Nonfiction Book List

Below for your browsing pleasure is the updated list of nonfiction books I've been promising for the last two weeks.

To select the book you'd like to read and critique in class next quarter, note it in a "comment" attached to this blog entry. Each class member selects a different book, so it's first come/first claim. If you'd like to do a book that's not on this list, you may, but it should be (1) quality nonfiction, and (2) something you haven't yet read. If you go that way, e-mail your choice to me first for approval. I haven't yet vetoed one, but who knows?

UW NONFICTION SPRING 2011

RECOMMENDED NONFICTION BOOKS

­­­­­­­­___________________________Encounters with the Archdruid, John McPhee. Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1971. A classic work of Reporting by Hanging Around, in which the author stages encounters between David Brower of the Sierra Club and three of his enemies.

___________________________The John McPhee Reader, Farrar Straus & Giroux 1982. A collection of McPhee’s early RBHA for The New Yorker.

___________________________Essays of E.B. White, E.B. White, 1977 (various editions). The classic collection of White’s finest work from his decades at The New Yorker.

___________________________Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1998. Essays on the love of books, reading, and the writing life.

__________________________­­ The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan, Houghton Mifflin 2006. The National Book Award winner on the devastating American Dust Bowl— history made vivid, personal, and compelling. Also by Timothy Egan: ___________________________The Good Rain, Knopf 1991. Reportage and essays on the people, natural history and environment of the Pacific Northwest.

___________________________High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver. HarperCollins 1995. A diverse collection of eloquent essays on the natural world, parenthood, travel, and the writing life. Also by Barbara Kingsolver:________________________Small Wonder, HarperCollins 2002. More fine Kingsolver essays, mostly on environment and nature.

­­­­­­­­­__________________________Hunting for Hope, Scott Russell Sanders. Beacon Press 1998. A diverse collection of eloquent essays on the natural world, family and spirituality. Also by Scott Russell Sanders:________________________Secrets of the Universe, Beacon Press 1991. More superb Sanders essays.

­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________In Cold Blood, Truman Capote. (various editions) The 1965 book about the murderers of a Kansas farm family that launched the modern genre of literary journalism.

___________________________My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere, Susan Orlean. Random House 2005. A tour of the world through humanity’s quirky subcultures.

___________________________Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings, Jonathan Raban. Pantheon 1999. Raban skillfully weaves the history of Puget Sound and the Inside Passage into a travel memoir of his solo sailing voyage from Seattle to Juneau.

___________________________Population: 485, Michael Perry. HarperCollins 2002. A nurse returns to his fading home town to live and work as a volunteer fireman. Eloquent, intimate, and quietly devastating.

____________________________Pugetopolis: A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice, Knute Berger. Sasquatch Books 2009. Collected commentaries by Seattle’s crankiest (and best) columnist, the former Seattle Weekly editor.

___________________________Rowing to Latitude: Journeys Along the Arctic’s Edge, Jill Fredston. North Point Press 2001. A thoughtful memoir of wilderness rowing in Alaska, Greenland and Norway. A National Outdoor Book Award winner. Also by Jill Fredston: _________________________Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches, Harcourt 2005

­­­­­­­­____________________________Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion (various editions). A modern classic, often cited as Didion’s best work. Essays on ‘60s California and other places, originally published 1968.

____________________________The Solace of Open Spaces, Gretel Ehrlich. Penguin 1986. A beautifully written memoir on the unforgiving life of a Wyoming ranch.

____________________________The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond. HarperCollins 1992 Diamond is a true polymath: geographer, anthropologist, world-class birdwatcher and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. These essays investigate fascinating accidents along the path of human evolution, physiological and social.

____________________________Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott. Anchor 2000. In a funny and irreverent voice, the author lays out powerful ideas on faith, spirituality and facing life.

____________________________Walden, Henry David Thoreau, 1854 (various editions). An American classic with remarkable relevance to today’s world—a weave of memoir, philosophy, cranky commentary, and natural history.

____________________________A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson. Broadway Books 1998. An overweight, middle-aged man who knows nothing about backpacking tackles the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail.

_____________________________Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell. Little, Brown 2008. A fascinating and provocative book exploring the accidents of fate and culture that determine success.

_____________________________Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua. Penguin Press 2011. A prickly and controversial memoir of a Chinese-American mother’s unyielding approach to raising her children. It rocketed to #5 on The New York Times bestseller list a week after its release.

­­_____________________________The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin. Doubleday 2007. An intimate portrait of the justices and their world. A New York Times “Top 10 Books” pick in 2007.