Research Guides: Library Displays at UCBA: Great American Read

Geek Out Display

The UCBA Library joining in the fun of the Great American Read! The Great American Read is an eight-part tv series created by PBS that explores 100 best loved novels and the power they have over their readers. Stop by the UCBA Library to check out a new book or revisit an old favorite story.

Display and LiBlog Post by Christian Boyles and Michelle McKinney

Great American Read Titles at UCBA

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR4611.A7 G3 1960
As Alice explores a bizarre underground world, she encounters a cast of strange characters and fanciful beasts: the White Rabbit, March Hare, and Mad Hatter; the sleepy Dormouse and grinning Cheshire Cat; the Mock Turtle, the dreadful Queen of Hearts, and a host of other extraordinary personalities.
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3523.O46 C3 1990
ISBN: 0679725350
Buck, who is shipped to the Klondike to be trained as a sled dog, eventually reverts to his primitive wolflike ancestry. He then undertakes an almost mythical journey, abandoning the safety of his familiar world to encounter danger, adventure, and fantasy.
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3537.A426 C3
The hero-narrator of THE CATCHER IN THE RYE is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3573.A425 C6 1982
ISBN: 0671526022
Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separated from her beloved sister Nettie and is trapped into an ugly marriage. But then she meets the glamorous Shug Avery, singer and magic-maker - a woman who has taken charge of her own destiny. Gradually, Celie discovers the power and joy of her own spirit, freeing her from her past and reuniting her with those she loves.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PG3326 .D74 1950
Raskolnikov, an impoverished student living in the St. Petersburg of the tsars, is determined to overreach his humanity and assert his untrammeled individual will. When he commits an act of murder and theft, he sets into motion a story that, for its excruciating suspense, its atmospheric vividness, and its depth of characterization and vision is almost unequaled in the literatures of the world.
Early novels and stories [Another Country] by James Baldwin
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3552.A45 A6 1998
ISBN: 1883011515
Another Country is a wide-ranging exploration of America's racial and sexual boundaries, depicts the suicide of a gifted jazz musician and its ripple effect on those who knew him.
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3525.I972 G6 1964
ISBN: 068483068X
This is the tale of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life.
The Grapes of Wrath by Frank Galati
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS 3537 .T3234 G8 1986
ISBN: 0670347914
Traces the migration of an Oklahoma Dust Bowl family to California and their subsequent hardships as migrant farm workers.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR4560 A1 1953
Humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman — and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of "great expectations."
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3511.I9 G7 2004
ISBN: 9780743273565
The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan, of lavish parties on Long Island at a time when The New York Times noted "gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession," it is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR3724.G7 1995
ISBN: 0312102844
Shipwrecked and cast adrift, Lemuel Gulliver wakes to find himself on Lilliput, an island inhabited by little people, whose height makes their quarrels over fashion and fame seem ridiculous. His subsequent encounters - with the crude giants of Brobdingnag, the philosophical Houyhnhnms and the brutish Yahoos - give Gulliver new, bitter insights into human behaviour.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR9199.3.A8 H3 1986
ISBN: 0395404258
Set in the near future, it describes life in what once was the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead. Reacting to social unrest, and a sharply declining birthrate, the new regime has reverted to -- even gone beyond -- the repressive tolerance of the original Puritans. Offred is a Handmaid who may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant because she is only valued as long as her ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3619.T636 H45 2009
ISBN: 9780399155345
Aibileen is a black maid in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, who's always taken orders quietly, but lately she's unable to hold her bitterness back. Her friend Minny has never held her tongue but now must somehow keep secrets about her employer that leave her speechless. White socialite Skeeter just graduated college. She's full of ambition, but without a husband, she's considered a failure. Together, these seemingly different women join together to write a tell-all book about work as a black maid in the South, that could forever alter their destinies and the life of a small town...
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR6051.D3352 H5 2005
ISBN: 9780345418913
Publication Date: Blue Ash Stacks PR6051.D3352 H5 2005
Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together, this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox--the two-headed, three-armed ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod's girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he's bought over the years.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3555.L625 I5 1995
ISBN: 0679732764
The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR4167 .B790 1976
Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. But there is a terrifying secret inside the gloomy, forbidding Thornfield Hall. Is Rochester hiding from Jane? Will Jane be left heartbroken and exiled once again?
