Summer Reading List

Suggested Summer Reading List

Fiction

Edward Abbey The Monkeywrench Gang. Eco-terrorists plot the destruction of a major dam. Irreverent anti-establishment humor.
Richard Adams Watership Down. Adventure allegory about rabbits and their quest for a home.
James Agee A Death in the Family. Tragedy brings a family together.
Isabel Allende House of the Spirits An epic South American story of a family's adventures, scandals, ghosts and romances.
Julia Alvarez How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Fifteen interconnected stories portray with warmth and humor the assimilation of a Dominican doctor's family into urban American culture.
Kingsley Amis Lucky Jim. Comic misfortunes of a young instructor at an English University. Very funny.
Jean Anouilh Becket. This book offers Anouilh's version of the friendship and strife between King Henry and his chancellor-archbishop.
Piers Anthony On A Pale Horse. In this first of a five-part fantasy, a young man kills death.
Jennifer Armstrong The Dreams of Mairhe Mehan. This story recounts the inner struggle of an Irish immigrant torn between allegiance to Ireland and allegiance to her new home in America at the height of the Civil War.
Isaac Asimov Foundation. In a future century, the Galactic Empire dies, and one man creates a new force for civilized life.
Margaret Atwood A Handmaid's Tale. What life in the US could be like if arch-conservatism controlled our thoughts and our government.
Jane Austen Emma. Young, rich Emma Woodhouse plays matchmaker with unexpected results in this book which inspired the movie Clueless. Also read Pride and Prejudice - In early 19th century England, an empty-headed mother schemes to find husbands for her five daughters.

Joel Barr Chapters and Verse. A charming book about a bookstore-owner, E. Baker, who selects her a nice enough young man as her successor and retires.
Andrea Barrett The Voyage of the Narwhal. Rich in historical and natural detail, filled with adventure and romance, this tale of a 19th century Arctic expedition explores the affects of extreme circumstances on character.
William Bell Forbidden City. Seventeen-year-old Alex Jackson is thrilled when his father, a cameraman for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is sent on assignment to China. But the excitement of being in Tiananmen Square turns to horror as the movement for change turns violent and Alex witnesses the death of his Chinese friend.
Thomas Berger Little Big Man. Witty fictional account of a survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Jim Bishop The Day Lincoln was Shot. Bishop gives a play-by-play account of the people and events surrounding Lincoln's assassination and death.
Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451. A world where reading is forbidden (and you won't be able to put the book down). (also Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine)
David Brin The Postman. Nuclear war and the disease following it were bad enough, but what was left was nearly destroyed altogether by violent survivalists
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre. The Story of a young governess in a mysterious mansion -- and in love.
Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights. The world's most haunting love story.
Irene Bennett Brown Morning Glory Afternoon. This historical novel, set in Kansas in 1924, recounts the experience of 17-year-old Jessamyn Faber as she deals with the Ku Klux Klan and its tactics against various minorities and immigrant groups.
Pearl Buck The Good Earth. The story of a Chinese farmer and his family -- his struggles, his errors, and his love of "the good earth."
Octavia Butler Kindred A woman travels in time to the Maryland plantation where her ancestors were slaves.

