Nonfiction Stars - 2003 Overbooked: Nonfiction Stars 2003 Overbooked: a resource for readers

Nonfiction Stars of 2003 - A selected list of titles.

This reading list is based on personal preferences. It reflects interests in history, science, nature, travel, biography, memoirs and a few assorted odd topics. Titles are listed by approximate date of publication, then alphabetically by author.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine - unless otherwise noted.

December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

December

December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

November

  • Tragically I Was an Only Twin: The Complete Peter Cook
    Author: Cook, Peter
    Publisher: St Martins $ 27.95 ISBN: 031231891x Date: 2003
    starLJ
    This is a unique collection of Cook's finest and funniest writings of which many have never been published before.
    Updated 9.25.03
  • Madness Visible
    Author: Di Giovanni, Janine
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375410732 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    From an internationally celebrated war correspondent comes a searing firsthand chronicle--told with extraordinary immediacy--of the ordeal of the Balkan people during the continuing breakup of Yugoslavia.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Former Yugoslavia
    Updated 8.25.03
  • In the Name of Science: A History of Secret Programs, Medical Research, and Human Experimentation
    Author: Goliszek, Andrew
    Publisher: St Martins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0312303564 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    As Goliszek demonstrates in this chilling book, science has been called upon to kill people as often as it has to cure them. The grim catalogue of inhumanities committed culminated with the Nazi experiments, but in recent history the U.S. government has sponsored experiments on human subjects without their full knowledge.
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Goya
    Author: Hughes, Robert
    Publisher: Knopf $ 40 ISBN: 0394580281 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    With characteristic critical fervor and sure-eyed insight, Hughes brings readers the story of Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, an artist whose life and work bridged the transition from the 18th-century reign of the old masters to the early days of the 19th-century moderns.
    Updated 11.18.03
  • Spix's Macaw: The Race to Save the World's Rarest Bird
    Author: Juniper, Tony
    Publisher: Atria $ 25 ISBN: 074347550x Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Tony Juniper's heart-stopping inside account of the race to save a rare blue parrot, the last of its species, is a priceless addition to nature literature -- and a timely portrait of Earth's endangered wildlife. - Publisher Marketing
    Suggested Reading: Nature | For the Birds | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body
    Author: Leroi, Armand Marie
    Publisher: Viking $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670031100 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Stepping effortlessly from myth to molecular biology, this elegant, humane, and illuminating book explores the myths and fantasies associated with mutants and their critical link to human development.
    Updated 10.2.03
  • Living with the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery
    Author: Lightman, Alan
    Publisher: Island $ 27 ISBN: 1559634197 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Updated 12.15.03
  • Living to Tell the Tale
    Author: Marquez, Gabriel Garcia
    Publisher: Knopf $ 26.95 ISBN: 1400041341 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    From the Nobel Laureate writer Marquez comes a magnificent piece of writing that finds him telling the story of his life from his birth in 1927 through his career as a writer.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 11.18.03
  • The World: Travels 1950-2000
    Author: Morris, Jan
    Publisher: Norton $ 27.95 ISBN: 0393052087 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    Ranging from Manhattan to Venice, Oxford to the Middle East, and Paris to South Africa, the book provides Morris's eyewitness accounts of such seminal moments as the first successful ascent of Everest, the historic Eichmann trial, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the handover of Hong Kong.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 10.2.03
  • Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Atlantic
    Author: Niven, Jennifer
    Publisher: Hyperion $ 24.95 ISBN: 0786868635 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    From the author ofThe Ice Master comes the remarkable true story of a young Inuit woman who survived six months alone on a desolate uninhabited Arctic island in 1921.
    Updated 10.23.03
  • Sea of Glory: America's Voyage of Discovery: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842
    Author: Philbrick, Nathaniel
    Publisher: Viking $ 27.95 ISBN: 067003213x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Like the award-winningIn the Heart of the Sea, Sea of Glory combines meticulous history with spellbinding human drama as it circles the globe from the palm-fringed beaches of the South Pacific to the treacherous waters off Antarctica and to the stunning beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and, finally, to a court-martial aboard a ship anchored off New York City.
    Suggested Reading: Sea Stories | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 8.25.03
  • Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams
    Author: Simpson, M.J.
    Publisher: Justin Charles $ 27.95 ISBN: 1932112170 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    M.J. Simpson has produced a rich, revealing chronicle of one of the most wildly creative minds of our time: Douglas Adams, creator of the phenomenally successfulHitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
    Suggested Reading: If You Like Douglas Adams
    Updated 11.25.03
  • Brave Men, Gentle Heroes: American Father and Sons in World War II and Vietnam
    Author: Takiff, Michael
    Publisher: Morrow $ 25.95 ISBN: 006621081x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In this thought-provoking work, American veterans of World War II and their sons who served in Vietnam share their indelible stories of the enduring legacy of war.
    Updated 8.11.03
  • Hope Dies Last: Keeping Faith in Difficult Times
    Author: Terkel, Studs
    Publisher: New Press $ 25.95 ISBN: 1565848373 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times is the tenth oral history by the Pulitzer Prize winner and his account of an "American century" of hope, activism, and determination.
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook
    Author: Thomas, Nicholas
    Publisher: Walker $ 28 ISBN: 0802714129 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Blending an elegant, assured style with bold, cross-disciplinary originality, Thomas breathes life into the complex and controversial legacy of Captain James Cook, an often-misunderstood man.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Sea Stories
    Updated 10.7.03
  • Thank Your For Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia
    Author: Ugresic, Dubravka
    Publisher: Dalkey $ 13.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 1564782980 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Updated 9.08.03
  • An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America
    Author: Wiencek, Henry
    Publisher: FSG $ 30 ISBN: 0374175268 Date: 2003
    starPW
    In this groundbreaking work, Wiencek explores George Washington's engagement with slavery at every stage of his life--as a Virginia planter, soldier, politician, president and statesman. Washington's heroic stature as Father of Our Country is not diminished in this superb, nuanced portrait: now readers see him in full as a man of his time and ahead of his time.
    Suggested Reading: 1776 Stars
    Updated 9.08.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

