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Hotlists 2008
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Booklists
Lists of books, many of which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ). Additional titles of interest may be included on the lists. Titles are generally listed alphabetically by author.
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Booklists and Suggested Reading
Adult Books for Teens Booklist
Page Modified: April 5, 2008
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: 2005KirkusLJ
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: 2004LJ
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: 2003PWBooklist
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: 2004PWKirkus
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: 2003BooklistPW
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: 2003KirkusLJ
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: 2003KirkusBooklistLibrary 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: 2003KirkusPW
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: 2005PW
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: 2003Library 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: 2005PWLJBooklist
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: 2004KirkusBooklistPWLJ
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: 2002PW
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: 2004Kirkus
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: 2004KirkusLJ
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: 2001Kirkus
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: 1592400639Kirkus
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: 2002KirkusLJ
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: 2004KirkusBooklistLJ
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: 2002KirkusBooklistPW
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: 2003Kirkus
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: 2004PW
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: 2004PW
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: 2004KirkusBooklist
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: 2003LJ
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: 2004LJ
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: 2003KirkusPW
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: 2004KirkusPW
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: 2003Booklist
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: 2004PW
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: 2004PWLJ
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: 2005Booklist
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: 2003KirkusLJPW
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: 2003BooklistLJ
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: 2003KirkusPWLJ
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: 2004PWLJBooklist
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: 2004Booklist
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: 2005Booklist
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: 2003Booklist
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: 2003BooklistLJ
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: 2004Booklist
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: 2004KirkusBooklistLibrary
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: 2003Kirkus
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: 0393051404PWBooklistLJ
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: 2004Booklist
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: 2003Library 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: 2003KirkusPW
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: 2003KirkusPWLJ
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: 2003PWBooklist
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: 2003PWLJ
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: 2004PW
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: 2004PW
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: 2003KirkusPW
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: 2003Library 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: 2003KirkusPWBooklistLJ
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: 2004KirkusLJ
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: 2004Booklist
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: 2004Booklist
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: 2004KirkusPWLJ
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: 2003Kirkus
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: 2004BooklistLJ
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: 2004LJ
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: 2004PWBooklistLJ
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: 2005PWBooklist
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: 2004Kirkus
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: 2004Kirkus
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: 2003PW
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: 2005PWKirkusBooklist
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: 2003Library 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: 2003KirkusPWBooklist
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
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