E5 AP Language and Composition



AP English Language and Composition

Summer Reading List

Education

❖ The Autobiography of Malcolm X --as told to Alex Haley: Malcolm X's searing memoir belongs on the small shelf of great autobiographies. [With] blistering honesty...he recounts his transformation from a bitter, self-destructive petty criminal into an articulate political activist...[and describes] his journey from ignorance and despair to knowledge and spiritual awakening. Lib.

❖ Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books--Azar Nafisi: In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Since the books they read were officially banned by the government, the women were forced to meet in secret, often sharing photocopied pages of the illegal novels. For two years they met to talk, share, and "shed their mandatory veils and robes and burst into color." The books were always the primary focus, however, and they became "essential to our lives: they were not a luxury but a necessity," she writes. Lib.

❖ The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother--James McBride: A perennial contemporary and campus favorite, he describe[s] growing up interracial from the perspective of the son of [an] African American father and white mother. An accomplished journalist and musician, [he]has viewed the yawning chasm of racial division from both sides and, despite carving out a successful life, has been scarred...He focuses on a single, singular parent, a rabbi's daughter who later helped her husband establish an all-black Baptist church in her home and saw 12 children through college. His mother's own story, juxtaposed with McBride's, helps make this book a standout. Lib.

❖ Black Ice--Lorene Carey: A streetwise kid from West Philly, Cary was the first African-American female to attend St. Paul's, a prestigious New England prep school. With tremendous drive, she set out to achieve self-imposed academic, athletic, and social goals. Although she believed she owed it to the school that accepted her on scholarship, to her family who encouraged and sacrificed, and to those who will come after, she found that the price was great. Lib.

❖ Iron and Silk--Mark Salzman: This anecdotal record of a young man's encounter with the Chinese and their way of life offers unique insights to readers. Salzman['s] first job after graduation in 1982 was teaching English to students and teachers at Hunan Medical College in Changsha. He met this ...challenge with sensitivity, humor, and imagination, and was quickly regarded with respect and affection. Salzman had studied martial arts since he was 13, and he continued his practice in Changsha, where one of China's foremost experts...accepted him as a pupil. Each fascinating episode illuminates the way to a deeper understanding of Chinese culture and character.

❖ Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and build Nations—One School at a Time—Greg Mortenson: The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools—especially for girls—that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson’s quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit. Lib.

❖ Stones into Schools:Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan—Greg Mortenson: In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where "Three Cups of Tea" left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders even as he was dodging shootouts with feuding Afghan warlords and surviving an eight-day armed abduction by the Taliban. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women - all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort. Lib.

❖ Kaffir Boy—Mark Mathabane: The story of a boy weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, he raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university. Eng.

❖ A Hope in the Unseen—Ron Suskind: At Ballou Senior High, a crime-infested school in Washington D.C., honor students have learned to keep their heads down…The summer after his junior year, at a program for minorities at MIT, he gets a fleeting glimpse of life outside, a glimplse that turns into a face-on challenge one year later: acceptance into Brown University, an Ivy League school…Eng.

❖ Learning to Bow: American Teacher in Japanese School—Bruce Feiler: The author recounts his year as a teacher in Japan, providing a look at the crucial role that education plays in the success of contemporary Japan. Lib.

❖ Class Dismissed: A Year in the Life of an American High School—Meredith Maran: Follows three student through their senior year at California’s Berkeley High School, providing insitght into the lives of students and educators, and the state of American education in the year 2000. Lib.

❖ Educating Esmé : Diary of a Teacher's First Year—Esmé Raji Codell: Presents the diary of teacher Esmé Raji Codell's first year in charge of a fifth-grade classroom in an inner-city public school. Lib.

Language

❖ One Writer's Beginnings--Eudora Welty: Among the most beloved of American writers, Eudora Welty's stories...have entertained us for over half a century. Here, in her memoirs, she writes with her usual candor and grace about how a writer's sensibilities are shaped. As compelling as her stories, as witty as her personality, as finely honed as her fiction, Welty's account of her life is a powerful and fulfilling read. Lib.

❖ The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts--Maxine Hong Kingston: [This] is a memoir of growing up Chinese American in Stockton, California. Maxine Hong Kingston distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward. The author's America is a landscape of confounding white "ghosts"--the policeman ghost, the social worker ghost--with equally rigid, but very different rules. Like the woman warrior of the title, Kingston carries the crimes against her family carved into her back by her parents in testimony to and defiance of the pain. Lib.

❖ Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez--Richard Rodriguez: The story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum. Here is the poignant journey of a “minority student” who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation — from his past, his parents, his culture — and so describes the high price of “making it” in middle-class America. [It is] a profound study of the importance of language ... and the moving, intimate portrait of a boy struggling to become a man. Lib.

❖ Me Talk Pretty One Day—David Sedaris: A recent transplant to Paris, humorist David Sedaris, bestselling author of "Naked", presents a collection of his strongest work yet, including the title story about his hilarious attempt to learn French.

Work/Community/Culture

❖ Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science--Atul Gawande: Medical professionals make mistakes, learn on the job, and improvise much of their technique and self-confidence. Gawande's tales are humane and passionate reminders that doctors are people, too. His prose is thoughtful and deeply engaging, shifting from sometimes painful stories of suffering patients (including his own child) to intriguing suggestions for improving medicine with the same care he expresses in the surgical theater...Complications is a book with heart and an excellent bedside manner.

❖ Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America--Barbara Ehrenreich: [J]ournalist Ehrenreich sets off to find work as a cleaner or waitress in various American cities, and to live off her wages...In this brilliant, gripping and extraordinarily timely book, Barbara Ehrenreich expertly peels away the layers of self-denial, self-interest and self-protection that insulate the rich from poor; the served from the servers, the housed from the homeless. Lib.

❖ Profiles in Courage for Our Time—Caroline Kennedy: Nearly half a century after then -- Senator John F. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Profiles in Courage, the Kennedy family continues to keep alive the tradition of honoring selfless public service with its Profiles in Courage Award. Now in paperback, Profiles in Courage for Our Time pays tribute to 13 such heroes in the same spirit as the original collection. Some of our greatest writers have brought their formidable talents to this celebration of modern political bravery including Michael Beschloss, Anna Quindlen, Bob Woodward, and Marian Wright Edelman. Also included is Caroline Kennedy's profile of the latest award recipient, Kofi Annan. These are just a few of the luminaries who eloquently and passionately record the experiences of the award winners. This celebration of modern political bravery demonstrates that heroism among today's elected officials is as possible and inspiring as ever. Lib.

