One Book

One Book

Suggestions for Freshmen, All-Campus & All-Community

China Road

War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

Rob Gifford

Chris Hedges

As NPR’s former Beijing Correspondent and current London Correspondent, Gifford examines modern China through his compelling adventure exploring the great nation in China Road.

Veteran New York Times correspondent Hedges writes a raw, unflinching view of war, looking at what makes it so intoxicating for soldiers, politicians, and ordinary citizens.

The Color of Water

Running with the Bulls

James McBride

Valerie Hemingway

Required reading on many campuses, McBride examines racial identity with compassion, insight, and realism in this unique and moving homage to his mother and growing up.

Once personal secretary and confidante to Ernest Hemingway, she recounts the enthralling and devastating years she spent with him in Spain, Cuba, and New York.

In Country

Tripmaster Monkey

Bobbie Ann Mason

Maxine Hong Kingston

A powerful novel of America that analyzes the impact of the 1960s on the culture of the 1980s, In Country distinguishes Mason as one of fiction’s leading writers.

Tripmaster Monkey provides clever insight into human nature and the American experience of a young man who feels alien to both his Chinese heritage and the American culture.

Debating Race

Enrique’s Journey

Michael Eric Dyson

Sonia Nazario

One of our foremost public intellectuals, Dyson has collected many of his memorable encounters with some of today’s most influential thinkers and politicians in Debating Race.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning story of a Honduran boy’s trek to find his mother in the US, Enrique’s Journey illuminates the harrowing journey of many immigrants.

Running with Scissors

The Devil’s Highway

Augusten Burroughs

Luis Alberto Urrea

Burroughs had a very unusual childhood—one that came to light in his New York Times best-selling memoir Running with Scissors, earning him literary stardom and spawning an Oscar nominated film.

In the gripping account of a border crossing gone awry, The Devil’s Highway is a first-person testimony offering cultural and economic analysis, poetry, and an indictment of immigration policy.

The Freedom Writers Diary

All Souls

Erin Gruwell

The Freedom Writers Diary is the story of one fiercely determined teacher and her remarkable students.

The book was the inspiration for the movie, Freedom Writers, starring Hilary Swank.

Michael Patrick MacDonald This powerful memoir details McDonald’s growing up in Southie, Boston’s Irish enclave, and paints a frightening portrait of a community under intense economic and social stress.

800.225.4575 | apbspeakers.com

One Book

Suggestions for Freshmen, All-Campus & All-Community

Waiting to Exhale

Terry McMillan Always a fresh, powerful voice, McMillan has changed contemporary fiction with her tales of the lives and loves of African American women, as in her phenomenal bestseller, Waiting to Exhale.

Lipstick Jihad

Azadeh Moaveni A reporter for Time, Moaveni is an American-born child of Iranian exiles who has written a vivid account of her return to Iran and finding herself caught between the clash of two cultures.

The Poe Shadow

Matthew Pearl Captivating and suspenseful, The Poe Shadow is an illuminating fictional insight into the last days of Edgar Allan Poe’s life from The New York Times best-selling author of The Dante Club.

Writing in an Age of Silence

Sara Paretsky An intelligent memoir from award-winning crime writer Paretsky, Writing in an Age of Silence paints a moving portrait of herself as an engaged intellectual looking to make a life-affirming mark on society.

A Problem from Hell

Samantha Power Executive Director of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights, Power offers an uncompromising and disturbing examination of 20th century acts of genocide and US response to them.

An Ordinary Man

Paul Rusesabagina An Ordinary Man recounts the life of Rusesabagina, the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda, who saved 1,268 of his fellow countrymen during the Rwanda genocide in 1994.

Snow Flower & The Secret Fan

Lisa See Snow Flower & The Secret Fan details the story of lifelong, intimate friends and their imprisonment by rigid codes of conduct for women in 19th century China’s rural interior.

Caucasia

Danzy Senna In Caucasia, Senna paints a vivid portrayal of a young girl who learns some difficult lessons about growing up in a biracial family during the 1970s.

Odd Girl Out

Rachel Simmons Journalist Simmons provides the first book to explore the phenomenon of bullying between girls, and examines clear-cut strategies to change the troubling dynamics.

Run

Ann Patchett Run is The New York Times best-selling book from the acclaimed offer of Bel Canto. It examines the timeless issues of religion, race, class, politics and, above all else, family.

Respect: An Exploration

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot In this provocative study, Harvard professor of education Lawrence-Lightfoot details how respect can create “symmetry, empathy and connection,” in socially unequal relationships.

Enough

Juan Williams NPR analyst and former Washington Post reporter Williams takes on modern day issues of race, challenging black leadership and the state of contemporary black life in Enough.

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

Koren Zailckas Zailckas tells the unsparingly insightful story of her life as an extreme drinker from the age of 14 until 23 in this moving, nuanced tale of facing the dangerous truths of today’s society.

Mistress of Spices

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni In this modern fable, Mistress of Spices combines the realistic world of 20th century America with the magical powers of spices in India that one mistress uses to help others.

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