Alexander, William. The $64 Tomato.
When the author of this hilarious horticultural memoir plants a large vegetable
garden and a small orchard on his Hudson Valley farmstead, he finds himself
at odds with almost all creation.
Almond, Steve. Candyfreak.
Picture a magical, sugar-fueled road trip with Willy Wonka behind the wheel.
Steve Almond, a man who loves candy, gives an amusing portrait of regional
candy makers and his own obsession with all-things sweet.
Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.
An innocent visit to a neighboring village begins Ishmael’s life-altering
journey. Follow his harrowing survival story from child-soldier in Sierra
Leone to a graduate of Oberlin College.
Bloom, Stephen G. The Oxford Project.
In this riveting sociological study, the residents of Oxford, Iowa were photographed
in 1984 and then again in 2005. Their compelling life stories, vividly expressed
in brief biographical sketches, show just how much someone can change in 21
years.
Choi, Annie. Happy Birthday or Whatever: Track Suits, Kim Chee,
and Other Family Disasters.
Choi pokes fun at her Korean-American upbringing and the wide cultural divide
that exists between her parents and the southern California life style.
Cullen, David. Columbine.
Discusses the school shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, reflecting on
the killers' histories and the portrayal of the event by the media.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed :on (not) getting by in
America.
Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich
decided to join them. The laws of supply and demand have been reversed. Rental
prices skyrocket, but wages never rise. Rather, jobs are so cheap as measured
by the pay that workers are encouraged to take as many as they can. Behind
those trademark Wal-Mart vests, it turns out, are the borderline homeless.
With her characteristic wry wit and her unabashedly liberal bent, Ehrenreich
brings the invisible poor out of hiding and, in the process, the world they
inhabit--where civil liberties are often ignored and hard work fails to live
up to its reputation as the ticket out of poverty.
Finkel, David. The Good Soldiers.
Relates the author's experiences as an embedded reporter with Battalion 2-16.
Telling the story of the surge from the perspective of the someone who worked
the soldiers every day.
Fisher, Barbara Milberg. In Balachine's Company.
Fisher captures the spirit of her youth spent as a member of the New York
City Ballet, the premier American ballet company of the twentieth century.
Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth.
The untimely death of his son left former Vice President Gore with a sense
of obligation “to pay attention to what matters.” Gore won the
Nobel Prize for his life-long commitment to secure the planet for future generations.
Kamkwamba, William. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.
A true story of tenacity and imagination describes how an African teenager built
a windmill from scraps to create electricity for his home and his village,
improving life for himself and his neighbors.
Marshall, Megan. The Peabody Sisters.
Twenty years in the making, The Peabody Sisters is a landmark biography of
three women who made American intellectual history. The story of the Peabody
sisters and their central role in shaping the thought of their day is a piece
of history that has never before been fully told.
Mortenson, Greg. Three Cups of Tea.
A failed attempt to climb K2 results in the unlikely pairing of an American
climber and the Pakistani villagers of Korphe. A vow to return and build a
school in their village turns into a life-long mission to bring education
to over fifty communities throughout Pakistan.
Oppenenheimer, Mark. Wisenheimer: a Childhood Subject to Debate.
Frank and comical, "Wisenheimer "chronicles the travails of a hyperarticulate child who finds salvation in the heady world of competitive oratory.
Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture.
The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores
his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his
childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation.
Everyone frets about the nutritional implications of excessive dining at America's
fast-food emporia, but few grasp the significance of how fast-food restaurants
have fundamentally changed the way Americans eat. Schlosser documents the
effects of fast food on America's economy, its youth culture, and allied industries,
such as meatpacking, that serve this vast food production empire.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer, yet her cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first "immortal" human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years.
Tan, Cecilia. The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games.
For both the die
hard and casual fan, let the discussion begin as to what is the greatest Red
Sox game ever?
Toobin, Jeffrey. Nine: Inside the World of the Supreme Court.
The members of the Supreme Court are people first and judges second, as influenced
as the rest of us by the tenor of the times and their own idiosyncrasies.
Xinran. Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet.
A young Chinese doctor travels to Tibet in search of her beloved husband.
Thirty years later, she finally finds the answer she so desperately wants
to know; is he alive?