William Penn Charter School English Department Upper School Summer Reading List 2009

All students in the upper school are required to read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

In addition, students entering grades 9 through 12 will need to select two books from the list below to read over the summer. One of the choices must be from the FICTION section.

STUDENTS MUST PICK THE REMAINING TWO BOOKS FROM THIS LIST UNLESS ALTERNATIVE SELECTIONS HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT CHAIR BY THE LAST DAY OF CLASSES. STUDENTS SHOULD ALSO BE AWARE THAT THEIR TEACHERS WILL EXPECT THEM TO BRING THEIR SUMMER READING BOOKS TO CLASS IN SEPTEMBER AND WILL BE HOLDING STUDENTS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE READING.

[Fiction] Agee, James. A Death in the Family 1957. The enchanted childhood summer of 1915 suddenly becomes a baffling experience for Rufus Follet when his father dies. Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women 1868. The story concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It is based on Alcott’s own experiences as a child in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts.

*Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. 2009. Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

Allen, Irene. Quaker Indictment 1998. Elizabeth Elliot, mild-mannered Quaker confronts murder, sexual harassment and plagiarism at Harvard. Also recommended: Wuaker Witness and Quaker Testimony.

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Twisted. 2008. After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

Anderson, M.T., The Pox party: taken from accounts by [Octavius Nothing's] own hand and other Sundry, 2006 As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments - and his own chilling role in them.

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of Butterflies 1994. Dede, the only survivor of the four Mirabel sisters, code named Mariposas or butterflies, reveals their role in the liberation of the Dominican Republic from the dictator Trujillo.

**Austen, Jane. Sense and Sensibility 1990 (republished) Elinor and Marianne are two sisters who are polar opposites in terms of their characters, but who both struggle with disappointment, regret, and hope in the search to find real love within the confines of strict English society.

**Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice 1813 Elizabeth Bennet, a spirited and attractive young woman, encounters and captivates the proud Mr. Darcy in spite of her own preconceived notions.

*Especially suitable for young readers 1 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge Baldwin, James. Go Tell it on the Mountain. 1953. In this novel, teenage John struggles with inner religious conflict and with his rigid father in 1930’s Harlem.

Benioff, David. City of Thieves: a Novel. 2009. Seventeen year old Lev is jailed by the Russian Army during the era of the Siege of Leningrad, and faces dangerous missions with his friend Kolya, to avoid execution. Butler, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. 1993. Lauren Olamina, who suffers from a hereditary trait called "hyperempathy" that causes her to feel others' pain physically, journeys north along the dangerous highways of twentieth-first century California.

Cao, Lan. Monkeybridge. 1997. Both Mai Ngyuen and her widowed mother escape the terrible aftermath of the Vietnam War. But while Mai seems to adjust readily to American life, her mother – haunted by their losses – cannot embrace this new country as home.

*Card, Orson Scott. Ender’s Shadow. 1999. A parallel novel to Card’s award-winning Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow presents Bean, Ender Wiggins’ friend and right hand, who plays an invaluable role in the final battle against an alien enemy.

Clavell, James. Shogun. 1986. A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life, two ways of love. All brought together in a mighty saga of a time and place aflame with conflict, passion, ambition, lust and the struggle for power. Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage. 1895. This Civil War story, told through the eyes of Henry Fleming, an ordinary farm boy turned soldier, captures the sights and sounds of war while creating the intricate inner world of Henry.

De Bernieres, Louis. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. 1994. In the early days of the Second World War, the betrothed daughter of a Greek doctor falls in love with a cultured officer of the Italian army which is invading her country.

**Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss. 2005. Parallel stories of a father and son, one in India the other in New York City, marks a real difference in what people want out of life and how generations see the world.

**Diamant, Anita. The Red Tent. 1997. This historical novel interweaves biblical tales with fictional characters in telling the story of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her childhood to her relationships and adulthood in Egypt.

Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. 1859. This is Dickens’ second historical novel. It centers on the years leading up to the French Revolution and culminates with the Reign of Terror.

Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. 1850. David Copperfield, born in 1820, tells his own story from childhood to adulthood. This is the first of Dickens’ first person narrators.

Doctorow, E.L. Billy Bathgate. 1989. In the Bronx of the 1930s, 15-year-old Billy Bathgate hooks up with a legendary mobster, Dutch Schultz. Schultz becomes an unlikely surrogate parent to the boy, introducing him to the ways of the world and training Billy to follow in his footsteps. Dorris, Michael, A Yellow raft in Blue Water. 1987. Starting in the present and moving backward, this is the story of a young girl trying to understand her self a part black, part Native American girl growing up in the west.

**Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. 1866. A sensitive intellectual is driven by poverty to believe himself exempt from moral law.

Dreiser, Theodore. An American Tragedy. 1925. This is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in the desperate pursuit of success.

**Eliot, George. The Mill on the Floss. In this 19th-century novel, Maggie Tulliver breaks off her romance with the man she loves, after she discovers that it was he who ruined her family’s small mill business.

*Especially suitable for young readers 2 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge Emecheta, Buchi. Bride Price. 1976. Aku-nna, a very young Ibo girl, and Chike, her teacher, fall in love despite tribal custom forbidding their romance.

Enger, Leif. Peace Like a River. 2002. 11-year old Rube Land recalls the events of his childhood, beginning in small-town Minnesota circa 1962, and the family’s road trip across Minnesota and North Dakota to find Rube’s outlaw brother Davy and the struggle “to do the right thing.” Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. 2002. This story follows three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family as they travel from a tiny village in Greece to Prohibition-era Detroit through the city’s race riots of 1967 to the suburban peace of Grosse Pointe, Michigan. At the heart of this story lies the family secret that leads to the transformation of Callie Stephanides into Cal.

Eggers Dave. What is the What. 2006. Based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who was one of Sudan’s lost boys, the story is about his adjustment to life in the United States as well as reflections of his childhood in Africa. This book was chosen for the One Book One Philadelphia initiative in spring of 2008.

Fager, Chuck. Murder among Friends. 1998. The conference was designed to bring fractious Quakers together, but now a televangelist is dead and a Quaker is the major suspect.

Fast, Howard. April Morning. 1970. The story of one day in the life of a young American boy in colonial Lexington, the day on which he joined the militia and saw his father shot down by the British.

Faulkner, William. The Unvanquished. 1938. Set in Mississippi during the Civil War and Reconstruction, The Unvanquished focuses on the Sartoris family, who with their code of personal responsibility and courage, stand for the best of the Old South’s traditions.

**Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Tender is the Night. 1934. Psychiatrist Dick Diver and his former schizophrenic patient turned wife, Nicole, live, work, and play in the French Riviera in the 1920's. Nicole is still dangerously capricious and fragile, and their marriage has been built on a shaky foundation. **Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. 1857. One of the great creations of modern literature, Emma Bovary is the bored wife of a provincial doctor whose desires and illusions are inevitably shattered when reality catches up with her.

Frazier, Charles. Cold Mountain. 1997. Inman, a wounded Civil War soldier, endures the elements, The Guard, and his own weakness and infirmity to return to his sweetheart, Ada, who is fighting her own battle to survive while farming the mountainous North Carolina terrain.

Garcia Y Robertson, R. American Woman. 1998. Sarah Kilroy, a young Quaker married to a Sioux, witnesses the battle at Little Big Horn and the death of General Custer.

Gibbons, Kaye. Ellen Foster. 1987. Casting an unflinching yet humorous eye on her situation, eleven-year-old Ellen survives her mother's death, an abusive father, and uncaring relatives to find for herself a loving home and a new mama.

Gloss, Molly. The Dazzle of Day. 1980. Quakers voyage to the stars as humankind spreads throughout the universe.

Goldberg, Myla. Bee Season. 2000. Eliza’s extraordinary gift for spelling leads her to understand the sounds of the alphabet, in a way that echoes the teachings of the mystical Kabala.

Golden, Arthur S. Memoirs of a Geisha. 1999. In this elegantly written rendering of geisha culture in the years before World War II, Sayuri ages from a nine-year-old Japanese peasant girl to a popular geisha in her late twenties.

Guterson, David. Snow Falling on Cedars. 1990. Set in the 1950’s on an island in Washington, lingering memories of World War II, internment camps and racism help fuel suspicion of a Japanese- American fisherman during a murder trial.

*Especially suitable for young readers 3 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge Hosseini, Khaled. A Thousand Splendid Suns. 2006. A story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan's last thirty years -- from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war, where personal lives -- the struggle to survive, raise a family, find happiness -- are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Haruf, Kent. Plainsong. 2000. A story of life in the prairie town of Holt Colorado, where a seemingly small town deals with big issues through a series of un-expected plot turns.

**Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables. 1850 Meet a respected New England family of many generations in its decaying, gabled mansion, still haunted by the presence of dead ancestors one of whom was accused of witchcraft in 17th century.

Hegi, Ursula. Stones from the River. 1994. Trudi Montag –a dwarf – born between the two World Wars, comes of age just as Hitler's pronouncements begin to threaten the Jewish residents of her town, and of all Germany. Trudi has difficult ethical choices to make, and these decisions shape her for the rest of her life. Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. 1961. In this satirical novel, Captain Yossarian confronts the hypocrisy of war and bureaucracy as he frantically attempts to survive.