October

  • Oath: The Remarkable Story of Surgeon's Lfe Under in Cheyna
    Author: Baiev, Khassan
    Publisher: Walker $ 26 ISBN: 0802714048 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarPW
    InThe Oath, a heroic Chechen doctor relates his harrowing experiences in the line of fire to bear witness to this international calamity, and illuminates his remarkable people and their culture.
    Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 9.09.03
  • The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response
    Author: Balakian, Peter
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 26.95 ISBN: 0060198400 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The highly acclaimed author ofBlack Dog of Fate offers a landmark history of the Armenian massacres of the 1890s and the genocide of 1915--and America's extraordinary response.
    Updated 8.18.03
  • In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in Africa
    Author: Bergner, Daniel
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 22 ISBN: 0374266530 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In the Land of Magic Soldiers follows a set of white would-be saviors and also a set of Sierra Leoneans. A story of black and white, of those who would nation-build and those who live in a region of fire and jungle, this is an unforgettable work of literary reportage by "a terrific reporter with a novelist's eye" (New York Times Book Review).
    Updated 7.8.03
  • Inside Orwell: A Biography
    Author: Bowker, Gordon
    Publisher: Palgrave $ 35 ISBN: 031223841x Date: 2003
    starPW
    This revealing biography of one of the greatest authors of the 20th century includes new material on Orwell's complex and sometimes reckless sex life, new evidence of his being hunted and spied on in Spain, his paranoia about possible assassination, and his deathbed wedding to a woman 15 years his junior.
    Updated 8.11.03
  • From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity
    Author: Braudy, Leo
    Publisher: Knopf $ 30 ISBN: 0679450351 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Beginning with the world of the chivalric Middle Ages and ending in this age of global terrorism and limited war, Braudy shows how the perceptions and images of masculinity have changed in relation to major wars and advances in war technology.
    Updated 8.11.03
  • Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter
    Author: Cahill, Thomas
    Publisher: Doubleday/Talese $ 27.50 ISBN: 0385495536 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    In the fourth volume of the acclaimed Hinges of History series, the author of How the Irish Saved Civilization brings his characteristic wit and style to a fascinating tour of ancient Greece.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens | Ancient Greece
    Updated 8.25.03
  • America's Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines
    Author: Collins, Gail
    Publisher: Morrow $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060185104 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Collins chronicles a history spanning book rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters and 400 years of women--dolls, drudges, helpmates, and heroines.
    Updated 7.28.03
  • An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland
    Author: Dirda, Michael
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393057569 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    A funny, wistful memoir by a Pulitzer Prize--winning critic that recalls the charm of growing up and the tenderness of one writer's beginnings.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 8.14.03
  • Ungoldy: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair
    Author: Dracos, Ted
    Publisher: Free $ 25 ISBN: 0743228332 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    As the woman who won a longshot, landmark Supreme Court case to ban prayer in public schools, Madalyn Murray O'Hair was one of the most powerful personalities of the 20th century. Dracos now shares the complete account of O'Hair's life.
    Updated 10.23.03
  • Tibet, Tibet
    Author: French, Patrick
    Publisher: Knopf $ 25 ISBN: 1400041007 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    At different times in its history Tibet has been renowned for pacifism and martial prowess, enlightenment and cruelty. The Dalai Lama may be the only religious leader who can inspire the devotion of agnostics. Patrick French has been fascinated by Tibet since he was a teenager. He has read its history, agitated for its freedom, and risked arrest to travel through its remote interior. His love and knowledge inform every page of this learned, literate, and impassioned book.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Tibet
    Updated 8.25.03
  • City Room
    Author: Gelb, Arthur
    Publisher: Putnam $ 29.95 ISBN: 0399150757 Date: 2003
    starPW
    An affecting and enlightening memoir of 45 years at The New York Times from a man who joined the paper as a night copy boy in 1944 and rose to become its managing editor. A history of our times andThe Times.
    Updated 9.08.03
  • The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors
    Author: Gribbin, John R.
    Publisher: Random $ 35 ISBN: 1400060133 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    Focusing on the lives and achievements of individual scientists, this wonderfully readable description of scientific development over the past 500 years is by the bestselling author ofIn Search of Schrodinger's Cat.
    Updated 10.30.03
  • Skin Deep: Of Tattoos, the Disappearing West, Very Bad Men, and My Deep Love for Them All
    Author: Griffin, Karol
    Publisher: Harvest $ 24 ISBN: 0151008841 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Believing herself a daughter of the West, Griffin took the myths of the place--and of the outlaw--on faith. Soon Karol was a full-time tattoo artist, an occasional outlaw, and a tattooed woman looking for love in all the wrong places.
    Updated 8.13.03
  • Doubt: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickenson
    Author: Hecht, Jennifer
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 27.95 ISBN: 0060097728 Date: 2003
    starPWstarLJstarBooklist
    This fascinating account explores the great doubters and their legacy of innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Jefferson and Wittgenstein--a fascinating view of how doubt has been the driving force in the intellectual and religious history of the world.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 11.25.03
  • The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club: Power, Passion, and Politics in the Nation's Capital
    Author: Heymann, C. David
    Publisher: Atria $ 26 ISBN: 0743428560 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In this riveting book--a heady mix of politics, sex, scandal, and power--Heymann reveals the real moguls of Washington.The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club, a term coined by Ronald Reagan, comprises a list of formidable and fascinating women.
    Updated 10.23.03
  • Art: A New History
    Author: Johnson, Paul
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 39.95 ISBN: 0060530758 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarKirkusstarLJ
    A provocative, personal view of the history of art, from the earliest cave paintings to the present day, is delivered by the bestselling author of Modern Times. 300 color illustrations.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 10.8.03
  • The Singular Mark Twain: A Biography
    Author: Kaplan, Fred
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 35 ISBN: 0385477155 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    One of our most distinguished biographers offers a bold, revisionist life of the inimitable Mark Twain.
    Suggested Reading: Twain Stars
    Updated 9.22.03
  • The Brass Wall: the Betrayal of Undercover Detective #4126
    Author: Kocieniewski, David
