1863:
The Rebirth of a Nationby Joseph E. Stevens (Bantam Doubleday Dell
Pub (Trd), 1999).
The turning point during the Civil War and a behind the scenes look (in the
Lincoln Whitehouse) at what happened on and off the battlefields.
A
Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Broadway, 2004).
An audacious book about what happened and how humans figured it out.
Includes some wonderful (sometimes sad) stories about the insatiable human
thirst for knowledge.
A Brief History of
Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking (Bantam,
1988).
"The basic ideas about the
origin and fate of the universe can be stated without mathematics in a form
that people without scientific education can understand. This is what I have
attempted to do in this book"--Stephen Hawking
A Bright Shining Lie:
John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
by Neil Sheehan (Vintage Books, 1989).
Another must read book about American history and the anatomy of what
went wrong with America's involvement in Vietnam.
A
Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (Vintage, 1996). Story of an
obsessed lawyer seeking justice and the the truth about the effects of
corporate dumping on the community of Woburn, Massachusetts, in the wake of
several deaths linked to drinking the water.
Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the
Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol (HarperCollins, 1996).
A story about children who grow up in the South Bronx - the poorest
congressional district of our nation. What exactly do we plan to do with
those whom we appear to have defined as economically and humanly
superfluous? How tough do we dare to be?
America
(the Book): A Citizen's
Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the writers of The
Daily Show (Warner Books, 2004). A humorous guide to U.S. history and
government for Americans who still have a sense of humor.
Amusing
Ourselves to Death: Public
Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman (Penguin,
1986). "Postman's theme is the decline of the printed word and
the ascendancy of the ``tube'' with its tendency to present everything:
murder, mayhem, politics, weather as entertainment." (Publisher's Weekly)
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden
(Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999)
A story of courage, the futility of war, and American foreign policy gone
horribly wrong.
Blue Like Jazz:
Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
(Thomas Nelson, 2003). Miller describes his remarkable journey back to
a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
Dictionary
Of The Future: The Words, Terms, and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live,
Work, and Talk by Faith Popcorn and Adam Hanft (Hyperion, 2001).
Our revved-up world is creating new words and language at breakneck speed --
from Chimeraplasty and Karaoke Managers to Pharmacogenomics and Yogurt
Cities. Here's a "speak preview" of hundreds of new, emerging, and
just-invented words and terms.
Drawing
on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and
Artistic Confidenceby Betty Edwards (Tarcher/Putnam, 1989)
Great course on how to release the creative side of yourself and pay
attention to the details that make a difference between ordinary and
extraordinary.
Freakonomics:
A Rogue Economist Explores
the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J.
Dubner (HarperCollins, 2005). "It might appear presumptuous of Steven
Levitt to see himself as an all-purpose intellectual detective, fit to take
on whatever puzzle of human behavior grabs his fancy. But on the evidence of
Freakonomics, the presumption is earned." (Jim Holt, The New York Times)
God:
A Biography by Jack Miles (Vintage Books, 1995)
Ambitious title, ambitious project. Miles uses a literary critical approach
to the Hebrew Bible that depicts a complex God who creates human beings to
reflect God's image -- to teach God about who God is. Worth the read for the
fresh treatment alone.
Good
to Great: Why Some Companies Make the
Leap... and Others Don't by Jim C. Collins (HarperCollins,
2001). After Built to Last, Collins research firm found that
companies that made the leap share 5 traits: (1) Level 5 Leaders, (2) The
Hedgehog Concept (transcending the curse of competence), (3) Combine
discipline with entrepreneurship; (4) Technology Accelerators,
and (5) Avoid radical change and restructuring.
Guns,
Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human
Societies by Jared Diamond (Norton, 1999). Won the
Pulitzer Prize. Diamond, an evolutionary biologist, looks at
environmental factors to determine why Eurasians conquered, displaced, or
decimated Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the other
way around.
How
the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role form
the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill
(Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995)
History book that reads like a great novel.
How
Wars Are Won: The 13 Rules of War--from
Ancient Greece to the War on Terror by Alexander Bevin
(Crown, 2003). "Alexander (How Hitler Could Have Won World War II,
2000, etc.) illuminates each of his 13 "rules" by using historical
conflicts. The military is taught to exploit above all the element of
surprise coupled with the ever-popular concept of divide-and-conquer." (Kirkus
Reviews)
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
(Vintage, 1989). Think Gladiator was cool? Let Graves
take you on a trip to Rome you will never forget. Claudius is the
epileptic prince no one thought to assassinate.
