Western Reserve Academy
Summer Reading Program 2012
Western Reserve Academy adheres to a longstanding policy of admitting students of any race, color, creed, religion, national and ethnic origin subject to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national or ethnic origin, or disability in the administration of its educational policies, scholarship and loan program or other school-administered programs.
Western Reserve Academy Summer Reading 2012 Most members of the WRA community find pleasure in reading. For those of us tied to the academic calendar, summers and holidays give us what we need most – time. With that in mind, we offer students this list of recommended books for summer reading. This list is intended for student LEISURE reading. We hope the variety peaks student interest and provides the opportunity to expand horizons, satisfy curiosity and/or offer an enjoyable escape. Titles include: classics to recently published titles, relatively easy to challenging reading levels and a variety of genres covering diverse subjects. Also included is a list of recommended websites to locate further suggestions for award-winning books and titles of interest. This list is updated annually by members of the John D. Ong library staff. Titles are recommended by members of the WRA community or by respected review sources, including the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association. A few titles have frank passages that mirror some aspects of life explicitly. Therefore, we urge parents to explore the titles your teenagers choose and discuss the book as well as the choice with them. All the books on this list should be available in libraries and/or in bookstores. Enjoy your summer and your free time, and try to spend some of it reading! Your feedback about any title on this list is welcome – and we also welcome your recommendations for titles to add in the future. The John D. Ong Library Staff
PLEASE NOTE: This list should not be confused with the English Department’s Required Reading summer program. Please go to Summer Reading and click on Required Reading for that information.
Table of Contents
Summer Reading for Ninth/Tenth Graders......................................................1 Fiction .............................................................................................................1 Non-fiction ....................................................................................................10 Biographies/Memoirs ..................................................................................17 Summer Reading for Eleventh/Twelfth Graders ...........................................20 Fiction ...........................................................................................................20 Non-fiction ....................................................................................................29 Biographies/Memoirs ..................................................................................37 Graphic Novels/Collections ..............................................................................39 Collections: Short Stories and Essays and more ............................................41 Something for Everyone: Informational Titles for Teenagers ......................43 Poetry, Anyone? .................................................................................................44 Looking for a Good Book? Some Websites to Help You ...............................47 Title Index ..........................................................................................................49 Author Index......................................................................................................55
Summer Reading for Ninth/Tenth Graders Fiction: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain, 1884) The story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi River with an escaping slave, Jim. In the course of their perilous journey, Huck and Jim meet adventure, danger, and a cast of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious.* After the Golden Age (Carrie Vaughn, 2011) Celia West, only daughter of the heroic leaders of the super-powered Olympiad, has spent the past few years estranged from her parents and their high-powered lifestyle. She’s had enough of masks and heroics, and wants only to live her own quiet life out from under the shadow of West Plaza and her rich and famous parents.* Beauty Queens (Libba Bray, 2011) Teen beauty queens. A “Lost”-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to e-mail. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count.* Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver, 2010) What if you only had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?* Between Shades of Gray (Ruta Sepetys, 2011) Lina is just like any other fifteenyear-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known.* Big Girl Small (Rachel DeWoskin, 2011) Judy Lohden is your above-average sixteen-year-old—sarcastic and vulnerable, talented and uncertain, full of big dreams for a big future. With a singing voice that can shake an auditorium, she should be the star of Darcy Academy, the local performing arts high school. So why is a girl this promising hiding out in a seedy motel room on the edge of town?* Bitterblue (Kristin Cashore, 2011) Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on.* This is the third book in the series, following Graceling (2008) and Fire (2009). 1
Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To (The) (DC Pierson, 2010) When Darren Bennett meets Eric Lederer, there’s an instant connection. They share a love of drawing, the bottom rung on the cruel high school social ladder and a pathological fear of girls. Then Eric reveals a secret: He doesn’t sleep. Ever.* Call of the Wild (Jack London, 1903) This gripping story follows the adventures of the loyal dog Buck, who is stolen from his comfortable family home and forced into the harsh life of an Alaskan sled dog. Passed from master to master, Buck embarks on an extraordinary journey that ends with his becoming the legendary leader of a wolf pack.* Count of Monte Cristo (The) (Alexandre Dumas, 1844) Falsely accused during the final days of Napoleon’s reign, Edmond Dantès is imprisoned in the bleak Chateau d’If. After a hair-raising escape, he launches an elaborate plot to extract a bitter revenge against those who betrayed him.* Dance with Dragons (A) (George R. R. Martin, 2011) In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance once again—beset by newly emerging threats from every direction.* The fifth novel in the A Song of Fire and Ice series including A Game of Thrones (1996), A Clash of Kings (1999), A Storm of Swords (2000), and A Feast for Crows (2005). Detective/Crime Mystery Writers: Try any book by the following mystery writers: Donna Andrews (featuring Artificial Intelligence Personality Turing Hopper as an amateur sleuth); Nancy Atherton (featuring amateur sleuth Lori Shepard with help from her ghostly Aunt Dimity); Stephanie Barron (featuring 19th century author Jane Austen as an amateur sleuth) C. J. Box (featuring
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Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett); Joanna Fluke (featuring bakery owner and amateur sleuth Hannah Swensen); Kathryn Miller Haines (set during World War II, featuring actress and amateur sleuth Rosie Winter) Laurie R. King (featuring Mary Russell, former protégé to Sherlock Holmes); Edward Marston (look for the Domesday series set in medieval England featuring commissioner Ralph Delchard); Alexander McCall Smith (featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, owner of Botswana’s #1 Ladies Detective Agency); Elizabeth Peters (featuring Edwardian Egyptologist Amanda Peabody); Ellis Peters (mysteries of the medieval monk, Brother Cadfael); Spencer Quinn (featuring down-on-hisluck private investigator Bernie and his faithful canine companion—and series narrator, Chet); Kathy Reichs (Virals series featuring teen sleuth Tory Brennan) or Les Roberts (featuring Cleveland private detective Milan Jacovich). Diamond Ruby: A Novel (Joseph Wallace, 2010) From Coney Island sideshows to the brand-new Yankee Stadium, Diamond Ruby chronicles the extraordinary life and times of a girl who rises from utter poverty to the kind of renown only the Roaring Twenties can bestow. But her fame comes with a price….* Based on a true story. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick, 1968) By 2021, the World War had killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remained coveted any living creature, and for people who couldn’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep… They even built humans. Fearful of the havoc these artificial humans could wreak, the government banned them from Earth. But when androids didn’t want to be identified, they just blended in. Rick Deckard was an officially sanctioned bounty hunter whose job was to find rogue androids, and to retire them. But cornered, androids tended to fight back, with deadly results.* Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886) Idealistic young scientist Henry Jekyll struggles to unlock the secrets of the soul. Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate—and eliminate—human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.* Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897)) A dreary castle, blood-thirsty vampires, open graves at midnight, and other gothic touches fill this chilling tale about a young Englishman’s confrontation with the evil Count Dracula.*
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Girl in Translation (Jean Kwok, 2010) When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings.* Girl Who Fell from the Sky: A Novel (Heidi W. Durrow, 2010) Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on their Chicago rooftop. Forced to move to a new city, with her strict African American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring a constant stream of attention her way.* Grendel (John Gardner, 1971) When Grendel is drawn up from the caves under the mere where he lives with his bloated, inarticulate hag of a mother into the fresh night air, it is to lay waste Hrothgar’s meadhall and heap destruction on the humans he finds there.* This is Gardner’s classic interpretation of the Old English epic Beowulf from the monster’s point of view. Heart is a Lonely Hunter (The) (Carson McCullers, 1940) At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer’s mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly…finds solace in her music.* Help (The) (Katherine Stockett, 2009) Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step…to start a movement of their own [that] forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another.* House of Tomorrow (The) (Peter Bognanni, 2010) Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town.* House Rules: A Novel (Jodi Picoult, 2010) Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject—forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he’s always showing up and telling the cops what to do. And he’s usually right… But when Jacob’s small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him… Did Jacob commit murder?* 4
In Zanesville (Jo Ann Beard, 2011) The beguiling fourteen-year-old narrator is a late bloomer ... Luckily, she has a best friend, a similarly undiscovered girl with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed, and character is forged.* Inheritance (Christopher Paolini, 2011) Not so very long ago, Eragon— Shadeslayer, Dragon Rider—was nothing more than a poor farm boy, and his dragon, Saphira, only a blue stone in the forest ... The Rider and his dragon have come further than anyone dared to hope. But can they topple the evil king and restore justice to Alagaësia? And if so, at what cost?* The fourth and final book in the Inheritance Cycle, following Eragon (2003) and Eldest (2005), and Brisingr (2008). Inheritance of Loss (The) (Kirin Desai, 2006) When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai’s new-sprung romance with her handsome tutor, their lives descend into chaos.* Khan: Empire of Silver (Conn Iggulden, 2010) With the death of Genghis Khan, Iggulden continues the Khan family story in this historical novel. The preceding Genghis series includes Genghis: Birth of an Empire (2007), Genghis: Lords of the Bow (2008), and Genghis: Bones of the Hills (2009). Kim (Rudyard Kipling, 1901) Kimball O’Hara grows up an orphan in the walled city of Lahore, India. Deeply devoted to an old Tibetan lama but involved in a secret mission for the British, Kim struggles to weave the strands of his life into a single pattern. Charged with action and suspense, yet profoundly spiritual, Kim vividly expresses the sounds and smells, colors and characters, opulence and squalor of complex, contradictory India under British rule.* 5
Last Brother (The): A Novel (Nathacha Appanah and Geoffrey Stachan, 2010) As 1944 comes to a close, nine-year-old Raj is unaware of the war devastating the rest of the world. He lives in Mauritius, a remote island in the Indian Ocean, where survival is a daily struggle for his family. When a brutal beating lands Raj in the hospital of the prison camp where his father is a guard, he meets a mysterious boy his own age. David is a refugee, one of a group of Jewish exiles whose harrowing journey took them from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine, where they were refused entry and sent on to indefinite detainment in Mauritius.* Lean on Pete: A Novel (Willy Vlautin, 2010) Fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson wants a home, food on the table, and a high school he can attend for more than part of a year. But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley’s been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track.* Lord of the Flies (William Golding, 1954) The classic study of human nature which depicts the degeneration of a group of schoolboys marooned on a desert island.* Matched (Ally Condie, 2011) Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander’s face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate…until she sees Ky Markham’s face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.*
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Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins, 2010) Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either.* The final book in the The Hunger Games trilogy which includes The Hunger Games (2008) and Catching Fire (2009). No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy, 2005) Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, instead finds men shot dead, a load of heroin, and more than $2 million in cash. Packing the money out, he knows, will change everything. * Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck, 1937) The tragic tale of a retarded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him.* Orchards (Holly Thompson, 2011) After a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg—a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American—wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to the girl. Hoping that Kana will reflect on her behavior, her parents pack her off to her mother’s ancestral home in Japan for the summer. There Kana spends hours under the hot sun tending to her family’s mikan orange groves.* Paper Covers Rock (Jenny Hubbard, 2011) At the beginning of his junior year at a boys’ boarding school, 16-year-old Alex is devastated when he fails to save a drowning friend. When questioned, Alex and his friend Glenn, who was also at the river, begin weaving their web of lies.* Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (The): A Novel (Aimee Bender, 2010) On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein, a girl at the periphery of schoolyard games and her distracted parents’ attention, bites into her mother’s homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the cake… Suddenly, and for the rest of her life, food becomes a peril and a threat to Rose.* Pathfinder (Orson Scott Card, 2010) Rigg is well trained at keeping secrets. Only his father knows the truth about Rigg’s strange talent for seeing the paths of people’s pasts. But when his father dies, Rigg is stunned to learn just how many secrets Father had kept from him—secrets about Rigg’s own past, his identity, and his destiny.* The first in a series.