Hemingway, Ernest. Farewell to Arms. 1929. World War I is the setting for this love story of an English nurse and a wounded American ambulance officer. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. 1968. In 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert, has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. Jordan's sense of duty conflicts with a local leader's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. 1951. Emerging from a kaleidoscope of experiences and tasted pleasures, Siddhartha transcends to a state of peace and mystic holiness in this strangely simple story.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. 1932. In a chilling vision of the future, babies are produced in bottles and exist in a mechanized world without soul.

Irving, John. A Prayer for Owen Meaney. 1990. Tells the story of two friends who struggle with personal tragedies and with the looming shadow of the Vietnam war.

Jones, Elizabeth Crockett. Three Blocks from Heaven. 2007. Jessica Lawless had a seemingly successful life. It was not until her mother's death that she realized she really didn't have it all. Through a series of unexpected events in her life, Jessica learns that achieving success isn't the same as achieving happiness, and there is more to life than just living.

**Joyce, James. Portrait of the artist as a Young Man. 1916. Protagonist Stephen Daedalus is a renegade Catholic artist-hero in a story that is a testament of what t means to be alive and filled with curiosity, desire, and sensitivity—in short, to be an artist.

Keneally, Thomas. Schindler's List. 1982. Oskar Schindler, a rich factory owner, risks his life and spends his personal fortune to save Jews listed as his workers during World War II.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. 2008. Lahiri’s second short story collection explores individuals hopes and aspirations compared to the realities of events that surround them. Each story has strong characters whose emotions are compelling.

Kingsolver, Barbara. Prodigal Summer. 2000. This lush, sparkling novel weaves together three stories of characters whose lives are intertwined with each other and with the beautiful natural surroundings of southern Appalachia.

LeGuin, Ursula. The Left Hand of Darkness. 1969. First envoy to the technologically primitive world of Winter, Al must deal with a hostile climate; a suspicious, bickering government; and his own conventional sexual mores. **Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. Love in the Time of Cholera. 2007 (reprint). Fermina, who is courted solely by letter, decisively rejects her suitor when he first speaks, and then joins the urbane Dr. Juvenal Urbino, much above her station, in a marriage initially loveless but ultimately remarkable in its strength. McCullers, Carson. The Member of the Wedding. 1946. A young Southern girl is determined to be the third party on a honeymoon, despite all advice.

*Especially suitable for young readers 4 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge Malamud, Bernard. The Fixer. 1966. Victim of a vicious anti-Semitic conspiracy, Yakov Bok is in a Russian prison with only his indomitable will to sustain him.

Mason, Bobbi Ann. In Country 1985. After her father is killed in the Vietnam War, Sam Hughes lives with an uncle whom she suspects suffers from the effects of Agent Orange, and struggles to come to terms with the war's impact on her family.

McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. 1992. Sixteen-year-old John Grady Cole, the last in a long line of west Texas ranchers, realizes that the only life he has ever known is disappearing into the past and therefore leaves on a dangerous and harrowing journey in the beautiful and utterly foreign world that is Mexico. McCarthy, Cormac. Cities of the Plain. 1999. Older now, John Grady Cole sees his way of life disappearing so he holds on to it even harder. Things fall apart as he falls in love with a Mexican girl and tries to rescue her from her enslaver. Funny, sad and violent.

McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove. 1988. While this story is as a classic tale of the west with a group of men herding cattle, the real energy comes from the compelling characters and how they relate to each other.

**Mistry Rohinton. A Fine Balance. 2001. Set in India, this story follows the lives of four ordinary people whose lives become intertwined through the politics of the country.

**Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. 1851. In allegorical and epic saga, the fanatical Captain Ahab swears vengeance on the mammoth white whale that has crippled him. Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye. 1970. In this subtle and lyrical work, Toni Morrison tells the story of Pecola, a black girl in Ohio who longs for blue eyes so she’ll be lovable.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried: A Work of Fiction. 1990. These stories follow Tim O'Brien's platoon of American soldiers through a variety of personal and military encounters during the Vietnam War.

Orwell, George. 1984. 1949. A bleak vision of the future when history and “truth” itself is used to command the obedience of the world’s population.

Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. 1948. This is a beautifully told and profoundly compassionate story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, who experiences the joys and tragedies of a South African community struggling with the injustice of apartheid.

