Booklists: suggested reading

 

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Adult Books for Teens Booklist

 

Nonfiction for ages 12+
Not all books on this list are suitable for all readers, parental guidance should be used.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted. Nonfiction

• The Language of Baklava
  Author: Abu-Jaber, Diana
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 23 ISBN: 0375423044 Date: 2005
  LJBooklist
  Abu-Jaber's early life seemed defined by the rites and rituals of cooking and eating and she weaves her charming story around vividly remembered, sensually described meals.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Cooked Books
  Updated 3.3.05
• Come Back to Afghanistan
  Author: Akbar, Said Hyder
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 24.95 ISBN: 1582345201 Date: 2005
  KirkusLJ
  Building on two acclaimed radio documentaries aired on "This American Life," this intimate and riveting chronicle is delivered by an extraordinarily courageous Afghan-American teenager coming of age in post 9/11 Afghanistan.
  Suggested Reading: Afghanistan Stars
  Updated 11.23.05
• The Lost Pet Chronicles
  Author: Albrecht, Kat with Jana Murphy
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 23.95 ISBN: 1582343799 Date: 2004
  LJ
  The nation's first law-enforcement-based pet detective shares her remarkable story, which combines the thrill of CSI's forensic detection with the warmth and charm of All Creatures Great and Small.
  Updated 4.5.04
• The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
  Author: Alexander, Caroline
  Publisher: Viking $ 27.95 ISBN: 067003133x Date: 2003
  PWBooklist
  In giving the Bounty mutiny its historical due, Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England. This fresh perspective wonderfully revivifies the entire saga.
  Suggested Reading: Sea Stories
  Updated 8.13.03
• In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat in Iraq
  Author: Atkinson, Rick
  Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805075615 Date: 2004
  PWKirkus
  In this extraordinary account of his odyssey with the 101st Airborne Division, Atkinson presents an intimate and revealing portrait of the soldiers who fight the expeditionary wars that have become the hallmark of our age.
  Updated 2.10.04
• Oath: The Remarkable Story of Surgeon's Lfe Under in Cheyna
  Author: Baiev, Khassan
  Publisher: Walker $ 26 ISBN: 0802714048 Date: 2003
  BooklistPW
  In The Oath, a heroic Chechen doctor relates his harrowing experiences in the line of fire to bear witness to this international calamity, and illuminates his remarkable people and their culture.
  Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 9.09.03
• A Short History of Nearly Everything
  Author: Bryson, Bill
  Publisher: Broadway $ 26 ISBN: 076708171 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJ
  One of the world's finest and funniest writers goes on a quest to discover the mysteries of the universe--and comprehend the fascinating, eccentric people who devote their lives to unraveling those big questions.
  Updated 5.19.03
• The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Obsession, Perfume, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
  Author: Burr, Chandler
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375507973 Date: 2003
  KirkusBooklistLibrary Journal
  This true story profiles a scientific genius with eerie powers of smell who uses his gifts to solve one of the body's last secrets: how the nose works.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | All Stars
  Updated 12.23.02
• Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
  Author: Cahill, Thomas
  Publisher: Doubleday/Talese $ 27.50 ISBN: 0385495536 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, the author of How the Irish Saved Civilization brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of ancient Greece.
  Suggested Reading: Ancient Greece
  Updated 8.25.03
• Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Culture
  Author: Chang, Jeff
  Publisher: St Martins $27.95 ISBN:031230143X Date: 2005
  PW
  Based on original interviews with DJs, rappers, graffiti writers, activists, and gang members, this work chronicles the events, the ideas, the music, and the art that marked the hip-hop generation's rise from the ashes of the 1960s into the new millennium.
  Updated 2.7.05
• Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal
  Author: Christie, Ian R.
  Publisher: Harper $ 24.95 ISBN: 006052362x Date: 2003
  Library Journal
  Raucous, brash, and loud, this book is a definitive history of heavy metal told with wit, charm, and numerous devil signs.