❖ American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood--Marie Arana: Arana recently described this memoir as a love story. It is fraught with the tension of two worlds colliding: her North American mother's independent, free-spirited individualism crashes into her South American father's traditional, family-based orientation. Their children formed the bicultural bridge between them. In rich, lyrical prose, the author details her privileged, Peruvian childhood, watched by amas, and schooled at home. She also writes of her mother and her former marriages, and finally of her life in America. Here Arana is an American Chica, where she leads not a double life, sometimes in her "American skin" at other times she is a Latina, but a triple life in which she makes up a "whole new person." While this book, filled with humor and insight, will be of special interest to Hispanic teens, it is a sparkling addition to the story of America's "salad bowl" and will appeal to young people of all heritages.

❖ Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society--Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal. Lib.

❖ Kabul Beauty School--Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born. Lib.

❖ Breakfast at Sally’s: one homeless man’s inspirational journey-- Once a happily married businessman, avid golfer, and the proud owner of several luxury cars and three boats, conservative-minded Richard LeMieux saw his fortune change almost overnight. In this astonishingly heartfelt memoir, he describes his descent into homelessness and his struggle to survive personal and economic disaster. Evicted from his home in 2002 and living with his dog, Willow, in a beat-up old van, LeMieux finds himself penniless and estranged from his family and friends. He dines at the Salvation Army (aka Sally’s), attempts suicide, and is treated at a mental hospital where he is diagnosed with depression. Lib.

❖ The Middle of Everywhere: the world’s refugees come to our town-- Over the past decade, Mary Pipher has been a great source of wisdom, helping us to better understand our family members. Now she connects us with the newest members of the American family--refugees. In cities all over the country, refugees arrive daily. Lost Boys from Sudan, survivors from Kosovo, families fleeing Afghanistan and Vietnam: they come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the virtues of family, love, and joy are a lesson for Americans. Their stories will make you laugh and weep--and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live. The Middle of Everywhere moves beyond the headlines into the homes of refugees from around the world. Working as a cultural broker, teacher, and therapist, Mary Pipher has once again opened our eyes--and our hearts--to those with whom we share the future. Lib.

❖ The Bookseller of Kabul—Asne Seierstad: Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict there. In the following spring she returned to live with an Afghan family for several months. For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they communist or Taliban - to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the communists and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the more public lives of the men. And so we learn of proposals and marriages, suppression and abuse of power, crime and punishment. The result is a gripping and moving portrait of a family, and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history. Lib.

❖ West of Kabul, East of New York—Mir Tamim Ansary: The day after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Tamim Ansary sent an anguished e-mail to twenty friends, discussing the attack from his perspective as an Afghan American. The message reached millions. Born to an Afghan father and American mother, Ansary grew up in the intimate world of Afghan family life and emigrated to San Francisco thinking he’d left Afghan culture behind forever. At the height of the Iranian Revolution, however, he took a harrowing journey through the Islamic world, and in the years that followed, he struggled to unite his divided self and to find a place in his imagination where his Afghan and American identities might meet. Lib.

❖ Barefoot Heart—Elva Trevino Hart: A vividly told autobiographical account of the life of a child growing up in a family of migrant farm workers. It brings to life the day-to-day existence of people facing the obstacles of working in the fields and raising a family in an environment that is frequently hostile to those who have little education and speak another language. Assimilation brings its own problems, as the original culture is attenuated and the quality of family relationships is comprimised, consequences that are not inevitable but are instead a series of choices made along the way. It is also the story of how the author overcame the disadvantages of this background and found herself. Lib.

❖ When Broken Glass Floats—Chanrithy Him: In a mesmerizing story, Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the “killing fields.” She gives us a child’s-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy’s family remain loyal to one another and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America.. Eng.

❖ My Invented Country—Isabel Allende: The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination ofher uncle on Sept. 11, 1973 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. 2001. It speaks compellingly to immigrants and to all of us who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions. Eng.

❖ Nisei Daughter—Monica Sone: With charm, humor, and deep understanding, a Japanese-American woman tells how it was to grow up on Seattle’s waterfront in the 1930’s and to be subjected to “relocation” during WWII. Eng.

❖ Angela's Ashes—Frank McCourt: A memoir of growing up in New York and Limerick in the 1930s and 1940s.  "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood". Lib.

❖ Unafraid of the Dark—Rosemary Bray: Bray describes with remarkable frankness growing up poor in Chicago in the 1960’s, and her childhood shaped by welfare, the Roman Catholic Church and the civil rights movement. She writes of her lasting dread of the cold and the dark that characterized her years of poverty…This powerful, ultimately inspiring book is a moving testimony of the history Bray overcame and the racial obstacles she continues to see in her children’s way. Eng.

❖ Zoya's Story—Zoya with John Follain and Rita Cristofari: Zoya is an eye-witness to the horrors perpetrated in Afghanistan by Taliban and Mujahideen warlords who defeated Russian occupiers of that country. But her memoirs are not mere images of devastation and outrage but a message of optimism against all odds. Lib.

❖ Thura’s Diary—Thura Al-Windawi: Thura had her diary published “to try to bring about a greater understanding of my country and to show what Iraqis are really like.  I wanted people to know what it’s like for children to have no hope.  I wanted them to know what it means for a father to work for hours just to feed his family.  I wanted them to know what it is like to have to flee from home….  And I hope, one day, to help Iraq and the rest of the world walk together towards peace and happiness.” Lib.

❖ Having Our Say—Sarah Delany and Elizabeth Delany: Having Our Say presents an historically accurate, nonfiction account of the trials and tribulations the Delany sisters faced during their century of life. The book offers positive images and details of African-American (they preferred "colored") life in the 1890s.The book chronicles the story of their well-lived lives with wit and wisdom. Eng.

❖ Funny in Farsi—Firoozeh Dumas: Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot. Eng.

❖ Colors of the Mountain—Da Chen: Da Chen was born in 1962, in the Year of Great Starvation. Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution engulfed millions of Chinese citizens, and the Red Guard enforced Mao's brutal communist regime. Chen’s family belonged to the despised landlord class, and his father and grandfather were routinely beaten and sent to labor camps, the family of eight left without a breadwinner. Despite this background of poverty and danger, and Da Chen grows up to be resilient, tough, and funny, learning how to defend himself and how to work toward his future. By the final pages, when his says his last goodbyes to his father and boards the bus to Beijing to attend college, Da Chen has become a hopeful man astonishing in his resilience and cheerful strength. Eng.