Petterson, Per. Out Stealing Horses. 2003. Looking back at his life, Trond Sander, begins to understand what moments defined his life for him. Specifically, he recalls the effect of going out to steal horses In Norway with his younger brother soon after world War Two.

*Price, Susan. The Sterkarm Handshake. 2000. Andrea, a 21st century researcher, and Per, a 16th century warrior, find that their love for each other is threatened by the collision between their cultures and peoples.

Quinonez, Ernesto. Bodega Dreams. 2000. In this inspired and darkly funny novel, young Chino finds himself helplessly drawn into a criminal network after being introduced to the mysterious, powerful Willie Bodega.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front. 1928. This book tells the story of war and the deep detachment from German civilian life felt by men returning from the front.

Roth, Phillip. The Plot Against America. 2005. Charles Lindbergh, the flying hero and Nazi sympathizer, becomes President of the United States on a platform of keeping us out of WWII. Soon “camps” start springing up in the West. Jews are encouraged to move there……

**Roth, Phillip. Operation Shylock. 1993. The life of Philip Roth, a Jewish-American novelist in Israel, is being plagued by an impostor who is claiming to be him and publicly spreading controversial ideas.

*Especially suitable for young readers 5 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge Russo, Richard. Empire Falls. 2001. Miles Roby, proprietor of the local greasy spoon and the recently divorced father of a teenage daughter has a tendency to take it on the chin. His role as Mr. Nice Guy thrusts him into all sorts of clashes with his not-so-nice Maine mill town community.

Shaffer, Mary Ann and Barrows, Annie. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. 2009. Quasi-journalist Juliet (aka Izzy Bickerstaff) is tired of writing about London during WWII, but a serendipitous turn of events sends her on a journey to Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands occupied by the Nazis during the War. As she slowly uncovers the stories of the island, so she comes to see her own life in a different light.

Shields, Carol. The Stone Diaries. 1993. With irony and humor Shields weaves together the poignant story of a 20th Century pilgrim, and in doing so creates a story that is a paradigm of our unsettled era.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. 1906. Telling a vivid story that led to government regulations of the food industry, this is a vivid portrait of life and death in a turn-of-the-century American meat-packing factory.

Smith Zadie. On Beauty. 2005. Set in Both England and the United States, this is a story about family, politics, and the power of self deception.

**Smith, Judy. Yellowbird. 2007. Looking at Hawthorne and Melville through the points of view of their wives and a native American mystic.

Smiley, Jane. A Thousand Acres. 1991. Aging Larry Cook announces his intention to turn over his 1,000-acre farm to his three adult daughters, Caroline, Ginny and Rose, but then leaves Caroline out of the deal because she is less than enthusiastic about her father's generosity. While Larry Cook deteriorates into an alcoholic, his daughters are left to cope with the often grim realities of life on a family farm and their pasts.

Stoker, Bram. Dracula. The original (and best?) vampire story. Read it if you dare.

**Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 1852. This anti-slavery novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States.

Stendhal, Roger. The Red and the Black. 1830. This book relates to a young man’s attempts to rise above his common birth, only to find himself betrayed by his own passions.

Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. 1939. An Oklahoma farmer and his family leave the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression to go to the promised land of California. **Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina. 1877. This tragic love story pits the fragile heart of Anna against society as she endeavors to sustain her affair with her beloved Vronsky.

Uchida, Yoshiko. Picture Bride. 1987. Taro journeys to America in the early 1900s to marry a man she has never met. Updike, John. Rabbit Run. 1960. Harry Angstrom was a star basketball player in high school and that was the best time of his life. Now in his mid-20s, his work is unfulfilling, his marriage is moribund, and he tries to find happiness with another woman. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. 1966. Billy Pilgrim, a GI prisoner of war, becomes “unstuck” in time and travels through space and time. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. 1982. Celie journeys through an unbearable life consisting of many different, but abusive, relationships to find herself and her own happiness.

Wharton, Edith. Ethan Frome. 1911. Set in turn-of-the-century New England, Ethan Frome is a man with dreams and desires that end in an ironic turn of events. Wright, Richard. Native Son. 1940. For Bigger Thomas, an African American man accused of a crime in the white man's world, there could be no extenuating circumstances, no explanations and only death. *Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose. 1992. Disturbed by her grandmother Gemma's unique version of Sleeping Beauty, Rebecca seeks the truth behind the fairy tale.

*Especially suitable for young readers 6 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge [Non-Fiction] Armstrong Karen. The Spiral Staircase. 2005. Karen Armstrong writes about her decision to leave the Roman Catholic church from the perspective of a nun.

Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. 1998. This riveting account of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 expedition to Antarctica presents , for the first time, 150 images by Australian photographer Frank Hurley and superb research and narrative by Caroline Alexander.

*Asinof, Eliot. Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series. 1963. It's all here: the players, the scandal, the shame, and the damage the 1919 World Series caused America's national pastime.

*Atkin, S. Beth. Voices from the Streets: Young Former Gang Members Tell Their Stories. 1996. Gang members from all races and backgrounds describe why they joined, and why--and how--they left.

Alvarez, Walter. T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. 1997. Geologist Alvarez presents the development of the impact theory of dinosaur extinction as the adventure/mystery it was.

Bardi, Jason. The Calculus Wars. 2006. Both intellectual powerhouses, Newton and Leibniz openly fought over who actually invented Calculus.

Barry John M. The Great Influenza. 2004. The epic story of the deadliest plague in history--the influenza pandemic of 1918-19.

Bissinger, Buzz. Friday Night Lights: a Town, a Team, and a Dream. 2004 (reprint). A chronicle of a football season in Odessa, Texas, a depressed All-American town that lives and dies with the fortunes of its high school football team.

Blais, Madeleine. In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle. 1995. Learn about the year of heart, sweat, and muscle that transformed the Amherst Lady Hurricanes basketball team into state champions.

Bodanis, David. E=mc2: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation. 2000. After showing how Eingsetin formulated his famous equation in 1905, Bodanis tells the riveting story of the first great application of E=mc2: the heated race to split the atom.

Boorstin, Jon. Making Movies Work: Thinking Like a Filmmaker. 1996. Both novice and expert can enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at the art of filmmaking.

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. 1970. There's another side of America's western expansion: the one seen through Native American eyes.

**Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. 1962. This landmark book gave birth to the environmental movement.

Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. 1997. Barely a postscript in official Japanese history, the horrific rape, mutilation, torture, and murder of hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens took place over the course of just seven weeks.

Cooke, Mervyn. The Chronicle of Jazz. 1998. Cooke provides a comprehensive guide to this uniquely American musical form.

Deng, Alephonsion, They Poured Fire on us From the Sky: the True Story of Three Lost Boys from Sudan. 2003. A gripping account of the stories of three boys forced to flee from the massacres of Sudan's civil war and of their determination to survive with spirits unbroken.

Didion, Joan. The Year of Magical Thinking. 2005. The narrative structure of the book parallels the mental re-living of a tragic event that is common to many experiences of grief.

DuBois, W.E.B. The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches. 1903. Educator DuBois describes the lives and history of African American farmers, including the career of Booker T. Washington.

*Especially suitable for young readers 7 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge **Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. 1997. Diamond contends that these three factors determined the course of world power throughout history.

Due, Linnea. Joining the Tribe: Growing Up Gay and Lesbian in the '90's. 1995. Being young and gay in America means surviving cruelty, abuse, and isolation, as these individual stories of courage from teens around the country attest.

Ehrenreich, Barbara. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. 2001. Can you really survive on minimum wage? To find out, the author left her middle-class life for a year to see what life is really like for America’s working poor.

Feynman, Richard. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out. 1999. Winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, this collection of Feynman’s thoughts on being inquisitive inspires intellectual curiosity in every subject matter.

*Garfunkel, Trudy. On Wings of Joy: The Story of Ballet from the 16th Century to Today. 1994. Fascinating history, dancers, choreographers, and stories: here is everything that has helped create this wonderful art form.

Gawande, Atul. Better: A Surgeon’s notes on Performance. 2007. While exploring his own field of medicine, Gawande looks carefully at how doctors learn from their own mistakes and what they can do better in their own practices. His insights into medicine can be applied to every day life.

Goldberg, Vicki. The Power of Photographs: How Photography Changed Our Lives. 1991. Photographers and photographs evolve, rather than spring forth fully formed.

Gore, Al. An Inconvenient Truth: the Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. 2006. Gore details the factors contributing to the growing climate crisis, describes changes to the environment caused by global warming, and discusses the shift in environmental policy that is needed to avert disaster.

Gombrich, E. H. The Story of Art. 1995. Everything from cave paintings to the experimental art of today is covered, in words and pictures, in this sixteenth edition of one of the most famous and popular art books ever published.

**Greene, Brian. The Elegant Universe. 2000. A wonderfully written account of relativity, quantum mechanics and the attempt to unify them. Delves into string theory. All without math.

**Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. 1988. Cosmology becomes understandable as the author discusses the origin, evolution, and fate of our universe or try his more accessible 2008 work, A Briefer History of Time.

