The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz

The fictionalized story of Princess Masako of Japan- the tragic tale of a modern, highly educated woman who married her prince- for love- and was destroyed by the weight of a tradition that will not be modernized. Interestingly, the actual biography, Princess Masako by Ben Hills, was published at about the same time. Both are riveting.




Without a Map by Meredith Hall

If you’re a baby boomer, you remember “the girls who went away” to have babies and the shame that entailed. Hall’s experience was indicative of that period and she movingly tells the effects of her family’s rejection and her terrible journey towards acceptance of herself. Powerful.

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Nigeria remains an unknown to most of the world. Biafra conjures up memories of starving children and concerts to raise money for them. Chimamanda Adiche opens our world through the story of Ugwu, the Igbo houseboy to Odenigbo, a university professor, his beautiful mistress, Olanna and Kainene her twin, daughters of a chief. As the Igbo secede from Nigeria in 1967 to form the independent nation of Biafra , we learn the effects of colonialism on Africa and the strength of its people. An incredibly beautiful and moving book.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

A delightful story of a certain Queen who, with her Corgis, wanders into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace and feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Having discovered the joy of reading for pleasure and intellectual curiosity, she becomes obsessed with reading everything she can get her hands on and finds that her view of the world and the prescribed order of things has changed dramatically. A delightful book!

The Last Summer of the World by Emily Mitchell

A fictionalized account of photographer Edward Steichen ‘s life in France during the summer of 1918: his work in aerial reconnaissance, his artistic successes, his friendship with Steiglitz, Rodin, Stein, and others, and the love affair that destroyed his marriage. A hauntingly beautiful book that resembles one of his photographs, documenting a life and the horrors of war during the last summer of the world.

The Maytrees by Annie Dillard

Many who read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek will remember the lyrical beauty of Dillard's descriptions of nature. In the Maytrees, she has written, in spare elegant prose, the simple story of a couple, the Bigelows and their life in
postwar Provincetown. Nature's vastness and nearness is as striking as the Bigelow's decades of loving and longing.

The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman (further updates and expanded)

Friedman, the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times has written an essential update on globalization, its opportunities for individual empowerment, its achievements at lifting millions out of poverty, and its drawbacks- environmental, social, and political. A brilliant, instantly
clarifying metaphor for the most profound mega-shift to rock the world in living memory.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein

Harvard philosophy majors Cathcart & Klein are your emcees on this hilarious yet profound tour de farce through Western philosophy. Fascinating.

Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury

The story of Yunes, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, who lies in a coma in a makeshift refugee camp on the outskirts of Beruit. At his side is his spiritual son, Khalil, who nurses him, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness. Khalil relates the story of the Palestinian exile while recalling Yunes own extraordinary life and his love for his wife whom he meets secretly over the years. A powerful novel of Palestinian history.

Khoury, who is professor of Middle Eastern Studies at New York University, is also the editor of the literary supplement of Beruit’s daily newspaper, An-Nahar.

Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophjy by Jostein Gaarder

A comprehensive history of Western philosophy as recounted to a 14-year-old Norwegian schoolgirl, Sophie, who comes home from school one day to find two notes in her mailbox: “Who are you?” and “Where does the world come from?”. Obsessed with finding the answers, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher. Fascinating.

The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher by Julain Baggini

Both entertaining and startling, The Pig That Wants To Be Eaten offers one hundred philosophical puzzles that stimulate thought on a host of moral, social, and personal dilemmas. Clever and thought provoking, this is a portable feast for the mind.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Even better than his first novel, The Kite Runner, Hosseini writes of war-torn Afghanistan under the Soviet occupation, the mujahideen, and the Taliban through the story of two women and their life of scorn and abuse. Tragic yet beautiful, Hosseini's novel is a sad and beautiful testament to both Afghani suffering and strength.

Presidential Courage by Michael Beschloss

Beschloss, the author of The Conquerors, has written an inspiring saga of crucial times in America's history when a courageous President dramatically changed the future of the United States. Bringing to life these flawed, complex men and their families, friends, and foes, we get an intimate, behind the scenes views of Presidents coping with the supreme dilemmas of their lives. Beschloss has been called the nation's leading Presidential historian.

God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens

With his unique brand of erudition and wit, Hitchens addresses one of the most urgent issues of our time: the malignant force of religion in the world. Whether you are a lifelong believer, devout atheist, or someone who remains uncertain about the role of religion in our lives, you will want to consider the arguments in this book.

The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden

Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, Scottish doctor Nicolas Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident. Idi Amin, careening down a dirt road, has run over a cow. When Garrigan tends to Amin’s sprained wrist, the dictator, in his obsession for all things Scottish, appoints Garrigan his person physician. Thus begins a fateful dalliance with the dictator whose autocracy would evolve into a reign of terror.

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

For those weary of bitter partisanship and alienated by a Congress that no longer seems to listen to the people, Obama offers a new perspective on politics, exploring what lies at the heart of our democracy.

The Unfree French, Life Under the Occupation by Richard Vinen

This compelling history examines the years of subjugation under Nazi & Vichy rule and dispels the notion that under a collaborating government, life was tolerable. The fear and moral quandaries faced by the French are fascinating reading and reveal much about human nature in an impossible situation.





The Mission Song by John Le Carre

Le Carre’s best yet, this is the story of Bruno Salvador, the 29 year old orphaned love child of a Catholic Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Trained as an interpreter in minority African languages, he is courted by London corporations, law firms, hospitals, and British Intelligence . A thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times.