❖ Come Back to Afghanistan—Said Hyder Akbar: The intimate and riveting chronicle of an extraordinarily courageous Afghan-American teenager coming of age in post-9/11 Afghanistan.Building on two acclaimed radio documentaries aired on This American Life, Hyder Akbar tells how his ordinary suburban California life was turned upside-down after 9/11. Hyder’s father, a scion of an Afghan political family, sold his business—a hip-hop clothing store in Oakland—and left for Afghanistan, where he became President Hamid Karzai’s chief spokesman and later, the governor of Kunar, a rural province. Obsessed since youth with a country he had never even visited, seventeen-year-old Hyder convinced his father to let him join him on three successive summers. Working alongside his father at the presidential palace and in Kunar has given Hyder a rare front-row seat at the creation of democratic government in Afghanistan. In Come Back to Afghanistan, Hyder interweaves his personal journey—a teenager struggling with his identity in his parents’ homeland—with a dramatic behind-the-scenes account of political and civilian life in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Uncommonly wise and insightful, Hyder travels from palaces to prisons and from Kabul to the borderlands, revealing Afghanistan as readers have never seen or understood it before. Lib.

❖ The Stones Cry Out—Molyda Szymusiak: presents an account of her childhood in Cambodia after Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ousted Lon Nol and Prince Sihinouk. The book is divided into six sections, with multiple chapters and an epilogue. The book opens on April 15, 1975, and concludes in 1980, with the author’s arrival in Paris. Lib.

❖ The Hero Project—Robert Hatch: When they were 11 and 14, respectively, brothers Robert and William Hatch embarked on an ambitious project: to discover how many of their heroes dealt with the challenges of early adolescence. The result is "The Hero Project, " a fascinating collection of interviews with some of the most prominent names in sports, science, politics, entertainment, the arts, and religion. From dealing with bullies to overcoming health problems, feeling lonely and different to growing up in a broken home, what they thought of the world around them to their own heroes and role models, these luminaries share their candid recollections of life as a teen and offer young readers advice on how to grow up to be heroes themselves. In addition to the interviews, each chapter contains a brief biography of the selected interviewee, along with the fascinating back story of how the brothers made contact with the hero in question. Lib.

❖ Genetic Engineering—Ray Spangenburg and Kit Moser: In the field of social policy, some topics are so complicated that they will always be subject to debate. Since no clear right or wrong exists, they are consigned to the gray areas of ongoing dispute. Among such issues open for debate both across America and in this eye-opening series are capital punishment, genetic engineering, gun control, and global warming. Others involve terrorism and chemical and biological warfare, two outright evils, though with highly disputable solutions. Open for Debate explores the past, present, and future to shed light on complex, high-priority public policy. a lucid, readily accessible format offers the pros and cons of each issue with opinions from social policy experts. It features sidebars of fascinating facts and easy-to-understand diagrams of key statistics. Open for Debate introduces future public policy thinkers to both sides of twenty-first-century, life-and-death concerns. Lib.

❖ The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks—Rebecca Skloot: 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. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Lib.

❖ Salt, Sugar, Fat—Michael Moss: From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back. Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.

❖ Dreams of my Father—Barack Obama: In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New York, where Barack Obama learns that his father—a figure he knows more as a myth than as a man—has been killed in a car accident. This sudden death inspires an emotional odyssey—first to a small town in Kansas, from which he retraces the migration of his mother’s family to Hawaii, and then to Kenya, where he meets the African side of his family, confronts the bitter truth of his father’s life, and at last reconciles his divided inheritance. Lib.

❖ We Just Want to Live Here—Amal Rifa’I and Odelia Ainbinder: In the summer of 2000, a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers were invited to Switzerland. Despite many misunderstandings between the Jews and Muslims on the trip, tentative friendships were formed. However, just before the students returned home to Israel, the second Intifada broke out reminding each participant of their differences. Lib.

❖ Six Questions of Socrates—Christopher Phillips: What is virtue? What is moderation? What is justice? What is courage? What is good? What is piety? Socrates thought that understanding the perspectives of others on these six great questions would help him become a more excellent human being. Following in Socrates's footsteps, Christopher Phillips—"Johnny Appleseed with a master's degree" (Utne Reader)—investigates these same questions, beginning in the marketplace of modern-day Athens. He goes on to investigate the timely responses and outlooks of people from different cultures and backgrounds around the world: from Greece and Spain to Japan and Korea, Mexico City, and Chiapas, where the region's indigenous people struggle for fundamental human rights. Phillips also traveled throughout the United States, holding dialogues in diverse communities from New York City to the Navajo Nation. Lib.

❖ Cool It—Bjorn Lomborg: The fact that global warming is happening is beyond debate. However, all of the hysteria that has been whipped up about stopping climate change may not produce the best course of action. We need to “cool the rhetoric” about climate change and engage in careful, measured discussion about what goals/actions will secure a better future for this planet. Lib.

❖ Fools Crow—Thomas Crow: Frank Fools Crow, a spiritual and civic leader of the Teton Sioux, spent nearly a century helping those of every race. A disciplined, gentle man who upheld the old ways, he was aggrieved by the social ills he saw besetting his own people and forthright in denouncing them. When he died in 1989 at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, he was widely loved and respected. Fools Crow is based on interviews conducted in the 1970s. The holy man tells Thomas E. Mails about his eventful life, from early reservation days when the Sioux were learning to farm, to later times when alcoholism, the cash economy, and World War II were fast eroding the old customs. Lib.

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Gender

❖ This Boy's Life—Tobias Wolff: Wolff electrified critics with his scarifying 1989 memoir, which many deemed as notable for its artful structure and finely wrought prose as for the events it describes. The story is pretty grim: Teenaged Wolff moves with his divorced mother from Florida to Utah to Washington State to escape her violent boyfriend. When she remarries, Wolff finds himself in a bitter battle of wills with his abusive stepfather, a contest in which the two prove to be more evenly matched than might have been supposed. Deception, disguise, and illusion are the weapons the young man learns to employ as he grows up--not bad training for a writer-to-be. Somber though this tale of family strife is, it is also darkly funny and so artistically satisfying that most readers come away exhilarated rather than depressed. Lib.

❖ Half the Sky—Nicolas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn: In this passionate yet practical book, the authors argue that the struggle for gender equality is “the paramount moral challenge” of our era. Lib.

❖ Women on the Hill—Jill Pollack: Describes the historic ongoing struggle of women to find equal representation in national politics, including short biographies of prominent Congresswomen, an analysis of special roles of women in Congress, and a summary of how that legislative body works.

Lib.