  Updated 2.12.03
• Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic
  Author: Cone, Marla
  Publisher: Grove $ 24 ISBN: 080211797x Date: 2005
  PWLJBooklist
  The Arctic is home to some of the most contaminated people and animals on the planet. Cone reports on the dangers of pollution to native peoples and ecosystems, how Arctic cultures are adapting to this pollution, and what will prevent the crisis from getting worse.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 4.22.05
• Blue Blood
  Author: Conlon, Edward
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 26.95 ISBN: 1573222666 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistPWLJ
  With brio and a thrilling literary style, Conlon depicts his life on the force--from his first days walking a beat in the South Bronx to his ascent to detective. The pace is relentless, the stories hypnotic, the scope nothing less than grand.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | True Crime Stars
  Updated 4.5.04
• My Losing Season
  Author: Conroy, Pat
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385489129 Date: 2002
  PW
  Turning to nonfiction, the bestselling author of Beach Music has written an American classic about young men and the bonds they form, about losing and the lessons it imparts, and about finding one's self in the midst of defeat.
  Updated 9.30.02
• Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
  Author: Cox, Lynne
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375415076 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  The famous long-distance swimmer, known for her ability to withstand cold temperatures that might kill others, now tells the fascinating story of how she braved the frigid waters of Antarctica.
  Updated 11.12.03
• Twelve Little Cakes
  Author: Dery, Dominka
  Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222836 Date: 2004
  KirkusLJ
  Equal parts testimony to the struggle of a bygone era and a love letter to a joy-filled childhood that no external forces could dim, The Twelve Little Cakes is the colorful story of a precocious child born to recognized dissidents associated with the failed Prague Spring uprising.
  Updated 9.20.04
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America
  by Ehrenreich, Barbara
  Publisher: Metropolitan $ 23 ISBN: 0805063889 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages. Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich joined them, moving into a trailer and working as a waitress, hotel maid, and Wal-Mart sales clerk. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and duality.
  Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars
• This Man's Army
  Author: Exum, Andrew
  Publisher: Gotham $ 25 ISBN: 1592400639
  Kirkus
  Soldier X vividly brings to life his journey through ROTC training, the grueling trials of the elite Ranger School, and into the treacherous terrain of the Shah-e-Kot Valley in Afghanistan where he must confront and kill an Al Qaeda fighter.
  Link: ThisMansArmy.com
  Suggested Reading: Afghanistan Stars
  Updated 1.26.04
• Seeing in the Dark: How Backyard Stargazers Are Probing Deep Space and Guarding Earth from Interplanetary Peril
  Author: Ferris, Timothy
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26 ISBN: 0684865793 Date: 2002
  KirkusLJ
  America's finest science writer describes a major revolution sweeping astronomy, as amateur astronomers, in global networks linked by the Internet, make discoveries that are changing knowledge of the universe. The appendix includes star charts, observing lists, and a guide on how to get involved with the stars.
  Updated 8.28.02
• Earth, an Intimate History
  Author: Fortey, Richard A.
  Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0375406263 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistLJ
  The face of the earth, crisscrossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds, has changed and changed again over billions of years. This text shows how human culture and natural history--even the shape of cities--are rooted in this deep geological past.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 11.22.04
• Dont' Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
  by Fuller, Alexandra
  Publisher: Random House $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375507507 Date: 2002
  KirkusBooklistPW
  Magnificently original and affecting, Fuller's memoir of a childhood dominated by the Rhodesian civil war of 1971-1979 captures the fascinating life of a white family living in one of the most remote regions of Africa.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Reading Group Stars | Memoir Stars
  Updated 11.27.01
  
• The Boy's Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945
  Author: Fussell, Paul
  Publisher: Modern Library $ 19.95 ISBN: 0679640886 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  From the author of the classic The Treat War and Modern Memory and a decorated World War II combat infantry officer comes a brilliant reckoning with the American soldier's experience of war from D-day to the fall of Berlin.
  Updated 6.30.03
• Journey From the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran
  Author: Hakakian, Roya
  Publisher: Crown $ 23 ISBN: 1400046114 Date: 2004
  PW
  This lyrical coming-of-age story creates an intimate portrait of life in Tehran: the author's family and friends, her life at school, her observations of Iran's political life, and her longing to escape a sense of displacement from her home, culture, and language.
