Pasadena Covenant Church – Women’s Book Club
Covenant’s Women’s Book Club was started in January 1989. Since that time, a great variety of
books have been read and discussed. To preserve the titles for future reference and for newcomers to
the group, the books are listed by year when that information is available and just the titles prior to
that time. Book club meets the 4th Monday of each month.
1989 through Summer 1991
Olive Ann Burns
Cold Sassy Tree
Lely Hayslip
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
Oswald Wynd
The Ginger Tree
Thomas Friedman
From Beirut to Jerusalem
Tracey Kidder
Among Schoolchildren
Tony Morrison
Beloved
Anne Tyler
Breathing Lessons
C.S. Lewis
Till We Have Faces
Arlie Russel Hochschild
The Second Shift
Amy Tan
The Joy Luck Club
Ann Beattie
Picturing Will
Susan Minot
Monkeys
Anita Brookner
Hotel Du Lac
Allan David Bloom
The Closing of the American Mind
Nikos Kazantzakis
The Last Temptation of Christ
Charles Dickens
Pickwick Papers
Joan Aiken
Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Madeleine L’Engle
Two Part Invention
Madeleine L’Engle
A Wrinkle in Time
Elizabeth O’Connor
Call to Commitment
Ed. Alvera Mickelsen
Women, Authority, and the Bible
Etty Hillesum
An Interrupted Life
Robertson Davies
Fifth Business
Virginia Woolf
A Room of One’s Own
Alan Gurganus
The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All
Ed. John S, Pohee
New Eyes for Reading
1991-1992
Forrest Carter
Education of Little Tree
Leanne Payne
Healing Presence
Beryl Markham
West with the Night
Mary Catherine Bateson
Composing a Life
Deborah Tannen
You Don’t Understand Me
Sandra Cisneros
House on Mango Street
Barbara Kingsolver
Animal Dreams
Robert Cole
Spiritual Life of Children
1992-1993
Frances Burnett
The Secret Garden
Whitney Otto
How to Make an American Quilt
Sue Bender
Plain and Simple
Neil Anderson & Steve Russo
The Seduction of Our Children
Jane Smiley
A Thousand Acres
Jill Ker Conway
The Road from Coorain
Susan Howatch
Glittering Images
Wallace Stegner
Angle of Repose
John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany
George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie
Joseph Girzone
Joshua
1993-1994
Edith Wharton
Age of Innocence
Mildred Taylor
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
S. F. Farmaian
Daughter of Persia
Harriet Doerr
Stones for Ibarra
Henry Nouwen
Life of the Beloved
Wallace Stegner
Spectator Bird
Susan Bronmiller
Femininity
Kaye Gibbons
Ellen Foster
Donna Williams
Nobody Nowhere
Flannery O’Conner
selected short stories
Michael Dorris
The Broken Cord
E. Annie Proulx
The Shipping News
Walter Wangerin
selections from The Manger id Empty
1994-1995
Paula Paine Harden
What Are You Doing with the Rest of Your Life?
Chaim Potok
My Name is Asher Lev
Peter DeVries
The Blood of the Lamb
Anne Lamott
Operating Instructions
Reynolds Price
Clear Pictures
Andrzej Szczypiorski
Mass for Arras
Carol Shields
The Stone Diaries
Lois Lowry
The Giver
Kathleen Norris
Dakota
Bette Bao Lord
Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic
1995-1996
Ed. June Hagen
Rattling Those Dry Bones
Michael Ondaatje
The English Patient
Kaye Gibbons
Charms for the Easy Life
David Guterson
Snow Falling on Cedars
Katherine Paterson
Bridge to Terabithia
Jane Austen
Sense & Sensibility
Elizabeth Goudge
Scent of Water
Rumer Godden
In This House of Brede
Willa Cather
My Antonia
Alan Paton
Cry, the Beloved Country
1996-1997
Lee Smith
Fair and Tender Ladies
Ron Hansen
Mariette in Ecstasy
Cynthia Rylant
Missing May
Ursula Hegi
Stones From the River
T.S. Eliot
Four Quartets
Ron Hansen
Atticus
Sigrid Nuñez
A Feather on the Breath of God
James McBride
The Color of Water
Marge Percy
The Longings of Women
1997-1998
Tiina Nunnally
Maija: A Novel
Frederick Buechner
The Longing for Home
Geraldine Brooks
Nine Parts of Desire
Ernest Gaines
A Lesson Before Dying
A.S. Byatt
The Matisse Stories
Jeannette Haien
The All of It
Gerald Sittser
A Grace Disguised
Charles Frazier
Cold Mountain
Rebecca Wells
The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
1998-1999
Arundhati Roy
The God of Small Things
Elizabeth McCracken
The Giant’s House
Frank McCourt
Angela’s Ashes
Karen Hesse
Out of the Dust
Mary Pipher
Reviving Ophelia
Natalie Kusz
Road Song
Julia Alvarez
Yo
Mary Doria Russell
The Sparrow
Anne Lamott
Traveling Mercies
1999-2000
Bret Lott
Jewel
Arthur Golden
Memoirs of a Geisha
