Portsmouth Library Service has over 90 book sets that are available for reading groups in the local area to use and enjoy. To take a closer look at our collection, please use the book title links below. Each page has a synopsis and perhaps reviews from the reading groups themselves.

Our mission is to challenge your comfortable reading choices and our book sets are a mixture of 19th and 20th century classics as well as contemporary novels and narrative non-fiction. Titles are suggested by reading group members and staff, and then the group facilitators decide which books will be best for encouraging debate and discussion. Generally speaking we select mainstream titles in paperback. Quite often they have won, or been shortlisted for an award. We occasionally choose books to tie in with a literary event or author visit.

If you would like to suggest a book you think would make a good reading group selection, please start a thread below.

A prayer Owen Meany by John Irving A short history of tractors in Ukranian by Marina Lewycka A town like Alice by Nevil Shute Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood And when did you last see your father? by Blake Morrison Bel Canto by Ann Patchett Birthdays by Heidi Pitlor Bitter sweets by Roopa Farooki Bone people by Keri Hulme Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson Brighton rock by Graham Greene Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons Comrade Jim by Jim Riordan Daughter of fortune by Isabel Allende Day by A L Kennedy Deafening by Frances Itani Elegance of hedgehog by Muriel Barbery English harem by Anthony McCarten English passengers by Matthew Kneale Family matters by Rohinton Mistry Fingersmith by Sarah Waters Four letters of love by Niall Williams Fragrant Harbour by John Lanchester Gardens of water by Alan Drew Gig by Simon Armitage Grass is singing by Doris Lessing Guernica by Dave Boling Guernsey literary and potato peel society by Helen Shaffer Happenstance by Carole Shields Hard way by Lee Child Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd Heart of the matter by Graham Greene Highest tide by Jim Lynch History of love by Nicole Krauss House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier Howling miller by Arto Paasilinna I capture the castle by Dodie Smith If nobody speaks of remarkable things by Jon McGregor Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan Kingdom by the sea by Paul Theroux Kite runner by Khaled Hosseini Labyrinth by Kate Mosse Lightning Keeper by Starling Lawrence Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Me and Emma by Elizabeth Flock Memoirs of a geisha by Arthur Golden

Miss Garnet's angel by Salley Vickers Moon tiger by Penelope Lively My sister's keeper by Jodi Picoult Name of the rose by Umberto Eco Night Watch by Sarah Waters Ninth life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen Notes on a scandal by Zoe Heller Number one ladies detective by Alexander McCall Smith Only boy for me by Gil McNeil Perfume by Patrick Suskind Persuasion by Jane Austen Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult Portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce Promise of happiness by Justin Cartwright Reader by Bernard Schlink Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi Red tent by Anita Diamant Regeneration by Pat Barker Rendezvous and other stories by Daphne Du Maurier Requiem for the East by Andrei Makine Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates Road by Cormac McCarthy Road Home by Rose Tremain Rough Music by Patrick Gale Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay Saturday by Ian McEwan Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman Sea by John Banville Secret history by Donna Tartt Secret river by Kate Grenville Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry Seventh Sacrament by David Hewson Shack, The by William P. Young Shadow dance by Angela Carter Shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon Small island by Andrea Levy Spies by Michael Frayn Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky Summer book by Tove Jansson Super-Cannes by JG Ballard Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale Temples of delight by Barbara Trapido Tenderness of wolves by Stef Penney This time of dying by Reina James Three men in a boat by Jerome K. Jerome To kill a mockingbird, by Harper Lee Unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro Vanishing act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver What I loved by Siri Hustevedt When we were orphans by Kazuo Ishiguru Yacoubian building by Alaa Al Aswany

When leaving a review, please be careful not to write a plot spoiler. If this is unavoidable, mention the world 'spoiler' in the subject line.