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

The author of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray has written a novel of magnificent scope about the volatile friendship and dedicated careers of two men determined to map the human mind. A fascinating historical tale of the birth of modern psychiatry. Faulks takes us from the squalor of Victorian lunatic asylums to the lecture halls of academia, from California to the plains of Africa, following these two men in their search for the reasons for mental illness.

The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany

This controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today. As much about the human conditrion as it is about Egyptian character, it is an interesting look at Egypt since Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy.

Hide and Seek with Angels: A Life of J.M. Barrie by Lisa Chaney


If you loved the movie Neverland, you'll be entranced by the biography of J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan. Chaney explores Barrie's own struggles to grow up and deepens our understanding of his most famous character and the complex relationship between life and art.





Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts,and Nerve Took a Team to the Top by Seth Mnookin

Mnookin, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a former senior writer for Newsweek, reveals how a savvy sports organization, the Boston Red Sox, tries to stay on top while under the relentless scrutiny of the most voracious sportswriters and baseball's most demanding fans.







The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

On a winter night in 1964 a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy, but the doctor realizes that his daughter has Down’s syndrome. He makes a split-second decision that will haunt their lives forever- he asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby to an institution… Riveting and heart-breaking.

An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore

As Mark Twain once remarked, “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.” Al Gore quotes Twain and others to get his point across- that it might be inconvenient, but imperative that we realize and do something about global warming. His book is full of startling photographs of what we are doing to our world accompanied by commentary and graphs. Very readable, very direct.

The Stolen Prince by Hugh Barnes

In the spring of 1703, a young African boy stepped off a slave slip in Constantinople claiming to be a prince of Abyssinia. Rescued by Peter the Great of Russia, he became Abram Petrovich Gannibal. Recipient of the best education available in the new European capital of St Petersburg, Gannibal soared to dizzying heights as a soldier, diplomat, mathematician, and spy. His descendents include Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s greatest poet, and several Mountbattens and others close to the royal family in England.

The Faithful Spy by Alex Berenson

An excellent, chilling, almost too-good-not-to-be-true latter day spy story. The faithful spy in question finally infiltrates Al-Qaeda after ten years. A tingling, sobering end, told with authority by a New York Times reporter who was in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

90 year-old Jacob Jankowski still has vivid memories of himself as a young man with Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth- his salvation and a living hell. The unlikely trio of Jacob, Marlena, the star of the equestrian act, and Rosie the elephant, create a bond that becomes their only hope for survival.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

The author of The Botany of Desire presents our dilemma- what to eat for dinner, given the fact that we can eat just about anything we want. But what should we eat? Pollan investigates each of the food chains- industrial food, organic/alternative, and food we forage ourselves and develops a definitive account of the American way of eating.

My Life in France by Julie Child

The captivating story of this master of French cooking’s years in France. Begun just moths before her death and completed by her grandnephew.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

An amazing chronicle of the chaos of the exodus from Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion and of a village during the actual occupation. The author, who was Jewish, perished at Auschwitz.

The 10th Circle by Jodi Picoult

Picoult has written yet another powerful chronicle showing her deep understanding of the problems of teenagers. Trixie Stone, 14 years old, is the light of her father’s life-a straight A student, pretty, popular- until a single act changes everything. Riveting and sad, this is Picoult at her best.

The World to Come by Dara Horn

One of those rare finds! The breathtakingly beautiful story of a stolen Chagall painting, a lonely former child prodigy, and the nature of love.

The Future of the Wild: Radical Conservation for a Crowded World by Jonathan Adams

Eloquently and accessibly, Adams weaves conservation history and biology with on-the-ground stories of successful, if unexpected, partnerships that find common ground in their commitment to protect land and the animals that inhabit it.

The Good Life by Jay McInerney

McInerney probes the human response to tragedy and the complexity of human desire in this post 9/11 novel which grapples with everything that terrible day means to us.

The Constant Princess by Phillippa Gregory

The bestselling author of The Other Boleyn Girl and the Virgin’s Lover now introduces us to another unforgettable heroine, Katherine of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. A love match to Prince Arthur of England ends at his death and her promise to marry Arthur’s brother Henry - Henry VIII- fulfills her destiny to become Queen of England.

Gentlemen & Players by Joanne Harris

The author of Five Quarters of the Orange has written a harrowing tale of cat and mouse. Classics teacher Roy Straitley, an eccentric fixture for more than thirty years at St. Oswald’s Grammar School for Boys is called upon to save St. Oswald’s from a dark undercurrent that threatens to destroy the school.

POSTWAR: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt

Judt, who was born in England, studied in Cambridge and Paris, and is currently Director of the Remarque Institute, dedicated to the study of Europe. He has written a sweeping narrative history in the grand tradition, an absorbing chronicle of Europe since the fall of Berlin. Witty, opinionated, and full of fresh stories, Postwar is a joy for lovers of history and lovers of Europe as well. With 9 maps and 77 photographs. (image forthcoming)

Despite the Falling Snow by Shamim Sarif

Seventy year- old Alexander Ivanov has built a successful business empire and has managed to bury the terrible memories of his life in post Stalinist Russia with his wife Katya. A beautiful love story that alternates between present day Boston and 1956 Soviet Russia.

 

 

Alexander McCall Smith
with Lynne Reed