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Queen of Water (The) (Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango, 2011) Born in an Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia lives with her large family in a small, earthen-walled dwelling. In her village of indígenas, it is not uncommon to work in the fields all day, even as a child, or to be called a longa tonta—stupid Indian— by members of the ruling class of mestizos, or Spanish descendants. When sevenyear-old Virginia is taken from her village to be a servant to a mestizo couple, she has no idea what the future holds.* This novel is based on a true story. Ready Player One (Ernest Cline, 2011) It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world.* Road (The) (Cormac McCarthy, 2006) The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son … are sustained by love.* Shenandoah Spy (The) (Francis Hamit, 2010) The first in a series about the Confederate Secret Service and the women who were its most effective agents, [this] historical fact-based fiction [is] about the famous spy [Belle Boyd] who played a key role in Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign.* Swamplandia! (Karen Russell, 2011) Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.* Tale of Two Cities (A) (Charles Dickens, 1859) With dramatic eloquence, this story of the French Revolution brings to life a time of terror and treason, and a starving people rising in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime.* This World We Live In (Susan Beth Pfeffer, 2010) It’s been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth’s climate. For Miranda Evans, life as she knew it no longer exists… The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda’s father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three 8
strangers in tow. Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.* This is the companion book to Life as We Knew It (2007) and The Dead and the Gone (2008). Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story (Leonie Swann, 2009) A witty philosophical murder mystery with a charming twist: the crack detectives are sheep determined to discover who killed their beloved shepherd.* Tinkers (Paul Harding, 2009) An old man lies dying. As time collapses into memory, he travels deep into his past where he is reunited with his father and relives the wonder and pain of his impoverished New England youth.* Trapped: A Novel of Terror (Jack Kilborn, 2010) It was supposed to be a harmless camping trip. Six wayward teenagers who’d run into trouble with the law, and their court-appointed guardians, Sara and Martin Randhurst. Three nights on a small, deserted island off of Michigan’s upper peninsula. A time to bond, to learn, to heal. Then Martin told a campfire story about the island’s history. Of the old Civil War prison hidden there, and the starving Confederate soldiers who resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. Everyone thought it was funny. They even laughed when Martin pretended to be dragged off into the woods.* Various Positions (Martha Schabas, 2011) Trapped between the hormone—driven world of her friends and the discontent of her dysfunctional family, fourteenyear-old Georgia is only completely at ease when she’s dancing. When she is accepted into Canada’s preeminent ballet school, Georgia thinks it is the perfect escape.*
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Wise Man’s Fear (The) (Patrick Rothfuss, 2011) In these pages [continues the story of] Kvothe the notorious magician, the accomplished thief, the masterful musician, the dragon-slayer, the legend-hunter, the lover, the thief and the infamous assassin.* Book 2 of the trilogy Kingkiller Chronicles. Non-fiction: All Creatures Great and Small (James Herriot, 1972) For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.* Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream (Tanya Lee Stone, 2009) What does it take to be an astronaut? Excellence at flying, courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, top physical shape—any checklist would include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was another unspoken rule: you had to be a man. Here is the tale of thirteen women who proved that they were not only as tough as the toughest man but also brave enough to challenge the government.* Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation (Charles Glass, 2010) Before the Second World War began, approximately thirty thousand Americans lived in Paris, and when war broke out in 1939, almost five thousand remained. As citizens of a neutral nation, the Americans in Paris believed they had little to fear. They were wrong.*
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Annotated Mona Lisa (The): A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern (Carol Strickland, 2007) This book offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media.* Big Thirst (The): The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water (Charles Fishman, 2011) Water is the most vital substance in our lives but also more amazing and mysterious than we appreciate. As Charles Fishman brings vibrantly to life in this surprising and mind-changing narrative, water runs our world in a host of awe-inspiring ways, yet we take it completely for granted. But the era of easy water is over.* Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth (James M. Tabor, 2010) As late as 2000, the earth’s deepest cave—the supercave—remained undiscovered. This is the story of the men and women who risked everything to find it….* Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine and the Lawless Years of Prohibition (Karen Blumenthal, 2011) Filled with period art and photographs, anecdotes, and portraits of unique characters from the era, this fascinating book looks at the rise and fall of the disastrous social experiment known as Prohibition.* Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (The): Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, 2009) William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him.* Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May1949 (Richard Reeves, 2010) In the early hours of June 26, 1948, phones began ringing across America, waking up the airmen of World War II— pilots, navigators, and mechanics—who were finally beginning normal lives with new houses, new jobs, new wives, and new babies... The president, Harry S. Truman, was recalling them to active duty to try to save the desperate people of the western sectors of Berlin, the enemy capital many of them had bombed to rubble only three years before.*
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Devil’s Teeth (The): A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks (Susan Casey, 2006) Susan Casey was in her living room when she first saw the great white sharks of the Farallon Islands, their dark fins swirling around a small motorboat in a documentary. In a matter of months, [she] was being hoisted out of the early-winter swells on a crane, up a cliff face to the barren surface of Southeast Farallon Island—dubbed by sailors in the 1850s the “devil’s teeth.”* Eating Animals (Jonathan Safran Foer, 2009) Traveling to the darkest corners of our dining habits, Foer raises the unspoken question behind every fish we eat, every chicken we fry, and every burger we grill.* Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates (Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw, 2010) Rubalcaba and Robertshaw recount the unearthing of four hominins—Turkana Boy, Lapedo Child, Kennewick Man, and Iceman. Each discovery leads not only to deductions that scientists made in laboratories, but also to controversial debates over the scientists’ differences of opinion over how, or even if, the pieces fit together.* Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms (Ethan Gilsford, 2009) What could one man find if he embarked on a journey through fantasy world after fantasy world?* Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets (Peter Laufer, 2010) Laufer exposes the network of hunters, traders, breeders, and customers who constitute this nefarious business—which, estimated at $10 to $20 billion annually, competes with illegal drug and weapons trafficking in the money it earns criminals.* Grand Design (The) (Steven Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, 2010) Hawking and Mlodinow present the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by both brilliance and simplicity.* Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Jared Diamond, 1997) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Guns, Germs, and Steel is a brilliant work answering the question of why the peoples of certain continents succeeded in invading other continents and conquering or displacing their peoples.* Also, look for Diamond’s Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005).
