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2009–2010 Booklist
The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic — And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
Join us for Everybody Reads, Multnomah County Library's annual community-wide book discussion. This thrilling historical account of the worst cholera outbreak in Victorian London is a brilliant exploration of how Dr. John Snow's solution revolutionized the way we think about disease, cities, science and the modern world.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm-town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Macon Leary is a travel writer who hates both travel and anything out of the ordinary. He is grounded by loneliness and an unwillingness to compromise his creature comforts when he meets Muriel, a deliciously peculiar dog obedience trainer who up-ends Macon's insular world — and thrusts him headlong into a remarkable engagement with life.
Achilles by Elizabeth Cook
With this brilliantly conceived retelling of the plight of one of Homer's heroes, British writer Cook demonstrates the same skill that has made her poetry and examinations of Renaissance literature so wonderfully memorable. Cleaving closely to The Odyssey but embellishing her tale with sharply imagined creative flourishes, Cook navigates the rise and fall of the powerful Greek warrior Achilles.
All the Names by José Saramago
Birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates. It's all the same to Senhor Jos, who works at the Central Registry. But one day he becomes interested in a young woman's birth certificate and sets out to learn everything about her. His efforts have unforeseen consequences.
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
The memoir of a cherished writer who had the good fortune to be born to literate, prosperous, non-conformist parents who gave her unconditional love — and a microscope.
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Alice Blackwell (picture Laura Bush) considers the strange and unlikely path that has led her to the White House and the repercussions of a life lived, as she puts it, "almost in opposition to itself."
Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins
Come on in to Captain Kendrick's Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve (a roadside attraction only bestselling Robbins could invent) — things are going to get outrageous!
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
What do you get when a woman who's obsessed with death and U.S. history goes on vacation? This wacky, weirdly enthralling exploration of the first three presidential assassinations. Vowell, a contributor to NPR's This American Life, takes readers on a pilgrimage of sorts to the sites and monuments that pay homage to Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley.
Australia Years: The Life of a Nuclear Migrant by P. Anna Johnson
With the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union at its height, a young couple migrates to Australia to escape imminent nuclear war. Amidst the backdrop of the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the women's liberation movement, Johnson searches for meaning in a strange land.
The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky
From the author of Cod comes the illuminating story of an ancient and enigmatic people. Kurlansky's passion for the Basque people and his exuberant eye for detail shine through this fascinating book, which blends human stories with economic, literary and culinary history into a rich and heroic tale.
The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam
Using portraits of America's flawed policy makers and accounts of the forces that drove them, The Best and the Brightest reckons magnificently with the most important abiding question of our country's recent history: Why did America become mired in Vietnam, and why did we lose? As the definitive single-volume answer to that question, this enthralling book has never been superseded.
Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs is back, and this time she has been hired to find a wealthy grocery magnate's daughter who has fled from home. What seems at first a simple case becomes complicated when Maisie learns of the recent violent deaths of three of the heiress's old friends. Is there a connection between her mysterious disappearance and the murders? Who would kill such charming young women? As Maisie investigates, she discovers that the answers to all her questions lie in the unforgettable agony of The Great War.
The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
Recent evidence has shown that the human brain is a dynamic organ that can sometimes rewire itself, even in the face of catastrophic trauma. Read moving and inspiring stories of stroke patients learning to speak again, cerebral palsy patients learning to move more easily, anxiety and depression patients being successfully treated. Doidge's writing is akin to Oliver Sacks in his ability to make sometimes difficult scientific topics more readable and interesting to everyone.
The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong
The Brethren is the first detailed behind-the-scenes account of the Supreme Court in action. Woodward and Armstrong have pierced its secrecy to give us an unprecedented view of the chief and associate justices — maneuvering, arguing, politicking, compromising and making decisions that affect every major area of American life.
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Thirty-four-year-old Nazeen has let fate determine her life with an arranged marriage, two battling daughters and a run-down London apartment, until she slowly wakes up to the world beyond her flat.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2008, this novel, set in New Jersey, is a portrait of a brutal time in the 20th century Dominican Republic and the life of a family who escaped it. Encapsulating Dominican-American history, it explores the endless human capacity to persevere and risk it all in the name of love.
Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos
A debut novel of infinite charm and tremendous heart that explores the risks and rewards of human connection. Funny, heartbreaking and alive with a potpourri of eccentric and irresistible characters, Broken for You is a testament to the saving graces of surrogate families and shows how far the tiniest repair jobs can go in righting the world's wrongs.
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot
Talbot, a journalist and founder of Salon.com, uses interviews with Kennedy administration insiders, friends and family, as well as recently released government documents, to tell the story of the relationship between John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy from 1961 to the aftermath of JFK's assassination and his brother's attempts to find answers about it.
Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey by Isabel Fonseca
Fonseca describes the four years she spent with Gypsies from Albania to Poland; listening to their stories; deciphering their taboos; and befriending their matriarchs, activists, and child prostitutes. A masterful work of personal reportage, this volume is also a vibrant portrait of a mysterious people and an essential document of a disappearing culture.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this apocalyptic story tells of earth's ultimate end, and presents a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny, as Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness.
Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons
A family without men, the Birches live gloriously offbeat lives in the lush, green backwoods of North Carolina. Sophia, Margaret and Charlie Kate find strength in a time when women almost always depended on men, and their bond deepens as each one experiences love and loss during World War II.
China Road: A Journey into the Future of a Rising Power by Rob Gifford
National Public Radio's Beijing bureau chief takes a journey along Route 312 — China's equivalent of America's Route 66 — to give readers an up-close-and-personal look at the country's people and awe-inspiring future.
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx
Pulitzer Prize-winner E. Annie Proulx forays through the underside of America's beloved Wild West in this prize-winning collection of stories about hardship and more hardship in Wyoming territory.
Clown Girl by Monica Drake
Nita, aka Sniffles the Clown, struggles in Baloneytown to make enough money to stay alive as well as help put her handsome clown boyfriend, Rex Galore, through Clown College.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond
Diamond casts a wide net in the realms of history, geography and science to address questions essential to humanity's continued survival.
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Discover the tantalizing true stories behind your favorite colors.
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
The comic book transfigured, this graphic novel tells the story of Spiegelman's parents Vladek and Anna, Jews reaching maturity in a Europe on the verge of Nazism, and their terrifying history and eventual survival in the concentration camps.
Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain
Meet the author! In this delicious and affectionate parody of the beloved Nancy Drew series, Nancy Drew-Nickerson insists she was not a fictional character, and Carolyn Keene was not a hardworking team of writers. In fact, Carolyn was Nancy's college roommate, who shamelessly plagiarized the tales from Nancy's exploits and, in the process, got a whole lot wrong.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins
Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
Maguire's chilling, wonderful retelling of Cinderella is a study in contrasts. Love and hate, beauty and ugliness, cruelty and charity — each idea is stripped of its ethical trappings, smashed up against its opposite number, and laid bare for our examination.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic 15-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.
A Curtain of Green, and Other Stories by Eudora Welty
This is the first collection of Welty's stories, originally published in 1941. It includes such classics as A Worn Path, Petrified Man, Why I Live at the P.O. and Death of a Traveling Salesman. The historic introduction by Katherine Anne Porter brought Welty to the attention of the American reading public.
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
A Chilean immigrant in San Francisco goes to the Gold Rush fields disguised as a man to follow her lover.
Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong
In this Anthony Award-winning debut, Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police must find the murderer of a National Model worker, then risk his own life and career to see that justice is done.
Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
This is a vivid and charming portrait of a large southern family, the Fairchilds, who live on a plantation in the Mississippi delta. The story, set in 1923, is exquisitely woven from the ordinary events of family life, centered around the visit of a young relative, Laura McRaven, and the family's preparations for her cousin Dabney's wedding.
