NOTABLE BOOKS 2009
CHOSEN BY THE LIBRARIANS
OF THE EMMAUS PUBLIC LIBRARY
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NON-FICTION
AARP Retirement Survival Guide: How to Make Smart Financial Decisions in Good Times and Bad. What we must know now to effectively plan for our futures.
Abrahams, Kyria. I’m Perfect, You’re Doomed: Tales from a Jehovah’s Witness Upbringing. Oddly engrossing, a very funny memoir.
Ahamed, Liaquat. Lords of Finance: Bankers Who Broke the World. There are many books on the current global economic crisis; this is one of the best.
America’s Top Doctors; 8th edition. A reference book to give you a guide for help with a particular specialty.
Aykroyd, Peter. A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts and Ghostbusters. The father of the star of Ghostbusters, with a long family history of ghosts, séances and psychic talents.
Beeman, Richard. Plain, Honest Men; the Making of the American Constitution. A day–by-day account including the clashing of personalities.
Bizony, Piers. How to Built Your Own Spaceship: the Science of Personal Space Travel. Okay, this isn’t really a how-to book, but it is an enthusiastic update on progress in the space travel business.
Brand, Stewart. Whole Earth Discipline: an Ecopragmatist Manifesto. Brand devised the Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970s; he’s still fighting for the environment.
Bittman, Mark. Food Matters: a Guide to Conscious Eating with more than 75 Recipes. A well-written treatise about the current state of agriculture and food.
Bronson, Po. Nurtureshock; the New Thinking about Children. Positive alternatives to what have become modern child-rearing practices, backed by comprehensive research.
Chabon, Michael. Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son. Essays on family life by the noted fiction author.
Collins, Billy. Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems about Birds. Illustrated by David Allen Sibley, this is a lovely treasure of a book.
Collins, Gail. When Everything Changed: the Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. How far women have come in 50 years!
Cooper, Gwen. Homer’s Odyssey; a Fearless Feline Tale, or How I Learned about Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat. The title says it all.
Doxiadis, Apostolos. Logicomix: an Epic Search for Truth. Bertrand Russell’s mathematical quest told in graphic arts form.
Dutton, Denis. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution. Why art is central to human existence.
Duncan, Dayton. The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. The companion to the recent Ken Burns series; a remarkable story.
Ebbesmeyer, Curtis. Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man’s Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science. What floating debris tells us about currents and health of the ocean.
Eggars, Dave. Zeitoun. The story of a Syrian Muslim who has adopted New Orleans as his home and what befell him when he stayed behind during Hurricane Katrina.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. One of our best social commentators finds another fascinating area to study.
Eisenberg, John. That First Season: How Vince Lombardi Took the Worst Team in the NFL and Set it on the Path to Glory. Everyone loves a rags-to-riches tale.
Ellard, Colin. You are Here: Why We Can Find our Way to the Moon but Get Lost at the Mall. An anecdotally-rich look at spatial intelligence.
Epstein, Greg M. Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe. Harvard’s humanist chaplain’s response to both atheists and religious leaders.
Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War. The last volume of the author’s masterful trilogy on WWII in Germany..
Farmer, John. The Ground Truth: the Untold Story of America under Attack on 9/11. Insight into the events of September 11, based on recently released documents.
Feiler, Bruce. America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story. Feiler finds that the United States is the land of many Moseses.
Fitzgerald, Paul. Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story. An important study of a vital region.
Fleeson, Linda. Waking up in Eden; in Pursuit of an Impassioned Life on an Imperiled Island. How the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Hawaii attempts to save endangered plants.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Eating Animals. The author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, asks us to reconsider the food choices, menus, and myths we grew up with.
Freeman, John. The Tyranny of E-mail: the Four-thousand Year Journey to Your Inbox. Does email bring us closer together, or, as this author wonders, does email actually drive us apart?