    Publisher: Holt $ 25 ISBN: 0805065334 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In 1993, Vincent Armanti, Undercover Detective #4126, agreed to infiltrate the branch of the Lucchese family responsible for the homicide of a beloved fireman. Here, in all his humanity, is an unforgettable hero, battling for his honor and survival.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 7.8.03
  • They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America October 1967
    Author: Maraniss, David
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 29.95 ISBN: 0743217802 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJstarPW
    From the author ofWhen Pride Still Mattered ("Near perfect . . . May be the best sports biography ever published."--Sports Illustrated) comes a new book on the Vietnam war.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 8.18.03
  • Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life
    Author: Moorehead, Caroline
    Publisher: Holt $ 27.50 ISBN: 0805065539 Date: 2003
    starPWstarKirkusstarBooklist
    Martha Gellhorn's career as a reporter brought her to the front lines of every significant international conflict between the Spanish Civil War and the Cold War. This seminal work spans half the globe and an entire century to offer an exhilarating, intimate portrait of one of the defining women of our times.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 10.2.03
  • Paradise of Cities: Venice in the 19th Century
    Author: Norwich, John Julius
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 32.50 ISBN: 0385509049 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    The greatest living chronicler of Venetian history brings to life the city's magical charm in a beautifully illustrated and captivating book. - Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: Venice
    Updated 7.28.03
  • The Doctor's Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and theStrange Story of Ignac Semmelweis
    Author: Nuland, Sherwin B.
    Publisher: Norton $ 21.95 ISBN: 0393052990 Date: 2003
    starLJstarBooklist
    A great medical detective story, by the author of the bestsellingHow We Die. The Doctors' Plague is a riveting, revealing narrative of one of the key turning points in medical history.
    Updated 9.25.03
  • And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank
    Author: Oney, Steve
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 35 ISBN: 0679421475 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBookliststarLJ
    On April 27, 1913, the bludgeoned body of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan was discovered in the basement of Atlanta's National Pencil Factory. The girl's murder would be the catalyst for an epic saga that to this day holds a singular place in America's collective imagination--a saga that would climax in 1915 with the lynching of Leo Frank, the Cornell-educated Jew who was convicted of the murder. - Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | True Crime Stars
    Updated 10.2.03
  • An Accidental Cowboy
    Author: Parker, Jameson
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312310242 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    A stunning and breathtaking memoir that pays homage to a dying way of life.An Accidental Cowboy is a story of trauma, depression, and the beginnings of hope, set against the backdrop of the American Southwest.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 9.22.03
  • Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocohontas, and the Heart of a New Nation
    Author: Price, David A.
    Publisher: Knopf $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375415416 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    Unraveling the crucial roles of Pocahontas, Captain John Smith, and Chief Powhatan, Pagels offers a dramatic retelling of one of the great survival stories of American history--the opening of the first permanent English settlement in the New World.
    Suggested Reading: Virginia Stars
    Updated 7.21.03
  • The Bookseller of Kabul
    Author: Seierstad, Asne
    Publisher: Little Brown $ 19.95 ISBN: 0316764500 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    Invited to live with a Kabul bookseller and his family for several months, an award-winning journalist now gives readers a first-hand look at Afghani life as few outsiders have seen it.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Afghanistan Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 10.2.03
  • Middletown, America: One Town's Passage from Trauma to Hope
    Author: Sheehy, Gail
    Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375508627 Date: 2003
    starPWstarLJ
    The author ofSilent Passage pens a harrowing--and inspiring--story of the New Jersey town that suffered the highest death toll in the World Trade Center attack and the community's journey toward recovery.
    Updated 10.2.03
  • Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse
    Author: Silverman, Kenneth
    Publisher: Random $ 35ISBN: 0375401288 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBookliststarLJ
    In this brilliantly conceived and written biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning Kenneth Silverman gives us the long and amazing life of the man eulogized by the "New York Herald in 1872 as "perhaps the most illustrious American of his age."- Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 10.30.03
  • Death of Innocence; The Story of the Hate Crime That Changes America
    Author: Till-Mobley, Mamie
    Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 1400061172 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Speaking out for the first time, Mamie Till-Mobley offers a memoir of the 1955 slaying of her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till--the teenager whose murder galvanized the civil rights movement.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, A Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy
    Author: Varon, Elizabeth R.
    Publisher: Oxford $ 35 ISBN: 0195142284 Date: 2003
    starLJstarPW
    A gripping account of the Civil War era story of Elizabeth Van Lew: high-society Southern lady, risk-taking Union spy, and postwar politician.
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity
    Author: Wallace, David Foster
    Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393003388 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    The bestselling author ofInfinite Jest takes on the 2,000 year-old quest to understand infinity. Wallace brings his considerable talents to the history of one of math's most enduring puzzles: the seemingly paradoxical nature of infinity.
    Updated 10.23.03
  • The Middle Mind: Why American's Don't Think for Themselves
    Author: White, Curtis
    Publisher: Harper $ 23.95 ISBN: 0060524367 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    What do George W. Bush, the Ivory Tower, Steven Spielberg, and Terri Gross have in common? Does a political scandal make for good news copy? Does network programming allow us to unwind from a day's work? Does the art at the local museum make for pleasant cocktail conversation? An unflinching and wry look at the dumbing down of the American imagination. - Publisher Marketing.
    Updated 9.08.03
  • The Colossus of New York: A City in Thirteen Parts
    Author: Whitehead, Colson
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 19.95 ISBN: 0385507941 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    In a dazzlingly original work of nonfiction, an award-winning novelist re-creates the exuberance, the chaos, the promise, and the heartbreak of New York, composing a love song that will entrance anyone who has lives in or spent time in the city.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 10.2.03
  • The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary
    Author: Winchester, Simon
    Publisher: Oxford $ 25 ISBN: 0198607024 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBookliststarLJ
    From the bestselling author ofThe Professor and the Madman, The Map That Changed the World, andKrakatoa comes a wonderful celebration of the English language and of its treasure house, theOxford English Dictionary.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 10.30.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