❖ The Road from Coorain—Jill Ker Coorain: Conway spent her first 11 years in the windswept grasslands of Australia, where her father owned 30,000 acres of arid land. Though his ability to understand the land was extensive, an eight-year drought finally defeated him, and he committed suicide. A few years later, Conway's oldest brother died in an automobile accident. The two deaths plunged her mother into depression. Out of this tale of hard work, drought, and sorrow, Conway emerges with character and personal strength. From the University of Sydney, she went on to study history at Harvard and eventually became the first woman president of Smith College. This inspiring book tells in full the details of her life and thoughts up to the time she left for America. Lib.

❖ A Room of One's Own--Virginia Woolf: Woolf addresse[s] the status of women, and women artists in particular, in this famous essay which asserts that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write. Woolf celebrates the work of women writers, including Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Brontes. In the final section Woolf suggests that great minds are androgynous. She argues that intellectual freedom requires financial freedom, and she entreats her audience to write not only fiction but poetry, criticism, and scholarly works as well. Lib.

❖ Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex by John Gray- Relationship counselor John Gray focuses on the differences between men and women--men are from Mars, and women are from Venus, after all--and offers a simple solution: couples must acknowledge and accept these differences before they can develop happier relationships. In this unabridged version, Gray gives a spirited delivery of his message, especially when role-playing typical male/female interactions. Although it takes some time to adjust to his slightly nasal tone, the information is sound and gives both men and women helpful hints on improving themselves and their union.

❖ Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys by Dave Barry- For thousands of years, women have asked themselves: What is the deal with guys, anyway? What are they thinking? The answer, of course, is: virtually nothing. But that has not stopped Dave Barry from writing an entire book about them, dealing frankly and semi-thoroughly with such important guy issues as:

- Scratching

- Why the average guy can remember who won the 1960 World Series but

   not necessarily the names of all his children

- Why guys prefer to believe that there is no such thing as a "prostate"

❖ Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher- At adolescence, says Mary Pipher, "girls become 'female impersonators' who fit their whole selves into small, crowded spaces." Many lose spark, interest, and even IQ points as a "girl-poisoning" society forces a choice between being shunned for staying true to oneself and struggling to stay within a narrow definition of female. Pipher's alarming tales of a generation swamped by pain may be partly informed by her role as a therapist who sees troubled children and teens, but her sketch of a tougher, more menacing world for girls often hits the mark. She offers some prescriptions for changing society and helping girls resist. Lib.

❖ Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson- Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher's groundbreaking book, exposed the toxic environment faced by adolescent girls in our society. Now, from the same publisher, comes Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, which does the same for adolescent boys. Boys suffer from a too-narrow definition of masculinity, the authors assert as they expose and discuss the relationship between vulnerability and developing sexuality, the "culture of cruelty" boys live in, the "tyranny of toughness," the disadvantages of being a boy in elementary school, how boys' emotional lives are squelched, and what we, as a society, can do about all this without turning "boys into girls." "Our premise is that boys will be better off if boys are better understood--and if they are encouraged to become more emotionally literate," the authors assert. As a tool for change, Kindlon and Thompsom present the well-developed "What Boys Need," seven points that reach far beyond the ordinary psychobabble checklist and slogan list. Kindlon (researcher and psychology professor at Harvard and practicing psychotherapist specializing in boys) and Thompson (child psychologist, workshop leader, and staff psychologist of an all-boys school) have created a chilling portrait of male adolescence in America. Through personal stories and theoretical discussion, this well-needed book plumbs the well of sadness, anger, and fear in America's teenage sons. --Ericka Lutz –

❖ Spider Woman’s Granddaughters—Paula Gunn Allen: stories of Native American Women: A woman's fight--A warrior's daughter--Oshkikwe's baby--American horse--The warrior maiden. Lib.

Sports

❖ Best Seat in the House: A Father, A Daughter, a Journey Through Sports--Christine Brennan: Sports Journalist Brennan's memoir begins in Toledo, where she grew up rooting for the Toledo Mud Hens, Detroit Tigers, and University of Michigan Wolverines. Her father introduced her to sports at age four, and she never looked back. By the time she reached high school, the six-foot-tall basketball player called athletics her "passion and diversion." She landed her first full-time job as a token (in her words) sports reporter at the Miami Herald in 1981. Among a handful of women allowed into men's locker rooms, she took the awkward moments in stride: "I was there to cover the team and report the story." Devoid of sports gossip and written in a straightforward reporting style, this pleasing memoir pays tribute to Brennan's father, who encouraged her love of sports.

❖ Days of Grace--Arthur Ashe with Arnold Rampersad: Ashe...tells of his mother's death when he was six years old and the strong influence of his loving but demanding father that stood him in good stead when he entered the all-white world of tennis in the 1960s. He recounts his athletic career and the difficulties he experienced on the court... But the major portion of the book focuses on the 1980s, during which time he had two heart operations and contracted the AIDS virus via a blood transfusion. Although not a homosexual, Ashe became a sympathetic activist for the gay community. He was very vocal in his last years, speaking out against prejudice towards AIDS victims, racism, apartheid, and U.S. policy towards Haitians wishing to enter this country. This is the inspiring story of a premier athlete and a fine human being who cared passionately about his profession, his family, and the causes he embraced.

❖ Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster—Jon Krakauer: A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster. Lib.

❖ Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman—Jon Krakauer: Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion-dollar NFL contract to join the Army and became an icon of post-9/11 patriotism. When he was killed in Afghanistan two years later, a legend was born. But the real Pat Tillman was much more remarkable, and considerably more complicated than the public knew...

❖ Under the Boards: The Cultural Revolution in Basketball—Jeffrey Lane: The true story of basketball lives as much off the court as on the hardwood; it is about politics and race and cultural clashes as heated as a final-four buzzer-beater. This story unfolds in all its gritty and colorful detail in Under the Boards. From the birth of the Larry Bird legend to the ascendancy of a hip-hop-infused NBA to the backlash against bling and the contemporary American game, Jeffrey Lane traces the emergence of a new culture of basketball, complete with competing values, attitudes, aesthetics, and racial and economic tensions. The revolution Lane describes resonates in the way Latrell Sprewell’s assault on his coach forever changed NBA power relations; in legendary coach Bob Knight’s entanglement in high school basketball history; in the dramatic shift in attitude toward European players; in the impact of the deaths of two rappers on rookie Allen Iverson’s career; and in conflicting cultural models rooted in ideals of black masculinity and white nostalgia. In these moments Lane’s book documents a profound change in basketball and in American culture over the last thirty years. Lib.

