*Into the Wild in April 1992 a Young Man from a Well-To-Do Family Hitchhiked to Alaska

*Into the Wild In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself.

*Wild At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State--and she would do it alone.

*Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face. BIOGRAPHY. Grealy’s hard-hitting personal narrative about life as a teen with a face disfigured by cancer covers so much–from the definition of beauty, to loneliness, to acceptance. The author tells a moving and heroic story of her struggle for dignity.

*Allison, Peter. Whatever You Do, Don’t Run: Confessions of a Botswana Safari Guide. While presenting tales from a safari guide about his encounters with big cats, elephants, hippos, and other unpredictable animals, the author’s infectious enthusiasm for both the African bush and his job showing its wonders to tourists is really apparent.

*Alvarez, Julia. Once Upon a Quinceaňera: Coming of Age in the USA. A cultural exploration of the Latina fifteenth birthday celebration traces the experiences of a Queens, NY teen preparing for her quinceaňera. Compare it to Alegria’s Estrella’s Quinceaňera on the Fiction list. *Baggett, Jennifer. The Lost Girls: Three Friends, Four Continents, One Unconventional Detour Around the World. Three friends at a crossroads in their twenties quit their high pressure NY media jobs, leave their friends and everything familiar behind, and embark on a year-long backpacking adventure around the world. *Bausaum, Ann. Sergeant Stubby: How a Stray Dog and His Best Friend Helped Win World War I and Stole the Heart of a Nation. A stray dog befriends Private J. Robert “Bob” Conroy at the Connecticut National Guard camp at Yale University and the two become inseparable, eventually crossing *Bellavia, David & John R. Bruning. House to House: An Epic Memoir of War.In November, 2004, a U.S. infantry squad in Fallujah plunged into one of the most sustained and savage urban battles in the history of American men at arms. Bringing to life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, and populated by a well-drawn cast of characters, this is more than just another war story. The book develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire, in a harrowing story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit. Graphic language and violence.

*Buzzell, Colby. My War: Killing Time in Iraq. A U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq as a member of a Stryker Brigade Combat Team recounts his tour of duty in which he engaged in dangerous firefights and kept a blog describing his war experiences. Graphic language and violence. REVIEWS.

*Cahalan, Susannah. Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness. An account of the author’s struggle with a rare brain-attacking autoimmune disease traces how she wound up in a hospital room with no memory, of baffling psychotic symptoms, and describing the last-minute intervention by a doctor who identified the source of her illness. *De Blasi, Marlena. That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story. The author describes a summer in Sicily where she uncovered the story of Tosca, the daughter of a poor horse trader, who became the ward of the local prince and his family and eventually had a love affair with the prince.

*Eggers, Dave. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. At the age of 22, Eggers became both an orphan and a “single mother” when his parents died within five months of one another of unrelated cancers. Dave is appointed unofficial guardian of his eight-year-old brother, Christopher, as they struggle together to stay a family.

*Higashida, Naoki. The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism. A journey into the mind of a remarkable thirteen-year-old Japanese boy with severe autism who shares firsthand insights into a variety of experiences associated with the disorder, from behavioral traits and misconceptions to perceptions about the world. HARDCOVER only 2014.

*Hornbacher, Marya. Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia. Based on research and her own battle with anorexia and bulimia, which left her with permanent physical ailments that nearly killed her, Hornbacher’s book explores the mysterious and ruthless realm of self-starvation, which has its grip firmly around the minds and bodies of adolescents all across this country. *Kamkwamba, William. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope. Young teen William, who taught himself enough physics and engineering to build a windmill and bring electricity to his drought-stricken village, discovered the magic of his Malawi homeland in the miracles of science. *Krakauer, Jonathan. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. In May 1996, the author participated in an ill-fated climb that resulted in the death of his climbing mates.

*Marlantes. Karl. What It Is Like to Go to War. A huge proponent of counseling for returning veterans, Marlantes relates his combat experiences in Vietnam and discusses the daily contradictions warriors face in the grind of war, where each battle requires them to take life or spare life. *Moore, Steve. Special Agent Man: My Life in the FBI as a Terrorist Hunter, Helicopter Pilot, and Certified Sniper. A former FBI agent offers an account of his day-to-day life as a G-man, including experiences with SWAT teams, counter terrorism activities, and undercover work, as well as his personal life and battle with cancer. REVIEWS. *Owen, Mark. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden: the Autobiography of a Navy SEAL. Riveting from cover to cover, a former Navy SEAL describes the mission that killed Bin Laden in his own voice. Tense scenes of strategizing, stealth and action drive the story. HARDCOVER only (2012). REVIEWS.

*Salzman, Mark. True Notebooks: A Writer’s Year at Juvenile Hall. While teaching writing to seventeen- year-olds detained in Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall, Salzman found himself surprised by the boys’ talent. The teens’ heartwarming, funny voices are included in this irresistible, provocative memoir. *Sheff, David. Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction.The story of one teenager’s descent into methamphetamine addiction is told from his father’s point of view, describing how a varsity athlete and honor student became addicted to the dangerous drug and its impact on his family. His son Nic’s story is next on this list. *Sheff, Nic. Tweak: (Growing up on Methamphetamines). The author details his immersion in a world of hardcore drugs, revealing the mental and physical depths of addiction, and the violent relapse one summer in California that forever changed his life, leading him down the road to recovery. Nic’s father’s story about Nic’s addiction is above this on this list. *Walls, Jeanette. The Glass Castle. Wall’s extraordinary memoir recounts her itinerant childhood with two eccentric parents and the poverty and bullying that she endured. A graceful, candid, and sometimes shocking story.

*Wooten, Jim. We Are All the Same: The Story of a Boy’s Courage and a Mother’s Love. The extraordinary story of the little South African boy whose bravery and fierce determination to make a difference despite being born with AIDS has made him the human symbol of the world’s fight against the disease, told by the veteran American journalist whose life he changed.

*Zailckas, Koren. Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood. From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, 24-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes “the usual.” She persuades us that her story is the story of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics—yet—but who use booze as a short cut to courage, a stand-in for good judgment, and a bludgeon for shyness, each of them failing to see how their emotional distress, unarticulated hostility, and depression are entangled with their socially condoned binging. *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou This is already a classic work of nonfiction in high school classrooms, so we thought we’d just reinforce the idea here — everyone should read Angelou’s beautiful, heartbreaking coming of age story, whether you need a little push towards self-actualization and inner strength (as teenagers often do) or not.

*Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger How do you get today’s TV-addicted, bored young men to read narrative nonfiction? Give them the excellent book that spawned their favorite football-based television show, which follows the Permian Panthers of Odessa as they carry an entire town on their backs. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bissinger after spending a year in 1988 in Permian, the view isn’t always pretty, but it is truly fascinating, in all its dusty glory and anti-glory.

*A House in the Sky The New York Times bestselling memoir of a woman whose curiosity led her to the world’s most remote places and then into fifteen months of captivity.

*Ghost Boy: The Miraculous Escape of a Misdiagnosed Boy Trapped Inside His Own Body by Martin Pistorius They all thought he was gone. But he was alive and trapped inside his own body for ten years.In January 1988 Martin Pistorius, aged twelve, fell inexplicably sick. First he lost his voice and stopped eating. Then he slept constantly and shunned human contact. Doctors were mystified. Within eighteen months he was mute and wheelchair-bound. Martin's parents were told an unknown degenerative disease left him with the mind of a baby and less than two years to live.