Prozac Nation


Elizabeth Wurtzel - 1994
    A collective cry for help from a generation who have come of age entrenched in the culture of divorce, economic instability, and AIDS, here is the intensely personal story of a young girl full of promise, whose mood swings have risen and fallen like the lines of a sad ballad.

Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist


Karen Swallow Prior - 2014
    A woman without connections or status, More took the world of British letters by storm when she arrived in London from Bristol, becoming a best-selling author and acclaimed playwright and quickly befriending the author Samuel Johnson, the politician Horace Walpole, and the actor David Garrick. Yet she was also a leader in the Evangelical movement, using her cultural position and her pen to support the growth of education for the poor, the reform of morals and manners, and the abolition of Britain's slave trade."Fierce Convictions" weaves together world and personal history into a stirring story of life that intersected with Wesley and Whitefield's Great Awakening, the rise and influence of Evangelicalism, and convulsive effects of the French Revolution. A woman of exceptional intellectual gifts and literary talent, Hannah More was above all a person whose faith compelled her both to engage her culture and to transform it.

Feast: True Love in and out of the Kitchen


Hannah Howard - 2018
    Eighteen years old and eager to learn, she’s invigorated by the manic energy and knife-sharp focus of the crew. By day Hannah explores the Columbia arts scene, struggling to find her place. By night she’s intoxicated by boxes of heady truffles and intrigued by the food industry’s insiders. She’s hungry for knowledge, success, and love, but she’s also ravenous because she hasn’t eaten more than yogurt and coffee in days.Hannah is hiding an eating disorder. The excruciatingly late nights, demanding chefs, bad boyfriends, and destructive obsessions have left a void inside her that she can’t fill. To reconcile her relationships with the food she worships and a body she struggles to accept, Hannah’s going to have to learn to nourish her soul.

Kilimanjaro Diaries: Or, How I Spent a Week Dreaming of Toilets, Drinking Crappy Water, and Making Bad Jokes While Having the Time of My Life


Eva Melusine Thieme - 2014
    In fact, it has all the trappings of a dream vacation: no cooking, no fighting kids, and an army of porters to lug everything up the mountain. What can go wrong?Tag along as Eva takes you on her journey up the slopes of Kilimanjaro together with her teenage son and a group of hilarious South African friends. From planning the trip to shopping for supplies to trudging uphill wishing with all her heart for an ice cold sip of water untainted by chlorination tablets, you will follow her step by step on her quest to scale the world's highest free-standing mountain. But the list of challenges is long: sub-zero temperatures, blistered feet, long drop toilets (of which, you may learn, the drops are not nearly as long as they have once been, if you get the drift), and the ever-threatening altitude sickness no one can quite escape from. Eva's climb turns into the most difficult test she has ever faced, and ultimately she must make a fateful decision on that mountain.Thieme's debut travel memoir is equally poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. Part guide book, part travel memoir, and part history lesson, her story will keep you hooked until the last page - whether you're a seasoned hiker nodding your head in recognition, an aspiring Kilimanjaro trekker searching for tips, or an armchair traveler reveling in adventure stories from the comfort of your home.

The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal


Jonathan Mooney - 2007
    To learn how others had moved beyond labels, he bought his own short bus and set out cross-country, looking for kids who had dreamed up magical, beautiful ways to overcome the obstacles that separated them from the so-called normal world.The Short Bus is his irreverent and poignant record of that odyssey, meeting thirteen people in thirteen states who taught Mooney that there’s no such thing as normal—and that to really live, every person must find their own special way of keeping on.  The Short Bus is a unique gem, propelled by Mooney’s heart, humor, and outrageous rebellions.

Confessions of a GP (The Confessions Series)


Benjamin Daniels - 2010
    He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go through with it. A 7-year-old boy with 'tummy aches' that don't really exist.These are his patients.Confessions of a GP is a witty insight into the life of a family doctor. Funny and moving in equal measure it will change the way you look at your GP next time you pop in with the sniffles.

Telling


Marion Winik - 1994
    Now, in Telling, she takes us on a journey both personal and universal, a tour of the minefield of chance and circumstance that make up a life. Along the way, she offers razor-sharp takes on everything from adolescence in suburban New Jersey ("Yes, I wanted to be a wild teenage rebel, but I wanted to do it with my parents' blessing") to hellish houseguests and bad-news boyfriends; from the joys of breastfeeding in public to the sometimes-salvation of motherhood.Candid, passionate, and breathtakingly funny, Marion Winik maintains an unshaken belief that following one's heart is more important than following the rules -- and a conviction that the secrets we try to hide often contain the deepest truths."A born iconoclast, an aspiring artiste, a feminist vegetarian prodigal daughter, from early youth I considered myself destined to lead a startling life far outside the bounds of convention. I would be famous, dangerous, brilliant and relentlessly cool: a sort of cross between Emma Goldman, Jack Kerouac, and Georgia O'Keeffe.... So where did this station wagon come from?" -- from Telling

The Yogurt Man Cometh


Kevin Revolinski - 2006
    Revolinski relates in candid style his encounters in a foreign culture, all told with an open mind and a sense of humor. An enjoyable read for anyone who has spent time in Turkey or who plans to do so.

Blindsided: The True Story of One Man's Crusade Against Chemical Giant DuPont for a Boy with No Eyes


James L. Ferraro - 2016
     It was a battle that nearly everyone but attorney Jim Ferraro deemed unwinnable. After all, it involved one of the world's most powerful industrial giants. In the process, it was a fight that changed the landscape of tort law forever. Before it was over Castillo-vs-DuPont would go down in history as the first and one of the most important cases of its kind, setting precedent and also sparking a crucial debate over the questionable use of what is known as the "junk-science defense." Blindsided is a real life David and Goliath story-a true courtroom drama for the ages.

