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
Booklist
PW
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
Kirkus
Booklist
PW
LJ
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
Kirkus
PW
Booklist
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
Kirkus
Booklist
Library
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
Kirkus
PW
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
Kirkus
LJ
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
Kirkus
PW
LJ
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
PW
Booklist
LJ
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
Kirkus
PW
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