  Updated 6.1.04
• Hell or High Water: Seven Men, Seven Kayaks and the Last Great Quest
  Author: Heller, Peter
  Publisher: Rodale $ 24.95 ISBN: 1579548725 Date: 2004
  PW
  In this grand adventure, an elite kayaking team makes a heroic conquest of the world's last great adventure prize: Tibet's Tsangpo River. Publication coincides with the release of a documentary about the expedition by National Geographic.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Tibet
  Updated 8.16.04
• The Cyanide Canary
  Author: Hilldorfer, Joseph & Robert Dugoni
  Publisher: Free $ 26 ISBN: 0743246527 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklist
  In this true story of a horrific environmental crime, written by an EPA Special Agent, a brave young man suffers severe brain damage after being pulled from a poison-saturated 25,000-gallon storage tank.
  Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
  Updated 6.30.04
• Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird
  Author: Juniper, Tony
  Publisher: Atria $ 25 ISBN: 074347550x Date: 2003
  LJ
  Tony Juniper's heart-stopping inside account of the race to save a rare blue parrot, the last of its species, is a priceless addition to nature literature -- and a timely portrait of Earth's endangered wildlife. - Publisher Marketing
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
  Updated 9.08.03
• Bloodsworth: the True Story of the First Death Row Inmate Exonerated by DNA
  Author: Junkin, Tim
  Publisher: Algonquin $ ISBN: 1565124197 Date: 2004
  LJ
  A shocking, page-turner of a book that, as Scott Turow says, "may well be the most incredible and important true story ever written about a death row convict's daily battle for survival, both in the cell block and in the courtrooms."
  Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
  Updated 6.17.04
• Mountains Beyond Mountains
  Author: Kidder, Tracy
  Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375506160 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer--brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti--blasts through convention to get results. - Publisher Marketing.
  Link: Partners in Health web site
  Updated 7.8.03
• Skeletons on the Zahara
  Author: King, Dean
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316835145 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  While there have been numerous historical adventure narratives published, this is the first major work to take place in the greatest desert of all. King retraced parts of Captain James Riley's three-month trek through the desert, going for days consuming only camel urine and locusts. The book is rich with the sort of detail one could only get from being on the scene, in the heart of the desert.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
  Updated 11.17.03
• Th Fifth Book of Peace
  Author: Kingston, Maxine Hong
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0679440755 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  From the acclaimed author of The Woman Warrior comes a brilliant hybrid of memoir and fiction, her first major work in more than a decade. Her real and imagined narrative enrich one another as Kingston weaves together fact, fiction and memory in an powerfully emotional book.
  Updated 7.17.03
• Shadow Divers: The True Story of Two Americans Who Discovered Hitler's Last Sub
  Author: Kurson, Robert
  Publisher: Random $ 26.95 ISBN: 0375508589 Date: 2004
  PW
  This "New York Times" bestseller tells the true adventure of two American scuba divers who discovered a sunken World War II-era German U-boat 60 miles off the coast of New Jersey, and risked everything on a dangerous mission to salvage it.
  Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 3.29.04
• Goat: A Memoir
  Author: Land, Brad
  Publisher: Random $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400060931 Date: 2004
  PWLJ
  A searing memoir of masculinity, violence, and brotherhood which chronicles a young man's painful recovery from a terrifying assault that leads him, ironically, to undergo the brutalizing initiation rites of a southern university fraternity.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 11.18.03
• Sunday Money: Speed! Lust! Madness! Death! A Fast, Furious Year Across America With Nascar
  Author: Macgregor, Jeff
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060094710 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  A groundling's view of life in the fastest lane of NASCAR is offered by an award-winning writer from "Sports Illustrated" in the tradition of The Right Stuff and Moneyball.
  Suggested Reading: Driven Stars
  Updated 3.10.05
• They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
  Author: Maraniss, David
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 29.95 ISBN: 0743217802 Date: 2003
  KirkusLJPW
  From the author of When Pride Still Mattered ("Near perfect . . . May be the best sports biography ever published."--Sports Illustrated) comes a new book on the Vietnam war.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 8.18.03
• Living to Tell the Tale
  Author: Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
  Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 1400041341 Date: 2003
  BooklistLJ
  From the Nobel Laureate writer Marquez comes a magnificent piece of writing that finds him telling the story of his life from his birth in 1927 through his career as a writer.