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Call Number: Blue Ash Media PN1997 .J694 2002
ISBN: 078883603X
Follows the story of four lifelong friends, whose lives are filled with joy and heartbreak, and shows how their experiences have affected the hopes and dreams they hold for each of their children.
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR6039.O32 L63456 2000
ISBN: 0618517650
The Lord of the Rings tells of the great quest undertaken by Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring: Gandalf the Wizard; the hobbits Merry, Pippin, and Sam; Gimli the Dwarf; Legolas the Elf; Boromir of Gondor; and a tall, mysterious stranger called Strider.
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3619.E26 L68 2002
ISBN: 0316666343
"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." So begins the story of Susie Salmon, who is adjusting to her new home in heaven, a place that is not at all what she expected, even as she is watching life on earth continue without her -- her friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her killer trying to cover his tracks, her grief-stricken family unraveling.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3557.O355 M34 1997
ISBN: 0375400117
Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS2384 M6 1967
Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR6029.R8 N49 1992
ISBN: 0679417397
Winston Smith, a member of the outer Party, spends his days rewriting history to fit the narrative that his government wants citizens to believe. But as the gap between the propaganda he writes and the reality he lives proves too much for Winston to swallow, he begins to seek some form of escape. His desperate struggle to free himself from an all-encompassing, tyrannical state illuminates the tendencies apparent in every modern society, and makes vivid the universal predicament of the individual.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PQ8180.17.A73 C513
The story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love—in rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism."
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR3330 A1 1954
Along a road filled with monsters and spiritual terrors, Christian confronts such emblematic characters as Worldly Wiseman, Giant Despair, Talkative, Ignorance, and the demons of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But he is also joined by Hopeful and Faithful.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR4034 .P7 2005
ISBN: 9780521825146
'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.' With this famous declaration Jane Austen launches into the story of the five Bennet sisters.
A Separate Peace by John Knowles; John Knowles
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3561.N68 S4 1996
ISBN: 0684833662
Set at a boys' boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world. A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles's crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3515.E37 S8 1996
ISBN: 0684830515
The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3563.A878 T3 1989
ISBN: 0060964049
Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed a singular trail through popular culture -- from a groundbreaking newspaper serial to a classic novel to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales is both a wry comedy of manners and a deeply involving portrait of a vanished era.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3515.U789 T5 2005
ISBN: 9780821927366
Meet the unforgettable Janie Crawford, an articulate African-American woman in the 1930s. Traces Janie's quest for identity, through three marriages, on a journey to her roots. When Janie Starks returns to her rural Florida home, her small black community is overwhelmed with curiosity about her relationship with a younger man.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR9387.9.A3 T5 1994
ISBN: 0385474547
Things Fall Apart is the first of three novels in Chinua Achebe's critically acclaimed African Trilogy. It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political andreligious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PS3562.E353 T6 2006
ISBN: 0061205699
A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PG3366 .V6 2007
ISBN: 9780060798871
A sweeping, romantic saga of two noble families and their intertwined destiny, and a panoramic portrait of Russian society at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Tolstoy's unforgettable masterpiece has inspired love and devotion in its readers for generations.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte; Edited by William M. Sale
Call Number: Blue Ash Stacks PR4172 W8 1963
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.

Great American Read Event at Langsam Library

UC Libraries and the University of Cincinnati Press are sponsors of PBS’sThe Great American Read, an eight-part series that explores and celebrates the power of reading, told through the prism of America’s 100 best-loved novels. The series will resume in September and air every Tuesday from 8-9 pm until the finale on October 23 where American’s best-loved novel will be announced. Over the eight episodes (including the one that debuted in May), promotional spots for UC Libraries and the Press will air a total of 16 times.

CET has been awarded a grant to host Watch Parties – three of which will be held in the Walter C. Langsam Library. Please join us 8-9pm September 11, 25 and October 9 in the Digital Commons Space on the 4^th floor to watch the next episodes of the Great American Read where they will showcase the 100 novels up for consideration. CET will provide refreshments and other fun. We are providing the venue. Please feel free to share this email with anyone who might be interested in joining us.