❖ Hardball: A Season in the Projects—Daniel Coyle: Four blocks from Chicago's affluent Gold Coast, the Cabrini-Green housing project looms, a notorious inner city of poverty, violence, and despair. Not an easy place to play ball. But in 1991 two men - one black, one white - started a Little League, twenty teams sponsored by Chicago corporations. Daniel Coyle volunteered to help coach one of the teams, the First Chicago Near North Kikuyus, and the following season, he decided to record their story: fourteen remarkable children and their six coaches, an unlikely group thrown together on a baseball field in the midst of Cabrini's gang-ruled streets. Lib.

❖ The Last Shot: City Street, Basketball Dreams—Darcy Trey: It ought to be just a game, but basketball on the playgrounds of Coney Island is much more than that — for many young men it represents their only hope of escape from a life of crime, poverty, and despair. In The Last Shot, Darcy Frey chronicles the aspirations of four of the neighborhood’s most promising players. Lib.

❖ Yak Butter and Black Tea: A Journey Into Forbidden China—Wade Brackenbury: Wade Brackenbury never meant to get into trouble. He'd been raised to respect the law. But he was born with a hankering for adventure. He'd come to China to climb mountains, to lose himself in the strangeness of a different culture, to try something extraordinary before returning to the U.S. to settle down. Then, in a restaurant in an out-of-the-way corner of southwestern China, Wade met a charismatic French photo-journalist named Pascal. Pascal needed a skilled climber. Wade was hoping for an adventure. The next day the two of them set out on what would become the journey of a lifetime. Lib.

❖ Controversies of the Sports World—Douglas Putnam: Contemporary life in the United States would be difficult to understand without examining the pivotal role sports have played in it. Controversies of the Sports World is designed to take readers of all ages into the heart of the tensions and conflicts that arise from the wide-ranging enterprise that now dominates the lives of millions of people. The controversies explored include such issues in sports as recruitment procedures, steroid and other drug use, discrimination against women, discrimination against African Americans, and violence. Lib.

❖ Raising Our Athletic Daughters—Jean Zimmerman: From high-profile women's professional leagues to high-school-level champions, girl athletes are acheiving record breakthroughs. Witness, for example, the first spectacular season of the WNBA, or the celebrated victories of women's teams at the 1996 Olympics. The female athlete is a new media darling especially beloved of today's teenage girls, who are almost as likely to have pictures of Rebecca Lobo, Mia Hamm, or Gabrielle Reece on their walls as posters of Leonardo DiCaprio. So it seems paradoxical that many books and studies attest to a truly sobering picture of girls' lives. With her book Reviving Ophelia, Mary Pipher was only the latest in a string of theorists to describe the dramatic ways in which girls loose self-esteem during the critical years of adolescence, contributing to eating disorders, drug problems, and chronic depression in many young women. In Raising Our Athletic Daughters, journalists Zimmerman and Reavill set out to talk with girls and their parents about  how sports can transform girls' lives. Here are firsthand stories from the inner cities and rural playing fields across the nation, offering compelling evidence that participation in athletics makes an extraordinary difference in the lives of young girls, from reducing pregnancy rates and substance abuse to increasing college attendance. Raising Our Athletic Daughters is a clarion call for all those eager to help their children succeed and level the playing field, at last. Lib.

❖ A Season Inside—John Feinstein: This book is an inside look at everything from the grueling (and often gruesome) practice sessions that go on behind closed doors to the intimate personal lives of some of college basketballs biggest stars, from the tough lives of teams and players going nowhere to an astonishingly close up view of the winners who go all the way to ultimate glory. This book does not focus on any one conference or team, but presents a very interesting and broad national view of college hoops in the late 1980's. Yes, many of us fans realize that this multi-billion dollar industry unfairly gives players scholarships while coaches (and others) get rich, but hey, this is still a very entertaining sport. Lib.

❖ How Soccer Explains the World—Franklin Foer: Soccer is much more than a game, or even a way of life. It is a perfect window into the cross-currents of today's world, with all its joys and its sorrows. In this remarkably insightful, wide-ranging work of reportage, Franklin Foer takes us on a surprising tour through the world of soccer, shining a spotlight on the clash of civilizations, the international economy, and just about everything in between. How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times. Lib.

❖ Touching the Void—Joe Simpson: Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the top of a 21,000-foot peak in the Andes when disaster struck. Simpson plunged off the vertical face of an ice ledge, breaking his leg. In the hours that followed, darkness fell and a blizzard raged as Yates tried to lower his friend to safety. Finally, Yates was forced to cut the rope, moments before he would have been pulled to his own death. The next three days were an impossibly grueling ordeal for both men. Yates, certain that Simpson was dead, returned to base camp consumed with grief and guilt over abandoning him. Miraculously, Simpson had survived the fall, but… Lib.

❖ Over the Edge—Greg Child: Before dawn on August 12, 2000, four of America’s best young rock climbers, the oldest of them only twenty-five, were sleeping in their portaledges high on the Yellow Wall, in the Pamir-Alai mountain range of Kyrgyzstan, in central Asia. By daybreak, they would be taken at gunpoint by fanatical militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which operates out of secret bases in Tajikistan and Afghanistan, and which is linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network. Lib.

Nature

❖ The Way to Rainy Mountain--N. Scott Momaday: The legends, mythology and history of the Kiowa Indians: " I was first told these stories by my father when I was a child. I do not know how long they had existed before I heard them. They seem to proceed from a place of origin as old as the earth. The stories in The Way to Rainy Mountain are told in three voices. The first voice is the voice of my father, the ancestral voice, and the voice of the Kiowa oral tradition. The second is the voice of historical commentary. And the third is that of personal reminiscence, my own voice. There is a turning and returning of myth, history, and memoir throughout, a narrative wheel that is as sacred as language itself."

❖ The Solace of Open Spaces--Gretel Ehrlich: Like many before her, poet Gretel Ehrlich discovered the therapeutic qualities of the West. In 1976, a time of personal crisis, she moved from the East to a small farm in Wyoming where she ultimately found peace of mind and inspiration. Originally, she had gone west to make a film for PBS; she returned to work with neighbors at cattle- and sheep-ranching, taking pleasure in open spaces. Ehrlich writes with sensitivity and affection about people, the seasons and the landscape. Whether she is enjoying solitude or companionship, her writing evokes the romance and timelessness of the West.

❖ A Sand County Almanac--Aldo Leopold: Following the seasons, Leopold...shared his perceptive and carefully observed portraits of nature month by month. In April, he watched the "sky dance" of the woodcock, who flew upward in a series of spirals. As he hunted partridges in October, his way was lit by "red lanterns," the blackberry leaves that shone in the sun. A November rumination details how the products of tree diseases provide wooded shelters for woodpeckers, hives for wild bees and food for chickadees. Included also is an appreciative essay on wild marshland and several pieces stressing the importance of protecting the natural environment.