September

  • The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
    Author: Alexander, Caroline
    Publisher: Viking $ 27.95 ISBN: 067003133x Date: 2003
    starPWstarBooklist
    In giving theBounty mutiny its historical due, Alexander has chosen to frame her narrative by focusing on the court-martial of the ten mutineers who were captured in Tahiti and brought to justice in England. This fresh perspective wonderfully revivifies the entire saga.
    Suggested Reading: Sea Stories | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 8.13.03
  • Lost in Mongolia
    Author: Angus, Colin
    Publisher: Broadway $ 12.95 (paper) ISBN: 0767912802 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    The adrenaline junky who brought usAmazon Extreme now takes on an expedition that makesSurvivor look like a luxury tour.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 6.30.03
  • In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863
    Author: Ayers, Edward L.
    Publisher: Norton $ 27.95 ISBN: 0393057860 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarLJstarBooklist
    Through a gripping narrative based on massive new research, a leading historian tells a reassuring story of the triumph, in an inevitable conflict, of the dynamic, free-labor North over the traditional, slave-based South, vindicating the freedom principles built into the nation's foundations.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Virginia Stars
    Updated 7.17.03
  • Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia
    Author: Bissell, Tom
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375421300 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In this high-octane narrative, Bissell chronicles his journey--sometimes raucous, sometimes powerfully sobering--through Uzbekistan to the disappearing Aral Sea.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 11.12.03
  • Kansas Charley: A Boy Murderer from the American Past
    Author: Brumberg, Joan Jacobs
    Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 067003228x Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Most Americans regard "kids who kill" as a problem unique to our era. But in historian Brumberg's important new work, she reminds readers that it is, tragically, a long-standing dilemma.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 8.14.03
  • Twin Tracks: The Unexpected Origins of the Modern World
    Author: Burke, James
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743226194 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    " One of the most intriguing minds in the Western World" (The Washington Post) delivers a landmark book of real-world stories that contends with the nature of change and divines as never before the unlikely origins of many aspects of contemporary life.
    Updated 7.8.03
  • Antiquity: Civilization of the Ancient World
    Author: Cantor, Norman
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060174099 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    This is the most up-to-date, succinct history of ancient civilization by the author of theNew York Times bestsellerIn the Wake of the Plague.
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Disarmed: The Story of the Venus De Milo
    Author: Curtis, Gregory
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0374515238 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    A rich tale of historical intrigue, this is the story of the Venus de Milo, one of the most famous works of art of all time.
    Updated 8.11.03
  • Where I Was From
    Author: Didion, Joan
    Publisher: Knopf $ 23 ISBN: 0679433325 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBooklist
    In this moving and unexpected work, Didion reassesses her life, her work, and both her own and America's history, locating the contradictions in the stories people tell themselves about their past and their present.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 7.18.03
  • The Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
    Author: Dawkins, Richard
    Publisher: Houghton $ 24 ISBN: 0618335404 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Bestselling author Dawkins offers another dazzling gift to his readers--his first collection of essays on what matters most to him, from science, religion and mysticism to today's educational methods.
    Updated 7.28.03
  • The Boy's Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwest Europe, 1944-1945
    Author: Fussell, Paul
    Publisher: Modern Library $ 19.95 ISBN: 0679640886 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    From the author of the classicThe Treat War and Modern Memory and a decorated World War II combat infantry officer comes a brilliant reckoning with the American soldier's experience of war from D-day to the fall of Berlin.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Driving by Moonlight: A Journey Through Love, War, and Infertility
    Author: Henderson, Kristin
    Publisher: Seal $ 14.95 (paper) ISBN: 1580050980 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In this ultimately hopeful and affirming memoir, Henderson discards her map and finds peace following a road she never expected.
    Updated 10.23.03
  • George Gershwin: A New Biography
    Author: Hyland, William
    Publisher: Praeger $ 39.95 ISBN: 0275981118 Date: 2003
    starLJstarBooklist
    Updated 10.23.03
  • Mountains Beyond Mountains
    Author: Kidder, Tracy
    Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375506160 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    At the center ofMountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer--brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti--blasts through convention to get results. - Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Link: Partners in Health web site
    Updated 7.8.03
  • Th Fifth Book of Peace
    Author: Kingston, Maxine Hong
    Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0679440755 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    From the acclaimed author ofThe Woman Warrior comes a brilliant hybrid of memoir and fiction, her first major work in more than a decade. Her real and imagined narrative enrich one another as Kingston weaves together fact, fiction and memory in an powerfully emotional book.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 7.17.03
  • Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall
    Author: Meier, Andrew
    Publisher: Norton $ 28.95 ISBN: 0393051781 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    With the power ofLenin's Tomb andBalkan Ghosts, this is an illuminating portrait of contemporary Russia--a country in limbo, a land of vast potential struggling with an unfinished past.Black Earth is a penetrating view of the new Russia from a bold new voice in political journalism.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story
    Author: Moody, Fred
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95ISBN: 0312304218 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In a fascinating yet unsettling account of the transformation of Seattle, America's most conflicted city, Moody offers a remarkable history of urban boosterism and underground rage.
    Updated 8.13.03
  • Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predators in the Jungles of History and the Mind
    Author: Quammen, David
    Publisher: Norton $ 25.95 ISBN: 0393051404
    starPWstarBookliststarLJ
    Casting his expert eye over the rapidly diminishing areas of wilderness where predators still reign, the award-winning author ofThe Song of the Dodo examines the fate of lions, saltwater crocodiles, brown bears and others that are disappearing.
    Suggested Reading: Nature | All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 8.14.03
  • The White Headhunter
    Author: Randell, Nigel
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 25 ISBN: 0786712562
    starKirkus
    An astonishing anthropological detective story of a nineteenth-century sailor's real-lifeHeart of Darkness in the South Seas. In 1876, sailor Jack Renton was finally rescued from the Pacific island home of the headhunting Malaitans, after spending eight years in their captivity. - Publisher Marketing
    Updated 7.8.03
  • The Best American Science Writing 2003
    Author: Sacks, Oliver (ed)
    Publisher: Ecco $ 27.50/$13.95 ISBN: 0066211638/0936517 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Updated 7.1.03
  • True Notebooks
    Author: Salzman, Mark
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375413081 Date: 2003
    starPWstarBooklist
    From the author of the bestsellingIron & Silk andLying Awake comes the exhilarating story of his experiences teaching writing in a juvenile correctional facility.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 8.1303
  • The Smoking Gun: Day by Day Through a Shocking Murder Trial With Gerry Spence
    Author: Spence, Gerry
    Publisher: Scribner $ 30 ISBN: 0743246969 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Spence, renowned for his work on the cases of Karen Silkwood and Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, offers the true account of a trial that exposes the unrelenting power of the state that so often crushes all who come before the bar of justice--guilty or innocent.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill
    Author: Stern, Jessica
    Publisher: Ecco $ 27.95 ISBN: 006050532x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Updated 7.8.03
  • Triangle: the Fire That Changed America
    Author: Von Drehle, David
    Publisher: Atlantic $ 26 ISBN: 0871138743 Date: 2003
    starPW
    This poignantly detailed account explores the 1911 factory fire that horrified the country and changed the course of 20th-century politics and labor relations.
    Suggested Reading: On Fire | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 5.19.03
  • Mr. Apology
    Author: Wilkinson, Alec
    Publisher: Hougton Mifflin $ 24 ISBN: 0618123113 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Acclaimed for his wide-ranging and beautifully written essays, Wilkinson now brings together 20 of his best pieces. Among them are his exemplary profiles--from the mass murderer John Wayne Gacy to the man who does research for Elmore Leonard's novels--drawn with an intelligence and compassion.
    Updated 7.8.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