Gillon, Steven M. The Kennedy Assassination 24 Hours after: Lyndon B. Johnson’s Pivotal First Day as President. Using recently released documents, Gillon creates a page-turner with new facts about a mystery that intrigues us all.
Goodall, Jane. Hope for Animals and Their World; How Endangered Species are being Rescued from the Brink. The world famous animal advocate tells success stories.
Gopnik, Adam. Angels and Ages: a Short Book on Lincoln, Darwin, and Modern Life. Lincoln and Darwin were born the same day; this dual biography follows both men.
Grandin, Temple. Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals. Grandin describes her work and how simple changes can make animals’ lives better.
Gupta, Sanjay. Cheating Death: the Doctors and Medical Miracles that are Saving Lives against all Odds. Fascinating tales told in a storytelling manner.
Hallinan, Joseph T. Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We are Way Above Average. Huh?
Heyhoe, Kate. Cooking Green: Reducing your Carbon Footprint in the Kitchen – the New Green Basics Way. A well-explained guide to reducing your “cookprint”.
Holzer, Harold., editor. The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on his Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now. An excellent tribute to Lincoln on the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Joya, Malalai. A Woman Among Warlords: the Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. An extraordinary story of courage.
Keegan, John. The American Civil War: a Military History. Keegan uses the topography of the American continent as the basis for his analysis of the war.
Keller, Michael. Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: a Graphic Adaptation. This story works well in pictures.
Kidder, Tracy. Strength in What Remains. The ultimate American immigrant’s story: a poor immigrant’s journey from Africa to a medical career in America.
Kurlansky, Mark. The Food of a Younger Land… from the Lost WPA Files. Short vignettes about food, from the 1930s and 40s, each with an introduction by the author.
Kushner, Harold S. Conquering Fear: Living Boldly in an Uncertain World. Reassurance from the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
Lacey, Robert. Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia. A well-written and evenhanded portrait of a powerful nation and its struggles with modernity.
Levitt, Steven D. Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance. A maverick’s look at global economics.
Lih, Andrew. The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia. Even the naysayers use Wikipedia!
MacMillan, Margaret. Dangerous Games: the Uses and Abuses of History. A small, highly readable study on why history matters.
Maass, Peter. Crude World: the Violent Twilight of Oil. The oil economy is not sustainable. It can impoverish nations.
Masson, Jeffrey Moussaieff. The Face on Your Plate: the Truth About Food. Aside from health concerns, the author details the amount of energy that goes into meat production.
McEnany, Jack. Brush Cat: On Trees, the Wood Economy, and the Most Dangerous Job in America. Independent loggers in New England have a dangerous job, but they are environmentally responsible.
Meyerson, Daniel. In the Valley of the Kings: Howard Carter and the Mystery of King Tutankhamun’s Tomb. Find out how Carter knew where to look for King Tut.
Miller, Donalyn. The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child. Ideas to encourage children to read often and everywhere and to become lovers of reading.
Mlodinow, Leonard. The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives. A science geek’s delight.
Mortenson, Greg. Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The author’s gripping story, told first in Three Cups of Tea, continues as his Central Asia Institute makes peace, one school at a time.
Murphy, Terry. Life in Rewind: the Story of a Young Courageous Man Who Persevered over OCD and the Harvard Doctor Who Broke All the Rules to Help Him. For fans of psychological case studies, this tells of what may be the worst example of obsessive-compulsive disorder ever chronicled.
Niman, Nicolette Hahn. Righteous Pork Chop: Finding a Life and Good Food beyond Factory Farms. Factory farms create many problems, but there are ways to raise livestock that are humane, productive, and profitable.
Owen, David. Green Metropolis: What the City Can Teach the Country About True Sustainability. How can New York City be the most eco-friendly place in America?
Paglen, Trevor. Blank Spots: the Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World. Cover-ups, maps with no names, small planes carrying workers into an anonymous world.
Posner, Gerald. Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth, and Power, a Dispatch from the Beach. The real Miami vice– high finance, the Mob, and a sleepy beach community.
