Independent Book Clubs Reading List 2016
AUTHOR
TITLE
PAGES
All the Light we Cannot See
Doerr, Anthony
Moriarty, Liane
Walsh, David
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the
Museum of Natural History where he works. When
she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind. When she is twelve,
the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee
to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo.In a German
mining town, an orphan named Werner grows up with
his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they
find. He becomes expert at fixing these new
instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal
academy for Hitler Youth... his story and Marie-Laure's
converge.
Big Little Lies
Pirriwee Public's annual school Trivia Night has ended
in a shocking riot. A parent is dead. Was it murder, a
tragic accident...or something else entirely? Big Little
Lies is a funny, heartbreaking, challenging story of exhusbands and second wives, new friendships, old
betrayals and schoolyard politics.
Bone of Fact (non fiction)
David Walsh – the creator of Mona in Hobart – is both
a giant and an enigma in the Australian art world.A
Bone of Fact is his utterly unconventional and
absorbing memoir.
530
471
368
Borrowed Finery (non fiction)
Fox, Paula
Page | 1
Born in the 1920s to nomadic, bohemian parents,
Paula Fox is left at birth in a Manhattan orphanage,
then cared for by a poor yet cultivated minister in
upstate New York. Her parents, however, soon
resurface. Her handsome father is a hard-drinking
screenwriter who is, for young Paula, "part ally, part
betrayer." Her mother is given to icy bursts of temper
that punctuate a deep indifference.
224
Independent Book Clubs Reading List 2016
Xinran
Buy Me the Sky: The Remarkable Truth of China’s
One-child Generations (non fiction)
Xinran tells the remarkable stories of men and women
born in China after 1979 - the recent generations
raised under China's single-child policy.
286
Eye of the Sheep
Laguna, Sophie
Atkinson, Kate
Conrad, Joseph
Sophie's new book The Eye of the Sheep tells a
haunting tale. It's set in Melbourne's west, and it
uncovers the raw heart of a dysfunctional family.
The story is told from the perspective of Jimmy Flick, a
young boy who is described as being both too fast and
too slow.
God in Ruins
In A God in Ruins, Atkinson turns her focus on Ursula's
beloved younger brother Teddy - would-be poet, RAF
bomber pilot, husband and father - as he navigates
the perils and progress of the 20th century. For all
Teddy endures in battle, his greatest challenge will be
to face living in a future he never expected to have.
Heart of Darkness
Dark allegory describes the narrator’s journey up the
Congo River and his meeting with, and fascination by,
Mr. Kurtz, a mysterious personage who dominates the
unruly inhabitants of the region.
308
394
136
How Fiction Works
Wood, James
Flaubert, Gustave
Page | 2
What makes a story a story? What is style? What’s the
connection between realism and real life? These are
some of the questions James Wood answers in How
Fiction Works, the first book-length essay by the
preeminent critic of his generation.
Madame Bovary
When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary she
imagines she will pass into the life of luxury and
passion that she reads about in sentimental novels
and women's magazines. But Charles is a dull country
doctor, and provincial life is very different from the
romantic excitement for which she yearns.
194
342
Independent Book Clubs Reading List 2016
One life: my Mothers Story (non fiction)
Grenville, Kate
When Kate Grenville's mother died she left behind
many fragments of memoir. These were the starting
point for One Life, the story of a woman whose life
spanned a century of tumult and change.
260
The Buried Giant
Ishiguro, Kazuo
McEwan, Ian
Hawkins, Paula
Leavitt, David
The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a
troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a
son they have not seen in years. Sometimes savage,
often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in
a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge and
war.
The Children Act
Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, renowned for
her fierce intelligence and sensitivity is called on to try
an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeenyear-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that
could save his life. Time is running out.
The Girl on the Train
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning.
Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a
stretch of cosy suburban homes, and stops at the
signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple
breakfasting on their deck. And then she sees
something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train
moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed.
The Man who Knew too Much: Alan Turing and the
Invention of the Computer (non fiction)
The story of Alan Turing, the persecuted genius who
helped break the Enigma code and create the modern
computer.
Rappaport, Helen
215
316
319
The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters
of Nicholas and Alexandra (non fiction)
A New York Times Bestseller for 12 weeks!
They were the Princess Dianas of their day--perhaps
the most photographed and talked about young royals
of the early twentieth century.
Page | 3
345
492
Independent Book Clubs Reading List 2016
The Rosie effect
Simsion, Graeme
Brooks, Geraldine
Henshaw, Mark
Crabb, Annabel
Woolf, Virginia
Page | 4
Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are back. The Wife
Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily
married and living in New York. But they're about to
face a new challenge because--surprise --Rosie is
pregnant.
The Secret Chord
A rich and utterly absorbing novel about the life of
King David. Peeling away the myth to bring David to
life in Second Iron Age Israel, Brooks traces the arc of
his journey from obscurity to fame, from shepherd to
soldier, from hero to traitor, from beloved king to
murderous despot and into his remorseful and
diminished dotage.
The Snow Kimono
Set in Paris and Japan, The Snow Kimono tells the
stories of Inspector Jovert, former Professor of Law
Tadashi Omura, and his one-time friend the writer
Katsuo Ikeda. All three men have lied to themselves,
and to each other. And these lies are about to catch
up with them.
The Wife Drought (non fiction)
It's a common joke among women juggling work and
family. But it's not actually a joke. Having a spouse
who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the
domestic front. It's a potent economic asset on the
work front. And it's an advantage enjoyed - even in
our modern society - by vastly more men than
women.
To the Lighthouse
To the Lighthouse is made up of three powerfully
charged visions into the life of one family living in a
summer house off the rocky coast of Scotland. As time
winds its way through their lives, the Ramsays face,
alone and simultaneously, the greatest of human
challenges and it greatest triumph--the human
capacity for change.
415
320
396
282
267