Italo Calvino The Baron in the Trees. A young Italian aristocrat decides he has had enough of family life and retreats for years to a tree house. Kind of an allegory about human society and alienation.
Albert Camus The Stranger. Compelling story of a nonconformist and his struggles.
Scott Orson Card Ender's Game. About genetic experimentations. Six-year-old Ender is playing a computer game to save the world.
David Carkeet The Greatest Slump of All Time. A fine novel about a team that stands a chance to win the world series.
Kate Chopin The Awakening. Ayoung married woman in the 1890's awakens to the value of herself and demands her independence.
Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street. Beautifully written book about a Latina girl faced with difficult challenges as she grows up.
Arthur Clarke 2001. Exciting fantasy about space exploration.
James Clavell King Rat. Power struggles in a war camp. (also Shogun).
Isobel Colgate The Shooting Party. A weekend of hunting on an aristocrat's estate changes the lives of those involved and signals the end of a ruling class system in early 20th century England.
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness. An Englishman travels to the Belgian Congo and discovers a horrifying dark side of life.
Pat Conroy The Water is Wide. The author recounts his joys and struggles in his tenure as a schoolteacher and inspiration to children on a rural South Carolina island.
James Fenimore Cooper The Deerslayer. Early American confrontations between the Indians and the woodsman Natty Bumppo are recounted
Douglas Coupland Microserfs. Daniel@microsoft.com is part of a house full of computer geeks, who follow Michael in his new OOP! computer venture startup to Silicon Valley, where ever so slowly, they begin to have actual lives.
Bryce Courtenay The Power of One. Gripping tale of growing up in South Africa.
Margaret Craven I Heard the Owl Call My Name. A good man's life among the Indians -- not too long ago.

Roald Dahl Collected Short Stories. Humorous anecdotal stories - most with a dark twist - about life in rural England.
Richard Dana Two Years Before the Mast. The true story of Dana's years at sea, worth it all, because the ship lands in Santa Barbara.
Robertson Davies Fifth Business. Delve into the private life of a master in a boys' boarding school. Also Bred in the Bone. Life of an eccentric art forger.
Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe. The old classic about a man surviving alone on an island - probably the first "survival in nature" novel. Not easy, but a wonderful read if you stick with it.
Don Delillo White Noise. A Midwestern professor of Hitler Studies and his family endure an "industrial accident." Dark humor.
Peter DeVries The Vale of Laughter. The story of a man with an irresistible urge to impersonate Groucho Marx.
Pete Dexter Paris Trout. A Southern town faces down a miserly and violent storekeeper.
E. L. Doctorow Ragtime. Jazz Age madness in New Rochelle, New York.
Ivan Doig This House of Sky. Beautiful Western novel about a boy's relationship with his father and the land that shaped them both. Excellent. (also Dancing at the Rascal Fair and The Sea Chasers)
Michael Dorris Yellow Raft In Blue Water. The story of an Indian girl, her mother and grandmother.
Fyodor Dostoevsky The Gambler. The "confessions" of a compulsive roulette man, by the master psychologist and story-teller.
Alexander Dumas The Three Musketeers. The ultimate swashbuckler.
David James Duncan The River Why. Funny and also serious story of a young fly-fisherman in Oregon.

Louise Erdrich The Beet Queen. Family secrets span two generations; set in North Dakota.
Ralph Ellison Invisible Man. Struggles of a man trying to find his identity, first in the South and later in New York City. Compelling, poetic, disturbing.

William Faulkner The Unvanquished. A collection of seven interconnected stories about the plight of a Mississippi family during the Civil War and Reconstruction. (also As I Lay Dying)
Ron Faust Fugitive Moon. A manic-depressive pitcher is suspected as a serial killer.
Henry Fielding Tom Jones. This novel recounts the life of Tom Jones, a wild and foolish, though good-hearted, young man whose virtue eventually overcomes adversity.
F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night. Romance, glamor, and a difficult marriage in the 1920's.
Richard Ford Wild Life. A Montana boy faces loneliness and the disintegration of his parents' marriage.
E.M. Forster Howard's End or A Room with a View. Two great English turn-of-the -century love stories; the first set in England, the second in Italy.
Frederick Forsyth The Day of the Jackal. A professional hit man plans to murder Charles de Gaulle.
Herbert Frank Dune. Young prince Paul is destined to become the messiah of the desert world Dune in this epic adventure of heroes, mile-long sand worms, and wise witch-women.
Charles Frazier Cold Mountain. A Confederate soldier decides to desert and starts a long walk home through the mountains, while back home the woman he loves tries to keep her farm together. Current best seller and wonderful story.