Claudius the God by Robert Graves
(Vintage, 1989). The sequel to I, Claudius.
The idiot becomes king and not even courage and kindness (after a fashion) can
overcome destiny.
In Cold Blood : A True
Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
by Truman Capote (Signet Books, 1965)
Launched a new genre, the documentary-novel, about the irony of fate and how
evil victimizes those who practice it.
In Harm's Way:
The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and
the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors by Doug Stanton (St.
Martin's Press, 2002). "How does a U.S. battle cruiser, torpedoed by a
Japanese sub in the Pacific, go completely undetected by the Navy for five
days? How did the 900 survivors of the blast -- thrown into the water and
left to fight off hypothermia, sharks, and mounting despair -- get through
the ordeal?" (Barnes & Noble).
Innumeracy:
Mathematical Illiteracy and Its
Consequences by John Allen Paulos (Hill & Wang, 2001).
"Paulos (mathematics, Temple U.) examines many aspects of popular culture,
from stock scams and newspaper psychics to diet and medical claims to
demonstrate the popular misperceptions resulting from the inability to deal
with large numbers, probability, ratios." (Book News)
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest
Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel (Penguin USA, 1996) Another great story that belongs in a class with How the Irish Saved
Civilization.
Me Talk Pretty
One Day by David Sedaris (Little, Brown & Co., 2001).
"Sedaris, noted essayist and NPR radio commentator, is a master at turning
his life experiences into witty vignettes that both entertain and comment on
the human condition." (Library Review).
Moneyball: The
Art Of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael M. Lewis (Norton, 2004).
"The Oakland Athletics have reached the post-season playoffs three years in
a row, even though they spend just one dollar for every three that the New
York Yankees spend. Their secret, as Lewis's lively account demonstrates, is
not on the field but in the front office, in the shape of the general
manager, Billy Beane." (New Yorker)
Next: The Future
Just Happened by Michael M. Lewis (Norton, 2002). In 1989,
Michael Lewis snagged the country's attention with
Liar's Poker, his raucous account of the fast-paced,
double-dealing bond market and the S&L crisis it caused. In the balloon-thin
Internet boom, he has once again found a subject worthy of his high-spirited
cynicism. (Barnes & Noble).
Nature Via
Nurture: Genes, Experience, And What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley
(HarperCollins, 2003). Freelance science writer Matt Ridley recounts
the hundred years' debate over nature versus nurture, suggesting that it
might best be replaced by a new image of nature and nurture working in
tandem. He argues that genes are designed to take their cues from nurture,
and that nurture is also dependent on genetic makeup. (Book News)
New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected
Worldby Kevin Kelly (Penguin USA, 1999)
Tour of the New World Economy (includes a decent explanation of why they're
practically giving away computers these days).
Nickel and
Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Holt,
2002). "To understand life beyond boom-time America, Barbara
Ehrenreich spent months laboring as a cleaning woman; as a waitress; and as
a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Her revelations about these hard, supposedly
"unskilled" jobs and the difficulty of making ends meet in the U.S. gives
this book a powerful, personal edge." (Barnes & Noble).
Now, Discover
Your Strengths: How to Develop Your
Talents and Those of the People You Manage by Marcus Buckingham
and Donald O. Clifton (Simon & Schuster, 2001). "We've all been so
programmed to identify, analyze, and overcome our faults that we've done
relatively little to nurture our native talents, even though success is
typically won by tapping into those talents and turning them into real-world
strengths." (Barnes & Noble).
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63by
Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster, 1999)
Sad, but hopeful tale that ought to be required reading for every American.
Reefer
Madness: Sex, Drugs, And Cheap Labor In The American Black Market by
Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). "What ties Reefer Madness
together is Schlosser's passionate belief that America is deeply neurotic, a
nation divided against itself into a sunny, whitewashed mainstream and a
lusty, angry, deeply denied subconscious." (Lev Grossman, Time)
Smashed: Story
Of A Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailickas (Viking, 2005). "An
astonishingly revealing debut chronicles nine years of binge drinking in
high school, college, and beyond. Now 23 and sober, the author begins her
story of alcohol abuse with her first drink, taken in the summer of 1994
when she was14." (Kirkus)
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael
Pollan (Random House, 2002). Explores the nature of apples, cannabis, and tulips as they evolve to
please in a centuries-old conversation with the people who plant (and eat,
smoke, and admire) them.