Sandra Dallas
Persian Pickle Club
Janet Tronstad
An Angel for Dry Creek
Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre
Dee Brestin
The Friendships of Women
John Grisham
The Testament
Anita Diamont
The Red Tent
Gail Tsukiyama
Samurai’s Garden
2000-2001
Gail Godwin
Father Melancholy’s Daughter
Francine Rivers
The Last Sin Eater
J.R.R. Tokien
The Fellowship of the Rings
Kathleen Norris
Amazing Grace
Hiram Hickam
Rocket Boys (October Sky)
Gwyn Rubio
Icy Sparks
John Ortberg
The Life You’ve Always Wanted
Tracy Chevalier
Girl with a Pearl Earring
Mark Salzman
Lying Awake
2001-2002
Rosamund Pilcher
Winter Solstice
Amy Tan
Bonesetter’s Daughter
Barbara Ehrenreich
Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Anne Fadiman
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Sandra Dallas
Alice’s Tulips
John Grisham
A Painted House
Malika Oufkir
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
Kaye Gibbons
On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon
2002-2003
St. Therese of Lisieux
Story of a Soul
Ann Patchett
Bel Canto
Leif Enger
Peace Like a River
Helie Lee
Still Life with Rice
Bernard Lewis
What Went Wrong
Harriet Scott Chessman
Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper
Geraldine Brooks
Year of Wonders
Laura Hillenbrand
Seabiscuit
2003-2004
Queen Noor
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Loretta Schwartz-Nobel
Growing up Empty: The Hunger Epidemic in America
Jodi Picoult
Plain Truth
Azar Nafisi
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Jaonne Harris
Chocolat
Alexander McCall Smith
The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency
Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner
2004-2005
Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees
Lauren F. Winnter
Girl Meets God: A Memoir
Jimmy Carter
An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of a Rural Boyhood
Mark Salzman
True Notebooks
Karen Kingsbury & Gary Smalley Redemption
Mark Haddon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Jim Wallis
God’s Politics
2005-2006
Jhumpa Lahiri
The Namesake
Lisa See
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Anne Lamott
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Octavia Butler
Kindred
Marilynne Robinson
Gilead
Martin Goldsmith
The Inextinguishable Symphony
Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist
2006-2007
Carson McCullers
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Tracy Kidder
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Francis Schaefer
How Shall We Then Live
Ivan Doig
The Whistling Season
Robert Olen Butler
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
Bo Caldwell
Distand Land of My Father
Maryanne Vollers &Jerri Nielsen Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole
2007-2008
Bo Caldwell
Distant Land of My Father
Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle
Maryanne Vollers &Jerri Nielsen Ice Bound: A Doctor’s Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole
Ron Hall & Denver Moore
Same Kind of Different as Me
Robert Kurson
Crashing Through: The Extraordinary True Story of the Man Who
Dared to See
Jennifer Vanderbees
Easter Island
Kim Edwards
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
2008-2009
Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote
Peace…One School at a Time
William P. Young
The Shack
Elizabeth Gilbert
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Italy, India and
Indonesia
Helene Cooper
The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood
Betty Smith
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Pat Conroy
The Water is Wide
Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
2009-2010
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
Nicole Mones
The Last Chinese Chef: A Novel
Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Jodi Picoult
My Sister’s Keeper
Da Chen
Colors of the Mountain
Tracy Kidder
Strength in What Remains
Kathryn Stockett
The Help
2012-13
Dorothy Wickenden
The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West
Julia Child & Alex Prud’Homme My Life in France
John Steinbeck
Cannery Road
Jane Ziegelman
Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New
York Tenement
Jamie Ford
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Penelope Lively
How It All Began
Barbara Demick
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea