By Toni Morrison
224 pages; Vintage
Available at: Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Holmes first discovered Toni Morrison when she read Beloved for a high school English class. "We had a great teacher who valued discussion," she says. Later she read The Bluest Eye, about the difficulty of feeling pretty in a culture that discriminates. "Morrison has such an ability to write about painful topics in a fresh way," she says. "I loved this book, but I missed having a group to debate it with."

— As told to Abbe Wright