Walton Options World Book Day Staff Picks
In celebration of World Book Day and the love of reading yourself into an adventure, we have put together a book list of our staff’s FAVORITE reads. Check out the list, separated by Genre, below. We hope you enjoy some of the reads on here yourself.
Also, if any of these reads stands out to you, click the title of the book and you will be directed to Amazon to purchase.
AUTO-BIOGRAPHY
- Becoming| Michelle Obama
Becoming is the memoir of former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, published in 2018. Described by the author as a deeply personal experience, the book talks about her roots and how she found her voice, as well as her time in the White House, her public health campaign, and her role as a mother. - Joni: An Unforgettable Story | Joni Eareckson Tada
Joni reveals each step of her struggle to accept her disability and discover the meaning of her life. The hard-earned truths she discovers and the special ways God reveals his love are testimonies to faith’s triumph over hardship and suffering.
FICTION
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo | Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a historical fiction novel that tells the story of an Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who at the age of 79 decides to give a final interview to an unknown journalist. - Maybe, Somebody | Colleen Hoover
Sydney is living in an idyllic bubble—she’s a dedicated student with a steady job on the side. She lives with her best friend, has a great boyfriend, and the music coming from the balcony opposite hers is fast becoming the soundtrack to her life. But when Sydney finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her, the bubble bursts. - Kindred | Octavia Butler
Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. - The Thorn Birds | Colleen McCullough
The Thorn Birds is a sweeping love story set on Drogheda, a sheep station in the Australian Outback. This novel is a robust, romantic saga of a singular family, the Clearys telling their story of over a century. - Memoir of a Geisha | Arthur Golden
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 is scorned as an illusion. - All The Ugly and Wonderful Things | Bryn Greenwood
Struggling to raise her little brother, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible “adult” around. She finds peace in the starry Midwestern night sky above the fields behind her house. One night everything changes when she witnesses a motorcycle wreck. What follows is a powerful and shocking love story between two unlikely people that asks tough questions, reminding us of all the ugly and wonderful things that life has to offer. - The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code follows “symbologist” Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu after a murder in the Louvre Museum in Paris cause them to become involved in a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene having had a child together. - A Discovery of Witches | Deborah Harkness
When historian Diana Bishop opens a bewitched alchemical manuscript in Oxford’s Bodleian Library, it represents an unwelcome intrusion of magic into her carefully ordinary life. Though descended from a long line of witches, she is determined to remain untouched by her family’s legacy. - The Giver of Stars | Jojo Moyes
Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve hoping to escape her stifling life in England. But small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic, especially living alongside her overbearing father-in-law. - Tales of the City | Armistead Maupin
San Francisco, 1976. A naïve young secretary, fresh out of Cleveland, tumbles headlong into a brave new world of laundromat Lotharios, pot-growing landladies, cut throat debutantes, and Jockey Shorts dance contests.
CLASSICS
- Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austin
In the early 19th century in the English village of Meryton, the arrival of wealthy bachelors, most notably Mr. Darcy (Laurence Olivier), stirs up the families with single daughters. Among those is the Bennet family, with five eligible daughters, including the spirited Elizabeth (Greer Garson) and her pretty older sister, Jane (Maureen O’Sullivan). As Mrs. Bennet (Mary Boland) aggressively tries to pair off her girls, Elizabeth crosses swords with the imperious Darcy. - A Christmas Carol | Charles Dickins
A Christmas Carol is a play about a mean-spirited and selfish old man, Ebenezer Scrooge, who hates Christmas. One night after Scrooge gets home, he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner Jacob Marley – and then by three ghosts! They are the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future.
NON-FICTION
- The Color of Law | Richard Rothstein
In The Color of Law, Richard Rothstein argues how segregation in America—the incessant kind that continues to dog our major cities and has contributed to so much recent social strife—is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state, and federal levels. - The Rose That Grew From Concrete | Tupac Shakur
The Rose that Grew from the Concrete is a poem about reaching our goals in life despite the hardships and conflicts that we face on the way. - The Four Agreements | Don Miguel Ruiz
In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. - Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil | John Berendt
Shots rang out in Savannah’s grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt’s narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.
YOUNG ADULT
- Divergent (series) | Veronica Roth
In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue. On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. - The Selection (Series) | Kiera Cass
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. Until she meets the Prince, and gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined. - The Hate U Give | Angie Thomas
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. - Beautiful Creatures | Kami Garcia
Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever. - Clap When You Land | Elizabeth Acevedo
Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people…In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered. And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other. - One Of Us Is Lying | Karen M. McManus
On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain. Addy, the beauty. Nate, the criminal. Cooper, the athlete. And Simon, the outcast. Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon’s dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn’t an accident.