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History of Horror (A) (Wheeler Winston Dixon, 2010) Ever since horror leapt from popular fiction to the silver screen in the late 1890s, viewers have experienced fear and pleasure in exquisite combination. A History of Horror, with rare stills from classic films, is the only book to offer a comprehensive survey of this ever-popular film genre.* History of the World in 100 Objects (A) (Neil MacGregor, 2011) The history of humanity is a history of invention and innovation, as we have continually created new items to use, to admire, or to leave our mark on the world. In this original and thought-provoking book, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, has selected one hundred man-made artifacts, each of which gives us an intimate glimpse of an unexpected turning point in human civilization.* Hot Zone (The): A Terrifying True Story (Richard Preston, 1999) A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their “crashes� into the human race.* Immortal Game (The): A History of Chess (David Shenk, 2007) Chess is the most enduring and universal game in history. Here, Shenk chronicles its intriguing saga, from ancient Persia to medieval Europe to the dens of Benjamin Franklin and Norman Schwarzkopf.*
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Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal (Conor Grennan, 2011) In search of adventure, 29-year-old Conor Grennan traded his day job for a year-long trip around the globe, a journey that began with a three-month stint volunteering at the Little Princes Children’s Home, an orphanage in war-torn Nepal.* Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer (James L. Swanson, 2006) The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history — the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.* New Kids (The): Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens (Brooke Hauser, 2011) Some walked across deserts and mountains to get here. Others flew in on planes. One arrived after escaping in a suitcase. And some won’t say how they got here. These are “the new kids”: new to America and all the routines and rituals of an American high school, from lonely first days to prom.* Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (Mary Roach, 2010) As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.*
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Pests: A Guide to the World’s Most Maligned, Yet Misunderstood Creatures (Ross Piper, 2011) An overview of the animals that have the greatest impact on our lives, from the creatures that eat our crops through the ones that invade our homes and those that transmit diseases.* Planet of Viruses (A) (Carl Zimmer, 2011) This fascinating book explores the hidden world of viruses—a world that we all inhabit.* Plastic: A Toxic Love Story (Susan Freinkel, 2011) Plastic built the modern world. Where would we be without bike helmets, baggies, toothbrushes, and pacemakers? But a century into our love affair with plastic, we’re starting to realize it’s not such a healthy relationship.* Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Jane McGonigal, 2011) Visionary game designer Jane McGonigal reveals how we can harness the power of games to solve real-world problems and boost global happiness.* Short History of Nearly Everything (A) (Bill Bryson, 2003) Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world’s most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see if there isn’t some way to render them comprehensible to people, like himself, made bored (or scared) stiff of science by school.* Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things (Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, 2010) Pollution is not only an abstract, distant problem seen in belching smokestacks and contaminated waterways; it’s also personal. Some of the most dangerous pollutants come from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces—shampoos and toothpastes, carpets and children’s toys. To prove this point, leading environmentalists Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie conducted their own research by ingesting and inhaling a host of things that are part of our everyday lives.* Small Furry Prayer (A): Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life (Steve Kotler, 2010) While dog rescue is one of the largest underground movements in America, it is also one of the least understood. This insider look at the cult and culture of dog rescue begins with Kotler’s personal experience working with an ever-peculiar pack of dogs and becomes a much deeper investigation into exactly what it means to devote one’s life to the furry and the four-legged.*
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Sports and their Fans: The History, Economics and Culture of the Relationship Between Spectator and Sport (Kevin G. Quinn, 2009) Though Americans spend more than $25 billion on sports and sporting events, this book argues that the influence of sports on our lives is even more profound than this huge figure would seem to suggest.* Story of Stuff (The): How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health—And a Vision for Change (Annie Leonard, 2010) Leonard tracks the life of the Stuff we use every day—where our cotton Tshirts, laptop computers, and aluminum cans come from, how they are produced, distributed, and consumed, and where they go when we throw them out.* Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Raj Patel, 2008) How can starving people also be obese? Why does everything have soy in it? How do petrochemicals and biofuels control the price of food? It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before (800 million) while there are also more people overweight (1 billion). To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network.* Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science (Marc Aronson and Maria Budhos, 2010) When this award-winning husband-and-wife team discovered that they each had sugar in their family history, they were inspired to trace the globe-spanning story of the sweet substance and to seek out the voices of those who led bitter sugar lives.* Super Species: The Creatures That Will Dominate the Planet (Garry Hamilton, 2010) Super species are the phenomenally successful invasive life-forms that are dominating ecosystems. These animals, plants and microbes have spread far from their native habitats, most often as a result of human activities. Author Garry Hamilton profiles the 20 super species that are having the greatest impact in our world today.* Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals (Richard Conniff, 2009) Field journalist Richard Conniff examines the lives of two-, four-, six-, and eight-legged creatures from around the globe, providing adventure-packed accounts of his many ill advised forays into the animal kingdom.* Tales of an African Vet (Roy Aronson, 2010) In his more than twenty-five years as an African vet, Dr. Roy Aronson has seen and done some remarkable things. 16
Tales of an African Vet brings together Dr. Aronson’s adventures in a rare behindthe-scenes look at those who treat wild animals in their natural habitat.* Toward the Setting Sun: John Ross, the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears (Brian Hicks, 2011) Toward the Setting Sun chronicles one of the most significant but least explored periods in American history, recounting the little known story of the first white man to champion the voiceless Native American cause.* World’s Creepiest Places (The) (Bob Curran and Ian Daniels, 2011) There are some places in the world where humans quite simply should not go. Not just haunted places, but sites where ancient forces still hold sway. We can recognize such locations by the responses they evoke within us—that feeling we call “the creeps.” But just where are these places, and why do they terrify us?* Biographies/Memoirs: Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith (Deborah Heiligman, 2009) Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage….*
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Fight to Survive (The): A Young Girl, Diabetes, and the Discovery of Insulin (Caroline Cox, 2009) In 1919, when 11-year-old Elizabeth Evan Hughes was first diagnosed with what we now know is Type 1 or juvenile diabetes, the medical community considered it a death sentence. In The Fight to Survive, Caroline Cox weaves the heart-wrenching story of Hughes’ role in a medical discovery that stopped the disease in its tracks—only weeks before her imminent death.* Glass Castle (The): A Memoir (Jeannette Walls, 2006) Jeannette Walls grew up with parents whose ideals and stubborn nonconformity were both their curse and their salvation. Hers is a story of triumph against all odds, but also a tender, moving tale of unconditional love in a family that despite its profound flaws gave her the fiery determination to carve out a successful life on her own terms.* Last Hero (The): A Life of Henry Aaron (Howard Bryant, 2010) In the thirtyfour years since his retirement, Henry (Hank) Aaron’s reputation has only grown in magnitude. But his influence extends beyond statistics, and at long last here is the first definitive biography of one of baseball’s immortal figures.* Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (Harriet Reisen, 2009) A fresh, modern take on this remarkable and prolific writer, who secretly authored pulp fiction, harbored radical abolitionist views, and completed heroic service as a Civil War nurse, Louisa May Alcott is in the end also the story of how the all-time beloved American classic Little Women came to be.* Mao’s Last Dancer (Li Cunxin, 2008) At the age of eleven, Li Cunxin was one of the privileged few selected to serve in Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution by studying at the Beijing Dance Academy…. This inspiring story of passion,
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resilience, and a family’s love captures the harsh reality of life in Mao’s communist China and the exciting world of professional dance.* Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer (Mireya Mayor, 2011) Against all odds, this self-professed former “girly girl” daughter of over-protective Cuban immigrants blossomed from NFL cheerleader to Fulbright Scholar to field scientist and ultimately, quintessential adventurer.* True Adventures of the World’s Greatest Stuntman (The): My Life as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman and Other Movie Heroes (Vic Armstrong, 2011) Counting Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and Arnold Schwarzenegger among his friends, and officially credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Most Prolific Stuntman, Vic’s got a lot of amazing stories to tell, and they’re all here in this - the movie memoir of the year!* Wheelchair Warrior: Gangs, Disability, and Basketball (Melvin Juette and Ronald J. Berger, 2008) Melvin Juette has said that becoming paralyzed in a gang-related shooting was “both the worst and best thing that happened” to him. The incident, he believes, surely spared the then sixteen year-old African American from prison and/or an early death. It transformed him in other ways, too.* Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate (Mark Oppenheimer, 2010) Who knew big words and knew how to use them? Was he a charmer or an insufferable smart aleck—or maybe both? Mark Oppenheimer was just such a boy, his talent for language a curse as much as a blessing. But when he got to high school, Oppenheimer discovered an outlet for his loquaciousness: the debate team.*
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Summer Reading for Eleventh/Twelfth Graders Fiction: 1Q84 (Haruki Murakami, 2011) The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.” * American Boy (Larry Watson, 2011) “We were exposed to these phenomena in order that we might learn something, but of course the lessons we learn are not always those we are taught….” So begins Matthew Garth’s story of the fall of 1962, when the shooting of a young woman on Thanksgiving Day sets off a chain of unsettling events in Willow Falls, Minnesota.* Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy, 1873-77) Anna Karenina tells of the doomed love affair between the sensuous and rebellious Anna and the dashing officer, Count Vronsky. Tragedy unfolds as Anna rejects her passionless marriage and must endure the hypocrisies of society.* Art of Fielding (The) (Chad Harbach, 2011) At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.* Broken Glass Park (Alina Bronsky, 2010) The heroine of this enigmatic, razorsharp, and thoroughly contemporary novel is seventeen-year-old Sacha Naimann, born in Moscow. Sacha lives in Berlin now with her two younger siblings and, until recently, her mother… Her dreams are different: she wants to write a novel about her mother; and she wants to end the life of Vadim, the man who murdered her.* Caleb’s Crossing (Geraldine Brooks, 2011) In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.*
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Catch-22 (Joseph Heller, 1955) Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy—it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service.* City of Veils: A Novel (Zoë Ferraris, 2010) Women in Saudi Arabia are expected to lead quiet lives circumscribed by Islamic law and tradition. But Katya, one of the few women in the medical examiner’s office, is determined to make her work mean something. When the body of a brutally beaten woman is found on the beach in Jeddah, the city’s detectives are ready to dismiss the case as another unsolvable murder-chillingly common in a city where the veils of conservative Islam keep women as anonymous in life as the victim is in death… Only Katya is convinced that the victim can be identified and her killer found.* Cold Sassy Tree (Olive Ann Burns, 1984) On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era.* Death of Kings (Bernard Cornwell, 2012) Continuing the rousing Saxon Chronicles, Uhtred, the Saxon-born, Danish-bred hero of The Last Kingdom (2004), The Pale Horseman (2005), The Lords of the North (2006), Sword Song (2008), and The Burning Land (2010) faces the savage Viking warlord, Harald Bloodhair. 21