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Sagan muses on the current state of scientific thought, which offers him marvelous opportunities to entertain us with his own childhood experiences, the newspaper morgues, UFO stories, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of pseudoscience. Along the way he debunks alien abduction, faith-healing and channeling; refutes the arguments that science destroys spirituality, and provides a "baloney detection kit" for thinking through political, social, religious and other issues.
Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
Obama, the son of a white American mother and a black African father, writes an elegant and compelling biography that powerfully articulates America's racial battleground and tells of his search for his place in black America.
Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia by Chris Stewart
This rip-roaringly funny book about seeking a place in an earthy community of peasants and shepherds gives a realistic sense of the hassles and rewards of foreign relocation.
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
A truck jackknifes off an "arrow straight country road" near Kearney, Nebraska, becoming the catalyst for a painstakingly rendered minuet of self-reckoning. The accident puts the truck's 27-year-old driver, Mark Schluter, into a 14-day coma. When he emerges, he is stricken with Capgras syndrome: he's unable to match his visual and intellectual identifications with his emotional ones. He thinks his sister, Karin, isn't actually his sister — she's an imposter.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
In this enthralling international bestseller, a widow and a 12-year-old girl live inconspicuous lives in the center of an elegant Paris apartment building. It is only when a stranger moves into their building — and sees through their disguises — that Paloma and Renée discover their kindred spirits.
The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
A magnificent novel of fate and fortune — of love and friendship, family and secrets, of striving and glamour, disaster and promise — this is a tour de force that brings to life a city, a generation, and living in the moment.
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
The story of a mysterious woman attempting to command her own destiny in the sensuous High Renaissance Florence of Machievelli and the Medicis. Set in the hedonist Indian capital of the Mughal Empire, a sumptuous mixture of history and fable; an incandescent tale of travel, treachery and transformation.
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
An account of British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's epic adventure to the South Atlantic and the first crossing of the Antarctic continent. Half a continent away from its intended base, the ship Endurance was crushed in the ice. For five months, Shackleton and his men were castaways in one of the most savage regions of the world.
Ex-Libris by Ross King
In 1660, Isaac Inchbold, middle-aged proprietor of Nonsuch Books, is given a strange task: He is to track down a certain ancient and heretical manuscript. King expertly leads his protagonist through an endless labyrinth of clues, discoveries and dangers, all the while expertly detailing 17th-century Europe's struggles over religion and knowledge.
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Oskar Schell is an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist. He is 9 years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The Eyre Affair: A Novel by Jasper Fforde
Set in an alternate universe where literature is the primary form of entertainment and Shakespeare inspires cult-like followings, Thursday Next is a literary detective. She can jump into books and interact with the characters. Unfortunately, arch-villian Acheron Hades has this ability as well, and he is threatening the life of Charlotte Bronte's beloved character, Jane Eyre.
The Forger's Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick
The genius of Han van Meegeren was certainly not in his ability to forge the beautiful paintings of Vermeer, which were pale imitations at best. It was his cunning ability of psychological manipulation — bamboozling museum curators, top art critics, and convincing the highest ranking Nazi officials, including Goering himself, that the paintings were originals.
Borchert offers readers a ringside seat for the unlikely spectacle of mayhem and absurdity that is business as usual at the public library. From the first page of this comic debut to the last, readers will learn everything about the world of the modern-day library that they never expected.
Garlic and Sapphires is Reichl's account of her experience undercover in her position as food critic for The New York Times. She throws back the curtain on the sumptuously appointed stages of the epicurean world to reveal the comic absurdity, artifice and excellence there, giving us (along with some of her favorite recipes and reviews) her remarkable reflections on role playing and identity.
Long-time NPR foreign correspondent and self-confessed mope, Weiner visits ten countries and calls on the collective wisdom of "the self-help industrial complex" to help him navigate the path to bliss. The result is both hilarious and profound as he visits some of the world's most contented places.
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Baldwin delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving and passionate story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the heart.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
A crusading journalist joins forces with a 24-year-old pierced and tattooed genius hacker to investigate the whereabouts of a missing woman from one of the wealthiest families in Sweden.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
As London is emerging from the shadow of World War II, writer Juliet Ashton discovers her next subject in a book club on Guernsey — a club born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi after its members are discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island.
Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen
When she moved to New Orleans, Roahen, a former line cook, realized she knew nothing about gumbo, had never peeled a crawfish, and couldn't manage an oyster without a knife. After landing a job as a food writer for an alternative paper, the jig was up. Her outsider status drove her to understand, cook, eat, and ultimately fall in love with New Orleans through its food and people.
The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tuchman has brought to life again the people and events that led up to World War I. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledge of her subject and its characters, Tuchman reveals, for the first time, just how the war started, why, and why it could have been stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time and a people we all need to know more about, The Guns of August will not be forgotten.
Half Broken Things by Morag Joss
When a mixture of deceit, good luck, and misfortune draws three strangers — an aging house-sitter, a struggling con man and a pregnant young woman — together at Walden Manor, each sees one final chance to start over.
Hannah's Dream by Diane Hammond
Meet the author! In the tradition of Water for Elephants comes a charming, captivating story of an aging caretaker and his beloved elephant, and an extraordinary cast of quirky characters centered around a dilapidated zoo.
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
The moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his 8-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.
The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss
With the elegant sweetness of Plainsong and a pitch-perfect sense of western life reminiscent of Annie Dillard, The Hearts of Horses is a remarkable story about the connections between and among people and animals and how they touch one another in the most unexpected and profound ways.
HeartSick by Chelsea Cain
Meet the author! Detective Archie Sheridan has spent years tracking serial killer Gretchen Lowell. In the end, it was she who caught him, tortured him, then mysteriously set him free and turned herself in. Now as he trails a new case, Archie needs Gretchen in more ways than one — to catch a killer and to release his soul.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage
Throughout human history certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them — beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola — have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.
Hold the Enlightenment by Tim Cahill
This collection takes the reader from the largest toxic waste dump in the Western Hemisphere to citing studies of dolphin gang rape. There's something for everyone!
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Cunningham draws inventively on the life and work of Virginia Woolf to tell the story of a group of contemporary characters struggling with the conflicting claims of love and inheritance, hope and despair.
The Howling Miller by Arto Paasilinna
Set in 1950s northern Finland, this novel explores the story of an eccentric miller and the corrupt society surrounding him.
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
A contemporary story of adventure and romance, identity and history, this novel brings two outsiders deep into one of the most fascinating regions on Earth — tiny islands known as the Sundarbans off the coast of India — where life is ruled by the unforgiving tides and the constant threat of attack by Bengal tigers.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Two strong-willed sisters survive their teenage years in a crumbling castle during the very difficult years of the Great Depression. A very fine example of a novel written in the form of a journal.
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ali tells her life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia to her intellectual awakening in the Netherlands to her life under armed guard in the West.
Interpreter of Maladies: Stories by Jhumpa Lahiri
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Admitting an interest that borders on obsession, Krakauer searches for the clues to the drives and desires that propelled 24-year-old Chris McCandless to leave civilization behind and head into the remote Alaskan wilderness.
The Invisible Wall: A Love Story that Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein
The enchanting true story of a love affair that broke down the walls that divided a neighborhood. Bernstein has written a wonderfully charming and moving tale of working class life, social divide and forbidden love on the eve of World War I.
Ireland: A Novel by Frank Delaney
On a November evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller arrives unannounced at a house in the Irish countryside. By the fire, he begins to tell the story of this extraordinary island. A 9-year-old boy, listening, grows so entranced that he devotes his life to finding the storyteller after the old man leaves.
Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk
Weaving history with observations of people, places, and art, Pamuk shows Istanbul's transformation from the seat of faded imperial glory to the capital of a modern nation at the dizzying crossroads of East and West.
The Johnstown Flood by David G. McCullough
McCullough's first book, written in 1987, is the story of a tragedy that became a national scandal. More than 2,000 people died and an entire town was nearly washed away in 10 minutes when on May 31, 1889, a hastily rebuilt dam failed after repeated warnings of instability. The scandal involved the most prominent business barons of the day and illustrated the danger of assuming that people in positions of responsibility are necessarily behaving responsibly.