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. One of the two funniest books ever written about the end of the world.
Ernest Gaines A Lesson Before Dying. A young teacher discovers compassion and commitment as he tutors a prisoner on death row.
Sherry Garland Indio. Set in the 1500s in southwestern United States and Mexico, this is a coming-of-age novel that spans a nine-year period during which Ipa-tah-chi must learn to overcome the perpetual hardships of life as an orphan and then as a slave.
Kaye Gibbons Charms For the Early Life. Margaret grows up in the south, guided by her grandmother's wisdom and her mother's beauty.
Dorothy Gilman The Maze in the Heart of the Castle. A kind of Pilgrim's Progress for a golden boy, suddenly deprived of both parents, and trying to understand why and how this has happened, and what meaning there could be in a world that allows that to happen.
Nadine Gordimer July's People. A white family is saved by their black servant during a hypothetical revolution in South Africa.
Molly Gloss The Jump Off Creek. With courage, tenacity, and no sentimentality a woman homesteads alone in Oregon in the mid-1800's. Refreshing.
Sue Grafton Any of the alphabet thrillers starring a female private investigator.
Hannah Green I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. Two worlds of Deborah Blair, a mentally disturbed young girl.
Bob Greene All Summer Long. High school buddies meet again at a high school reunion, and resolve to spend a summer bumming around the country together.
Judith Guest Ordinary People. A family tries to deal with the death of their son and its impact on his brother.
David Guterson Snow Falling on Cedars. A Japanese-American internment camp is the backdrop for this story of love and the search for justice.

William Hallberg The Rub of the Green. A fine novel about a professional golfer who puts everything he's got into his game, because golf is a lot easier to deal with than people or emotions.
Thomas Hardy Tess of the D'Urbervilles. A poor country girl is controlled and mistreated by two men obsessed with her.
Donald Harington The Choiring of the Trees. This is a story of a man framed and wrongfully convicted of rape and sentenced to death in Arkansas in the early 1900's, and of the woman who is convinced of his innocence and determined to save him.
Mark Harris The Southpaw. Good novel about baseball.
Jim Harrison Legends of the Fall. Great stories about adventures in the West of the early 1900's.
Seamus Heaney Beowulf: A New Translation. Heany brilliantly re-creates this Anglo-Saxon epic with stirring dialogue, action, and descriptions.
Ursula Hegi Stones From the River. Trudy, a German "small person" in World War II, helps to hide Jews from the Nazis and comes to accept her disability.
Robert Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land. One of the great classics of Sci-Fi.
Joseph Heller Catch 22. Black comedy about a bombardier's efforts to get a discharge during the last days of WW II.
Mark Helprin Winter's Tale. A fantasy of New York, a flying horse, villains in derby hats, and a hero who lives in the ceiling of Grand Central Station.
Ernest Hemingway A Farewell to Arms. Vivid love story of an ambulance driver and a nurse in World War I. (also For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Sun Also Rises)
John Hersey The Child Buyer. About a brilliant young boy, a misfit spurned and humiliated by his peers, and the company that would like to buy him and use him.
Homer Hickam Rocket Boys (October Sky). The memoir of a NASA engineer's teen years. Book on which the movie October Sky is based.
Ruth Beebe Hill Hanta Yo. Epic story of the Dakota Indians, the beauty of their life and the ignominy of their decline.
Tony Hillerman The Thief of Time. A modern detective story set in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. Great mystery and great way to learn about tribal history of the Ashkanazi.
Russell Hoban Riddley Walker. At some time in the future, centuries after nuclear holocaust, society has somewhat reconstructed itself, and people are beginning to attempt to reconstruct written language based on the sounds of existing language.
Judith Hoffman At Risk. A young girl contracts AIDS through a blood transfusion.
Isabel Huggins The Elizabeth Stories. A funny and sensitive collection of short stories about a young woman's growing up.
Victor Hugo Les Miserables. This novel tells of the struggle for freedom in postrevolutionary France.
Zora Neale Hurston Their Eyes Were Watching God. Poignant story of a black woman's search for independence and love.
Aldous Huxley Brave New World. One of the great frightening visions of the future.