Powell, Diane Hennacy. The ESP Enigma: the Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena. We have a funny feeling that some people will love this book.
Sanderson, Eric. Mannahatta: a Natural History of New York City. Using maps from Revolutionary War times and computer graphics, you can actually get a realistic glimpse of what Manhattan was like before urban development took over.
Shell, Ellen Ruppel. Cheap: the High Cost of Discount Culture. Cheap can equal shoddy, and cheap devalues the notion of craft. Wegman’s is shown to be an ideal company.
Sherwood, Ben. The Survivor’s Club: the Secret and Science That Could Save Your Life. What does it take to survive a natural catastrophe?
Showalter, Elaine, editor. A Jury of her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. Valuable literary history.
Sorkin, Andrew. Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves. What else didn’t we know?
Steiner, Leslie Morgan. Crazy Love: a Memoir. Steiner recounts her experiences as an abused wife, including the reasons she stayed with her husband as long as she did.
Williams, David B. Stories in Stone: Travels through Urban Geology. The stones that make buildings or cities famous often have fascinating stories of their own.
Wrangham, Richard. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. The hearth and cooked food extended both food supplies and hospitality.
Zinczenko, David. Eat This, Not That. There are several recent titles in this series, with illustrations for both food items and a comparison of their ingredients and healthfulness.
FICTION
Ali, Monica. In the Kitchen. Immigrants working in a London kitchen.
Barclay, Linwood. Fear the Worst. A Connecticut family’s worst nightmare: a missing daughter.
Bell, Madison Smartt. Devil’s Dream. About Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general.
Bennett, Vanora. Figures in Silk. In fifteenth century England, a woman attempts to improve the silk trade in London and meets a mysterious man who will be king.
Bolton, S. J. Sacrifice. A body is found in the Shetlands; named a top crime novel this year.
Boyle, T. C. The Women. Frank Lloyd Wright was a famous architect and a many-times married man.
Bradley, Alan. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. 1950s England, a manor house in depressed circumstances, and a precocious 11-year old chemist.
Bundrick, Sheramy. Sunflowers: a Novel of Vincent Van Gogh. A vibrant, rich novel.
Casey, Kathryn. Singularity. Texas Ranger criminal profiler Sarah Armstrong tracks a serial killer.
Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. A Nigerian girl flees to London to find the couple who had befriended her.
Dallas, Sandra. Prayers for Sale. A Colorado mining town in 1936 is the setting when an older woman meets a young woman who needs desperately to make a friend.
DeCastrique, Mark. The Fitzgerald Ruse. Asheville, NC has a rich literary heritage, and some murderous villains.
Doctorow, E. L. Homer and Langley. An inside look into the lives of two brothers, each with a hindrance to a normal life in New York City from the twenties to the seventies.
Dunant, Sarah. Sacred Hearts. A very reluctant candidate for the cloister and the dispensary nun who unwittingly becomes her ally.
Dunne, Dominick. Too Much Money. The late author’s take on Manhattan’s elite in the age of Madoff.
Ford, Jamie. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. Seattle, 1942; a vivid picture of a confusing time.
Franklin, Arianna. Grave Goods; A Mistress of the Art of Death Novel. Are the skeletons those of King Arthur and Guinivere?
Gappah, Petina. An Elegy for Easterly: Stories. These searing tales are set in Zimbabwe.
Godwin, Gail. Unfinished Desires. A gripping tale of power and jealousy in a Catholic girls school.
Goolrick, Robert. A Reliable Wife. In 1907 Wisconsin, a woman answers an ad for a reliable wife, but is it she or her husband who falsifies the background information?
Grant, Andrew. Even. A thriller about British Naval Intelligence, the FBI, Iraq, and organ harvesting.
Green, George Dawes. Ravens. A novel of increasing psychological suspense about a pair who win the lottery, but are beset by criminals intending to take it all.