Autism in Heels: The Untold Story of a Female Life on the Spectrum


Jennifer O'Toole - 2018
    And more often than we realize, that face is wearing lipstick. Autism in Heels , an intimate memoir, reveals the woman inside one of autism's most prominent figures, Jennifer O'Toole. At the age of thirty-five, Jennifer was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, and for the first time in her life, things made sense. Now, Jennifer exposes the constant struggle between carefully crafted persona and authentic existence, editing the autism script with wit, candor, passion, and power. Her journey is one of reverse-self-discovery not only as an Aspie but--more importantly--as a thoroughly modern woman.Beyond being a memoir, Autism in Heels is a love letter to all women. It's a conversation starter. A game changer. And a firsthand account of what it is to walk in Jennifer's shoes (especially those iconic red stilettos).Whether it's bad perms or body image, sexuality or self-esteem, Jennifer's is as much a human journey as one on the spectrum. Because autism "looks a bit different in pink," most girls and women who fit the profile are not identified, facing years of avoidable anxiety, eating disorders, volatile relationships, self-harm, and stunted independence. Jennifer has been there, too. Autism in Heels takes that message to the mainstream.From her own struggles and self-discovery, she has built an empire of empowerment, inspiring women the world over to realize they aren't mistakes. They are misunderstood miracles.

Never Settle: Sports, Family, and the American Soul


Marty Smith - 2019
    The guy who visits Nick Saban's lake house and somehow gets Coach to jump in the lake. The guy who sits down with Dale Jr. at Daytona to talk through tears about his miraculous return to racing. The guy who interviews Tiger Woods, Tim Tebow, Peyton Manning and Jimmie Johnson -- the guy who gets paid to live the fantasy of every sports fan in America.Never Settle is the funny but oh, it's true story of how Marty got here, and a revealing look at his journey. Never Settle includes all the best stories and behind-the-scenes moments from Marty's wild life, covering topics including: college football, racing, fathers and sons, how sports can bring us together, and how it all goes back to growing up on a farm and playing high school ball in Pearisburg, Virginia.

Lucky Man


Michael J. Fox - 2002
    Fox stunned the world by announcing he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease -- a degenerative neurological condition. In fact, he had been secretly fighting it for seven years. The worldwide response was staggering. Fortunately, he had accepted the diagnosis, and by the time the public started grieving for him, he had stopped grieving for himself. Now, with the same passion, humor, and energy, that Fox has invested in his dozens of performances over the last 18 years, he tells the story of his life, his career, and his campaign, to find a cure for Parkinson's.Combining his trademark ironic sensibility, and keen sense of the absurd, he recounts his life -- from his childhood in a small town in western Canada, to his meteoric rise in film and television which made him a worldwide celebrity. Most importantly however, he writes of the last 10 years, during which -- with the unswerving support of his wife, family, and friends -- he has dealt with his illness. He talks about what Parkinson's has given him: the chance to appreciate a wonderful life and career, and the opportunity to help search for a cure, and spread public awareness of the disease. He is a very lucky man, indeed.

The Child Who Never Grew


Pearl S. Buck - 1950
    New material written for this edition amplifies her story and gives the book a historical perspective.

The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family


Josh Hanagarne - 2013
    Although he wouldn't officially be diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome until his freshman year of high school, Josh was six years old and onstage in a school Thanksgiving play when he first began exhibiting symptoms. By the time he was twenty, the young Mormon had reached his towering adult height of 6'7" when — while serving on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints — his Tourette's tics escalated to nightmarish levels.Determined to conquer his affliction, Josh underwent everything from quack remedies to lethargy-inducing drug regimes to Botox injections that paralyzed his vocal cords and left him voiceless for three years. Undeterred, Josh persevered to marry and earn a degree in Library Science. At last, an eccentric, autistic strongman — and former Air Force Tech Sergeant and guard at an Iraqi prison — taught Josh how to "throttle" his tics into submission through strength-training.Today, Josh is a librarian in the main branch of Salt Lake City's public library and founder of a popular blog about books and weight lifting—and the proud father of four-year-old Max, who has already started to show his own symptoms of Tourette's.The World's Strongest Librarian illuminates the mysteries of this little-understood disorder, as well as the very different worlds of strongman training and modern libraries. With humor and candor, this unlikely hero traces his journey to overcome his disability — and navigate his wavering Mormon faith — to find love and create a life worth living.

Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey with His Wordless Daughter


Robert Rummel-Hudson - 2008
    Once they knew why she couldn’t speak, they needed to determine how to help her learn. They didn’t know that Schuyler was going to teach them a thing or two about fearlessness, tenacity, and joy.Schuyler’s Monster is more than the memoir of a parent dealing with a child’s disability. It is the story of the relationship between a unique and ethereal little girl floating through the world without words, and her earthbound father who struggles with whether or not he is the right dad for the job. It is the story of a family seeking answers to a child’s dilemma, but it is also a chronicle of their unique relationships, formed without traditional language against the expectations of a doubting world. It is a story that has equal measure of laughter and tears. Ultimately, it is the tale of a little girl who silently teaches a man filled with self-doubt how to be the father she needs. Schuyler can now communicate through assistive technology, and continues to be the source of her father's inspiration, literary and otherwise.