With the humor of Bridget Jones and the vitality of Augusten Burroughs, Powell recounts how she conquered every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking — and saved her soul.
The Jump-Off Creek by Molly Gloss
The Jump-Off Creek is the unforgettable story of widowed homesteader Lydia Sanderson and her struggles to settle in the mountains of Oregon in the 1890s.
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
A young married woman, whose husband has been paralyzed and is impotent, embarks on an affair with their gamekeeper and realizes she cannot live in the mind alone, she must also be alive physically.
Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin
In The Aeneid, Virgil's hero fights to claim the king's daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in this novel set in the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor
Sharing a personal perspective on the past three decades of world history, Queen Noor talks frankly of the many challenges of her life as wife and partner to the monarch, providing both an intimate portrait of the late King Hussein and a moving account of their public role.
An award-winning story of two families, one Jewish and one Palestinian, who both had lived in the small stone house in Ramla, Israel, that had a lemon tree growing in the backyard. Tolan traces the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the personal histories of each family.
Life of Pi: A Novel by Yann Martel
Pi Patel practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When his family and their zoo animals emigrate to North America, their ship sinks and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger as his only companions.
Davis makes a case for a connection between biodiversity and cultural diversity, and posits that the environmental destruction and globalization that are decimating indigenous cultures are depriving future generations of their valuable knowledge, wisdom, and unique perspectives.
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie
In this darkly comic collection of 22 interlocked tales, Alexie brilliantly weaves memory, fantasy and stark realism to paint a complex, grimly ironic portrait of life in and around the Spokane Indian Reservation.
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
Fact and fiction are brilliantly blended in this compelling novel about the relationship between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney, the wife of a couple whose home Wright built in 1904.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The wife of a stolid middle-aged doctor rebels at the provincial life forced upon her and engages in a series of illicit affairs, which ultimately lead to tragedy.
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
This novel follows Russian emigré Marina Buriakov, 82, who is preparing for her granddaughter's wedding near Seattle while fighting a losing battle against Alzheimer's. Struggling to remember whom Katie is marrying (and indeed that there is to be a marriage at all), Marina remembers her youth as an Hermitage Museum docent as the siege of Leningrad began; it is into these memories that she disappears.
March by Geraldine Brooks
Brooks tells the story of the absent father, March, in Louisa May Alcott's classic, Little Women. When March goes off to join the Union cause during the Civil War, his experiences change his marriage and his beliefs.
Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan
The story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life.
Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg
The talents he nurtured became worldwide literary legends — among them, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. But Maxwell Perkins remained a mystery, a backstage presence who served these authors not only as editor extraordinaire but also as critic, psychoanalyst, father-confessor and devoted friend.
The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
A doctor is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son is perfectly healthy, but his daughter has Down syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect his wife, he asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution. Instead, the nurse disappears into another city to raise the child herself.
Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz
A story of Cairo on the brink of the end of colonialism and the beginning of the modern era, Mahfouz expresses the change from traditional to modern life through the characters who inhabit a street in Cairo.
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Miss Pettigrew is a down-on-her-luck, middle-aged governess in London sent by her employment agency to work for nightclub singer Delysia LaFosse, rather than a household of unruly children. Over a period of 24 hours, her life is changed forever.
Moo by Jane Smiley
Effortlessly switching gears after the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres, Smiley delivers a surprising tour de force, a satire of university life that leaves no aspect of contemporary academia unscathed.
My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor by Alec Guinness
This 18-month diary, from January 1995 to June 1996, from one of the most distinguished — and beloved — actors of stage and screen, reveals the octogenarian spryness of a civilized mind and a beguiling mixture of the meditative and the hedonistic.