The Experience
Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage by Joseph B. Pine
II, and James Gilmore (Harvard Business School, 1999) "The patron
saint here is Walt Disney: Coffee shops should focus on the coffee
experience, the authors suggest, while restaurants need to realize that the
music and the ambiance – eatertainment, as the authors label it – are as
important as the food." (Michael Parsons - The Standard)
The Fabric Of The
Cosmos: Space, Time, And The Texture Of Reality by Brian Greene
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). "Greene, the critically acclaimed author of
The Elegant Universe and one of the world's leading string theorists,
has written yet another thought-provoking account of where we are in our
understanding of the universe. He tells the story of how generations of
physicists have searched for the holy grail of physics, i.e., the single set
of universal laws that govern the universe." (Library Journal)
The Fifth Discipline: The Art
& Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M.
Senge (Doubleday, 1994). Powerful, and in many ways, theological, discussion of
the fundamentals that enable organizations to grow, adapt, and flourish in
changing environments.
The Future
Ain't What It Used To Be: 40 Cultural Trends Transforming Your Job, Your
Life, Your World by Mary A. Meehan, Larry Samuel, and Vicki
Abrahmson, Iconoculture, Inc. (Putnum, 1997). "This practical
book deals with our "love/hate relationship with technology" and explains
how and why we can prosper by keeping ahead of these business trends."
(Library Journal)
The Kite Runner
by Khalead Hosseini (Penguin, 2004). Khaled Hosseini gives us a
vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been
struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to
threaten them even today. — (Edward Hower, The New York Times)
The Lives of a
Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas (Penguin, 1975).
A book of poetry and biology, where Thomas takes you on a tour of the
awesome majesty of life all around us that we daily take for granted.
The Path: Creating Your
Mission Statement for Work and for Life by Laurie Beth
Jones (Hyperion Press, 1997). Great way to articulate your God-given mission or
purpose in life. Jones writes that we can accomplish whatever we set our minds
to do, but points out that most people don't take the trouble to examine their
life focus. This little book helps you address that problem. My own mission
statement: "To touch, inspire and release the Spirit in all God's children."
The Pentegon's
New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas P.M.
Barnett (Penguin, 2004). Barnett (U.S. Naval War Coll.) here
proposes a clear and comprehensive strategy for the United States based on
the distinction between "core" states integrated through the world economy
and states in the nonintegrated "gap." (Library Journal).
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, & Company, 2000).
Fascinating anatomy of epidemics (fashion, trend, or social).
Blink: The Power Of
Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, & Company, 2005).
"In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, a former science and business reporter
at The Washington Post who now writes for the New Yorker, offers his account
of this sort of seemingly instantaneous judgment." (Howard Gardner,
The Washington Post).
There Are No
Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America
by Alex Kotlowitz (Anchor, 1992). "The devastating story of
brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, children of the Chicago ghetto, is
powerfully told here by Kotlowitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter who first
met the boys in 1985 when they were 10 and seven, respectively."
(Publishers Weekly)
Waiting For Snow In Havana: Confessions Of
A Cuban Boy by Carlos M. N. Eire (Simon & Schuster, 2003). "At
the start of the nineteen-sixties, an operation called Pedro Pan flew more
than fourteen thousand Cuban children out of the country, without their
parents, and deposited them in Miami. Eire, now a professor of history and
religion at Yale, was one of them." (New Yorker).
What The Numbers Say: A Field Guide To
Mastering Our Numerical World by Derrick Niederman and David Boyum
(Random House, 2004). "The bad news is that, in an age of science,
complex financial planning, and competing deficit forecasts to support
competing stimulus packages, the average citizen needs math more than ever.
The good news, according to this delightful and eye-opening numeracy primer,
is that it's all sixth-grade math." (Publishers Weekly)
Why
Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences
by Edward Tenner (Vintage Books, 1997).
One of my favorite books about all the things modern technology cannot
control -- includes sections on agriculture, medicine, sports, computers,
and biotechnology.
Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became
Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, 2004). "Greenblatt
has unusual talents. He is learned, he marshals an enormous amount of detail
in the book, and he depicts the fabric of Elizabethan life, both its
paranoia and festivities, compellingly." (Arthur Kirsch, The
Washington Post)
Your
Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving
Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin (Penguin
Books, 1999).
Provocative book that asks a wonderful question: "What would you be
doing with your life if you didn't have to work for a living?"
The
Cloister Walkby Kathleen Norris (Riverhead, 1996)
Faith exploration from the perspective of a "non-religious"
seeker.
1863:
The Rebirth of a Nation by Joseph E. Stevens (Bantam Doubleday Dell
Pub (Trd), 1999).
A
Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (Broadway, 2004).
An audacious book about what happened and how humans figured it out.
Includes some wonderful (sometimes sad) stories about the insatiable human
thirst for knowledge.
A Brief History of
Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking (Bantam,
1988).
A Bright Shining Lie:
John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
A
Civil Action by Jonathan Harr (Vintage, 1996). Story of an
obsessed lawyer seeking justice and the the truth about the effects of
corporate dumping on the community of Woburn, Massachusetts, in the wake of
several deaths linked to drinking the water.
Amazing Grace:
America
(the Book): 
Amusing
Ourselves to Death: 
Blue Like Jazz:
Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
(Thomas Nelson, 2003). Miller describes his remarkable journey back to
a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
Dictionary
Of The Future: The Words, Terms, and Trends That Define the Way We'll Live,
Work, and Talk by Faith Popcorn and Adam Hanft (Hyperion, 2001).
Our revved-up world is creating new words and language at breakneck speed --
from Chimeraplasty and Karaoke Managers to Pharmacogenomics and Yogurt
Cities. Here's a "speak preview" of hundreds of new, emerging, and
just-invented words and terms.
Drawing
on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and
Artistic Confidence by Betty Edwards (Tarcher/Putnam, 1989)
Freakonomics:
God:
A Biography by Jack Miles (Vintage Books, 1995)
Good
to Great: 
Guns,
Germs and Steel: 
How
the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role form
the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe by Thomas Cahill
(Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1995)
How
Wars Are Won: 
I, Claudius by Robert Graves
(Vintage, 1989). Think Gladiator was cool? Let Graves
take you on a trip to Rome you will never forget. Claudius is the
epileptic prince no one thought to assassinate.
Claudius the God by Robert Graves
(Vintage, 1989). The sequel to I, Claudius.
The idiot becomes king and not even courage and kindness (after a fashion) can
overcome destiny.
In Cold Blood : A True
Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences 
In Harm's Way:
Innumeracy:
Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest
Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel (Penguin USA, 1996)
Me Talk Pretty
One Day by David Sedaris (Little, Brown & Co., 2001).
"Sedaris, noted essayist and NPR radio commentator, is a master at turning
his life experiences into witty vignettes that both entertain and comment on
the human condition." (Library Review).
Moneyball: The
Art Of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael M. Lewis (Norton, 2004).
"The Oakland Athletics have reached the post-season playoffs three years in
a row, even though they spend just one dollar for every three that the New
York Yankees spend. Their secret, as Lewis's lively account demonstrates, is
not on the field but in the front office, in the shape of the general
manager, Billy Beane." (New Yorker)
Next: The Future
Just Happened by Michael M. Lewis (Norton, 2002). In 1989,
Michael Lewis snagged the country's attention with
Nature Via
Nurture: Genes, Experience, And What Makes Us Human by Matt Ridley
(HarperCollins, 2003). Freelance science writer Matt Ridley recounts
the hundred years' debate over nature versus nurture, suggesting that it
might best be replaced by a new image of nature and nurture working in
tandem. He argues that genes are designed to take their cues from nurture,
and that nurture is also dependent on genetic makeup. (Book News)
New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected
World by Kevin Kelly (Penguin USA, 1999)
Nickel and
Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich (Holt,
2002). "To understand life beyond boom-time America, Barbara
Ehrenreich spent months laboring as a cleaning woman; as a waitress; and as
a Wal-Mart sales clerk. Her revelations about these hard, supposedly
"unskilled" jobs and the difficulty of making ends meet in the U.S. gives
this book a powerful, personal edge." (Barnes & Noble).