Delirium (Lauren Oliver, 2012) The government requires that all teenagers be cured of love, a.k.a. deliria, to keep society safe. But 95 days before her treatment, Lena Haloway falls for a boy—and must face the truth about her own feelings and the world in which she lives.* Detective/Crime Mystery Writers: Try any book by the following mystery writers: Nevada Barr (featuring National Park Ranger Amanda Pigeon; novels are set in various U.S. National Parks); Agatha Christie (featuring detective Hercule Poirot); Lindsey Davis (featuring “informer” Marcus Didius Falco in ancient Rome); Janet Evanovich (featuring bail bondswoman Stephanie Plum in an outrageously funny series set in the “Burg” in New Jersey); Dick Francis (featuring a variety of sleuths and locations); Sue Grafton (featuring female sleuth Kinsey Millhone); Charlaine Harris (featuring a variety of sleuths and locations, including the Southern Vampire Mystery series); P.D. James (featuring Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh); Lisa Lutz (featuring P.I. Izzy Spellman who works in her family’s detective agency in this humorous series): Henning Mankell (featuring Swedish police detective Kurt Wallender in detailed police procedurals); Robert B. Parker (featuring hard-boiled Boston detective Spenser); Will Thomas (featuring “enquiry agent” Cyrus Barker and his young assistant Thomas Llewelyn in Victorian England) or Steve Womack (WRA alumnus whose novels feature Nashville reporter turned private investigator, Harry James Denton). Education of Little Tree (The) (Forrest Carter, 1976) [This is the story] of a boy orphaned very young, who is adopted by his Cherokee grandmother and halfCherokee grandfather in the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee during the Great Depression.*
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Elegance of the Hedgehog (The) (Muriel Barbery, 2008) Renee is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society’s expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this facade lies the real Renee…* Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin, 1953) Baldwin chronicles a fourteen-year-old boy’s discovery of the terms of his identity as the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935.* Grapes of Wrath (The) (John Steinbeck, 1939) This novel focuses on the Joad family who migrate from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California during the Great Depression. Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (The) (Michele Young-Stone, 2010) Now an art student in New York City, Becca Burke is a gifted but tortured painter who strives to recapture the intensity of her lightning-strike memories on canvas. On the night of her first gallery opening, a stranger appears and is captivated by her art. Who is this odd young man with whom she shares a mysterious connection?* Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952) The experiences of a young black man who is expelled from a Southern college and ventures to New York City. Ivanhoe (Scott, Sir Walter, 1819) Wilfred of Ivanhoe returns from the Crusades to face the disapproval of his father, who disinherits him for his political allegiances and his love for the Lady Rowena.* Kindred (Octavia Butler, 1979) Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stays grow longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.* Kite Runner (The) (Khaled Hosseini, 2003) An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.* 23
Left Hand of Darkness (The) (Ursula LeGuin, 1969) A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary to Winter, an alien world whose inhabitants can change their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so, he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.* Lock Artist (The): A Novel (Steve Hamilton, 2010) Michael is no ordinary young man. Mute since a childhood tragedy, at age eighteen he discovers that he possesses a skill he would never have expected. Whether it’s a locked door without a key, a padlock with no combination, or even an eight-hundred pound safe . . . he can open them all. It’s a talent that will make Michael a hot commodity with the wrong people, and whether he likes it or not, push him closer to a life of crime.* Lost Books of the Odyssey (The) (Zachary Mason, 2009) [Mason’s novel] reimagines Homer’s classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy.* Lover’s Dictionary (The) (David Levithan, 2011) How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary.* Micro (Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, 2011) In a locked Honolulu office building, three men are found dead with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye…. Micro pits nature against technology in vintage Crichton fashion. Completed by visionary science writer Richard Preston, this boundary-pushing thriller melds scientific fact with pulsepounding fiction to create yet another masterpiece of sophisticated, cutting-edge entertainment.* Mockingbirds (The) (Daisy Whitney, 2010) Some schools have honor codes. Others have handbooks. Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds….* Model Home: A Novel (Eric Puchner, 2010) Warren Ziller moved his family to Southern California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of the 1980s. But the Zillers’ American dream is about to be rudely interrupted.* 24
Nemesis (Philip Roth, 2010) Roth’s latest theme: a wartime polio epidemic in the summer of 1944 and the effect it has on a closely knit, family-oriented Newark community and its children.* Night Circus (The) (Erin Morgenstern, 2011) The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements…. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway….* Once upon a River (Bonnie Jo Campbell, 2011) After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, [16-year-old] Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother.* Portrait of a Spy (Daniel Silva, 2011) It was supposed to be the start of a pleasant weekend in London for master art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon and his wife, Chiara. But a deadly pair of bombings in Paris and Copenhagen has already marred this lovely autumn day. Then, before he can stop a man he suspects is about to launch a third attack in Covent Garden, Gabriel is knocked to the pavement—and he can only watch helplessly as the nightmare unfolds.* If you love spy thrillers, check out this series. Radleys (The) (Matt Haig, 2010) Just about everyone knows a family like the Radleys. Many of us grew up next door to one. They are typical, that is, save for one devastating exception: Peter and Helen are vampires and have—for seventeen years—been abstaining by choice from a life of chasing blood in the hope that their children could live normal lives.* 25
Reapers are the Angels (The): A Novel (Alden Bell, 2010) For twenty-five years, civilization has survived in meager enclaves, guarded against a plague of the dead. Temple wanders this blighted landscape, keeping to herself and keeping her demons inside her heart…. Moving back and forth between the insulated remnants of society and the brutal frontier beyond, Temple must decide where ultimately to make a home and find the salvation she seeks.* Red and the Black (The) (Stendahl, 1830) A brilliant portrait of one of the most ruthlessly charming heroes in literature, The Red and the Black chronicles the rise and fall of Julian Sorel. Born into the peasantry, Sorel connives his way into the highest Parisian aristocratic circles. But his powers of seduction lead to his downfall when he commits a crime of passion.* Robopocalypse (Daniel H. Wilson, 2011) When the Robot War ignites — at a moment known later as Zero Hour — humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united.* Room: A Novel (Emma Donoghue, 2010) Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough...not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.*
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Sacred Cipher (The) (Terry Brennan, 2009) When an ancient scroll appears in a secret room of the Bowery Mission in New York City, Tom Bohannon is both stunned and intrigued. The enigma of the scroll’s contents will send Bohannon and his team ricocheting around the world, drawing the heat of both Jewish and Muslim militaries, and bringing the Middle East to the brink of nuclear war in this heart-pounding adventure of historical proportions.* Salvage the Bones (Jesmyn Ward, 2011) A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned…. As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family—motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to face another day.* Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt (The): A Novel in Pictures (Caroline Preston, 2011) For her graduation from high school in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father’s old Corona typewriter. Through a kaleidoscopic array of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus, and more, we meet and follow Frankie on her journey in search of success and love.* Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron (Jasper Fforde, 2010) Welcome to Chromatacia, where the societal hierarchy is strictly regulated by one’s limited color perception. And Eddie Russet wants to move up. But his plans to leverage his better-than-average red perception and marry into a powerful family are quickly upended.* Skippy Dies (Paul Murray, 2010) Why does Skippy, a fourteen-year-old boy at Dublin’s venerable Seabrook College, end up dead on the floor of the local doughnut shop?* Solitude of Prime Numbers (The) (Paulo Giordano, 2010) A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one—it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both “primes,” are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit.*
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Talk-Funny Girl (The) (Roland Merullo, 2011) In one of the poorest parts of rural New Hampshire, teenage girls have been disappearing, snatched from back country roads, never to be seen alive again. For seventeen-year-old Marjorie Richards, the fear raised by these abductions is the backdrop to what she lives with in her own home, every day. Marjorie has been raised by parents so intentionally isolated from normal society that they have developed their own dialect, a kind of mountain hybrid of English that displays both their ignorance of and disdain for the wider world. Marjorie is tormented by her classmates, who call her “The Talk-funny girl….”* Testimony (Anita Shreve, 2008) At a New England boarding school, a sex scandal is about to break. Even more shocking than the sexual acts themselves is the fact that they were caught on videotape. A Pandora’s box of revelations, the tape triggers a chorus of voices—those of the men, women, teenagers, and parents involved in the scandal—that details the ways in which lives can be derailed or destroyed in one foolish moment.* True Grit (Charles Portis, 1968) The story of Mattie Ross, a fourteen-year-old girl from Dardanelle, Arkansas, who sets out in the winter of eighteen seventysomething to avenge the murder of her father.* Vanishing of Katharina Linden (The): A Novel (Helen Grant, 2010) After Pia’s grandmother dies in a freak accident, the neighbors in her little German hometown of Bad Münstereifel glance at Pia with wary eyes. But then something else captures the community’s attention: the vanishing of Katharina Linden. Katharina was last seen at a parade, dressed as Snow White. Then, like a character in a Grimm’s fairy tale, she disappeared.* White Devil (The) (Justin Evans, 2011) The Harrow School is home to privileged adolescents known as much for their distinctive dress and traditions as for their arrogance and schoolboy cruelty. Seventeen-year-old American Andrew Taylor is enrolled in the esteemed British institution by his father, who hopes that the school’s discipline will put some distance between his son and his troubled past in the States. But trouble—and danger—seem to follow Andrew.* Wingshooters (Nina Revoyr, 2011) Michelle LeBeau, the child of a white American father and a Japanese mother, lives with her grandparents in Deerhorn, Wisconsin—a small town that had been entirely white before her arrival. Rejected and bullied, Michelle spends her time reading, avoiding fights, and roaming the countryside with her dog Brett. She idolizes her grandfather, Charlie LeBeau, an expert hunter and former minor league baseball player who is one of 28
the town’s most respected men. Charlie strongly disapproves of his son’s marriage to Michelle’s mother but dotes on his only grandchild.* World According to Garp (The) (John Irving, 1978) This classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields—a feminist leader ahead of her time.* World Beneath (The) (Cate Kennedy, 2011) Fifteen years after their break-up, Rich and Sandy have both settled into the unfulfilling compromises of middle age…. To distract themselves from their inadequacies, Rich and Sandy cling to the shining moment of their youth, when they met as environmental activists as part of a world-famous blockade to save Tasmania’s Franklin River. Their daughter, Sophie, has always remained skeptical of this ecological fairytale, but when Rich invites her on a backpacking trip through Tasmania for her fifteenth birthday, Sophie sees it as a way to bond with a father she’s never known.* Non-fiction: 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (Charles C. Mann, 2011) More than 200 million years ago, geological forces split apart the continents. Isolated from each other, the two halves of the world developed radically different suites of plants and animals. When Christopher Columbus set foot in the Americas, he ended that separation at a stroke. Driven by the economic goal of establishing trade with China, he accidentally set off an ecological convulsion as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans.*
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33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day (Dorian Lynsky, 2011) This expansive survey examines how music has engaged with racial unrest, nuclear paranoia, apartheid, war, poverty, and oppression, offering hope, stirring anger, inciting action, and producing songs that continue to resonate years down the line, sometimes at great cost to the musicians involved.* Abolition of Man (The) (C.S. Lewis, 1943) C. S. Lewis sets out to persuade his audience of the importance and relevance of universal values such as courage and honor in contemporary society.* Age of Wonder (The): The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science (Richard Holmes, 2011) The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science.* American History Revised: 200 Startling Facts That Never Made It into the Textbooks (Seymour Morris, Jr., 2010) This spirited reexamination of American history delves into our past to expose hundreds of startling facts that never made it into the textbooks, and highlights how little-known people and events played surprisingly influential roles in the great American story.* American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It) (Jonathan Bloom, 2010) The topic couldn’t be timelier: As more people are going hungry while simultaneously more people are morbidly obese, American Wasteland sheds light on the history, culture, and
