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Born On a
Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant
by Daniel Tammet
Daniel
Tammet sees numbers as shapes, colors, and textures, and he can perform
extraordinary calculations in his head. He can learn to speak new languages
fluently, from scratch, in a week. In 2004, he memorized and recited more
than 22,000 digits of pi, setting a record. He has savant syndrome, an extremely
rare condition that gives him almost unimaginable mental powers, much like
those portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the film Rain Man.
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The Glass
Castle
by Jeannette Walls
The
child of charismatic vagabonds who left their offspring to raise themselves,
Walls spent decades hiding an excruciating childhood filled with poverty
and shocking neglect. But this is no pity party. What shines through on
every page of this beautifully written family memoir is Walls's love for
her deeply flawed parents and her recollection of occasionally wonderful
times
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Honky
by Dalton Conley
This
is the coming-of-age story of a white boy growing up in a neighborhood of
predominantly African American and Latino housing projects on New York's
Lower East Side. Vividly evoking the details of city life from a child's
point of view--the streets, buses, and playgrounds--Honky poignantly illuminates
the usual vulnerabilities of childhood complicated by unusual circumstances.
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Lucky Child:
A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind
by Loung Ung
After
enduring years of hunger, deprivation, and devastating loss at the hands
of the Khmer Rouge, ten-year-old Loung Ung became the "lucky child,"
the sibling chosen to accompany her eldest brother to America while her
one surviving sister and two brothers remained behind.
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Mountains
beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the
World
by Tracy Kidder
At
the center of Kidder's exciting moral adventure is Dr. Paul Farmer, a Harvard-trained
physician who decided to take his expertise and kindness on the road. In
his bright-eyed quest to cure the world, Farmer has battled AIDS and other
infectious diseases in Haiti, Cuba, Russia, and Peru. A hero who believes
that "God loves everyone but especially the poor" will inspire
and challenge every reader.
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Surprised
by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life
by C. S. Lewis
In
this book Lewis tells of his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led
him from the Christianity of his early youth into atheism and then back
to Christianity.
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Waiting for
Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy
by Carlos Eire
In
1962, Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba —
exiled from his family, his country, and his own childhood by the revolution.
The memories of Carlos's life in Havana, cut short when he was just eleven
years old, are at the heart of this stunning, evocative, and unforgettable
memoir.
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The
Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer
A World War II memoir from a German foot soldier, this book is “arguably
the best first hand account out of WWII.” Murrell Kinkade, a reviewer
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Galileo’s
Daughter: a historical memoir of science, faith and love, Dava Sobel
“A fascinating biography that gives an intimate look at the life of
Galileo through the 124 letters written by his eldest daughter, Virginia.”
Barnes & Noble Review
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John
Adams, David McCullough
Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. In this powerful, epic
biography, David McCullough unfolds the adventurous life-journey of John
Adams, the brilliant, fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest
Yankee patriot.
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Jonathan
Edwards: a life, George M. Marsden
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is a towering figure in American history. A
controversial theologian and the author of the famous sermon Sinners in
the Hands of an Angry God, he ignited the momentous Great Awakening of the
eighteenth century. In this biography, Jonathan Edwards emerges as both
a great American and a brilliant Christian.
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Resonant
Lives: 50 figures of consequence, Paul Greenberg
Greenberg's word portraits of significant political, historical, and literary
figures are gathered together here for the first time. This nationally syndicated
columnist and winner of the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing has
a flair for capturing in a brief span the essence of a personality and the
mark that person has made on the world.
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Angela’s
Ashes: a memoire, Frank McCourt
Angela's Ashes is the story of Frank McCourt's struggle to escape from poverty
and a tale of Ireland still seemingly in the dark ages. Barred from the
good schools because of his class, teeth falling out from malnutrition,
and facing life with a shiftless alcoholic father, McCourt nevertheless
survives on his wits and manages to return to America to start his life
over.
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As
Told at the Explorers Club: more than fifty gripping tales of adventure,
George Plimpton
Tales of exploration from the world's most exclusive club.
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Africa
in My Blood, Jane Goodall
Africa in My Blood is a dramatic, moving, funny, and important book that
tells the story of how an English girl who loved animals became one of the
greatest scientists of the twentieth century.
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Color
of Water: a black man’s tribute to his white mother, James McBride
Around the narrative of Ruth McBride Jordan, a.k.a. Rachel Deborah Shilsky,
the daughter of an angry, failed Orthodox Jewish rabbi in the South, her
son James writes of the inner confusions he felt as a black child of a white
mother and of the love and faith with which his mother surrounded their
large family. The result is a powerful portrait of growing up, a meditation
on race and identity, and a poignant, beautifully crafted hymn from a son
to his mother.
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Flight
of Passage, Rinker Buck
In the summer of 1966, Rinker and Kernahan Buck - two teenaged schoolboys
from New Jersey - bought a dilapidated Piper Cub airplane for $300, rebuilt
it, and piloted it on a record breaking flight across America. This book
is also about the eternal enigma of family - of the distance and closeness
of generations, of peace lost so that understanding can be gained - and
it is explored with a storytelling power that is both brave and rare.
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Into
thin Air: a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster, Jon Krakauser
A childhood dream of someday ascending Mount Everest, a lifelong love of
climbing, and an expense account all propelled writer Jon Krakauer to the
top of the Himalayas last May. His powerful, cautionary tale of an adventure
gone horribly wrong is a must-read.
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It’s
Not About the Bike: my journey back to life, Lance Armstrong
This is the story of a journey from inauspicious beginnings through triumph,
tragedy, transformation, and transcendence. It is the personal story of
Lance Armstrong's life so far, from childhood through early success, nearly
fatal cancer, recovery, survivorship, more triumph (victory in the 1999
Tour de France), marriage, and first-time fatherhood.
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Life
and Death in Shanghai, Cheng Nien
Here is the haunting, inspirational account of Nien Cheng's six-and-a-half
years as a political prisoner during Communist China's Cultural Revolution.
"A moving affirmation of the capacity for human endurance."--Los
Angeles Times.
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Out
of Africa, Isak Dinesen
Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914
to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi.
Her account of her African adventures … is that of a master storyteller,
a woman whom John Updike called "one of the most picturesque and flamboyant
literary personalities of the century.”
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Perfect
Storm: a true story of men against the sea, Sebastian Junger
The Perfect Storm is a real-life thriller, a stark and compelling journey
into the dark heart of nature that leaves listeners with a breathless sense
of what it feels like to be caught, helpless, in the grip of a force beyond
understanding or control.
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Tender
at the Bone, Ruth Reichl
Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender
at the Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's
coming-of-age.
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Walden,
Henry David Thoreau
Walden explores not only the soul of the searching Thoreau, but defines
what it means to be a truly free person, and distills the essence of our
relationship of Nature.
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Walk
in the Woods, Bill Bryson
In order to rediscover America by, as he puts it, "going out into an
America that most people scarcely know is there," he set out to walk,
in the company of Stephen Katz, his college roommate and sometime nemesis,
the length of the Appalachian Trail. His account of that adventure is at
once hilarious, inspiring, and even educational.
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West
with the Night, Beryl Markham
Markham was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east
to west. She describes her life growing up in British East Africa and
as a pioneer aviator. Ernest Hemmingway dubbed the book ‘bloody
wonderful.’ Library Journal |
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