August

  • Marianne in Chains: Everyday Life in the French Heartland Under the German Occupation
    Author: Gildea, Robert
    Publisher: Metropolitan $ 32.50 ISBN: 0805071687 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    A startling and original view of the occupation of the French heartland, based on a new investigation of everyday life under Nazi rule. A great work of reconstruction, this book provides a clear view, unobscured by romance or polemics, of the painful ambiguities of living under tyranny.
    Updated 5.9.03
  • Hoagland on Nature: Essays
    Author: Hoagland, Edward
    Publisher: Lyons $ 27.95 ISBN: 1585746525 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Hoagland's exploration, from the boreal forests of Maine to the brawny Belize River, illuminates both the exotic and the wilds of readers' backyards. Hoagland reports from the frontlines of life, and recounts fascinating detail with exacting prose.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 11.18.03
  • Entering the Stone: On Caves and Feeling Through the Dark
    Author: Hurd, Barbara
    Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $23 ISBN: 0618191380 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Hurd begins her foray into the increasingly popular pursuit of caving with a panic attack. Nevertheless, as her hunger to understand caves and caving increases, she lures the reader in deeper as well, to the extraordinary fascination of these dark interiors.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 7.30.03
  • Against Love: A Polemic
    Author: Kipnis, Laura
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 24 ISBN: 0375421890 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Kipnis begins by evoking a tempestuous adulterous affair and uses it to examine the cultural meaning of adultery.Against Love examines modern love on a societal rather than an individual plane and offers a bracing utopian vision against which readers may judge their lives.
    Updated 7.1.03
  • Making Connections: Mother-Daughter Travel Adventures
    Author: Knight, Wendy (ed)
    Publisher: Seal $ 16.95 (trade paper) ISBN: 1580050875 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Through lively and vivid accounts of an African safari, a trip to Thailand, and a Canadian canoe trip, this collection examines how the mother-daughter relationship is tested and altered by adventure travel.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 9.08.03
  • Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers
    Author: Lederer, Katy
    Publisher: Crown $ 23.95 ISBN: 0609608983 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Lederer's two siblings would go on to become world class gamblers and her father a bestselling author, but her childhood was far from glamorous. InPoker Face, she renders the strange and at times funny story of her family's and her own trajectory through the world.
    Suggested Reaing List: Take a Gamble
    Updated 6.25.03
  • Ambassador to the Penguins: A Naturalist's Year Aboard a Yankee Whaleship
    Author: Mathews, Eleanor
    Publisher: David Godine $ 29.95 ISBN: 1567922465 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Updated 12.15.03
  • Evil: An Investigation
    Author: Morrow, Lance
    Publisher: Basic $ 24 ISBN: 0465047548 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    From award-winning essayist Morrow comes a provocative meditation on the nature of evil, and a daring analysis of its role in the modern world.
    Updated 8.13.03
  • The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria, Medicine, and the Quest for Quinine, the Cure That Changed the World
    Author: Rocco, Fiammetta
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060199512 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    Quinine: Jesuits hoarded it and Nazis invaded for it. This is the story of the ravages of malaria, the search for a cure, and the quest to steal and smuggle cinchona seeds out of South America.
    Updated 8.13.03
  • Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
    Author: Satrapi, Marjane
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 17.95 ISBN: 0375422307 Date: 2003
    starPWstarLJ
    An intelligent and outspoken only child, Satrapi--the daughter of radical Marxists and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor--bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. A graphic novel.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens | Graphic Novels
    Updated 7.8.03
  • Adam's Naval: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form
    Author: Sims, Michael
    Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032247 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Drawing on evolution and the mechanics of human anatomy, a science writers conducts an engaging tour of the human form--where biology and culture intersect.
    Updated 5.9.03
  • Terror in the Name of God: Why Reliogious Militants Kill
    Author: Stern, Jessica
    Publisher: Ecco $ 27.95 ISBN: 006050532x Date: 2003
    starPW
    Updated 7.1.03
  • A Scream Goes Through the House: What Literature Teaches Us About Life
    Author: Weinstein, Arnold
    Publisher: Random $ 29.95 ISBN: 0375506241 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In the tradition of Harold Bloom'sShakespeare or Jaques Barzun'sFrom Dawn to Decadence, Brown University's Weinstein explores how great works of literature and art reveal the deep levels of human feeling and the great emotional issues of life.
    Updated 8.13.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