Gregory, Philippa. The White Queen. Elizabeths, Henrys, Johns, and Richards. A look at one part of the War of the Roses.
Hamilton, Masha. 31 Hours. 31 hours in the mind of an Islamic terrorist. An American Islamic terrorist.
Howe, Katherine. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. An island near Salem, Massachusetts provides the framework for a story of several generations of wise women in modern times.
Humphreys, Helen. Coventry. A single night – the bombing of Coventry, England in World War II, and three people whose lives intersect briefly but are changed forever.
Huston, James. W. Marine One. A White House helicopter crashes and a gripping thriller ensues.
Jiles, Paulette. The Color of Lightening. A former slave and his family venture into
Texas in 1863. The Comanche and Kiowa are brutal and the Indian Affairs agent tries to work out a peaceful arrangement.
Johnson, Shelton. Gloryland. The charismatic park ranger from the Ken Burns series on national parks has written a wonderful novel of the part the Buffalo Soldiers played in Yosemite’s history.
Kanon, Joseph. Stardust. Hollywood, 1945. What may be a suicide may not be. Great period detail.
Kalogridis, Jeanne. The Devil’s Queen; a Novel of Catherine de Medici. Turbulent times, superstitions and soothsayers, a very interesting slice of history.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Lacuna. Take a young man with aspirations to be a writer and place him in Depression Washington, D.C., Mexico in the 1940s, and Red Scare America.
Larsson, Stieg. The Girl who Played with Fire. The middle entry of the author’s trilogy that began with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo---both top notch thrillers.
Lethem, Jonathan. Chronic City. A tiger roams the streets of Gotham City.
Levin, Daniel. The Last Ember. Antiquities theft and hidden tunnels under Rome.
Littell, Robert. The Stalin Epigram. A poet and the absurdity and tyranny of Stalin’s era.
Mantel, Hilary. Wolf Hall. A remarkable telling of the story of Cromwell in the time of Henry VIII.
McCall Smith, Alexander. La’s Orchestra Saves the World. A charming tale set in the time of the London Blitz, from the author of the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency and the Sunday Philosophy Club novels.
McCann, Colum. Let the Great World Spin. This book, a vivid novel of 1970’s New York City, won the 2009 National Book Award.
McCorkle, Jill. Going Away Shoes. A short story collection that prompted Library Journal to say that this book belongs in every library.
Millett, Lydia. Love in Infant Monkeys. A fun collection of fictional stories that take people from history and even the tabloids and place them in parable-like tales.
Munro, Alice. Too Much Happiness. These stories demonstrate this masterful author’s work at its best. This title won the Man Booker International Prize for fiction.
Niffenegger, Audrey. Her Fearful Symmetry. Twin girls inherit the London apartment of their mother’s twin sister, of whose existence they did not know.
Pamuk, Orhan. The Museum of Innocence. The Turkish Nobel prize-winning author writes of obsessive love and kleptomania in Istanbul.
Penny, Louise. The Brutal Telling. You must like these mysteries from Quebec, the town of Three Pines and its residents.
Quick, Matthew. The Silver Linings Playbook. Our hero believes in two things: a happy ending to his marital woes and the Philadelphia Eagles. A funny, heartwarming novel.
Robertis, Carolina de. The Invisible Mountain. Set in Uruguay, this novel recounts an extraordinary tale of rebirth.
See, Lisa. Shanghai Girls. Fleeing from a Shanghai overtaken by the Japanese, two sisters travel to America to be with the husbands from their arranged marriages who are living in Los Angeles.
Sheck, Laurie. A Monster’s Notes. What Frankenstein’s monster might have written, had he had the time.
Smith, Tom Rob. The Secret Speech. Harrowing, but gripping tale of the gulag by the author of Child 44.
Stockett, Kathryn. The Help. An inside look into the lives of Junior Leaguers and their maids in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. One of the very best books of the year.