John Irving The World According to Garp. Two writers, mother and son, try to find out how to live. (also The Hotel New Hampshire and A Prayer for Owen Meany.)

Shirley Jackson We Have Always Lived in the Castle. A story about a girl, who survived the massacre of her family, becoming, in the eyes of the townspeople, the primary suspect.
James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Mostly autobiographical. The main character, Stephen Dedalus, comes to reject "the whole narrow world in which he has been brought up"

Nikos Kazantzakis Zorba the Greek. An introspective intellectual spends a year on Crete with the free-spirited Zorba.
Jack Kerouac On the Road. One of the important novels of the 1950s' Beat movement, full of vivid characters in search of a new lifestyle.
Ken Kesey One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Zany and affecting story of a rebel and his unforgettable pals in a mental institution.
Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees. A woman and her daughter make their way in Arizona helping Central American refugees at the Jesus Is Lord tire shop. (also Animal Dreams.)
Maxine Hong Kingston The Woman Warrior. A story about a Chinese girl growing up in America.
W.P. Kinsella Shoeless Joe. The book which became the movie Field of Dreams, a fine movie--but a better book.
Jerzy Kozinski The Painted Bird. Shocking and grisly adventures of a young Jewish boy in wartime Poland.
Milan Kundera The Unbearable Lightness of Being. A difficult philosophical novel, not without some steamy scenes. (also The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.)

Madeleine L'Engle A Ring of Endless Light. With the help of Adam, Vicky Austin adjusts to several deaths.
D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers. The story of an English miner, his more educated and ambitious wife, and their passionate son.
John Le Carre The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. A secret agent pretends to defect to the East Germans.
Ella Leffland Rumors of Peace. An American girl learns about prejudice in her small town during World War II.
Ursula Leguin The Left Hand of Darkness. Sci-Fi which plays with a whole new concept in gender roles.
Elmore Leonard Out of Sight and a bunch of others - all good thrillers about the underworld, enlivened by some of the best dialogue ever written.
Jeremy Leven Satan: His Psychotherapy and Cure by the Unfortunate Dr. Dr. Kassler, J.S.P.S. Satan is feeling pretty down about the horrible reputation he's been stuck with, and he goes to a shrink and tries to justify himself.
Burt Levy The Last Open Road. Buddy Palumbo, a working class kid from Passaic who falls in love with cars and the boss's niece, in that order.
David Lodge Changing Places. Two professors - one a Californian, the other a Brit - trade workplaces for one hilarious year.
Jack London Call of the Wild. Great dog adventure story set in Alaska.
Betty Bao Lord Spring Moon. Story of a girl growing up in the turbulence of modern China.

Norman Maclean A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. Stories about fly-fishing and nature in the Rockies.
Bernard Malamud The Fixer. Moving story of a Jew who survives the pogroms in Russia.
Bernard Malamud The Natural. One of the great novels about baseball, although of course it's really about something else altogether.
Michael Malone. Handling Sin. Adventure centering around one of the most determinedly boring people God ever made.
Bobbie Ann Mason In Country. A teenage girl tries to understand the Vietnam War and her father who died in it.
Cormac Mc Carthy All the Pretty Horses. Two runaways try their luck as wranglers in Mexico. National Book Award winner.
Larry Mc Murtry Lonesome Dove. An epic cowboy journey from Texas to Montana. Leaving Cheyenne. Funny novel about two cowboys and a woman they love.
Herman Melville Billy Budd. A handsome young sailor, falsely accused of mutiny, becomes a legend when he is hanged for killing his tormentor.
Arthur Miller The Crucible. Rumors of witchcraft cause fear in a puritanical New England town, and many fine people are destroyed in the hysteria.
Christopher Moore Practical Demon-Keeping. Travis O'Hearne, much against his will, is the constant traveling companion of a demon named Catch, and has spent 70 years trying to unload him.
Toni Morrison Sula. The lifelong friendship of two black women weathers extreme poverty and pain.