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mindset of waste while exploring the parallel eco-friendly and sustainable-food movements. As the era of unprecedented prosperity comes to an end, it’s time to reexamine our culture of excess.* Apollo’s Angels (Jennifer Homans, 2010) Ballet has been shaped by the Renaissance and Classicism, the Enlightenment and Romanticism, Bolshevism, Modernism, and the Cold War. Apollo’s Angels is a groundbreaking work—the first cultural history of ballet ever written, lavishly illustrated and beautifully told.* Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen (Christopher McDougall, 2009) Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong.* Buck Stops Here (The): The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed History (Thomas J. Craughwell and Edwin Kiester, Jr., 2010) [This] fascinating survey of twenty-eight crucial presidential decisions opens a door into the White House’s corridors of power, giving readers an insider’s view of how and why these decisions were made, while providing a yardstick with which we might, perhaps, gauge the success of current and future presidents.* Central Park Five (The): A Chronicle of a City Wilding (Sarah Burns, 2011) A riveting, in-depth account of one of New York City’s most notorious crimes.* Destiny of the Republic (The): A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President (Candice Millard, 2011) James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back.* Door of No Return (The): The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade (William St. Clair, 2009) The grim history of the slave trade from Africa is one that has had an impact on generations of people all over the world. While much of the initial voyage and inhumane treatment of slavery has been 31
historically analyzed, there has been little written on the several forts and castles along the coast of Ghana that were used as slave-holding facilities. This book focuses primarily on Cape Coast Castle, the African headquarters of the British slave trade from 1664 to 1807….* Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter (Tom Bissell, 2010) Millions of adults spend hours every week playing video games, and the industry itself now reliably outearns Hollywood. But the wider culture seems to regard video games as, at best, well designed if mindless entertainment. Extra Lives is an impassioned defense of this assailed and misunderstood art form.* Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll (M.G. Lord, 2004) Since Barbie’s introduction in 1959, her impact on baby boomers has been revolutionary. Far from being a toy designed by men to enslave women, she was a toy invented by women to teach women what—for better or worse—was expected of them. In telling Barbie’s fascinating story, cultural critic and investigative journalist M.G. Lord, herself a first-generation Barbie owner, has written a provocative, zany, occasionally shocking book that will change how you look at the doll and the world.* Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth (The): Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School (Alexandra Robbins, 2011) In a smart, entertaining, reassuring book that reads like fiction, Alexandra Robbins manages to cross Gossip Girl with Freaks and Geeks and explain the fascinating psychology and science behind popularity and outcasthood. She reveals that the things that set students apart in high school are the things that help them stand out later in life.* Genomics Age (The): How DNA Technology is Transforming the Way We Live and Who We Are (Gina Smith, 2004) In the history of mankind, few scientific phenomena have so profoundly changed the human experience as will the revolution in the use of DNA technology. Entertaining, informative, and written in plain English, The Genomics Age explores how recent leaps in the understanding of DNA offer astounding scientific promises — and pose complex ethical issues.* Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot, 2010) Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine.*
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Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever (Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, 2011) A riveting historical narrative of the heart-stopping events surrounding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln….* Lost City of Z (The): A Tale of Death and Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (David Grann, 2009) In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century.* Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War (Tony Horwitz, 2011) Plotted in secret, launched in the dark, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry was a pivotal moment in U.S. history. But few Americans know the true story of the men and women who launched a desperate strike at the slaveholding South. Now, Midnight Rising portrays Brown’s uprising in vivid color, revealing a country on the brink of explosive conflict.* Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them (Donovan Hohn, 2011) When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn’s accidental odyssey pulls 33
him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring work of Arctic researchers, the lunatic risks of maverick sailors, and the shadowy world of Chinese toy factories.* Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World (Tracy Kidder, 2003) In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Kidder’s magnificent account takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity.”* On the Run in Siberia (Rane Willerslev, 2012) The Siberian taiga: a massive forest region of roughly 4.5 million square miles, stretching from the Ural Mountains to the Bering Sea, breathtakingly beautiful and the coldest inhabited region in the world…. Since the fall of Communism, a corrupt regional corporation has monopolized the fur trade, forcing the Yukaghir hunters into impoverished servitude. Enter Rane Willerslev, a young Danish anthropologist who ventures into this frozen land on an idealistic mission to organize a fair-trade fur cooperative with the hunters. From the outset, things go terribly wrong.* Outliers: The Story of Success (Malcolm Gladwell, 2008) Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?*
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Poisoner’s Handbook (The): Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York (Deborah Blum, 2010) In The Poisoner’s Handbook Blum draws from highly original research to track the fascinating, perilous days when a pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.* Poker Bride (The): The First Chinese in the Wild West (Christopher Corbett, 2010) When Gold Rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese came through San Francisco to seek fortune. In The Poker Bride, Christopher Corbett uses a legend of one extraordinary woman as a lens into this experience.* Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation Of Taste (Herbert Gans, rev. ed., 1999) Gans holds that the choices of typical Ivy League graduates, not to mention Ph.D.’s in literature, are… very different from those of high school graduates, as are the movie houses, television channels, museums, and other cultural institutions they frequent.* Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures (Robert K. Wittman and John Shiffman, 2010) Rising from humble roots as the son of an antique dealer, Wittman built a twenty-year [FBI] career that was nothing short of extraordinary… He went undercover, usually unarmed, to catch art thieves, scammers, and black market traders in Paris and Philadelphia, Rio and Santa Fe, Miami and Madrid.* Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout (Lauren Redniss, 2011) In 1891, 24-year-old Marie Sklodowska moved from Warsaw to Paris, where she found work in the laboratory of Pierre Curie, a scientist engaged in research on heat and magnetism. They fell in love.* River Sea (The): The Amazon in History, Myth, and Legend (Marshall De Bruhl, 2010) The River Sea is a compelling account of five centuries of the history, the myths, and the legends of Río Amazonas, the most exotic and fascinating locale on earth.* Secret Gift (A): How One Man’s Kindness—and a Trove of Letters—Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression (Ted Gup, 2010) An inspiring account of America at its worst—and Americans at their best—woven from the stories of Depression-era families who were helped by gifts from the author’s generous and secretive grandfather.* Gup is an alumnus of WRA, Class of 1968.
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Social Animal (The): The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement (David Brooks, 2011) This is the story of how success happens. It is told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica— how they grow, push forward, are pulled back, fail, and succeed. Distilling a vast array of information into these two vividly realized characters, Brooks illustrates a fundamental new understanding of human nature.* Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery (Jennie Erin Smith, 2011) Tortoises disappear from a Madagascar reserve and reappear in the Bronx Zoo. A dead iguana floats in a jar, awaiting its unveiling in a Florida court. A viper causes mayhem from Ethiopia to Virginia. In Stolen World, Jennie Erin Smith takes the reader on an unforgettable journey, a dark adventure over five decades and six continents.* Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (Gregory Boyle, 2010) For twenty years, Gregory Boyle has run Homeboy Industries, a gangintervention program located in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, the gang capital of the world. In Tattoos on the Heart, he distills his experience working in the ghetto into a breathtaking series of parables inspired by faith.* Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath (Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman, 2009) For the first four months of 1942, American, Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought America’s first major land battle of World War II: the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the single largest defeat in American military history. This was only the beginning. Until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered forty-one months of unparalleled cruelty and savagery.* War (Sebastian Junger, 2010) This on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.* Warmth of Other Suns (The): The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (Isabel Wilkerson, 2010) Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.*
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Wolf in the Parlor (The): The Eternal Connection between Humans and Dogs (Jon Franklin, 2009) Of all the things hidden in plain sight, dogs are one of the most enigmatic. They are everywhere but how much do we really know about where they came from and what the implications are of their place in our world? Jon Franklin set out to find out and ended up spending a decade studying the origins and significance of the dog and its peculiar attachment to humans.* You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness (Julie Klam, 2010) Julie Klam was thirty, single, and working as a part-time clerk in an insurance company, wondering if she would ever meet the man she could spend the rest of her life with. And then it happened. She met the irresistible Otto, her first in a long line of Boston terriers, and fell instantly in love.* Zeitoun (Dave Eggers, 2009) When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared.* Biographies/Memoirs: Black Ice (Lorene Cary, 1992) In 1972 Lorene Cary, a bright, ambitious black teenager from Philadelphia, was transplanted into the formerly all-white, all-male environs of the elite St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, where she became a scholarship student in a “boot camp” for future American leaders. Like any good student, she was determined to succeed. But Cary was also determined to succeed without selling out.* 37
Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard (Liz Murray, 2010) Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls’ home. At age fifteen, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. Breaking Night is an unforgettable and beautifully written story of one young woman’s indomitable spirit to survive and prevail, against all odds.* First Family: Abigail and John Adams (Joseph J. Ellis, 2010) John and Abigail Adams left an indelible and remarkably preserved portrait of their lives together in their personal correspondence… Ellis distills this unprecedented and unsurpassed record to give us an account both intimate and panoramic; part biography, part political history, and part love story.* Half a Life (Darin Strauss, 2010) “Half my life ago, I killed a girl.” So begins Darin Strauss’ Half a Life, the true story of how one outing in his father’s Oldsmobile resulted in the death of a classmate and the beginning of a different, darker life for the author.* Junior Officers’ Reading Club (The): Killing Time and Fighting Wars (Patrick Hennessey, 2010) Hennessey captures how boys grow into men amid the frenetic, sometimes exhilarating violence, frequent boredom, and almost overwhelming responsibilities that frame a soldier’s experience and the way we fight today.*
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Other Wes Moore (The): One Name, Two Fates (Wes Moore, 2010) Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence?* Time to Betray (A): The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran (Reza Kahlil, 2010) A true story as exhilarating as a great spy thriller… A Time to Betray reveals what no other previous CIA operative’s memoir possibly could: the inner workings of the notorious Revolutionary Guards of Iran, as witnessed by an Iranian man inside their ranks who spied for the American government.* Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Laura Hillenbrand, 2010) On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.* Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (Steven Greenblatt, 2005) Stephen Greenblatt…has written a biography that enables us to see, hear, and feel how an acutely sensitive and talented boy, surrounded by the rich tapestry of Elizabethan life; full of drama and pageantry, and also cruelty and danger; could have become the world’s greatest playwright.*
Graphic Novels/Collections 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente (Wilfred Santiago, 2011) No other baseball player dominated the 1960s like him and no other Latin American player achieved his numbers. 21 chronicles his early days growing up in rural Puerto Rico, the highlights of his career (including the 1960s World Series), the prejudice he faced, his private life and his humanitarian mission.* Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne (Grant Morrison, 2011) The epic story continues as Batman returns to Gotham City.
