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Hi! I am an adult education teacher. I am starting a book club for a diverse group. I am not an avid reader soooooooo...I need so suggestions for book ideas. Can anyone help me?

Hi there....They are all Native American in a semi-small community. I am going to ask them at the first meeting what genre they want to see selected, but I wanted a basic overview of good books for general knowledge so I could pre-screen. Any suggestions? I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Here's a list of a few time-tested classics that would always be a good choice. The list is in no particular order, I'm just writing down the titles as I scan my bookshelf:

Slaughterhouse Five (Kurt Vonnegut)

Aeneid (Virgil)

Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)

The Lord of the Flies (William Gerald Golding)

The Twelve Caesars (Suetonius)

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis)

Animal Farm (George Orwell)

1984 (George Orwell)

East of Eden (John Steinbeck)

The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)

The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)

The Bicentennial Man (Isaac Asimov)

The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)

The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)

Paradise Lost (John Milton)

The Illiad/The Odyssey (Homer)

Ulysses (James Joyce)

A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)

Night (Eli Wiesel)

The Once and Future King (T.H. White)

Thank you for your suggestions! Do you have any more contemporary books to offer as well?

Sure. I'm not sure how contemporary you're looking for, but here a few more modern works:

Shogun (James Cavell)

The Eaters of the Dead (Michael Crichton)

The Bonesetter's Daughter (Amy Tan)

Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)

The Shipping News (Annie Proulx)

Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert A. Heinlein)

The Princess Bride (William Goldman)

A Rumor of War (Philip Caputo)

Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

Hearts in Atlantis (Stephen King)

The Hobbit (J.R.R Tolkien)

Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)

The Milagro Beanfield War (John Nichols)

Como agua para chocolate [Like Water for Chocolate - find a translation] (Laura Esquivel)

Go Tell it on the Mountain (James Baldwin)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)

That's pretty much all I can think of. I'm not one for modern literature

Thanks! Our first book is a Native Book by Sherman Alexie. Thanks for being so helpful!

All great suggestions! There's a 5 book set that has been left out: The Earth's Children series by Jean M. Auel. The titles, in order are:

The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Valley of Horses

The Mammoth Hunters

The Plains of Passage

The Shelters of Stone

Thanks for the suggestions. The first meeting went well. And they chose ahistorical non-fiction book. It was an odd genre I thought. Anyway, we are reading The Great Influenza by John Barry.

Just an update on the book club. We are meeting tonight to rap up The Great Influenza. OMG it was a hard read. We are going for more of an easy read this time. The book was VERY informative, but very technical!

not nearly as intellectual as all your suggestions but the 'shopaholic' series was brilliant!!!

however something maybe slightly mroe suitable...... an oldie but a goody,

jane eyre

or little women??

oh and when i younger i loved anne of green gables

but then i was always the odd one out when i was young!!