Vladimir Nabokov Pnin. A bumbling Russian professor finds a home in a small American college. (also Lolita).

Patrick O'Brian Any of the Aubrey/Matarin novels, though one really should start with the first of eighteen, since they proceed in chronological order: Master and Commander. A New York Times critic called them "the greatest historical novels ever written." All about adventures at sea and elsewhere during the Napoleonic Wars.
Tim O'Brien The Things They Carried. Moving short stories about American soldiers in Vietnam.
Joyce Carol Oates Them, or Because It Is Bitter, Because It Is My Heart. Novels about growing up poor in 1950's and 1960's America.
Edwin O'Connor The Edge of Sadness. One of the most memorably characters in fiction is the irascible old man, head of a rich and powerful Boston Irish Catholic clan, who suddenly takes an interest in the aging priest who tells this story.
Michael Ondaatje The English Patient. A challenging but beautiful novel set in Italy at the end of World War II. Much more complex and interesting than the movie, of course!
George Orwell Animal Farm. Some farm animals revolt against their human owners and establish a "free" society that turns into a dictatorship.

Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago. A Russian doctor/poet loves and writes in the midst of the Bolshevik Revolution.
Walker Percy The Thanatos Syndrome. Someone seems to be poisoning the local water supply in an effort to control people's minds. An intellectual thriller. (also The Moviegoer.)
Marge Piercy Gone To Soldiers. This is what World War II was like for the people who stayed home--the women in the factories, the codebreakers, the women pilots, the government propaganda officers and others.
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar. A young girl has a nervous breakdown and attempts suicide. A compelling, sometimes funny story.
Chaim Potok My Name is Asher Lev. The story of a Jewish boy whose orthodox family refuses to accept his extraordinary artistic talent. (also The Chosen.)
E. Annie Proulx The Shipping News. Winner of the National Book Award. Quirky characters in the unusual setting of Newfoundland. All generations seem to love this book.

Ayn Rand The Fountainhead. Story of an idealistic architect.
Erich Remarque All Quiet on the Western Front. Loss of innocence amid the terrors of World War I trench warfare.
Mary Renault Last of the Wine. Adventures in ancient Greece.
Marjorie Reynolds The Starlite Drive-In. The adult heroine looks back on events that happened when she was 12, and manages to see them with both an understanding of what really happened and with her 12 year-old's misunderstanding and sense of grievance.
Tom Robbins Still Life with Woodpecker. A frolicking love story filed with bombs, redheads, and camels.
Philip Roth Goodbye Columbus. A collection of short stories with a very definite Jewish bent.
Mary Doria Russell The Sparrow. The book is about language and the clash of cultures.
Richard Russo Nobody's Fool. North Bath is a town that has been dying for years, a resort town long passed over for greater attractions nearby, though some people have not given up hope of reviving the resort, including the bank president.