Toibin, Colin. Brooklyn. An Irish girl finds a new life in New York, until she finds herself torn between her family In Ireland and her chance at a marriage.
Urrea, Luis Alberto. Into the Beautiful North. A sad and funny story of an woman coming to El Norte to recruit immigrants return to her small Mexican village that is all but bereft of men.
Verghese, Abraham. Cutting for Stone. Twin boys, literally separated at birth, become doctors, but still continue to search for their father, a surgeon.
Wall, Carolyn. Sweeping up Glass. Depression-era Kentucky with hardship, secrets and mystery.
Walls, Jeannette. Half Broke Horses. A biographical novel of the author’s grandmother who broke horses and ran a ranch.
White, Stephen. The Siege. A hostage situation in a secret society “tomb” on the Yale campus.
Zama, Farahad. The Marriage Bureau for Rich People. A charming look at modern day India.
BIOGRAPHY
Agassi, Andre. Open: an Autobiography Agassi’s candid autobiography will fascinate both those who are fans of tennis and those who don’t know a game from a set.
Aldrin, Buzz. Magnificent Desolation: the Long Journey Home from the Moon. His view from the moon and from a survivor of the aftermath of celebrity.
Appel, Marty. Munson; the Life and Death of a Yankee Captain. Thurman Munson, a young man from Canton, Ohio and his amazing ascent in 1970s Yankees baseball.
Barra, Allen. Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee. Who doesn’t love Yogi?
Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America. A magisterial biography, the first to focus on Roosevelt’s outdoor life.
Bruni, Frank. Born Round: the Secret Life of a Full-time Eater. A series of juicy details about the restaurant review business and the author’s own battle with his weight.
Buckley, Christopher. Losing Mum and Pup; a Memoir. An inside peek into a fabled New York family.
Caron, Leslie. Thank Heaven: a Memoir. She’s bracingly honest in recounting her not always easy life.
Damone, Vic. Singing was the Easy Part. Show business was a glittering one, but the Mob controlled much, threatening many of the entertainers.
Eliot, Marc. American Rebel: the Life of Clint Eastwood. A thorough biography of the talented actor and award-winning director.
Gavin, James. Stormy Weather: the Life of Lena Horne. Likely to be the definitive biography of the pioneering African American singer who fought hard for her success.
Geary, Rick. Trotsky; a Graphic Biography. Trotsky’s life follows the Russian Revolution, World War I, and the spread of world Communism.
Hack, Richard. Duchess of Death: the Unauthorized Biography of Agatha Christie.
The mystery writer’s life had its own share of unexplained events.
James, LeBron. Shooting Stars. LeBron’s early career as five young boys pursue their dream of a national basketball championship.
Jamison, Kay Redfield. Nothing Was the Same: a Memoir. Psychologist Jamison has written of her struggles with depression; here she explores mortality, loss, and grief.
Janzen, Rhoda. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: a Memoir of Going Home. Can a city girl go back to the country?
Johnson, Paul. Churchill. The eminent historian proves there is much still to say about Churchill, and he says it in a concise, fascinating little book.
Kennedy, Ted. True Compass. Written as the late senator struggled with brain cancer, this is a fascinating review of his rich family life and his political philosophy.
King, Larry. My Remarkable Journey. Larry King has talked to everyone; he provides a genial atmosphere for his interviews.
Levy, Shawn. Paul Newman; a Life. A stellar acting career and a truly wonderful life.
Sullenberger, Chesley. Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters. The story of an ordinary guy who had to perform extraordinarily above the Hudson River.
Wells, Jeff. All My Patients Have Tales: Favorite Stories from a Vet’s Practice. Humorous stories.
Williams, Andy. Moon River and Me: a Memoir. It’s hard to believe that he was told his title song was not right for him.
Wolfe, Rich. Remembering Harry Kalas: Wonderful Stories from Friends Celebrating a Great Life. The late Phillies broadcaster is remembered by many friends and colleagues.
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