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Eye of the World (The): The Graphic Novel, Volume One (Robert Jordan and Chuck Dixon, 2011) [This graphic novel] begins Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy tale by introducing Rand al’Thor and his friends Matrim and Perrin at the spring festival. Moiraine Damodred and Lan Mandragoran appear, and almost before Rand knows it, he and his friends are fleeing his home village….* Look for Volume #2 coming out in June 2012. I Kill Giants (Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Nimura, 2009) Barbara Thorson, a girl battling monsters both real and imagined, kicks butt, takes names, and faces her greatest fear in this bittersweet, coming-of-age story…* Marzi (Marzena Sowa, 2011) A compelling and powerful coming-of-age story that portrays the harsh realities of life behind the Iron Curtain while maintaining the everyday wonders and curiosity of childhood.* Nevermore: A Graphic Adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories (Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849; Metro Media adaptation, 2008) This haunting graphic anthology features the most famous stories of terror and suspense by Edgar Allan Poe, adapted by nine teams of celebrated writers and illustrators. Each story is translated in a different visual style, but they all succeed in capturing Poe’s macabre blend of doomed romanticism, gothic melodrama, and ghoulish destiny.* Odyssey (The) (Gareth Hinds, 2010) Award-winning graphic artist Gareth Hinds masterfully reinterprets a story of heroism, adventure, and high action that has been told and retold for more than 2,500 years—though never quite like this.* Swallow Me Whole (Nate Powell, 2010) As the story unfolds, two step-siblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the tiniest hope that everything will someday make sense.* Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey (GB Tran, 2011) A superb new graphic memoir in which an inspired artist/storyteller reveals the road that brought his family to where they are today….a visually stunning portrait of survival, escape, and reinvention—and of the gift of the American immigrants’ dream, passed on to their children.* Zahra’s Paradise (Amir, 2011) Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, Zahra’s Paradise is the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has vanished into an extrajudicial twilight zone.* 40
Collections: Short Stories, Essays and more… Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories (Megan Kelley Hall and Carrie Jones [eds.], 2011) Today’s top authors for teens come together to share their stories about bullying—as silent observers on the sidelines of high school, as victims, and as perpetrators—in a collection at turns moving and self-effacing, but always deeply personal.* Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories (Sandra McDonald, 2010) A collection of other worldly short stories from the science fiction writer. Disappearing Spoon (The): And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements (Sean Kean, 2010) The Periodic Table is one of man’s crowning scientific achievements. But it’s also a treasure trove of stories of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.* From the Jaws of Death: Extreme True Adventures of Man vs. Nature (Brogan Steele [ed.], 2010) A harrowing collection of true tales of death and survival under the most extreme conditions imaginable.*
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Humor Me: An Anthology of Funny Contemporary Writing (Plus Some Great Old Stuff Too) (Ian Frazier [ed.], 2010) Featuring more than fifty pieces of the greatest comic writing of our time…and also includes a handful of older comic masterpieces.* Ian Frazier is an alumnus of WRA. Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (The) (Sherman Alexie, 1993) In this darkly comic collection, Alexie brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy, and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation [and] depicts the distances between Indians and whites, reservation Indians and urban Indians, men and women, and, most poetically, modern Indians and the traditions of the past.* Spooky Campfire Tales: Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Supernatural Lore (S. E. Schlosser, 2007) Unfold a camp chair, huddle close to the fire, and get ready for thirty creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences from times past.* Travels in Siberia (Ian Frazier, 2010) In Travels in Siberia, [WRA alumnus] Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region, which takes up one-seventh of the land on earth.* Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Kevin Wilson, 2009) Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.*
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When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans (Laura Browder [comp.], 2010) Women from all five branches of the military share their stories here—stories that are by turns moving, comic, thought-provoking, and profound.*
Something for Everyone: Informational Titles for Teenagers Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload (Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, 2010) How do we discern what is reliable? How do we determine which facts (or whose opinions) to trust? Blur provides a road map, or more specifically, reveals the craft that has been used in newsrooms by the very best journalists for getting at the truth. In an age when the line between citizen and journalist is becoming increasingly unclear, Blur is a crucial guide for those who want to know what’s true.* Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different (Donald Asher, 2007) Look at colleges from a different perspective in this informative guide. Element (The): How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, 2009) The Element is the point at which natural talent meets personal passion. When people arrive at the Element, they feel most themselves and most inspired and achieve at their highest levels. With a wry sense of humor, Ken Robinson looks at the conditions that enable us to find ourselves in the Element and those that stifle that possibility.* Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (Michael Pollan, 2009) Written with the clarity, concision, and wit that is Michael Pollan’s trademark, this indispensable handbook lays out a set of straightforward, memorable rules for eating wisely.* Music Instinct (The): How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It (Philip Ball, 2010) Deftly weaving together the latest findings in brain science with history, mathematics, and philosophy, The Music Instinct not only deepens our appreciation of the music we love, but shows that we would not be ourselves without it.* Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America (Jay Parini, 2008) In Promised Land, Jay Parini repossesses that vibrant, intellectual heritage by examining the life and times of thirteen “books that changed America.” Each of the books has been a watershed, gathering intellectual currents already in motion and marking a turn in American life and thought.* 43
Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception (Charles Seife, 2010) The bestselling author of Zero shows how mathematical misinformation pervades-and shapes-our daily lives.* Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things (Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee, 2010) Frost and Steketee were the first to study hoarding when they began their work a decade ago; they expected to find a few sufferers but ended up treating hundreds of patients and fielding thousands of calls from the families of others. Now they explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies….* Superconnect: Harnessing the Power of Networks and the Strength of Weak Links (Richard Koch and Greg Lockwood, 2010) Koch and Lockwood show that success is less about who you are than how you connect [in this] practical guide to discovering the rules of our superconnected world through the science and sociology of networks.* Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where Do Your Rights End and Consequences Begin? (Thomas A. Jacobs, 2010) How do teens know when they might be “one click away from the clink”? In Teen Cyberbullying Investigated, Judge Tom Jacobs presents a powerful collection of landmark court cases involving teens and charges of cyberbullying….*
Poetry, Anyone? 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day (Billy Collins [ed.], 2005) In this sequel to Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (2003), the former Poet Laureate compiles another collection of his favorite poetry. Good Poems (Garrison Keillor, [ed.], 2003) Good Poems includes verse about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. It’s a book of poems for anybody who loves poetry whether they know it or not.*
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I Feel a Little Jumpy around You: A Book of Her Poems & His Poems Collected in Pairs (Naomi Shihab Nye and Paul B. Janeczko [eds.], 1996) In this award-winning anthology, the editors grouped almost 200 [contemporary] poems into pairs to demonstrate the different ways in which male and female poets see the same topics. How women see men, how boys see girls, and how we all see the world — often in very different ways, but surprisingly, wonderfully, sometimes very much the same.* In a Beautiful Country (Kevin Prufer, 2011) The latest poetry collection by the WRA alumnus. Light-Gathering Poems (Liz Rosenberg [ed.], 2000), An anthology of [classic] poems that heal, offer hope, and inspire.* A companion to her earlier EarthShattering Poems (1998). Newspaper Blackout (Austin Kleon, 2010) Poet and cartoonist Austin Kleon has discovered a new way to read between the lines. Armed with a daily newspaper and a permanent marker, he constructs through deconstruction—eliminating the words he doesn’t need to create a new art form: Newspaper Blackout poetry.* Poetry Home Repair Manual (The): Practical Advice for Beginning Poets (Ted Kooser, 2005) Here are tools and insights, the instructions (and warnings against instructions) that poets—aspiring or practicing—can use to hone their craft, perhaps into art.*
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Teen Angst: A Celebration of Really Bad Poetry (Sarah Bynoe (ed.), 2005) All of the poets featured in this collection are now adults, living happy, angst-free lives. However, for this special book, they are willing to reveal excerpts from their old tattered notebooks or leather bound journals. Along with the poems, each poet has included a short introduction, giving background information for each work.* When We Were Countries: Poems and Stories by Outstanding High School Writers (Mark Pawlak, Dick Lourie, and Robert Hershon, [eds.], 2010) This is a collection of poems and stories written by 73 outstanding high school age writers which originally appeared in the special high school section of Hanging Loose magazine. Why Poetry Matters (Jay Parini, 2009) Poetry doesn’t matter to most people, observes Jay Parini at the opening of this book. But, undeterred, he commences a deeply felt meditation on poetry, its language and meaning, and its power to open minds and transform lives.*
*These annotations have been reproduced from the product descriptions on Amazon.com. This listing is for educational purposes only.
