.
Reading Group Guide »
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: A richly-plotted narrative of three generations in a poor but proud American family offers a detailed and unsentimental portrait of urban life at the beginning of the century.
Reading Group Guide »
Has your book club read any of these? How were the discussions? Any other classics you would put on the list?
-- Dana Barrett, Contributing Editor