  Updated 11.18.03
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
  Author: Nafisi, Azar
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375504907 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWLJ
  Reading Lolita in Tehran is the astonishing true story of young women who met in secret each week to read and talk about forbidden Western classics--and their lives and loves--in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Reading Group Stars | Books About Books
  Updated 3.21.03
• Geronimo's Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me
  Author: Nasdijj
  Publisher: Ballantine $ 24.95 ISBN: 0345453913 Date: 2004
  PWLJBooklist
  Geronimo's Bones is a powerful and intimate account of the love between brothers, from the acclaimed author of The Blood Runs Like a River Through My Dreams and The Boy and the Dog Are Sleeping.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoir Stars
  Updated 2.13.04
• Slave
  Author: Nazer, Mende
  Publisher: Public Affairs $ 25 ISBN: 1586482122 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  A shocking true story of contemporary slavery: Mende Nazer, snatched from her tribal village in Africa as a young girl, survives slavery in Sudan and London before making a courageous escape to freedom.
  Updated 12.15.03
• The Jump: Sebastian Telfair and the High-stakes Business of High School Ball
  Author: O'Connor, Ian
  Publisher: Rodale $ 23.95 ISBN: 1594861072 Date: 2005
  Booklist
  One of America's great sports writers follows high school point guard phenom Sebastian Telfair on his quest for NBA stardom and exposes all that big-time sports in America has become, the good and the bad.
  Updated 3.16.05
• Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
  Author: O'Donnell, Edward T.
  Publisher: Broadway $ 24.95 ISBN: 0767909054 Date: 2003
  Booklist
  Ship Ablaze is the extraordinary, untold story of the 1904 maritime disaster that took the lives of more than a thousand New Yorkers.
  Suggested Reading: On Fire
  Updated 7.6.04
• Taking a History: A Doctor's Training at Bellevue
  Author: Ofri, Danielle
  Publisher: Beacon $ 24 ISBN: 0807072524 Date: 2003
  BooklistLJ
  This gripping memoir of learning medicine in the trenches is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country--and perhaps the most legendary.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 3.13.03
• Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease
  Author: Orent, Wendy
  Publisher: Free $ 25 ISBN: 0743236858 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Leaving no historical or scientific stone unturned, Orent has produced electrifying reading that offers a chilling prognosis for mankind at the dawn of a new antibiotic-resistant, terrorist age.
  Updated 6.1.04
• Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
  Author: Patchett, Ann
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060572140 Date: 2004
  KirkusBooklistLibrary Journal
  Tender but brutal, this portrait of unwavering commitment shines light on the little explored world of women's friendships through the author's relationship with critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 5.20.04
• Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
  Author: Philbrick, Nathaniel
  Publisher: Viking $ 27.95 ISBN: 067003213x Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  Like the award-winning In the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory combines meticulous history with spellbinding human drama as it circles the globe from the palm-fringed beaches of the South Pacific to the treacherous waters off Antarctica and to the stunning beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and, finally, to a court-martial aboard a ship anchored off New York City.
  Suggested Reading: Sea Stories
  Updated 8.25.03
• Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predators in the Jungles of History and the Mind
  Author: Quammen, David
  Publisher: Norton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0393051404
  PWBooklistLJ
  Casting his expert eye over the rapidly diminishing areas of wilderness where predators still reign, the award-winning author of The Song of the Dodo examines the fate of lions, saltwater crocodiles, brown bears and others that are disappearing.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | All Stars
  Updated 8.14.03
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place
  Author: Ralston, Aron
  Publisher: Atria $ 26 ISBN: 0743492811 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Icebound meets Into Thin Air in this astonishing, day-by-day account of Ralston's terrible accident, self-amputation, and subsequent rescue and recovery.