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Looking for a Good Book? Some Web Sites to Help You… Below are some web sites that offer recommended books in a number of categories. While by no means all-inclusive, we hope to give you some useful suggestions of where to start looking… AllReaders.com (http://allreaders.com) Look for books by plot, theme, character or setting. Book reviews are also available. Bookwire: Book Awards (http://www.bookwire.com/) This web site offers links to a wide variety of book by genre. Bestsellers, new releases, and links to book reviews are also included Edgar Awards (http://www.mysterywriters.org) Click on “Awards & Programs” to find the nominees and winners of the annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards given by the Mystery Writers of America for writing achievement in the mystery field. Harvey Awards (http://harveyawards.org) Click on “Awards” to find the nominees and winners of the annual Harvey Awards that recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art. The Harvey Awards are the only industry award both nominated and selected by the full body of comic book professionals. Horror Writers Association (http://www.horror.org) Click on “Bram Stoker Awards” to locate those titles honored by the Horror Writers Association for achievement in horror writing. Hugo Awards (http://www.thehugoawards.org) Fan-voted awards for excellence in the field of science fiction and fantasy. Check out the home page for the current winners for this award. Click on “Hugo Award History” for past winners.
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National Book Awards (http://www.nationalbook.org/index.html) Click on “Awards/Winners and Finalists” to find the winners of the annual awards presented by the National Book Foundation for literary achievement in four categories: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and young people’s literature. National Book Critics Circle: Awards (http://www.bookcritics.org/?go=awards) Prestigious awards given for the year’s best books in six categories: fiction, general nonfiction, criticism, poetry, biography and autobiography. Overbooked: A Resource for Readers (http://www.overbooked.org) Specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable non-fiction. This web site is a non-profit volunteer project undertaken by librarian, Ann Chambers Theis. Pulitzer Prizes (http://www.pulitzer.org) Select any year to view the annual awards for distinguished writing by The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Web Sites for Book Lovers (http://www.webrary.org/rs/rslinks.html) An annotated directory of online bestseller lists, booklists, book awards sites, book discussion resources, genre fiction sites, literary magazines, and more. From the Morton Grove (IL) Public Library’s Webrary. Western Writers of America (http://www.westernwriters.org) Click on “Awards” to access titles that have received the Spur Awards for distinguished writing about the American West established by the Western Writers of America.
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Title Index Before I Fall, 1 Between Shades of Gray, 1 Big Girl Small, 1 Big Thirst (The): The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water, 11 Bitterblue, 1 Black Ice, 37 Blind Descent: The Quest to Discover the Deepest Place on Earth, 11 Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload, 43 Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, 11 Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, 31 Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To (The), 2 Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (The): Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope, 11 Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard, 38 Broken Glass Park, 20 Buck Stops Here (The): The 28 Toughest Presidential Decisions and How They Changed the World, 31 Caleb’s Crossing, 20 Call of the Wild, 2 Catch-22, 21
180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, 44 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, 29 1Q84, 20 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente, 39 33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day, 30 Abolition of Man (The), 30 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1 After the Golden Age, 1 Age of Wonder (The): The Romantic Generation and Discovery of the Beauty and Terror of Science, 30 All Creatures Great and Small, 10 Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream, 10 American Boy, 20 American History Revised: 200 Startling Facts That Never Made It into the Textbooks, 30 American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It), 30 Americans in Paris: Life and Death under Nazi Occupation, 10 Anna Karenina, 20 Annotated Mona Lisa (The): A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern, 11 Apollo’s Angels, 31 Art of Fielding (The), 20 Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, 39 Beauty Queens, 1 49
Dracula, 3 Eating Animals, 12 Education of Little Tree (The), 22 Elegance of the Hedgehog (The), 23 Element (The): How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, 43 Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discoveries, Deductions, and Debates, 12 Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, 32 Eye of the World (The): The Graphic Novel, Volume One, 40 Fantasy Freaks & Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, 12 Fight to Survive (The): A Young Girl, Diabetes, and the Discovery of Insulin, 18 First Family: Abigail and John Adams, 38 Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, 43 Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets, 12 Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, 32 From the Jaws of Death: Extreme True Adventures of Man vs. Nature, 41 Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth (The): Popularity, Quirk Theory, and Why Outsiders Thrive After High School, 32 Genomics Age (The): How DNA Technology is Transforming the Way We Live and Who We Are, 32
Central Park Five (The): A Chronicle of a City Wilding, 31 Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith, 17 City of Veils: A Novel, 21 Cold Sassy Tree, 21 Cool Colleges: For the Hyper-Intelligent, Self-Directed, Late Blooming, and Just Plain Different, 43 Count of Monte Cristo (The), 2 Dance with Dragons (A), 2 Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949, 11 Dear Bully: Seventy Authors Tell Their Stories, 41 Death of Kings, 21 Delirium, 22 Destiny of the Republic (The): A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President, 31 Devil’s Teeth (The): A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks, 12 Diamond Ruby: A Novel, 3 Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories, 41 Disappearing Spoon (The): And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, 41 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 3 Door of No Return (The): The History of Cape Coast Castle and the Atlantic Slave Trade, 31 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 3
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Girl in Translation, 4 Girl Who Fell from the Sky (The): A Novel, 4 Glass Castle (The): A Memoir, 18 Go Tell It on the Mountain, 23 Good Poems, 44 Grand Design (The), 12 Grapes of Wrath (The), 23 Grendel, 4 Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 12 Half a Life, 38 Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors (The), 23 Heart is a Lonely Hunter (The), 4 Help (The), 4 History of Horror (A), 13 History of the World in 100 Objects (A), 13 Hot Zone (The): A Terrifying True Story, 13 House of Tomorrow (The), 4 House Rules: A Novel, 4 Humor Me: An Anthology of Funny Contemporary Writing (Plus Some Great Old Stuff Too), 42 I Feel a Little Jumpy Around You: A Book of Her Poems & His Poems Collected in Pairs, 45 I Kill Giants, 40 Immortal Game (The): A History of Chess, 13 Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (The), 32 In a Beautiful Country, 45 In Zanesville, 5 Inheritance, 5 Inheritance of Loss (The), 5 Invisible Man, 23
Ivanhoe, 23 Junior Officers’ Reading Club (The): Killing Time and Fighting Wars, 38 Khan: Empire of Silver, 5 Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever, 33 Kim, 5 Kindred, 23 Kite Runner (The), 23 Last Brother (The): A Novel, 6 Last Hero (The): A Life of Henry Aaron, 18 Lean on Pete: A Novel, 6 Left Hand of Darkness (The), 24 Light-Gathering Poems, 45 Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, 14 Lock Artist (The): A Novel, 24 Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (The), 42 Lord of the Flies, 6 Lost Books of the Odyssey (The), 24 Lost City of Z (The): A Tale of Death and Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, 33 Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, 18 Lover’s Dictionary (The), 24 Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, 14 Mao’s Last Dancer, 18 Marzi, 40 Matched, 6 Micro, 24
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Paper Covers Rock, 7 Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (The): A Novel, 7 Pathfinder, 7 Pests: A Guide to the World’s Most Maligned, Yet Misunderstood Creatures, 15 Pink Boots and a Machete: My Journey from NFL Cheerleader to National Geographic Explorer, 19 Planet of Viruses (A), 15 Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, 15 Poetry Home Repair Manual (The): Practical Advice for Beginning Poets, 45 Poisoner’s Handbook (The): Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, 35 Poker Bride (The): The First Chinese in the Wild West, 35 Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation Of Taste, 35 Portrait of a Spy, 25 Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World’s Stolen Treasures, 35 Promised Land: Thirteen Books That Changed America, 43 Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception, 44 Queen of Water (The), 8 Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, 35 Radleys (The), 25 Ready Player One, 8
Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War, 33 Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them, 33 Mockingbirds (The), 24 Mockingjay, 7 Model Home: A Novel, 24 Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, 34 Music Instinct (The): How Music Works and Why We Can’t Do Without It, 43 Nemesis, 25 Nevermore: A Graphic Adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Stories, 40 New Kids (The): Big Dreams and Brave Journeys at a High School for Immigrant Teens, 14 Newspaper Blackout, 45 Night Circus (The), 25 No Country for Old Men, 7 Odyssey (The), 40 Of Mice and Men, 7 On the Run in Siberia, 34 Once upon a River, 25 Orchards, 7 Other Wes Moore (The): One Name, Two Fates, 39 Outliers: The Story of Success, 34 Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, 14
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Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, 15 Reapers are the Angels (The): A Novel, 26 Red and the Black (The), 26 River Sea (The): The Amazon in History, Myth, and Legend, 35 Road (The), 8 Robopocalypse, 26 Room: A Novel, 26 Sacred Cipher (The), 27 Salvage the Bones, 27 Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt (The): A Novel in Pictures, 27 Secret Gift (A): How One Man’s Kindness—and a Trove of Letters—Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression, 35 Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron, 27 Shenandoah Spy (The), 8 Short History of Nearly Everything (A), 15 Skippy Dies, 27 Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things, 15 Small Furry Prayer (A): Dog Rescue and the Meaning of Life, 15 Social Animal (The): The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, 36 Solitude of Prime Numbers (The), 27 Spooky Campfire Tales: Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Supernatural Lore, 42
Sports and their Fans: The History, Economics and Culture of the Relationship between Spectator and Sport, 16 Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery, 36 Story of Stuff (The): How Our Obsession with Stuff is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health—and a Vision for Change, 16 Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, 44 Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, 16 Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science, 16 Super Species: The Creatures That Will Dominate the Planet, 16 Superconnect: Harnessing the Power of Networks and the Strength of Weak Links, 44 Swallow Me Whole, 40 Swamplandia!, 8 Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time: My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals, 16 Tale of Two Cities (A), 8 Tales of an African Vet, 16 Talk-Funny Girl (The), 28 Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, 36 Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath, 36 Teen Angst: A Celebration of Really Bad Poetry, 46
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Teen Cyberbullying Investigated: Where Do Your Rights End and Consequences Begin?, 44 Testimony, 28 This World We Live In, 8 Three Bags Full: A Sheep Detective Story, 9 Time to Betray (A): The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent Inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, 39 Tinkers, 9 Toward the Setting Sun: John Ross, the Cherokees and the Trail of Tears, 17 Trapped: A Novel of Terror, 9 Travels in Siberia, 42 True Adventures of the World’s Greatest Stuntman (The): My Life as Indiana Jones, James Bond, Superman and Other Movie Heroes, 19 True Grit, 28 Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, 42 Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, 39 Vanishing of Katharina Linden (The): A Novel, 28 Various Positions, 9 Vietnamerica: A Family’s Journey, 40 War, 36 Warmth of Other Suns (The): The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, 36 Wheelchair Warrior: Gangs, Disability, and Basketball, 19
When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans, 43 When We Were Countries: Poems and Stories by Outstanding High School Writers, 46 White Devil (The), 28 Why Poetry Matters, 46 Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, 39 Wingshooters, 28 Wise Man’s Fear (The), 10 Wisenheimer: A Childhood Subject to Debate, 19 Wolf in the Parlor (The): The Eternal Connection between Humans and Dogs, 37 World According to Garp (The), 29 World Beneath (The), 29 World’s Creepiest Places (The) 17 You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness, 37 Zahra’s Paradise, 40 Zeitoun, 37
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Author Index Alexie, Sherman, 42 Amir, 40 Andrews, Donna, 2 Appanah, Nathacha, 6 Armstrong, Vic, 19 Aronica, Lou, 43 Aronson, Marc, 16 Aronson, Roy, 16 Asher, David, 43 Atherton, Nancy, 2 Baldwin, James, 23 Ball, Philip, 43 Barbery, Muriel, 23 Barr, Nevada, 22 Barron, Stephanie, 2 Beard, Jo An, 5 Bell, Alden, 26 Bender, Aimee, 7 Berger, Ronald J., 19 Bissell, Tom, 32 Bloom, Jonathan, 30 Blum, Deborah, 35 Blumenthal, Karen, 11 Bognanni, Peter, 4 Box, C. J., 2 Boyle, Gregory, 36 Bray, Libbie, 1 Brennan, Terry, 27 Bronsky, Alina, 20 Brooks, David, 36 Brooks, Geraldine, 20 Browder, Laura, 43 Bryant, Howard, 18 Bryson, Bill, 15 Budhos, Maria, 16 Burns, Olive Ann, 21
Burns, Sarah, 31 Butler, Octavia, 23 Bynoe, Sarah, 46 Campbell, Bonnie Jo, 25 Card, Orson Scott, 7 Carter, Forrest, 22 Cary, Lorene, 37 Casey, Susan, 12 Cashore, Kristin, 1 Christie, Agatha, 22 Cline, Ernest, 8 Collins, Billy, 44 Collins, Suzanne, 7 Condie, Ally, 6 Conniff, Richard, 16 Corbett, Christopher, 35 Cornwell, Bernard, 21 Cox, Caroline, 18 Craughwell Thomas J., 31 Crichton, Michael, 24 Cunxin, Li, 18 Curran, Bob, 17 Daniels, Ian, 17 Davis, Lindsey, 22 De Bruhl, Marshall, 35 Desai, Kirin, 5 DeWoskin, Rachel, 1 Diamond, Jared, 12 Dick, Philip K., 3 Dickens, Charles, 8 Dixon, Chuck, 40 Dixon, Wheeler Winston, 13 Donoghue, Emma, 26
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Dugard, Martin, 33 Dumas, Alexandre, 2 Durrow, Heidi W., 4 Eggers, Dave, 37 Ellis, Joseph J., 38 Ellison, Ralph, 23 Evanovich, Janet, 22 Evans, Justin, 28 Farinango, Maria Virginia, 8 Ferraris, ZoĂŤ, 21 Fforde, Jasper, 27 Fishman, Charles, 11 Fluke, Joanna, 3 Foer, Jonathan Safran, 12 Francis, Dick, 22 Franklin, Jon, 37 Frazier, Ian, 42 Freinkel, Susan, 15 Frost, Randy O., 44 Gans, Herbert, 35 Gardner, John, 4 Gilsford, Ethan, 12 Giordano, Paulo, 27 Gladwell, Malcolm, 34 Glass, Charles, 10 Golding, William, 6 Grafton, Sue, 22 Grann, David, 33 Grant, Helen, 28 Greenblatt, Stephen, 39 Grennan, Conor, 14 Gup, Ted, 35 Haig, Matt, 25
Haines, Kathryn Miller, 3 Hall, Megan Kelley, 41 Hamilton, Garry, 16 Hamilton, Steve, 24 Hamit, Francis, 8 Harbach, Chad, 20 Harding, Paul, 9 Harris, Charlaine, 22 Hauser, Brook, 14 Hawking, Steven, 12 Heiligman, Deborah, 17 Heller, Joseph, 21 Hennessey, Patrick, 38 Herriot, James, 10 Hershon, Robert, 46 Hicks, Brian, 17 Hillenbrand, Laura, 39 Hinds, Gareth, 40 Hohn, Donovan, 33 Holmes, Richard, 30 Homans, Jennifer, 31 Horwitz, Tony, 33 Hosseini, Khaled, 23 Hubbard, Jenny, 7 Iggulden, Conn, 5 Irving, John, 29 Jacobs, Thomas A., 44 James, P. D., 22 Janeczko, Paul B., 45 Jones, Carrie, 41 Jordan, Robert, 40 Juette, Melvin, 19 Junger, Sebastian, 36 Kahlil, Reza, 39 Kamkwamba, William, 11 Kean, Sean, 41
Keillor, Garrison, 44 Kelly, Joe, 40 Kennedy, Cate, 29 Kidder, Tracy, 34 Kiester, Jr., Edwin, 31 Kilborn, Jack, 9 King, Laurie R., 3 Kipling, Rudyard, 5 Klam, Julie, 37 Kleon, Austin, 45 Koch, Richard, 44 Kooser, Ted, 45 Kotler, Steve, 15 Kovack, Bill, 43 Kwok, Jean, 4 Laufer, Peter, 12 LeGuin, Ursula, 24 Leonard, Annie, 16 Levithan, David, 24 Lewis, C. S., 30 Lockwood, Greg, 44 London, Jack, 2 Lord, M.G., 32 Lourie, Bruce, 15 Lourie, Dick, 46 Lutz, Lisa, 22 Lynsky, Dorian, 30 MacGregor, Neil, 13 Mankell, Henning, 22 Mann, Charles C., 29 Marston, Edward, 3 Martin, George, R. R., 2 Mason, Zachary, 24 Mayor, Mireya, 19 McCall Smith, Alexander, 3 McCarthy, Cormac, 7, 8 McCullers, Carson, 4 56
McDonald, Sandra, 41 McDougall, Christopher, 31 McGonigal, Jane, 15 Mealer, Bryan, 11 Merullo, Roland, 28 Millard, Candice, 31 Mlodinow, Leonard, 12 Moore, Wes, 39 Morgenstern, Erin, 25 Morris, Jr., Seymour, 30 Morrison, Grant, 39 Murakami, Haruki, 20 Murray, Liz, 38 Murray, Paul, 27 Nazario, Sonia, Nimura, J. M. Ken, 40 Norman, Elizabeth M., 36 Norman, Michael, 36 Nye, Naomi Shihab, 45 O’Reilly, Bill, 33 Oliver, Lauren, 1, 22 Oppenheimer, Mark, 19 Paolini, Christopher, 5 Parini, Jay, 43, 46 Parker, Robert B., 22 Patel, Raj, 16 Pawlak, Mark, 46 Peters, Elizabeth, 3 Peters, Ellis, 3 Pfeffer, Susan Beth, 8 Picoult, Jodi, 4 Pierson, DC, 2 Piper, Ross, 15 Poe, Edgar Allan, 40 Pollan, Michael, 43 Portis, Charles, 28
Powell, Nate, 40 Preston, Caroline, 27 Preston, Richard, 13, 24 Prufer, Kevin, 45 Puchner, Eric, 24 Quinn, Kevin G., 16 Quinn, Spencer, 3 Redniss, Lauren, 35 Reeves, Richard, 11 Reichs, Kathy, 3 Reisen, Harriet, 18 Resau, Laura, 8 Revoyr, Nina, 28 Roach, Mary, 14, 34 Robbins, Alexandra, 32 Roberts, Les, 3 Robertshaw, Peter, 12 Robinson, Ken, 43 Rosenberg, Liz, 45 Rosenstiel, Tom, 43 Roth, Philip, 25 Rothfuss, Patrick, 10 Rubalcaba, Jill, 12 Russell, Karen, 8 Santiago, Wilfred, 39 Schabas, Martha, 9 Schlosser, S. E., 42 Scott, Sir Walter, 23 Seife, Charles, 44 Sepetys, Ruta, 1 Shenk, David, 13 Shiffman, John, 35 Shreve, Anita, 28 Silva, Daniel, 25 Skloot, Rebecca, 32 Smith, Gina, 32 Smith, Jennie Erin, 36 Smith, Rick, 15
Sowa, Marzena, 40 St. Clair, William, 31 Stachan, Geoffrey, 6 Steele, Brogan, 41 Steinbeck, John, 7, 23 Steketee, Gail, 44 Stendahl, 26 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 3 Stockett, Katherine, 4 Stoker, Bram, 3 Stone, Tanya Lee, 10 Strauss, Darin, 38 Strickland, Carol, 11 Swann, Leonie, 9 Swanson, James L., 14 Tabor, James M., 11 Thomas, Will, 22 Thompson, Holly, 7 Tolstoy, Leo, 20 Tran, GB, 40 Twain, Mark, 1 Vaughn, Carrie, 1 Vlautin, Willy, 6 Wallace, Joseph, 3 Walls, Jeannette, 18 Ward, Jesmyn, 27 Watson, Larry, 20 Whitney, Daisy, 24 Wilkerson, Isabel, 36 Willerslev, Rane, 34 Wilson, Daniel H., 26 Wilson, Kevin, 42 Wittman, Robert K., 35 Womack, Steve, 22 Young-Stone, Michele, 23 Zimmer, Carl, 15 57
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