J. D. Salinger Franny and Zooey. If you liked Nine Stories and Catcher in the Rye, try this.
Danny Santiago Famous All Over Town. A book about a Chicano street gang that is full of violence, sympathy, and joy.
Sir Walter Scott Ivanhoe. Jousts, magicians, ladies in distress, and knights in this tale of the Crusades.
David Shields Heroes. An outstanding novel about a college basketball team
Mary Shelley Frankenstein. A polar explorer tells a strange tale: a scientist created a hideous monster who, after being rejected by everyone he met, became a murderer, drove his creator to his death, and went off to kill himself.
Nevil Shute On the Beach. The last people face the end of the world.
Leslie Marmon Silko Ceremony. The story of a Native American who has been a prisoner of the Japanese in World War II and returns to his reservation in despair. His search into the past and ancient rituals is enlightening for him and for the reader.
Alan Sillitoe Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Short stories. The title sory describes the struggles of a rebellious reform school student.
Mona Simpson Anywhere But Here. A girl goes on the road with her zany, unstable mother.
Wallace Stegner Angle of Repose. A man explores his past through his grandmother's journals. Sweeping, historical saga of the West.
John Steinbeck East of Eden. The Cain and Abel story powerfully retold in a California setting.The Grapes of Wrath. Oklahoma farmers seek a better life in California.
Bram Stoker Dracula. The real story.
Jonathon Swift Gulliver's Travels. When his ship is repeatedly cast ashore in strange lands, a middle-class English doctor observes exotic cultures and reassesses his own beliefs.

Amy Tan The Joy Luck Club. Four Chinese mothers share their differences between them and their more Americanized daughters growing up in San Francisco.
Junichiro Tanizaki Makioka Sisters. Four sisters vie for husbands, fortunes, and independence - hailed as "Japan's greatest post-war novel."
Lawrence Thornton Imagining Argentina. Political intrigue and family tragedy involving the "disappeareds" in 1970's Argentina.
J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit and The Lord of the Ring series. The great fantasy world beloved by many for generations.
Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina. Set in 19th century Russia, this is the story of two women whose fates are decided by the different men they fall in love with.
John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces. A comic tour-de-force about a man who is fat, lazy, and useless. But, brilliant and arrogant, he talks his way into a number of jobs and nearly destroys every organization he touches.

Virgil Aeneid. After many failed attempts. the Trojan hero, Aeneas, succeeds in founding the city of Rome.
Voltaire Candide. After a naive young man faces some of life's hardships, he rejects his tutor's blind optimism in favor of a more realistic view of the world.
Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five. The misadventures of a World War II veteran and his interplanetary travel.

Alice Walker The Color Purple. Beautiful story about a beautifully honest black girl.
Theodore Weesner Winning the City. This is a novel that immerses you in the consciousness of a 15 year old boy, a very good basketball player left off his school's basketball team because he plays the position wanted by the son of a rich man who is willing to finance the team.
Edith Wharton Ethan Frome. Frome struggles with love and commitment in 19th century New Hampshire.
T. H. White The Once and Future King. The Arthurian legend retold.
Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian Gray stays young . . .Why?
Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie. A shy young woman's dream world is shattered after her mother arranges for a "gentleman caller" to visit their drab St. Lous apartment.
Tom Wolfe The Bonfire of the Vanities. A tragicomedy that satirizes almost everything about New York City.
Virginia Woolf Orlando. An English writer reincarnates in different centuries as both male and female.
Richard Wright Native Son. Classic 1930's novel about a poor young black man in Chicago who commits a terrible crime.

Roger Zelazny Lord of the Light. a Hugo Award winner involving a chase through different dimensions and strange new worlds.

Non Fiction and Biography

Edward Abbey Desert Solitaire. An irascible naturalist works in a relatively unknown national park in Utah. Wisdom of a curmudgeon and gadfly.
Diane Ackerman Rarest of the Rare: Vanishing Animals, Timeless Worlds. Ackerman investigates the disappearance of endangered species and habitats.
Hugh Aldersey-Williams The most Beautiful Molecule Two chemists discover a previously unknown form of carbon.
Caroline Alexander The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition. A shipwreck strands Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew on an ice floe in the Antarctic.
Frederick Lewis Allen Only Yesterday This informal history of the United States recounts the decade before the stock market crash of 1929.
Stephen Ambrose Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. Ambrose recreates the travails of Jefferson's personal secretary who blazed a trail to the Pacific with the Corps of Discovery and returned a hero and a failure.
Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Coming of age story about an African-American girl who overcomes sexual abuse, racism, and class struggle.
Karen. Armstrong A History of God: The 4000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Armstrong's readable and provocative work, which follows humanity's circuitous route to monotheism, makes a major contribution to religious studies.