  Updated 8.13.04
• Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
  Author: Ridley, Matt
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060006781 Date: 2003
  Library JournalBooklistPW
  Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature versus nurture debate to bring readers a stunning book about the roots of human behavior.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
  Updated 4.29.03
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
  Author: Roach, Mary
  Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393050939 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  In her droll, intimate voice, Roach conducts an oddly compelling, often hilarious forensic exploration of the strange lives of bodies postmortem.
  Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 2.24.03
• The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic
  Author: Salisbury, Gay
  Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393019624 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWLJ
  Alaska, 1925: the diphtheria serum is 674 miles away. Without it, the people of Nome will not survive. The never-before-told tale of the dogs and men who braved blizzard conditions to save Nome, Alaska from diphtheria.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 6.5.03
• True Notebooks
  Author: Salzman, Mark
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375413081 Date: 2003
  PWBooklist
  From the author of the bestselling Iron & Silk and Lying Awake comes the exhilarating story of his experiences teaching writing in a juvenile correctional facility.
  Updated 8.1303
• Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
  Author: Satrapi, Marjane
  Publisher: Pantheon $ 17.95 ISBN: 0375422307 Date: 2003
  PWLJ
  An intelligent and outspoken only child, Satrapi--the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor--bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. A graphic novel.
  Suggested Reading: Graphic Novels
  Updated 7.8.03
• Persepolis 2
  Author: Satrapi, Marjane
  Publisher: Pantheon $ ISBN: Date: 2004
  PW
  Funny and heartbreaking, edgy and searingly observant, Satrapi's tale about the life of one adolescent and about the life of an entire nation continues with the same dazzling combination of singular artistry, insight, and storytelling as her first book.
  Suggested Reading: Graphic Novel Stars
  Updated 7.26.04
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
  Author: Sedaris, David
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0316143464 Date: 2004
  PW
  Sedaris returns to his deliriously twisted domain: hilarious childhood dramas infused with melancholy; the gulf of misunderstanding that exists between people of different nations or members of the same family; and the poignant divide between one's best hopes and most common deeds.
  Updated 5.24.04
• The Bookseller of Kabul
  Author: Seierstad, Asne
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 19.95 ISBN: 0316764500 Date: 2003
  KirkusPW
  Invited to live with a Kabul bookseller and his family for several months, an award-winning journalist now gives readers a first-hand look at Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Afghanistan Stars
  Updated 10.2.03
• In Search of King Solomon's Mines
  Author: Shah, Tahir
  Publisher: Arcade $ 24.95 ISBN: 1559706414 Date: 2003
  Library Journal
  A shop near the site of the temple built by King Solomon is where Shah, the author of the much-praised Trail of Feathers and Sorcerer's Apprentice, begins his journey. Intrigued by a map he finds there, he sets out to find the king's gold mines, and the clues point across the Red Sea to Ethiopia. Tahir Shah's trail takes him and his readers on a quest described as both "quixotic" (Huntsville Times) and "challenging" (Publishers Weekly).
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
  Updated 4.29.03
• Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse
  Author: Silverman, Kenneth
  Publisher: Random $ 35ISBN: 0375401288 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWBooklistLJ
  In this brilliantly conceived and written biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning Kenneth Silverman gives us the long and amazing life of the man eulogized by the "New York Herald in 1872 as "perhaps the most illustrious American of his age."- Publisher Marketing.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 10.30.03
• Name All the Animals: A Memoir
  Author: Smith, Alison
  Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743255224 Date: 2004
  KirkusLJ
  A story of grief and secret love, of a family holding on to the memory of a lost child, Name all the Animals is an extraordinary memoir about a girl who learns to define herself beyond the death of her brother.
  Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Memoir Stars
  Updated 3.1.04
• Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer: A Journey Into the Heart of Fan Mania
  Author: St. John, Warren
  Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609607081 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  New York Times writer and Alabama native Warren St. John presents a rollicking RV ride through a season in the heart of football mania with the world's most obsessive sports fans.
  Updated 7.6.04
• Sleepaway School: Stories from a Boy's Life
  Author: Stringer, Lee
  Publisher: Seven Stories $ 21.95 ISBN: 1583224785 Date: 2004
  Booklist
  Sleepaway School is Stringer's recounting of his years at Hawthorne Cedar Knolls--a school for kids at risk--and the events that led up to them. This is a "boy-meets-world" story, the chronicle of one child's struggle simply to be.
