Library Collections
Librarian Reads: Fall Nonfiction 2009
Ever wonder what your Adult Services Librarians are recommending for the summer? Check out some of our favorite books!
Non-Fiction Worth Reading
| Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating (Mark Bittman) - HEALTH 613.2 BITTMAN: This book discusses how food is produced today. And provides thoughtful advise and suggestions for making good choices for health and for our environment. Bittman loves food and has written several well known cookbooks. Food Matters is a very interesting departure from what you might expect. Check Availability | |
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Farm City: The Education Of an Urban Farmer (Novella Carpenter) - 630.9173 CARPENTER: The author describes her food producing efforts inside the city of Oakland California. The author travels back and forth in time in this account of her gradually expanding farming adventures. She began with the “easy stuff” growing fruits and vegetables, keeping bees, and moves on into chicks and ducks and rabbits. Eventually she raises PIGS and settles, finally, on goats. There are predators, human and animal. It’s funny and sad and interesting and off-putting … quite entertaining. Check Availability |
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| My Life In France (Julia Child) - BIO CHILD: Incorporated into the just-released movie, Julie and Julia, Julia Child’s memoir of her arrival in France through her stint as the beloved French Chef is endearing, enlightening, and highly readable. Whether you are a cook or not, you will be fascinated by how her seminal book, The Art of French Cooking, came to be. Check Availability | |
| The Book That Changed My Life (Roxanne Coady, editor) - 028 BOOK: Has a book ever changed your life? 65 successful writers discuss books that changed their lives or careers. Mine was "Wolf Whistle" by Lewis Nordan. Check Availability | |
| Columbine (Dave Cullen) - 373.7888 CULLEN: Released on the 10th anniversary of this tragedy, this account is not for the faint-of-heart. I spent the first third of the book, either anxiously waiting for or tentatively paging through the details of the disaster, details I, as a high schooler at the time, never wanted to know. But the last two thirds of the book are incredibly enlightening. You learn what was contained in the tapes and diaries of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and it's not what you expect. This book is well-written, enthralling, and enlightening. Check Availability | |
| You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon But Get Lost In the Mall (Colin Ellard) - 153.752 ELLARD: How do we navigate? What is spatial intelligence? What about landmarks and mental maps? And how do we see an actual map anyway? Where are you and how do you know? This is really quite fascinating. Check Availability | |
| Eye of My Heart: 27 Writers Reveal the Hidden Pleasures and Perils Of Being a Grandmother (Barbara Graham, editor) - 306.8745 EYE: Now that I'm a Grandma I don't have time to read long tomes so this collection was perfect. 27 women writers share their perspective on being a modern grandmother. Buy this book for new grandmothers, they will love it! Check Availability | |
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It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News Of Being Alive (Evan Handler) - BIO HANDLER: Handler recounts learning to live after losing years to recovering from a particularly virulent form of leukemia. His stumbling towards happiness is funny and touching. Check Availability |
| The End of Overeating (David A. Kessler) - 613.2 KESSLER: David Kessler was the commissioner of the FDA. He developed an interest in learning why so many Americans are overweight. Find out what is in the foods served in your favorite restaurant. And why it is so difficult to stop eating them. Check Availability | |
| Devil In the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Erik Larson) - BIO MUDGETT: The story of serial murderer, Herman Mudgett, and the architects of modern Chicago. The story is set in the late 1800's during the World's Columbian Exposition. It is an excellent picture of everyday life in Chicago as architecture, politics, and crime collide to create an amazing story. Check Availability | |
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Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year On the Brink Of the Comfort Zone (Beth Lisick) - 818.5409 LISICK: Lisick, a self-described sceptic, spends a year consulting self-help gurus in an attempt to bring a little order into her hectic life. It was both hilarious and somewhat inspirational. Check Availability |
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Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British (Sarah Lyall) - 941.086 LYALL: A New York Times writer is transferred to London, where she experiences "culture shock." Interesting and amusing observations of the quirks and peculiarities of "the British." Check Availability |
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| We Bought a Zoo (Benjamin Mee) - BIO MEE: Between his wife's diagnosis of cancer and her death 3 years later Mee, along with his widowed mother and siblings, buys and rehabiltates a very dilapidated zoo in rural England. Mee's grace in handling these many challenges is what makes this such a great story. Check Availability |
Also try our Fall 2009 Fiction Librarian Picks.
For other good reads, check out our Suggested Reads Page.