July

  • The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heros of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse
    Author: Cartledge, Paul
    Publisher: Overlook $ 27.95 ISBN: 1585674028 Date: 2003
    starPW
    A compelling narrative exploring the culture and civilization of the most famous "warrior people": the Spartans of ancient Greece, told by the world's leading expert. The narrative also details the lives of such illustrious mythmaking figures as Lycurgus, King Leonidas, Helen of Troy (and Sparta), and Lysander.
    Suggested Reading: Greece
    Updated 4.14.03
  • The Zanzibar Chest: A Story of Life, Love, and Death in Foreign Lands
    Author: Hartley, Aidan
    Publisher: Atlantic $ 25 ISBN: 0871138719 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Weaving together stories, his family's history, and his childhood in Africa, Hartley tells what he saw.The Zanzibar Chest is an enthralling narrative of men and women meddling with, embracing, and being transformed by other cultures in one of the most important examinations of colonialism ever written.
    Link: The Zanzibar Chest Site
    Updated 4.7.03
  • Benjamin Franklin: A American Life
    Author: Isaacson, Walter
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 30 ISBN: 0684807610 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Rescuing Benjamin Franklin from the clich of genial codger, this book celebrates the most interesting, advanced, and earthy of the founding fathers.
    Suggested Reading: 1776 Stars
    Updated 6.6.05
  • The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl: A Memoir
    Author: Kingsland, Rosemary
    Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 140004782X Date: 2003
    starPWstarKirkus
    With the same appeal as literary memoirs likeDon't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight andThe Road from Coorain, The Secret Life of a Schoolgirl is a vivid evocation of life in foreign cultures and a keenly observed portrait of a wildly dysfunctional family.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 5.19.03
  • Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
    Author: Krakauer, Jon
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 26 ISBN: 0385509510 Date: 2003 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    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.
    Suggested Reading: Reading Group Stars | True Crime Stars
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Where the Money Is: True Tales from the Bank Robbery Capital of the World
    Author: Rehder, William J.
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393051560 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    Americans have always been fascinated by bank robbers: Jesse James, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde. InWhere the Money Is FBI Special Agent Rehder chronicles the lives and crimes of bank robbers in today's Los Angeles who are as colorful and exciting as the legends of long ago.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 5.9.03
  • Traplines: Coming Home to Sawtooth Valley
    Author: Rember, John
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 22 ISBN: 0375422072 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In 1987 Rember returned to Idaho's Sawtooth Valley, his home as a boy in the late 1950s--a world where he knew he belonged. But his experience there as an adult would be different: not only had he changed, but the appearance and fabric of daily life had also been radically altered.
    Updated 6.25.03
  • Girl Walks into a Bar: A Memoir
    Author: Saroyan, Strawberry
    Publisher: Random $ 19.95 ISBN: 037550611x Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In a voice reminiscent of Liz Phair one moment and Mary McCarthy the next, Saroyan's debut memoir depicts the often rocky path from girlhood to womanhood, and what it is like to come of age in New York, Los Angeles, and London in the 21st century.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 3.13.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

June

  • Ghetto Celebrity: Searching for the Delbert in Me: A Memoir
    Author: Alexander, Donnell
    Publisher: Crown $ 22.95 ISBN: 1400046025 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    Vivid, stylish, at times outrageous,Ghetto Celebrity traces author Alexander's rollercoaster journey out of small-town obscurity and drug abuse through self-reinvention as a writer, and his rise to underground fame in the West Coast alternative press scene.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Library: An Unquiet History
    Author: Battles, Matthew
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.94 ISBN: 0393020290 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    Battles, a rare books librarian and a gifted narrator, takes readers on a spirited foray from Boston to Baghdad, from classical scriptoria to medieval monasteries, from the Vatican to the British Library, and explores how libraries are built and how they are destroyed.
    Suggested Reading: Books About Books
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology
    Author: Broks, Paul
    Publisher: Atlantic $ 24 ISBN: 0871139014 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    A neuropsychologist and a runner-up for the prestigious Wellcome Trust Science Prize, Broks writes with a doctor's precision and clarity in a series of narratives about the fascinating world of the neurologically impaired, delving not only into the inner lives of his patients but also into a deeper understanding of how they define who they are.
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Dry: A Memoir
    Author: Burroughs, Augusten
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312272057 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    With unconventional wit and a wonderfully weird way of looking at things, Burroughs, author ofRunning with Scissors, chronicles his life on the edge after leaving his deeply eccentric foster family.Dry is at times howlingly funny, devastatingly moving and, in the end, uplifting.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 4.7.03