Russell Baker Growing Up. The autobiography of a New York Times correspondent from childhood to marriage.
Bill Barich Travelling Light. Essays on fishing, horseracing, and life in Europe.
Dick Bass Seven Summits. An account of climbing seven of the world's highest mountains.
A. Scott Berg Lindbergh. Masterfully written and extensively researched, this beautifully balanced biography depicts one of the twentieth century's most controversial, famous and yet private of men.
Daniel Boorstin The Discoverers Boorstin recounts the history of scientific discovery.
Dee Alexander Brown Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. This chronicle focuses on the 30-year period, 1860-1890, in the history of the American West during which the last resisting tribes were defeated in Indian wars fought for possession of land.

Joseph Campbell The Power of Myth. Campbell and Bill Moyers, distinguished journalist, offer a brilliant combination of wisdom and wit on topics that range from birth to death.
Philip Caputo A Rumor of War. A journalist living through the early years of the Vietnam War.
Rachel Carson Silent Spring. This a rigorous presentation of the effects of pesticide use as well as a call to greater awareness of our environment.
Stephen Carter The Culture of Disbelief. This law professor from Yale University provides provocative insights about 20th century societal values.
Loreen Cary Black Ice. Autobiography of a black scholarship student attending St. Paul's School in New Hampshire in the 1970's.
Evan Connell Son of the Morning Star. Detailed, readable history of Custer and the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Jill Kerr Conway The Road from Coorain. A spunky girl grows up through much hardship in Australia.

Caroline Maria De Jesus Child of the Dark. Diary of a poor woman in a Brazilian ghetto who kept her diary on scraps of paper she collected and sold to keep herself and her illegitimate children alive.
Barry Denenberg An American Hero: The True Story of Charles A. Lindbergh. This biography highlights the major events of Lindbergh's life.
Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. A modern Walden. (also An American Childhood.)
Isak Dinesen Out of Africa. Baroness Blixen's account of her years on a coffee plantation in east Africa.
Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass's own account of his life as a slave.

Richard Feynman Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Funny and intelligent memoirs by the wacky Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
Frances Fitzgerald Fire In the Lake. This prize-winning book describes the effects on South Vietnam of the American intervention into Vietnam's civil war.
Ira Flatow Rainbows, Curve Balls, and Other Wonders. This reporter gives scientific explanations for everyday mysteries.
Anne Frank Diary of a Young Girl. A young Jewish girl keeps a diary telling of the 25 months during which she, her family, and four others hide from the Nazi Gestapo in Amsterdam during World War II.
Miles Franklin My Brilliant Career. A young woman's coming of age in turn-of-the-century Australia.

Ernest Gaines The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. A history of the fight against prejudice as seen through the experiences of an old woman, a former slave.
Eugenia Ginzberg Journey into the Whirlwind. The powerful memoirs of a devout young Communist woman who just manages to survive the "terror" of Stalin's purges in Russia in the 1930's.
Robin Lee Graham Dove. 16-year-old Robin travels around the world in his 24 ft sloop. Read about his extraordinary five-year journey.
John Griffin Black Like Me. A white man darkens his skin to find out what its like to be black in America.
John Gunther Death Be Not Proud. A young man's heroic struggle with death -- a father's tribute.

Alex Haley Roots Alex Haley's exploration of his heritage.
Stephen Hawking A Brief History of Time. Concepts of physics presented for the layman by one of the greatest scientists of our time.
Nat Hentoff A Doctor Among Addicts. A sensitive, knowledgeable account.
Elizabeth Huxley The Flame Trees of Thika. A young British girl's account of growing up in Africa during the years before World War I.