Hersch, Patricia. A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence. 1998. An intimate three-year journey through contemporary adolescence with eight "typical" teens reveals a separate culture spawned not from personal choice, but rather from adult alienation and abandonment.

Hersey, John. Hiroshima. 1946. Six Hiroshima survivors reflect on the aftermath of the first atomic bomb.

Hillenbrand, Laura. Seabiscuit. 2001. Hillenbrand tells the story of thoroughbred racing and Seabiscuit, an unimpressive physical specimen of a race horse, and his unlikely rise to legendary status during the 1930s and 1940s.

*Jones, K. Maurice. Say It Loud! The Story of Rap Music. 1994. From a village in West Africa to a street in Brooklyn, to MTV, rappers make the Scene.

*Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea. 1997. Haunting premonitions didn't save seven fisherman from the ferocious and deadly power of the sea.

Katz, Jon. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho. 2000. This is the story of how Jesse and Eric, two teenage hackers, used technology to try and change their lives and their destiny.

Kendall, Elizabeth. Where She Danced. 1979. The contributions of major innovators and the conditions of their times are the basis for this history of modern American dance.

King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. 2000.

*Especially suitable for young readers 8 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge In this memoir, King reflects on his career as a writer and offers good suggestions for those seeking a writer’s life.

King, Jr., Martin Luther. Why We Can’t Wait. 2000 reprint. This book examines the history of the civil rights struggle and the tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality for African Americans.

Kolb, Rocky. Blind Watchers of the Sky: The People and Ideas that Shaped Our View of the Universe. 1996. Kolb delivers a witty and lively history of astronomy and cosmology.

*Krakauer, Jon. Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster. 1997. His dream expedition to Everest became a nightmare when human error and a sudden storm combined to claim the lives of some of the world's best mountain climbers.

Krakauer, Jon, Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith. 2003. An investigation of a branch of the Mormon church that believes in polygamy and verges on criminal behavior. Focuses on two brothers who, claiming they were directed by God, kill the wife of another brother.

Kurson, Robert. Shadow Divers: the true adventure of two Americans who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II. 2004. Two weekend deep-sea wreck divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery and to make history themselves.

Larson, Erik. Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. 2003. The twin stories of the genesis of the World’s Fair in Chicago and Henry H. Holmes, a killer who used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths.

Lewis, Anthony. Gideon’s Trumpet. 1964. A history of the landmark case of James Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel.

Lopez, Steve. The Soloist: a Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music. 2008. This year’s choice for One Book One Philadelphia, newspaper reporter Steve Lopez chronicles the life of Nathaniel Ayers, a talented musician who becomes schizophrenic and homeless, and Lopez’s efforts to help him.

Mellon, Thomas. Mrs. Paine’s Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy. Ruth Hyde Paine, ex-head of Green Street Friends School, befriends Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald, setting the scene for tragedy. Mortenson, Greg (with David Relin). Three Cups of Tea. 2007. After failing to climb K2, “Dr. Greg” discovers a whole new dream: building schools for children – especially girls – in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Myron, Vicki. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. 2008. One morning Myron, a librarian in a small library in Iowa, discovers a tiny frost-bitten kitten in the bookdrop. This is the story of that kitten and how he became a mascot capable of bringing international fame to his small Midwestern town.

Nazario Sonia. Enrique’s Journey. 2007. A story of the immigrant experience from Central America into the Untied States where individuals are willing to give up so much of what they know for what they hope may come.

Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail. 1864. In 1846, a young man of privilege left his comfortable Boston home to embark on a strenuous overland journey to the untamed West. This timeless account of Parkman's travels and travails provides an expressive portrait of the rough frontiersmen, immigrants, and Native Americans he encounters, set against the splendor of the unspoiled wilderness.

Regis, Ed. Virus Ground Zero: Stalking the Killer Viruses with the Centers for Disease Control. 1996. The history of the CDC is told through the handling of the Ebola outbreak in Zaire.

Ridley, Matt. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. 2000. This account is a nearly jargon-free expedition that hops from one human chromosome to the next in search of the most delightful stories.

Roberts, Cokie. Ladies of Liberty: the Women who Shaped our Nation. 2008. These biographical portraits shed new light on the generations of heroines, reformers and visionaries who helped shape our nation.

Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood. 2003.

*Especially suitable for young readers 9 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge A memoir told in the form of a graphic novel, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran as a young girl, growing up during the Islamic Revolution. This original account speaks to growing up and vividly depicts the human cost of war and political repression.

Simon, Rachel. Riding the Bus with my Sister: a True Life Journey. 2003. Simon promises her adult sister with mental retardation that she will spend a year riding “her” buses in Allentown, PA, with her, and discovers a new appreciation for her sister Beth, and new insights about her own life.

Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. 2001. The growth of the fast food industry has changed America’s eating habits and greatly impacted agriculture, the meatpacking industry, the minimum wage, and other aspects of American life.

Sedaris, David Me Talk Pretty Some Day. 2001. The most consistently hilarious stories in this book are the ones dealing with the odd idiosyncrasies of Sedaris' father. However, by far the funniest story of the bunch had to be "You Can't Kill the Rooster", about Sedaris' foul-mouthed, white trash younger brother.

Seife, Charles. Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea. 2000. In Zero, Carles Seife describes with good humor and wonder how one digit has bedeviled and fascinated thinkers from ancient Athens to Los Alamos.

** Shiff, Karenna Gore. Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America. 2006. This book tells the fascinating stories of nine influential women, who each in her own way tackled inequity and advocated change throughout the turbulent twentieth century, including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who was born a slave and fought against lynching and Mother Jones, an Irish immigrant who organized coal miners and campaigned against child labor.

*Slung, Michele. Living with Cannibals and Other Women’s Adventures. 2000. This is a collection of short biographies of spirited women who have undertaken physical adventures and explorations from the eighteenth century to the present.

*Spiegelman, Art. Maus: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began. 1986. Using comic book format, the author chronicles his father's experience of the Holocaust and its impact on his family.

Thomas, Lewis. Lives of the Cell. 1984. A thought-provoking collection of essays on biology that help you to look at your surroundings in a new light.

**Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. 1850. Walden is Thoreau’s autobiographical account of his solitary existence, bare of creature comforts but rich in contemplation of the wonders of nature and the ways of man. On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience is the classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty.

Watson, James D. The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery and Structure of DNA. 1968. The author recreates the excitement of participating in a momentous discovery and demonstrates to the non-scientist how the scientific method works.

Weiner, Eric. The Geography of Bliss. 2008. As a National Public Radio Correspondent, Weiner travels around the world to explore how different cultures understand happiness.

White, Theodore. The Making of the President. 1960. A classic work of campaign reporting, this book follows John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon during their presidential campaign in 1960.

*Williams, Juan. Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965. 1987. From Brown v. the Board of Education to the Voting Rights Act, Williams outlines the social and political gains of African Americans.

[Biography]

ISABEL ALLENDE. Paula. Isabel Allende. 1995. At the bedside of her dying daughter, Allende spins tales of childhood, of ancestors, and of becoming a novelist. man.

*LANCE ARMSTRONG. It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. Lance Armstrong. 2000. People around the world have found inspiration in the story of Lance Armstrong—a world-class athlete nearly struck down by cancer, only to recover and win the Tour de France, the multi-day bicycle race famous for its grueling intensity.

*Especially suitable for young readers 10 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA. A Place to Stand. Jimmy Santiago Baca. 2001 Baca revisits his life, starting with his childhood in rural New Mexico, where both parents essentially abandoned him during his adolescence in "juvee" halls, and his days as a drug dealer. The story leads up to an account of five years in a maximum-security prison in Arizona, and his unusual personal transformation.

**ISMAEL BEAH. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Ismael Beah. 2007. Beah wrote this book “to survive each passing day” as a forcibly inducted boy soldier in Sierra Leon. He survived to address the United Nations about how children are affected by war.

MARIE CURIE. Madam Curie: a Biography. Eve Curie. 1937. In sharing personal papers and her own memories, a daughter pays tribute to her unique and generous mother, a scientific genius.

*ANNIE DILLARD. An American Childhood. Annie Dillard. 1987. In this magical memoir, the author describes her girlhood in 1950’s Pittsburgh.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Frederick Douglass. 1845. Former slave and famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass describes the horrors of his enslavement and eventual escape.

RICHARD FEYNMAN. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character. Richard P. Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. 1985. This Nobel Prize-winning physicist was also a bongo drummer, a practical joker, and a loving husband.

CHANRITHY HIM. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing up under the Khmer Rouge. Chanrithy Him. 2000. In this mesmerizing story of survival, courage and perseverance, Chanrihy Him vividly recounts her childhood trek through the hell of the “killing fields” of Cambodia during the Pol Pot regime.

**ANDREW JACKSON American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. Jon Meacham. 2008. A chronicle of Jackson’s life as a military hero and seventh president of the U.S., this book addresses the personal upheaval that surrounded him, and his legacy for the modern presidency.

*JUNE JORDAN. Soldier: A Poet’s Childhood. June Jordan. 2001. This is a profoundly moving memoir about a girl whose immigrant parents from the West Indies must struggle to provide her with the opportunities not available to them.