  • Invisible Eden: A True Story of Love and Murder on Cape Cod
    Author: Flook, Maria
    Publisher: Broadway $ 24.95 ISBN: 0767913744 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJstarBooklist
    A literary investigation of a story that riveted the nation: how a globe-trotting fashion writer who had retreated to a simpler life as a single mother on Cape Cod became the victim of a brutal, still unsolved murder.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | True Crime Stars
    Updated 6.30.03
  • Curzon: Imperial Statesman
    Author: Gilmour, David
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 45 ISBN: 0374133565 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Updated 4.7.03
  • Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension
    Author: Hall, Stephen S.
    Publisher: Houghton $ 25 ISBN: 0618095241Date: 2003
    starPWstarLJstarKirkus
    Aging, cancer, stem cells, cloning--this book's themes are the stuff of headlines and of humankind's greatest fears and hopes. An award-winning writer delves behind the headlines to reveal just how close scientists are to fulfilling these hopes and fears.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 6.5.03
  • As of This Writing: The Essential Essays
    Author: James, Clive
    Publisher: Norton $ 35 ISBN: 0393051803
    starKirkus
    InAs of This Writing James has assembled his most ambitious and expansive collection to date, a book that features 49 essays on poetry, film, culture, and fiction written between 1967 and 2001.
    Updated 3.27.03
  • Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum
    Author: O'Donnell, Edward T.
    Publisher: Broadway $ 24.95 ISBN: 0767909054 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Ship Ablaze is the extraordinary, untold story of the 1904 maritime disaster that took the lives of more than a thousand New Yorkers.
    Suggested Reading: On Fire | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 7.6.04
  • Boogaloo
    Author: Kempton, Arthur
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 27.50 ISBN: 0375406123 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Boogaloo is the synonym of choice for soul music, or rhythm-and-blues, among the cognoscenti. In this far-reaching study, Kempton reveals the tensions between the sacred and profane at the heart of soul music and the centrality of blacks in America's popular music and culture.
    Updated 5.8.03
  • An Obsession with Butterflies: Our Long Love Affair with a Singular Insect
    Author: Russell, Sharman Apt
    Publisher: Perseus $ 24 ISBN: 0738206997 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    A delightful look at the science of butterflies--and our obsession with them--by an acclaimed nature writer.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 6.5.03
  • Stolen Figs, and Other Adventures in Calabria
    Author: Rotella, Mark
    Publisher: North Point $ 25 ISBN: 0865476276 Date: 2003
    starPWstarKirkusstarLJ
    Rotella'sStolen Figs is a marvelous evocation of Calabria and Calabrians, whose way of life is largely untouched by the commerce that has made Tuscany and Umbria into tourist redoubts. This is a model travelogue--at once charming and wise, and full of the earthy sense of life that characterizes Calabria and its people.
    Suggested Reading Lisst: Travel Tales | All Stars
    Updated 6.5.03
  • The Cruelest Miles: The Heroic Story of Dogs and Men in a Race Against an Epidemic
    Author: Salisbury, Gay
    Publisher: Norton $ 24.95 ISBN: 0393019624 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarLJ
    Alaska, 1925: the diphtheria serum is 674 miles away. Without it, the people of Nome will not survive. The never-before-told tale of the dogs and men who braved blizzard conditions to save Nome, Alaska from diphtheria.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 6.5.03
  • Learning Joy from Dogs Without Collars: A Memoir
    Author: Summer, Lauralee
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743201027 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In a memoir of a life in which nothing is taken for granted, Summer tells a moving story of triumph over adversity. Imbued with the wisdom of a woman who has seen life as a homeless girl and as a student within Harvard University's esteemed walls, this is a stirring tale of the power of the human will.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 4.7.03
  • John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy
    Author: Thomas, Evan
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 26.95 ISBN: 0743205839 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    The author of an acclaimed biography of Robert Kennedy turns to another larger-than-life subject--a "Founding Fighter" who combined the revolutionary zeal of John Adams with the naval daring of Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey--John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolution.
    Suggested Reading: 1776 Stars
    Updated 3.13.03
  • The Language of Passion: Selected Commentary
    Author: Vargas Llosa, Mario
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374183260 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Since 1977, Vargas Llosa has contributed a biweekly column to Spain's major newspaper,El Pais. In this collection of columns from the 1990s, Vargas Llosa weighs in on the burning questions of the last decade, including the travails of Latin American democracy, the role of religion in civic life, and the future of globalization.
    Updated 2.23.03
  • Auto Da Fay
    Author: Weldon, Fay
    Publisher: Grove $ 25 ISBN: 0802117503 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The acclaimed British author Weldon turns her gimlet-eyed wit and keen eye on--herself. In this engaging autobiography, Fay looks back on her own life and times--as a child in New Zealand, as a poor girl in London, as an unmarried mother, wife, lover, playwright, feminist, antifeminist, and winer-and-diner.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 4.7.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