❖ The End of Oil—Paul Roberts: A frank and balanced investigation of the economics and politics of oil—and a forward-looking assessment of a world without it. Within thirty years, even by conservative estimates, we will have burned our way through most of the oil that is readily available to us. Already, the costly side effects of dependence on fossil fuel are taking their toll. Even as oil-related conflict threatens entire nations, individual consumers are suffering from higher prices at the gas pump, rising health problems, and the grim prospect of long-term environmental damage. In The End of Oil, Paul Roberts offers a brisk and timely wake-up call and considers the promises and pitfalls of alternatives such as wind power, hybrid cars, and hydrogen, making this essential reading for anyone looking to understand and react to the energy crisis at hand. Lib.

❖ Never Cry Wolf--Farley Mowat: More than a half-century ago the Canadian Wildlife Service assigned the naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate why wolves were killing arctic caribou. Mowat's account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone-studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for the wolves (who were of no threat to caribou or man) and for a friendly Inuit tribe known as the Ihalmiut ("People of the Deer")-is a work that has become cherished by generations of readers, an indelible record of the myths and magic of wild wolves. Lib.

❖ Life on the Mississippi--Mark Twain: A brilliant amalgam of remembrance and reportage, by turns satiric, celebratory, nostalgic, and melancholy, Life on the Mississippi evokes the great river that Mark Twain knew as a boy and young man and the one he revisited as a mature and successful author. Written between the publication of his two greatest novels, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s rich portrait of the Mississippi marks a distinctive transition in the life of the river and the nation, from the boom years preceding the Civil War to the sober times that followed it. Lib.

❖ The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World-- Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom? Lib.

❖ Silent Spring—Rachel Carson: first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century. Lib.

❖ Animal, Vegetable, Miracle—Barbara Kingsolver: Since its release in May 2007, this book has helped launch a modern transition in America’s attitudes toward food. In this lively account of a family’s locavore year on their farm in Southern Appalachia, Kingsolver and her coauthors unearth the secret lives of vegetables and the unexpected satisfactions of knowing their food producers—and sometimes their dinner—on a first-name basis. Lib.

❖ Pale Blue Dot—Carl Sagan: In a tour of our solar system, galaxy and beyond, Cornell astronomer Sagan meshes a history of astronomical discovery, a cogent brief for space exploration and an overview of life-from its origins in the oceans to humanity's first emergence to a projected future where humans "terraform" and settle other planets and asteroids, Earth having long been swallowed by the sun. Maintaining that such relocation is inevitable, the author further argues that planetary science is of practical utility, fostering an interdisciplinary approach to looming environmental catastrophes such as "nuclear winter". Lib.

Politics

❖ Diary of a Survivor: 19 Years in a Cuban Women’s Prison—Ana Rodriguez: The incredible story of a young medical student arrested in Cuba in 1962 documents the life of Ana Rodriguez and her steadfast refusal to give in to political intimidation, re-education, or rehabilitation during nineteen years as a political prisoner. Lib.

❖ Democrats and Republicans--Rhetoric and Reality: comparing the Voters in Statistics and Anecdotes--Joseph Fried: Who are the real voters? Drawing on authoritative nationwide surveys and a wide range of quips and quotes, the author outlines the profiles of the average Republican and Democrat, and details their lifestyles, ethics, intelligence, and achievements in a multitude of charts and statistics.

A recognized whistleblower who identified $2BN in false Social Security claims, the author pokes fun while poking holes in our prejudices about both national parties. This work is intended as an informative, fair, and constructive book that can broaden your understanding of Democrats and Republicans. Also, notes the author, it will come in handy if you just need some ammo for that next encounter with your brother-in-law. Are Democrats more tolerant than Republicans? Are they more educated? Who spends more time at work and who spends more time watching TV? Why are Republicans happier? Who really benefits the most from Social Security? All of these questions, and many, many more, are answered in the new book, Democrats and Republicans Rhetoric and Reality. Comparing the conduct and achievements of the Democratic and Republican constituencies, it is sure to be controversial. The book contains many surprising findings. For example, Democrats and Republicans have different tendencies with regard to trust, self-esteem, apparent intelligence, political knowledge, mental health, happiness, work hours, and charity. These general differences are quantifiable and statistically significant. Although the book is aimed at the popular market, it has all of the supporting references and statistical significance of an academic work. Interspersed among the findings are quotations from pundits, politicians, philosophers, celebrities, fruitcakes, etc. Although some of this rhetoric is strident, the book's overall tone is objective a refreshing alternative to the bombastic polemics we often see in modern political works. The last chapter comprises several constructive lessons that can be learned from the various Democratic-Republican comparisons.This may be the most comprehensive and authoritative work written about the constituencies of our two major political parties, and is must reading for anyone who is interested in American politics.

❖ A Rumor of War--Philip Caputo: “To call it the best book about Vietnam is to trivialize it . . . A Rumor of War is a dangerous and even subversive book, the first to insist—and the insistence is all the more powerful because it is implicit—that the reader ask himself these questions: How would I have acted? To what lengths would I have gone to survive? The sense of self is assaulted, overcome, subverted, leaving the reader to contemplate the deadening possibility that his own moral safety net might have a hole in it. It is a terrifying thought, and A Rumor of War is a terrifying book.”

❖ Jarhead--Anthony Swofford: A witty, profane, down-in-the-sand account of the war... this former sniper's debut is a worthy addition to the battlefield memoir genre. There isn't a bit of heroic posturing as Swofford describes the sheer terror of being fired upon by Iraqi troops; the elite special forces warrior freely admits wetting himself once rockets start exploding around his unit's encampment. But the adrenaline of battle is fleeting, and Swofford shows how it's in the waiting that soldiers are really made. With blunt language and bittersweet humor, he vividly recounts the worrying, drinking, joking, lusting and just plain sitting around that his troop endured while wondering if they would ever put their deadly skills to use...Swofford deftly uses flashbacks to chart his journey from a wide-eyed adolescent with a family military legacy to a hardened fighter who becomes consumed with doubt about his chosen role. [T]his book offers...an unflinching portrayal of the loneliness and brutality of modern warfare and sophisticated analyses of-and visceral reactions to-its politics.