MARY KARR. The Liars' Club: A Memoir. Mary Karr. 1995. Growing up in "a family of liars and drunks" is never easy, and yet, despite alcoholism, rape, and other dark secrets, the author makes childhood in an East Texas refinery town sound as funny as it was painful.

*HELEN KELLER. The Story of My Life. Helen Keller. 1902. Overcoming deafness and blindness to become an outstanding citizen, Helen Keller embodies courage, passion, and perseverance.

MAXINE KINGSTON. The Woman Warrior. Maxine Hong Kingston. 1976. This candid and poetic memoir describes the conflict Kingston felt in growing up Chinese American, caught between Chinese traditions and American values.

*JAMAICA KINCAID. My Brother. Jamaica Kincaid. 1997. The author returns to the Caribbean island of her birth to help care for her younger brother who is dying of AIDS.

**MERIWETHER LEWIS. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. Stephen E. Ambrose. 1996. Lewis and Clark brave the wilds of North America in this vivid account of exploration and adventure.

MUHAMMAD. Muhammad, a Prophet for our Time. Karen Armstrong. 2006. Armstrong’s depiction of the life and times of the prophet gives great insight into the life of one of the most important figures known to man.

**ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin. 2005. Goodwin profiles the team of political and personal competitors that Lincoln put together on his cabinet, to lead the country through one of its darkest times.

JAMES McBRIDE AND RUTH McBRIDE-JORDAN. The Color of Water: a Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. James McBride. 1996. McBride blends his story with that of his mother, who battled poverty and racism to raise twelve children.

*Especially suitable for young readers 11 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge FRANK McCOURT. Angela's Ashes: A Memoir. Frank McCourt. 1996. Illness, hunger, alcoholism, and death plague McCourt's childhood in Ireland, but somehow he survives with his spirit intact.

DAVID McCULLOUGH. John Adams. 2001 McCullough brings President John Adams (1735-1826) back to life in this historical narrative, revealing in particular his restrained, sometimes off-putting disposition, as well as his political shrewdness.

MARK MATHABANE. Kaffir Boy: The True Story of a Black Youth's Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa. Mark Mathabane. 1986. Growing up under the brutalities of apartheid South Africa, Mathabane describes the growing unrest in his country and his eventual escape through his ties to the tennis community.

VED MEHTA. Sound-Shadows of the New World. Ved Mehta. 1985. Leaving his home, family, and culture behind, a blind Indian boy travels to Arkansas to attend a special school where he is challenged by handicap, loneliness, poor preparation, and culture shock.

*ANN MOODY. Coming of Age in Mississippi. Ann Moody. 1968. One of the first brave young African American students to participate in a lunch counter sit-in, Moody becomes a heroine of the civil rights movement.

PAT MORA. House of Houses. Pat Mora. 1997. With magic and imagination, author Pat Mora weaves the voices of her ancestors into her own personal account of growing up in a Mexican-American family in El Paso, Texas.

BARACK OBAMA. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Barack Obama. 2006. Obama engages themes raised in his 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech and offers a vision of the future of government.

BARACK OBAMA. Dreams from My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance. Barack Obama. 2004. Obama addresses racism, poverty and corruption, in Chicago and in Kenya, in his search for himself as a son of a white mother and black Kenyan father.

TSAR NICHOLAS ROMANOV AND TSARINA ALEXANDRA. Nicholas and Alexandra. Robert K. Massie. 1967 At the brink of revolution, the last Tsar of Russia and his family become victims of their own mismanagement and personal problems.

**ELEANOR ROOSEVELT. Eleanor Roosevelt: Vol. 1:1884-1933. Blanche Wiesen Cook. 1992. Born into a privileged world, Eleanor Roosevelt became a champion of the underprivileged and a fighter for human rights.

**HARRY S. TRUMAN. Truman. David G. McCullough. 1992. This notable president earned America's respect by helping to end World War II and reshape the world for postwar peace.

*ERIK WEIHENMAYER. Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man’s Journey to Climb Farther Than the Eye Can See. Erik Weihenmayer. 2001. The incredible, inspiring story of world-class climber Erik Weihenmayer, from the terrible diagnosis that foretold the loss of his eyesight, to his dream to climb mountains, and finally his question to reach each of the Seven Summits.

*TOBIAS WOLFF. This Boy's Life: A Memoir. Tobias Wolff. 1989 In and out of trouble in his youth, this charter member of the "Bad Boys' Club" survives a boyhood that stretches from Florida to the Pacific Northwest.

*Especially suitable for young readers 12 **Especially suitable for readers who like a challenge