Pico Iyer The Lady and the Monk. Brilliant contemporary writer's account of a year living in Kyoto. Zen. Romance. Contemporary Japan. (also Video Night in Kathmandu and Falling Off the Map)

Sebastian Junger The Perfect Storm. A gripping account of a 1991 storm and what happened to a crew of fishermen from Gloucester, Mass.

Thomas Kennealy Schindler's List. An amazing and true Holocaust story, with much more depth than the movie.
Arthur Koestler Darkness at Noon. Many think it the most powerful anti-communist statement ever written.
Jon Krakauer Into Thin Air. An account of an American group's disastrous ascent of Mt. Everest in the terrible winter of 1996.

Barry Lopez Arctic Dreams. A study of the landscape and biota of the arctic. Highly acclaimed descriptive work.
Walter Lord A Night to Remember. Historian's dramatic account of the Titanic disaster.

Frank McCourt Angela's Ashes. An Irish-American school teacher recalls his miserable childhood in 1930's Ireland. Horrifying, but humorous and up-lifting too.
Thomas McGuane An Outside Chance. Crisp essays on fishing, roping, motocross, hunting.
Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The evolution of a powerful black leader.
Beryl Markham West with the Night. Autobiography of a British horsewoman and aviatrix; interesting tales of her life in Africa.
Robert Mason Chickenhawk. An Army helicopter pilot's adventures during the Vietnam War.
Robert Massie Nicholas and Alexandra. The last of the czars and his family.
Peter Mathiessen Snow Leopard. Ostensibly the story of a quest after the rare snow leopard in the Himalayas, this is really a story of self-discovery. Unparalleled nature writing.
Mark Mathabane Kaffir Boy. Excellent, vivid autobiography of a black South African.
David McCullough The Great Bridge. The story of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Anchee Min Red Azalea. The autobiography of a woman who grew up in the turmoil of modern China. Reads like a novel.
Nicholas Monsarrat The Cruel Sea. British officers and men on a destroyer in the North Atlantic during World War II.
Farley Mowat Never Cry Wolf. The true story of a man's adventures in the Canadian wilderness with a family of wolves. (also And No Birds Sang.)

R. C. Padden Hummingbird and the Hawk: Conquest and Sovereignty in the Valley of Mexico, 1503-1541. Epic, graphic battles.

David Quammen Flight of the Iguana. A series of vignettes from the animal world; Quammen makes even mosquitos interesting. A masterful job of melding nature with literature.

Jonathan Raban Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings. Sailing solo from Seattle to Juneau, Raban embarks on a voyage of maritime adventure and personal discovery.
David Remnick King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero. Remnick describes the transformation of Cassius Clay into Muhammad Ali against the backdrop of 1960s racial politics and the world of boxing.
Jeremy Rifkin Algeny. A controversial discussion of evolution.

Mark Salzman The Laughing Sutra. Wacky, smart and outrageous. This tale brings to life Chinese folklore, magic and history, and ends up in San Francisco.
John Steinbeck In Dubious Battle. The grim reality of the depression and one man's struggle to organize workers in California.
Edgar Snow Red Star Over China. An American journalist's first-hand account of the beginnings of Communist China.
Dava Sobol Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time.This story of adventure and exploration, competition, and sabotage provides a scintillating account of how the problem of navigation was solved by a simple clock maker.
Irving Stone The Agony and the Ecstasy. The life of artist Michelangelo.
Ron Suskind A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League. Upon graduation, Cedric Jennings, a hard-working black student, escapes from a demoralizing high school only to learn that success requires more than dreams and desire.

Wallace Terry Bloods. An oral history of blacks in Vietnam.

Gore Vidal Lincoln. An intimate portrait of Lincoln during the war years. (also Burr)

Jearl Walker The Flying Circus of Physics. Intriguing ideas about the world of physics -- for everyone.
Simon Winchester The Professor and the Madman. The story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, the Professor who did it, and the murderer who helped.
Tom Wolfe The Right Stuff. The story of Chuck Yeager, John Glenn and all the other heroes of the race into space.