❖ The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America by Ellis Cose- Cose, a contributing editor and columnist at Newsweek and author of the critically acclaimed The Rage of the Privileged Class, was ordered out of a San Francisco restaurant because the ma?tre d' claimed he was a "troublemaker." Drawing from his own experience (much of it, thankfully, much less hateful), as well as that of men he interviewed, Cose in nice prose details the myriad experiences of black men, among them Henry Louis Gates at Harvard University; Antwan Allen, a Harlem teenager who rejects what "being black" means on the street; Useni Eugene Perkins, poet and author of Home is a Dirty Secret; and Loquillo, who died of a heroin overdose at the age of 45. Spinning these stories, Cose begins to map the complex social, emotional and political fabric in which African-American men such as Tiger Woods and Colin Powell are lionized or like Willie Horton, scorned and feared. He presents an impressive array of statistics "twenty-eight percent of all black males... eventually will end up in jail"; a Harvard study that showed "black students were nearly three times as likely as whites to be labeled 'retarded' " which are used not simply to prove racism but to explore the underlying cultural and racial contradictions that produce it. Examining a wide range of cultural artifacts, from William Foote Whyte's classic 1943 Street Corner Society to the 2001 movie Whiteboys, and never avoiding hard questions such as black-on-black crime or interracial sex, Cose charts both an urgently argued history of black masculinity and a moving and nuanced snapshot of where it is now. A six-city author tour should draw Cose's regular Newsweek readers and move copies of the book.

❖ Atomic Farmgirl: Growing up Right in the Wrong Place-- Atomic Farmgirl is a wise, irreverent, deeply personal story of growing up right in the wrong place. The granddaughter of German Lutheran homesteaders, Teri Hein was raised in the 1950s and 1960s in rural eastern Washington. This starkly elegant landscape serves as the poignant backdrop to her story, for one hundred miles to the south of this idyllic, all-American setting lay the toxins — both mental and physical — of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. From horseback riding to haying, Flag Day parades to Cold War duck-and-cover drills, Atomic Farmgirl chronicles a peculiar coming of age for a young girl and her community of hardworking, patriotic folk, whose way of life — and livelihood — are gradually threatened by the poisons of progress.

Combining a profoundly tender story of youth with politics and an unmistakable sense of place, Teri Hein has written a memoir that is part Terry Tempest Williams, part Erin Brockovich, part Garrison Keillor. In the end, she offers a rich and ribald journey into the universal mysteries of childhood, love, community, and home, a journey that confirms humankind’s infinite capacity for hope. Lib.

❖ The Audacity of Hope is Barack Obama's call for a new kind of politics—a politics that builds upon those shared understandings that pull us together as Americans. Lucid in his vision of America's place in the world, refreshingly candid about his family life and his time in the Senate, Obama here sets out his political convictions and inspires us to trust in the dogged optimism that has long defined us and that is our best hope going forward. Lib.

❖ Dead Man Walking-- In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana's Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier's death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. At the same time, she came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute him--men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing. Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Confronting both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the needs of a crime-ridden society and the Christian imperative of love, Dead Man Walking is an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty, a book that is both enlightening and devastating.Show More

❖ Drift—Rachel Maddow: "One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rusting nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine. Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan's radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse. Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seriously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a "loud and jangly" political debate about how, when, and where to apply America's strength and power--and who gets to make those decisions.

❖ Back to Work—Bill Clinton: President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters—presenting his ideas on restoring economic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy to get us "back in the future business.” He explains how we got into the current economic crisis, and offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, restore our manufacturing base, and create new businesses. He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that changing the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy while enhancing our national security. Clinton also stresses that we need a strong private sector and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress, demonstrating that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for all our problems, we’ve lost our ability to produce sustained economic growth and shared prosperity. Clinton writes, “There is simply no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” based on “a philosophy grounded in ‘you’re on your own’ rather than ‘we’re all in this together.’ ” He believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be good politics but has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with not enough jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “Americans need victories in real life.”

❖ Capitol Punishment—Jack Abramoff: The name Jack Abramoff is synonymous with Washington scandal, but the fascinating facts of his case are either largely unknown or wildly misunderstood. His memoir will serve as a corrective - an engrossing, informative work of political nonfiction that is also a gripping real-life thriller. The biggest surprise twist comes in the form of Abramoff himself, a smart, funny, charming, clear-eyed narrator who confounds every expectation of the media's villainous portrait. He's a perfect bundle of contradictions: an Orthodox Jew and upstanding family man with a staunch moral streak, caught in multiple scandals of bribery and corruption with an undercurrent of murder. Abramoff represented Indian tribes whose lucrative casinos were constantly under threat from proposed changes in law; though he charged the tribes many millions, he saved them billions by ensuring votes to support the livelihoods of their reservations. Much of Jack's share was funneled not into his own coffers, but to charities. Abramoff on the front pages could not be further from the Jack Abramoff who's ready to tell his honest and compelling story.

❖ Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth—Ben Shapiro: When parents send their children off to college, mom and dad hope they'll return more cultivated, knowledgeable, and astute--able to see issues from all points of view. But, according to Ben Shapiro, there's only one view allowed on most college campuses: a rabid brand of liberalism that must be swallowed hook, line, and sinker. In this explosive book, Ben Shapiro, a college student himself, reveals how America's university system is one of the largest brainwashing machines on the planet. Examining this nationwide problem from firsthand experience, Shapiro shows how the leftists who dominate the universities--from the administration to the student government, from the professors to the student media--use their power to mold impressionable minds. Fresh and bitterly funny, this book proves that the universities, far from being a place for open discussion, are really dungeons of the mind that indoctrinate students to become socialists, atheists, race-baiters, and narcissists.

❖ Uncouth Nation: Why Europe Dislikes America—Andrei Markovits: No survey can capture the breadth and depth of the anti-Americanism that has swept Europe in recent years. From ultraconservative Bavarian grandmothers to thirty-year-old socialist activists in Greece, from globalization opponents to corporate executives--Europeans are joining in an ever louder chorus of disdain for America. For the first time, anti-Americanism has become a European lingua franca.In this sweeping and provocative look at the history of European aversion to America, Andrei Markovits argues that understanding the ubiquity of anti-Americanism since September 11, 2001, requires an appreciation of such sentiments among European elites going back at least to July 4, 1776.While George W. Bush's policies have catapulted anti-Americanism into overdrive, particularly in Western Europe, Markovits argues that this loathing has long been driven not by what America does, but by what it is. Focusing on seven Western European countries big and small, he shows how antipathies toward things American embrace aspects of everyday life--such as sports, language, work, education, media, health, and law--that remain far from the purview of the Bush administration's policies. Aggravating Europeans' antipathies toward America is their alleged helplessness in the face of an Americanization that they view as inexorably befalling them. More troubling, Markovits argues, is that this anti-Americanism has cultivated a new strain of anti-Semitism. Above all, he shows that while Europeans are far apart in terms of their everyday lives and shared experiences, their not being American provides them with a powerful common identity--one that elites have already begun to harness in their quest to construct a unified Europe to rival America. Show More

❖ Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood—Alexandra Fuller: Fuller remembers her African childhood with candor and sensitivity. Though it is a diary of an unruly life in an often inhospitable place, it is suffused with Fuller’s endearing ability to find laughter, even when there is little to celebrate. Fuller’s debut is unsentimental and unflinching but always captivating. In wry and sometimes hilarious prose, she stares down disaster and looks back with rage and love at the life of an extraordinary family in an extraordinary time. Lib.

