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Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction

Page-turning Nonfiction

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

• 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.
  Updated 9.09.03
• 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
  Updated 4.5.04
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
  Author: Larson, Erik
  Publisher: Crown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0609608444 Date: 2003
  KirkusPWBooklist
  In a thrilling narrative showcasing his gifts as storyteller and researcher, Larson recounts the spellbinding tale of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and its devious creators. A blend of Ragtime and Silence of the Lambs, The Devil in the White City is Larson at his best.
  Suggested Reading: Holmes: Scarlet Mansions by Allen Eckert (novel) and Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer by Harold Schechter.
  Links: Chicago World's Fair - Hypertext | Interactive Guide
  Web Book | Holmes Article
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Reading Group Stars
  Updated 2.28.02
• Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
  Author: Leblanc, Adrian
  Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0684863871 Date: 2003
  PW
  The result of over ten years of immersion reporting, Random Family charts a tumultuous decade in which girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation.
  Updated 12.16.02
• 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
  Updated 5.20.04
• 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.
  Updated 2.24.03
• 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.
  Updated 3.1.04
• 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
  Updated 2.2.04
• 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
  Updated 1.15.04
• Blood Done Sign My Name: A Memoir
  Author: Tyson, Timothy B.
  Publisher: Crown $ 24 ISBN: 0609610589 Date: 2004
  KirkusPW
  Tyson sheds a new light on the struggle for racial justice as he weaves together childhood memories with the realities of present-day Oxford, NC--his hometown--where a young black man was killed in the town square by a Klansmen in 1970 and acquitted by an all-white jury.
  Updated 4.19.04