And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts*
A gripping, poignant documentary tracing the gay and lesbian movement from its early years, through the Stonewall riots, civil rights, and the crisis of AIDS. Shilts is a wonderful writer who makes a difficult, controversial subject accessible and supremely human.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
One of the our country's greatest early minds recounts his political, social, and philosophical musings. His obsessive desire for spiritual self-perfection is fascinating. He is also the master of the self-disciplined schedule.
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Middle school is hard enough. Cancer is even harder. In this honest and unsentimental memoir, Lucy Grealy takes us through what it was like for her to become a teenager having lost part of her face. Struggling to accept herself while classmates taunt her, Lucy tries to live both a normal life and a special one. It's as much a book about the guts it takes just to be oneself as it is about what it's like day to day dealing with chemotherapy and plastic surgery. And it certainly asks us to look at the value we place on beauty.
Black Ice by Lorene Cary
The memoir of a young African-American woman from suburban Philadelphia who entered the previously all-white, all-male St. Paul's School with its first coed class in 1972.
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
We think we cultivate plants, but they cultivate us! That's the premise that Michael Pollan explores in this gracefully written account of how the apple, the tulip, the potato, and the marijuana plant have attracted human appetite, interest, and industry in order to ensure their own survival.
Dust to Dust by Benjamin Busch
Benjamin Busch is an actor, photographer, film director, and an infantry officer who served two combat tours in Iraq. The son of a novelist (Frederick Busch, he grew up in Upstate New York, graduated with a degree in art from Vassar College, and lives with his wife and two daughters in Michigan. As an actor, has played Officer Anthony Colicchio on the HBO Series, The Wire, and also appeared in Homicide, Life on the Streets, West Wing, and the film Generation Kill. His memoir is a coming of age story and an unusual eloquent firsthand account of a soldier's experience in Iraq. The book is organized not chronologically but around key threads of Busch's experience, the elements that make up his life; the chapter titles are "Arms," "Water," "Metal," "Soil," "Bone," "Wood," "Stone," "Blood," and "Ash." The result is a work in which the radically decontextualized experience of war is woven intimately into the context of a young man's life.
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
This diary of a teenager who stumbles by accident into the world of drugs takes you on a roller coaster of highs and lows as her addiction changes her life forever.
The Headmaster's Papers by Richard Hawley
An intense account of a year in the life of a headmaster from a private school in Cleveland (based on real-life events).
Hoop Roots by John Edgar Wideman
In this lyrical memoir the noted author and creative writing professor explicates basketball, jazz, and the passion that has kept him playing for fifty years. For everyone who has ever loved the playground game or tried to understand the art form and its artists.
The House on Garibaldi Street by Isser Harel
One of the most informative, gripping books ever. Harel was the man responsible for the operation that led to the capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann, fugitive Nazi war criminal and former mastermind of Hitler's "final solution" (i.e., the murder of six million Jews).
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Bio-ethics meets human interest, meets scientific and African-American history in this meticulously researched and engagingly written account that alternates between the personal life story of Henrietta Lacks and her family and the scientific after-life of the HeLa cells that, biopsied without her consent in 1951, have made significant contributions to major medical advancements over 50+ years including the development of the polio vaccine, gene research, and more. 2011 Best Book Award from National Academies of Science.
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
A moving and passionately written account of a true story that inspired Melville's Moby Dick. In the Heart of the Sea tells of a Nantucket whaling ship that is rammed off the coast of South America. The 21 sailors are forced to abandon ship in only three 25-foot whaleboats with the few provisions they could scavenge from their wreck. The sailors must find their way back to land without being devoured by cannibals, sharks, or the powerful forces of the Pacific Ocean. Entries from the men's diaries and the ship logs give the book a personal perspective and enable Philbrick to reconstruct their amazing journey.
In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke
This is the true story of a seventeen-year-old student nurse, a Catholic girl living in Poland during the time of the Nazi invasion, who volunteers to join the Polish army against the Germans. When that army surrenders, Opdyke is left to fend for herself; she is ultimately raped and captured by the Russians, sent to an internment camp, and finally forced to work for the German army. She lives a double life: trustworthy competent servant to Major Rugemer on the one hand and a savior of as many Jews as she can on the other. Readers hold their collective breath through the tense parts and fight alongside her as she becomes braver and takes greater and greater risks for justice. This book shows some of the best and worst of humanity.
John Adams by
David McCullough
History was very cruel to John Adams. He is forever in our memory as a fat, bald, toothless, crotchety old man who pales behind the glorious personas of Washington and Jefferson. But in this thorough and exhaustively researched narrative, David McCullough sets out to reverse this notion. He paints a portrait of a brilliant lawyer, who held the fate of the infant United States first and foremost. The book explores his journey from amateur revolutionary to the final days at Quincy and everything in between. It also exposes his kaleidoscopic nature; he was “fiercely independent, often irascible, always honest... learned beyond all but a few and regarded by some as ‘out of his senses.’” McCullough presents Adams as a visionary, an idealist, someone who never stopped talking, and above all, a true patriot. The magic of the book is the vivid imagery and flowing, concise language that makes it a joy to read, whether you’re a zealous history buff or just someone looking for a great character and a great story.
Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog
Vivid account of the life from adolescence to motherhood of a half-breed Sioux woman who discovers her heritage through AIM, the Native American rights movement of the 70s, and through marriage to a charismatic medicine man, sun-dancer, and civil disobedient. She gives birth to her baby under gun fire at the sit-in at Wounded Knee.
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
This inspirational book is a true account of the life and work of Dr. Paul Farmer, whose mission it is to cure disease and better the lives of the poor in this world. Dr. Farmer, now living and working in Boston and Haiti, has spent his life fighting to save those people about whom no one else seems to care by tackling global problems such as AIDS on a very local level in poverty stricken countries and in prisons. The story is unforgettable, and Kidder's prose is lively and engaging throughout. Beware, this book may change your life!
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway*
This posthumous selection of fragments of memoir traces the time Hemingway spent with the "Lost Generation's" most famous and infamous characters from 1921 through 1926 in Paris. Great landscapes and setting sketches and a nice summer read for the road.
Night by Elie Weisel
A true account of a Jewish boy's struggle to survive in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. The writing is so emotional and vivid that you won't believe it's a true story.
Planet of the Blind by Stephen Kuusisto
This moving memoir catapults the reader into the world of Stephen Kuusisito, who is legally blind. He has no muscle control over his eyes; his retinas were scarred as an infant. Fragments of the world fly past and swim before his eyes in a spectrum of color, light, and shadow. Kuusisto, a Fulbright Scholar, draws the reader into his life and experiences with vivid imagery and striking, lyrical descriptions. Planet of the Blind is a fantastic read.
The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway
The story of a gutsy, proud, resourceful girl who grows up in drought-ravaged New South Wales, Australia. This volume ends with her coming to America. She became Smith College's first woman president during the 1970s and 80s.
A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee
Before McPhee went on to teach writing at Princeton and win the Pulitzer Prize in biography, and before fellow Princeton graduate Bill Bradley went to Oxford, the NBA, and the US Senate, McPhee's first book captured the mindset, discipline, and hard work with which Bradley perfected his shot and earned Ivy League titles and an Olympic medal. Very inspiring.
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Touching story of a young man helping an older man who shares life lessons while facing his own death.
The Tracker by Tom Brown
This is the true story of a boy in the Pine Barrens of NJ taught by an Apache Indian scout the techniques of living and surviving in the woods. In learning how to track and stalk, find food and make shelter, he learns hard, inspiring lessons about being a more engaged and aware human.