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
In Istanbul, in the 1590s, the Sultan secretly commissions a great book, but any work of art — an affront to Islam — is dangerous. My Name Is Red is a murder mystery played amidst the perils of religious repression.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
A traditional Indian family from Calcutta is transported to the U.S. to make a new life. The difficulty of respecting the old culture and embracing the new is especially difficult for the family's American-born son.
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill
Hans — a banker originally from the Netherlands — finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel in post-9/11 New York. Alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans meets a charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon who introduces Hans to an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.
Designed to mesmerize and inspire, this anthology of the best new masters of nonfiction storytelling has been personally chosen and introduced by Ira Glass, the producer and host of the award-winning public radio program, This American Life.
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
Based on exclusive interviews with the Supreme Court Justices themselves and other insiders, The Nine is a timely and provocative state of the union about Americas most elite legal institution. As a CNN senior legal analyst, New Yorker staff writer, and bestselling author, no one is more superbly qualified on this topic than Toobin.
No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu
Tutu, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, retired as Archbishop of Capetown, South Africa, in 1998. Here, he reflects on the wisdom he gained as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a group formed to expose crimes committed under apartheid and to achieve reconciliation with South Africa's former oppressors.
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin
With an extraordinary collection of details, Goodwin masterfully weaves together a striking number of story lines — Eleanor and Franklin's marriage and remarkable partnership, Eleanor's life as First Lady, and FDR's White House and its impact on America as well as on a world at war.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
Tracking dinner from the soil to the plate, a journalist juggles appetite and conscience.
See traces the route of her great-grandfather from his Chinese village to the United States, where he married a white woman and overcame the odds to become one of the richest Chinese people on "Gold Mountain," the Chinese name for the U.S.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
An early morning adventure out stealing horses leads to the tragic death of one boy and a resulting lifetime of guilt and isolation for his friend, in this moving tale about the painful loss of innocence and of traditional ways of life that are gone forever.
The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
A reimagining of the world-famous Indian epic, The Mahabharata — told from the point of view of an amazing woman. Relevant to today's war-torn world, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time that is half history, half myth, and wholly magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the legendary Pandavas brothers in The Mahabharata, the novel gives us a new interpretation of this ancient tale.
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
In 1996, Hanna Heath, a young Australian book conservator, is called to analyze the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, a priceless 600-year-old Jewish prayer book that has been salvaged from a destroyed Bosnian library. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in the centuries' old book, she unwittingly exposes an international coverup.
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi
An extraordinary work in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and starting point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as a chemist and his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition.
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Austen's last completed novel features a heroine much older and wiser than her predecessors in earlier books, and presents a more intimate and sober tale of a love found long after such happiness had been deemed hopeless.
This memoir of an American expatriate in Paris is a witty and fascinating account of finding a piano and relearning to play. Gracefully shifting from the present to his youth, Carhart provides both technical aspects and a history of the instrument.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Enthralled by a portrait of himself, young Dorian Gray makes a Faustian bargain to exchange his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Thus he is able to indulge in his desires, as only the portrait bears the traces of his decadence and becomes a nightmarish picture of his soul.
The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
In January 2002 Stewart walked across Afghanistan — surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. Through these encounters — by turns touching, confounding, surprising, and funny — Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
This comedy of manners features splendidly civilized sparring between Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet, as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of 18th-century drawing-room intrigues.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
This true tale describes the criminally insane American physician who, locked up in an English asylum for murder, spent his life compiling the Oxford English Dictionary.
Q & A: A Novel by Vikas Swarup
Swarup's spectacular debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held after correctly answering all 12 questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question.
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
While the French Army in Indo-China is grappling with the Vietminh, back in Saigon a young and high-minded American named Pyle begins to channel economic aid to a "Third Force."
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman. But happiness is more elusive than a medal, and Harry must continue to run — from his wife, his life, and from himself, until he reaches the end of the road and has to turn back.
Saturday by Ian McEwan
A virtuosic, brilliantly macabre and suspenseful novel about 24 hours in the life of a London neurosurgeon against the backdrop of the impending war in Iraq. The gifted McEwan turns a single day into an emblem of an entire era.