Now, Discover
Your Strengths: 
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by
Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster, 1999)
Reefer
Madness: Sex, Drugs, And Cheap Labor In The American Black Market by
Eric Schlosser (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). "What ties Reefer Madness
together is Schlosser's passionate belief that America is deeply neurotic, a
nation divided against itself into a sunny, whitewashed mainstream and a
lusty, angry, deeply denied subconscious." (Lev Grossman, Time)
Smashed: Story
Of A Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailickas (Viking, 2005). "An
astonishingly revealing debut chronicles nine years of binge drinking in
high school, college, and beyond. Now 23 and sober, the author begins her
story of alcohol abuse with her first drink, taken in the summer of 1994
when she was14." (Kirkus)
The Experience
Economy: Work Is Theatre & Every Business a Stage by Joseph B. Pine
II, and James Gilmore (Harvard Business School, 1999) "The patron
saint here is Walt Disney: Coffee shops should focus on the coffee
experience, the authors suggest, while restaurants need to realize that the
music and the ambiance – eatertainment, as the authors label it – are as
important as the food." (Michael Parsons - The Standard)
The Fabric Of The
Cosmos: Space, Time, And The Texture Of Reality by Brian Greene
(Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). "Greene, the critically acclaimed author of
The Elegant Universe and one of the world's leading string theorists,
has written yet another thought-provoking account of where we are in our
understanding of the universe. He tells the story of how generations of
physicists have searched for the holy grail of physics, i.e., the single set
of universal laws that govern the universe." (Library Journal)
The Fifth Discipline: The Art
& Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter M.
Senge (Doubleday, 1994). Powerful, and in many ways, theological, discussion of
the fundamentals that enable organizations to grow, adapt, and flourish in
changing environments.
The Future
Ain't What It Used To Be: 40 Cultural Trends Transforming Your Job, Your
Life, Your World by Mary A. Meehan, Larry Samuel, and Vicki
Abrahmson, Iconoculture, Inc. (Putnum, 1997). "This practical
book deals with our "love/hate relationship with technology" and explains
how and why we can prosper by keeping ahead of these business trends."
(Library Journal)
The Kite Runner
by Khalead Hosseini (Penguin, 2004). Khaled Hosseini gives us a
vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been
struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to
threaten them even today. — (Edward Hower, The New York Times)
The Lives of a
Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas (Penguin, 1975).
A book of poetry and biology, where Thomas takes you on a tour of the
awesome majesty of life all around us that we daily take for granted.
The Pentegon's
New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas P.M.
Barnett (Penguin, 2004). Barnett (U.S. Naval War Coll.) here
proposes a clear and comprehensive strategy for the United States based on
the distinction between "core" states integrated through the world economy
and states in the nonintegrated "gap." (Library Journal).
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, & Company, 2000).
Blink: The Power Of
Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown, & Company, 2005).
"In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, a former science and business reporter
at The Washington Post who now writes for the New Yorker, offers his account
of this sort of seemingly instantaneous judgment." (Howard Gardner,
The Washington Post).
There Are No
Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America
by Alex Kotlowitz (Anchor, 1992). "The devastating story of
brothers Lafayette and Pharoah Rivers, children of the Chicago ghetto, is
powerfully told here by Kotlowitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter who first
met the boys in 1985 when they were 10 and seven, respectively."
(Publishers Weekly)
Waiting For Snow In Havana: Confessions Of
A Cuban Boy by Carlos M. N. Eire (Simon & Schuster, 2003). "At
the start of the nineteen-sixties, an operation called Pedro Pan flew more
than fourteen thousand Cuban children out of the country, without their
parents, and deposited them in Miami. Eire, now a professor of history and
religion at Yale, was one of them." (New Yorker).
What The Numbers Say: A Field Guide To
Mastering Our Numerical World by Derrick Niederman and David Boyum
(Random House, 2004). "The bad news is that, in an age of science,
complex financial planning, and competing deficit forecasts to support
competing stimulus packages, the average citizen needs math more than ever.
The good news, according to this delightful and eye-opening numeracy primer,
is that it's all sixth-grade math." (Publishers Weekly)
Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became
Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt (Norton, 2004). "Greenblatt
has unusual talents. He is learned, he marshals an enormous amount of detail
in the book, and he depicts the fabric of Elizabethan life, both its
paranoia and festivities, compellingly." (Arthur Kirsch, The
Washington Post)
Your
Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving
Financial Independence by Joe Dominguez & Vicki Robin (Penguin
Books, 1999).
The
Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris (Riverhead, 1996)