Reading Group Best Bets Booklist
Nonfiction

Suggestions for book discussions, reading groups and book clubs. Fiction and Nonfiction titles are included. Drawn from FictionL, Book Sense, Kirkus, and a variety of other sources.

The first U.S. edition of the book is usually listed, but many of these titles are available in paperback editions..Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

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Nonfiction

• Breaking Clean
  Author: Blunt, Judy
  Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375401318 Date: 2002
  Kirkus PW
  An astonishing literary debut: the true story of a remarkable woman's life in the contemporary American West, where the lessons she learned carried her through blizzards, devastating prairie fires, and extreme isolation.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Nature
  Updated 1.31.02
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in Boom-Time America
  by Ehrenreich, Barbara
  Publisher: Metropolitan $ 23 ISBN: 0805063889 Date: 2001
  Kirkus
  Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages. Social critic Barbara Ehrenreich joined them, moving into a trailer and working as a waitress, hotel maid, and Wal-Mart sales clerk. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and duality.
  
• Dont' Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
  by Fuller, Alexandra
  Publisher: Random House $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375507507 Date: 2002
  Kirkus Booklist PW
  Magnificently original and affecting, Fuller's memoir of a childhood dominated by the Rhodesian civil war of 1971-1979 captures the fascinating life of a white family living in one of the most remote regions of Africa.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoir Stars
  Updated 11.27.01
  
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend
  by Hillenbrand, Laura
  Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375502912 Date: 2001
  PW Booklist
  One of the greatest legends of the 20th century, Seabiscuit was a discarded, bottom-level runner who became a champion with the help of three men: a trainer, an owner, and a jockey. This is the spellbinding tale of how they did it.
  Seabiscuit Online
  Suggested Reading: Horse Tales
  
  
• Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before
  Author: Horwitz, Tony
  Publisher: Holt $ 26 ISBN: 0805065415 Date: 2002
  PW
  In an exhilarating tale of historic adventure, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Confederates in the Attic retraces the voyages of Captain James Cook, the Yorkshire farm boy who drew the map of the modern world.
  Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Sea Stories
  Updated 8.28.02
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
  Author: Krakauer, Jon
  Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385509510 Date: 2003
  Kirkus LJ
  Krakauer shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief in this true story of an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers who insist God commanded them to kill.
  Updated 6.30.03
• A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiania
  by Kimmel, Haven
  Publisher: Bantam $ 21.95ISBN: 0385499825 Date: 2001
  PW
  When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet. Nicknamed "Zippy", she possessed big eyes and even bigger ears. In this loving memoir, Kimmel takes readers back in time to when small-town America was still in the innocent postwar period and treats readers to an appealing, and knowing, heroine.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
  Author: Larson, Erik
  Publisher: Crown $ 25.95 ISBN: 0609608444 Date: 2003
  Kirkus PW Booklist
  In a thrilling narrative showcasing his gifts as storyteller and researcher, Larson recounts the spellbinding tale of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and its devious creators. A blend of Ragtime and Silence of the Lambs, The Devil in the White City is Larson at his best.
  Suggested Reading: Holmes: Scarlet Mansions by Allen Eckert (novel) and Depraved: The Shocking True Story of America's First Serial Killer by Harold Schechter.
  Links: Chicago World's Fair - Hypertext | Interactive Guide
  Web Book | Holmes Article
  Suggested Reading: All Stars | True Crime Stars
  Updated 2.28.02
• Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy
  Author: Mayes, Frances
  Publisher: Chronicle $ 22.95 ISBN: 0811808424 Date: 1996
  In Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes brings a poet's voice, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer together to create an enchanting and lyrical book about the life, the traditions, and the cuisine of Tuscany.
  Updated 7.6.04
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
  Author: Nafisi, Azar
  Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375504907 Date: 2003
  Kirkus PW LJ
  Reading Lolita in Tehran is the astonishing true story of young women who met in secret each week to read and talk about forbidden Western classics--and their lives and loves--in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
  Suggested Reading: All Stars
  Updated 3.21.03
• The Glass Castle: A Memoir
  Author: Walls, Jeannette
  Publisher: Scribner $ 25 ISBN: 0743247531 Date: 2005
  PW Kirkus Booklist
  In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over But the Shouting, Jeannette Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric and severely misguided family.
  Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | All Stars | Adult Books for Teens | Drink Up | Best Bets for Reading Groups
  Updated 2.15.05