  Updated 6.10.04
• Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
  Author: Sullivan, Robert
  Publisher: Bloomsbury $ 23.95 ISBN: 1582343853 Date: 2004
  KirkusPWLJ
  Behold the rat, dirty and disgusting. The author of A Whale Hunt now turns the lowly rat into the star of the most perversely intriguing, remarkable, and unexpectedly elegant book of the season.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nature | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction
  Updated 2.2.04
• Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars: A Memoir
  Author: Summer, Lauralee
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743201027 Date: 2003
  Kirkus
  In a memoir of a life in which nothing is taken for granted, Summer tells a moving story of triumph over adversity. Imbued with the wisdom of a woman who has seen life as a homeless girl and as a student within Harvard University's esteemed walls, this is a stirring tale of the power of the human will.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 4.7.03
• On the Wing: To the Edge of the Earth With the Peregrine Falcon
  Author: Tennant, Alan
  Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 0375415513 Date: 2004
  BooklistLJ
  In this extraordinary narrative, a passionate observer of nature recounts his all-out effort to radio-track the transcontinental migration of the peregrine falcon--an investigation no one before him had ever taken to such lengths.
  Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds
  Updated 9.20.04
• Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood
  Author: Traig, Jennifer
  Publisher: Little Brown $ 22.95 ISBN: 0316158771 Date: 2004
  LJ
  In the bestselling tradition of Running with Scissors and A Girl Named Zippy, Jennifer Traig tells an unforgettable story of youthful obsession.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 9.20.04
• Love in the Driest Season: A Family Memoir
  Author: Tucker, Neely
  Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0609609769 Date: 2004
  PWBooklistLJ
  In the heart of conflict-torn Zimbabwe, an American couple fights to save the life of--and ultimately adopt--an infant girl who had been abandoned beneath an acacia tree on the day she was born.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Memoir Stars
  Updated 1.15.04
• Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia In America Reunites With the Sister She Left Behind
  Author: Ung, Loung
  Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060733942 Date: 2005
  PWBooklist
  In this lyrical sequel to First They Killed My Father, Ung describes her school years in Vermont as a Cambodian refugee and her sister Chou's struggle to survive in Cambodia.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 2.21.05
• Working Fire: A Memoir
  Author: Unger, Zac
  Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1594200017 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  This remarkable memoir, by turns funny and deeply moving, explores one man's coming into his calling and his transformation from ambivalent Ivy League grad to skilled and dedicated firefighter.
  Suggested Reading: On Fire | Memoir Stars
  Updated 12.29.03
• Flim-Flam Man: A True Family History
  Author: Vogel, Jennifer
  Publisher: Putnam $ 23 ISBN: 0743217071 Date: 2004
  Kirkus
  An intense psychological portrait of a man--a doting father, a scheming philanderer, a charming scammer, counterfeiter, and would-be killer--is recorded by the daughter who loved him.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
  Updated 10.8.03
• Triangle: the Fire That Changed America
  Author: Von Drehle, David
  Publisher: Atlantic $ 26 ISBN: 0871138743 Date: 2003
  PW
  This poignantly detailed account explores the 1911 factory fire that horrified the country and changed the course of 20th-century politics and labor relations.
  Suggested Reading: On Fire
  Updated 5.19.03
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir
  Author: Walls, Jeannette
  Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743247531 Date: 2005
  PWKirkusBooklist
  In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shouting, Jeannette Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric and severely misguided family.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | All Stars
  Updated 2.15.05
• Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know It
  Author: Walker, Gabrielle
  Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0609609734 Date: 2003
  Library JournalPW
  Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman's quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core. - Publisher Marketing.
  Updated 1.20.03
• DNA: The Secret of Life
  Author: Watson, James D. with Andrew Berry
  Publisher: Knopf $ 39.95 ISBN: 0375415467 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWBooklist
  From a renowned scientist comes the first single volume to chart the entire genetic revolution--published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the DNA breakthrough. From genetically modified food to genetically modified babies, Watson reveals a future of choices and implications of which readers dare not remain uninformed.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3.13.03