Award-winning journalist Gardner demonstrates how irrational fear springs from the ways humans miscalculate risks based on their hunter-gatherer brains. The author argues that understanding these irrational fears frees people from political and corporate manipulation.
Searoad by Ursula K. Le Guin
In one of her most deeply felt works of fiction, Le Guin explores the dreams and sorrows of the inhabitants of Klatsand, Oregon, a beach town where ordinary people bring their dreams and sorrows for a weekend or the rest of their lives, and sometimes learn to read what the sea writes on the sand.
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thomhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the terms of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children to tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. But his first glimpse of land for the taking awakens in him a desire he never had before: to own that land, no matter the cost to his soul.
Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind by Henry Hobhouse
In the manner of Barbara Tuchman and Paul Johnson, a superior, popular account of how five plants — quinine, sugar, tea, cotton and the potato — have determined the course of history.
The author of Savage Inequalities argues that U.S. schools are now more segregated than when the Supreme Court made its landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation ruling (1954). This veteran activist researcher traces the roots of the problem, faults efficiency models such as the No Child Left Behind Act, and supports a constitutional amendment making education a fundamental right. This provocative treatment finds a glimmer of hope in a district's rejection of quick-fix remedial programs.
The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell
Each member of "the nursery," a group of brilliant yet sometimes bungling young barristers, has one member of a wealthy British family as a client. When they suspect that a murderer's afoot in the family's complex real estate tax case, they once again call in their friend Hilary Tamar, brilliant Oxford don.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
From the acclaimed author of My Name Is Red comes a spellbinding tale of disparate yearnings — for love, art, power and God — set in a remote Turkish town, where stirrings of political Islamism threaten to unravel the secular order.
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Part adventure story, part philosophical essay, this extraordinary book takes Chatwin into the heart of Australia on a search for the source and meaning of man's restless nature.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
A charismatic Jesuit priest leads a 21st-century scientific mission to a newly discovered extraterrestrial culture.
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people — men, mostly — who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at 38, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford's moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits soaring.
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
"Uproariously funny" doesn't seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach, a Salon and Reader's Digest columnist, has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty.
Strand: An Odyssey of Pacific Ocean Debris by Bonnie Henderson
For more than 10 years Oregon author Henderson has regularly walked a section of beach as part of Oregon's CoastWatch program, carefully observing all things natural and unnatural. But how, and more importantly, why, do animals and objects end up in the beach wrack line? A beautifully written and fascinating book about our beautiful coastline.
Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
A woman meets her imaginary friend from childhood — and falls in love with him.
In Survival of the Sickest, medical wunderkind Dr. Moalem delves back into the evolution of man to reveal the heretofore unknown and astonishing ways the human body is built to survive.
After her family moved to California in the 1970s so the author and her siblings could train as speed swimmers, Cox discovered long-distance ocean swimming. Since then she's swum the English Channel, where her time set a record; the Cook Strait; the Strait of Magellan; the Nile River, which made her so sick she was hospitalized; the Cape of Good Hope; and the Bering Strait, most of which had never been swum before. Researchers study her to discover more about the affects of cold on the human body, but it's her hope that the attention given to her records will "establish a bridge between borders."
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius as she chronicles the rise of the one-term congressman/prairie lawyer from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals of national reputation to become president.
Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
An astonishingly wise, ambitious and riveting first novel set in the American community in Cuba during the years leading to Castro's revolution, this masterful debut is a compelling tour de force.
Them: A Novel by Nathan McCall
The embattled characters who people McCall's debut novel can't escape gentrification, whether as victim or perpetrator. Skyrocketing housing prices and the new neighbors' presumptuousness anger longtime residents, who feel invaded and threatened. Battle lines are drawn, but when a white couple moves in next door to the main character, the results are surprising.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The most widely read work of African fiction, about the missionary experience from an African point of view.