❖ American Hostage—Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton: Show More American Hostage is the remarkable memoir of Micah Garen's harrowing abduction and survival in captivity, as well as the heroic and successful struggle of Marie-Hélène; Micah's sister, Eva; along with family and friends to win Micah's and Amir's release from their captors. The world watched and waited as Micah's drama unfolded, but the authors, now safely home and engaged to be married, detail the dramatic untold story. Lib.

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❖ War in the Middle East—Wilborn Hampton: In 1970, when the Jordanian civil war known as Black September began, U.P.I. correspondent Wilborn Hampton was sent to report on unfolding events. Holed up in the InterContinental Hotel and caught in the crossfire, he managed to get the story out. Three years later, dispatched to Israel to cover the Yom Kippur War, the reporter took it on himself to drive to the front lines. Now the acclaimed author of KENNEDY ASSASSINATED!, MELTDOWN, and SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, relays his on-the-spot experiences covering two pivotal wars, while offering readers a clear, balanced overview of the issues that have plagued the Middle East for decades and continue to this day. Lib.

❖ The Communist Manifesto—Karl Marx: Reflects an attempt to explain the goals of Communism, as well as the theory underlying this movement. It argues that class struggles, or the exploitation of one class by another, are the motivating force behind all historical developments Lib.

❖ Everyday Life in Bible Times—Covers the worlds of Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus and Paul. Lib.

❖ The Prince—Niccolo Machiavelli: an extended analysis of how to acquire and maintain political power. The book's 26 chapters can be divided into four sections: Chapters 1-11 discuss the different types of principalities or states, Chapters 12-14 discuss the different types of armies and the proper conduct of a prince as military leader, Chapters 15-23 discuss the character and behavior of the prince, and Chapters 24-26 discuss Italy's desperate political situation. The final chapter is a plea for the Medici family to supply the prince who will lead Italy out of humiliation. Lib.

❖ The Republic—Plato: Why do men behave justly? Is it because they fear societal punishment? Are they trembling before notions of divine retribution? Do the stronger elements of society scare the weak into submission in the name of law? Or do men behave justly because it is good for them to do so? Is justice, regardless of its rewards and punishments, a good thing in and of itself? How do we define justice? Plato sets out to answer these questions in The Republic. He wants to define justice, and to define it in such a way as to show that justice is worthwhile in and of itself. He meets these two challenges with a single solution: a definition of justice that appeals to human psychology, rather than to perceived behavior. Lib.

❖ Joker One—Donovan Campbell: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood should be read by all those who have ever wondered what conclusions they would have drawn about the Iraq war if they had been dropped into the middle of the conflict…Campbell provides the raw, bullet-by-bullet footage, and it is up to the reader to decide what it all means. Lib.

❖ The Rwanda Genocide—Christina Fisanick: The Rwanda Genocide is divided into chapters variously headed "The Causes of the 1994 Genocide," "The Role of 'the International Community'," and "Rebuilding Rwanda." Under each chapter is a series of essays including an essay written under the Human Rights Watch byline about juvenile prisoners in Rwanda. The book ends with a rather intemperate article about the perceived failings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which was established to bring to justice those who planned and perpetrated the genocide. Included in the text, most usefully, is a speech by President Bill Clinton when he went to Kigali, the Rwandan capital, four years after the genocide. The speech was an apology on behalf of the United States for its failure to respond to the slaughter and to outline ways in which the United States could help rebuild the country. Lib.

❖ A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution—Carol Berkin: With the sensibilities of a novelist, Berkin tells a fast-paced story full of quirky and sympathetic characters, capturing the human dimensions of the now legendary first Constitutional Convention. Lib.

❖ The McCarthy Hearings—Jesse Cunningham: Presents both the facts and the tenor of the times. For instance, a chapter is devoted to William F. Buckley and L. Brent Bozell's defense (written in the early '50s) of McCarthy's often-ridiculed methods, and another to the exaggeration of his role in the "red scare," and there is even a chapter by McCarthy himself (defending his actions). And although the majority of the book, as one would expect, is decidedly in opposition to the McCarthy viewpoint, the editors find room in their introduction to state that in 1995, when the Verona Papers were declassified, they appeared to confirm some of McCarthy's suspicions. Because of the evenhanded presentation, the title makes a strong and lasting impression. The writings are well chosen, excerpted from books about either McCarthy or the era; there is also a four-page list of important figures and a two-page list for further research. Lib.

❖ Political Theories for Students—Matthew Miskelly and Jaime Noce: Designed specifically for high school students, Political Theories for Students provides in-depth information on major political theories and systems from all time periods. Each entry begins with a general overview of the system/theory followed by a discussion of the principal aspects of the theory, the theory's philosophy and an analysis of the historical context in which the theory was developed, including critical response. The volume also includes profiles of the major economists, philosophers, authors and others involved in the development or refinement of the theory. Entries also cover the "Theory in Action," analyzing how the political theory works in practice. Lib.

❖ The Rights of Man, The Reign of Terror—Susan Banfield: Recounts the political, social, and economic turmoil that took place during the French Revolution. Lib.

❖ Inheriting the Holy Land—Jennifer Miller: Jennifer Miller has interviewed Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Colin Powell. In fact, she's interviewed just about all the major players in the Middle East peace process. But for her, the real players are the young Israelis and Palestinians who are not names in the news. She's woven their stories into the tapestry of the conflict in her new book, "Inheriting the Holy Land: An American's Search for Hope in the Middle East." In the book, she recalls her first visit to Israeli-occupied Gaza. Lib.

❖ Four Hours in My Lai—Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim: This unsettling account of the methodical massacre by a unit of the U.S. Army of over 500 Vietnamese villagers near Quang Ngai in 1968 gathers together evidence from GI eyewitnesses, survivors, and the extensive record of military investigators to tell us what happened, along with interviews and backgrounds of some of the participants to try to understand why. It then assembles a remarkably insightful assessment of the public's and the Nixon administration's response to both the war and this gruesome permutation of it. Lib.

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