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
Larson's compelling history juxtaposes scientific intrigue with a notorious murder in London at the turn of the 20th century. It alternates the story of Guglielmo Marconi's quest for the first wireless transatlantic communication with the tale of Hawley Crippen, a mild-mannered murderer caught as a result of the invention.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic that has been translated into more than 40 languages.
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
In the shabby district called Tortilla Flat above Monterey, California, lives a gang whose exploits compare to those of King Arthur's knights.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is the literary masterpiece for America's pop mythology of the Wild West. A savagely ironic novel, it follows the rugged adventure of three Americans who find themselves caught in a morality tale of greed and betrayal while hunting for gold in the mountains of Mexico .
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
When 17-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.
Ulysses by James Joyce
A classic depiction of exile, estrangement, paralysis and the disintegration of a society, Ulysses records the events of one average day, June 16, 1904, in the lives of three central figures.
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
From the author of The History Boys and The Clothes They Stood Up In comes a deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer
Using a crime committed by two brothers as a focal point, the author explores the nature of radical Mormon sects.
A Very Long Engagement by Sebastien Japrisot
In January 1917, five French soldiers were tossed into the no man's land and left for the Germans to shoot. Mathilde Donnay, fiancée of one of the dead soldiers, is determined to learn the truth about what really happened to these five young men.
A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz
An irresistible blend of history, myth and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs — these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.
The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap by Stephanie Coontz
This clear-eyed, bracing, and exhaustively researched study of American families and the nostalgia trap proves — beyond the shadow of a doubt — that Leave It to Beaver was not a documentary.
The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
In a thrilling tale that is equal parts suspense and humor, Carnegie Medalist Pratchett spins the story of a young witch-to-be named Tiffany who must journey through the terrifying and ever-shifting dreamscape of Fairyland to rescue her kidnapped brother.
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin
A stirring memoir of the disintegration of a family set against the collapse of a country. But it is also a vivid portrait of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.
When the Elephants Dance by Tess Uriza Holthe
In the waning days of World War II, the Filipino people were caught between a brutal Japanese occupation and battling U.S. forces. In this novel, 13-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, narrate the story of the Karangalans — a family who waits out the war huddled with their neighbors in the cellar of a house near Manila.
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
This saga of how a widow from Minneapolis and her brother — soon to become the new teacher in a tiny Montana community in 1909 — change lives in unexpected ways has all the charm of old-school storytelling, from Dickens to Laura Ingalls Wilder.
The White Tiger: A Novel by Aravind Adiga
A story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by Balram Halwai, a complicated man: servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer, master storyteller. Over the course of seven nights, Balram tells the story of how he came to be a success in life — having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
An astonishingly rich re-creation of the land of Oz, this book retells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who wasn't so wicked after all. Taking readers past the yellow brick road and into a phantasmagoric world rich with imagination and allegory, Wicked just might change the reputation of one of the most sinister characters in literature.
The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: A Love Story … with Wings by Mark Bittner
The inspiring story of how one man found his life's work — and true love — among a gang of wild parrots roosting in one of America's most picturesque urban settings.
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in White features the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde. A gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness and mistaken identity, Collins' psychological thriller has never been out of print in the 140 years since its publication.
Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama
In pre-war China, young Pei is sold to Auntie Yee, who runs a home for silk workers. Eventually, their lives are touched by the war with Japan, and the combined difficulties of monsoons, isolation, strike, war and death.
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule by Thomas Frank
Frank argues that conservatives have taken pains to enshrine the free market as the permanent creed of state, selling off the government, deregulating some industries, defunding others, but always turning public policy into a private-sector bidding war.
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
The most beguilingly seductive novel to date from the author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. Winterson chronicles the consuming affair between the narrator, who is given neither name nor gender, and the beloved, a complex and confused married woman.
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A. J. Jacobs
Raised in a secular family but interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, Jacobs decides to attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal, and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman
An historically true story of WWII about the extraordinary efforts of Christian zookeepers horrified by Nazi racism, who capitalized on the Nazis' obsession with pureblood animals in order to save over 300 doomed people by hiding them in the bombed-out cages at the Warsaw Zoo.