May

  • Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides
    Author: Appy, Christian G.
    Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 067003124x Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    In this monumental oral history, Appy has created the first work to probe the war's path through both the United States and Vietnam. Intellectually illuminating and emotionally overwhelming,Patriots allows readers to see and feel what this war really meant to people on all sides.
    Updated 4.29.03
  • I Saw Ramallah
    Author: Barghouthi, Murid
    Publisher: Vintage $ 12 (paper) ISBN: 1400032660 Date: 2003
    starLibrary JournalstarBooklist
    Palestinian poet Barghouti relates his homecoming to Ramallah after 30 years in exile, offering a moving account of what it means to be a Palestinian today. Winner of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 4.29.03
  • The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan
    Author: Benfrey, Christopher
    Publisher: Random $ 25.95 ISBN: 0375503277 Date: 2003
    starPW
    This beautifully rendered meditation on the subject of cultural identity and on the consequences--both good and bad--of cultural cross-pollination proves that what important history does at its best is transform our worldview.
    Updated 4.7.03
  • A Short History of Nearly Everything
    Author: Bryson, Bill
    Publisher: Broadway $ 26 ISBN: 076708171 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    One of the world's finest and funniest writers goes on a quest to discover the mysteries of the universe--and comprehend the fascinating, eccentric people who devote their lives to unraveling those big questions.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 5.19.03
  • Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times
    Author: Clottes, Jean
    Publisher:Univ of Utah $ 45 ISBN: 0874807581 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Updated 5.19.03
  • Still With Me: A Daughter's Journey of Love and Loss
    Author: Collier, Andrea King
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 24 ISBN: 0743226100 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    With an increasing number of terminally ill patients choosing to die at home, journalist Collier's account of taking care of her mother, suffering from stage four ovarian cancer, is a powerful, bittersweet, and unvarnished memoir.
    Updated 2.23.03
  • George Washington's False Teeth: An Unconventional Guide to the Eighteenth Century
    Author: Darnton, Robert
    Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393057607 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    With characteristic learning and bracing insight, Darnton shows us that the Enlightenment had false teeth also--that it was not the Father of Our Modern World, responsible for all its advances and transgressions.
    Updated 4.7.03
  • Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and Journey to the Ends of the Earth
    Author: Glick, Daniel
    Publisher: Peresus $ 26 ISBN: 1586481541 Date: 2003
    starPW
    In this frank and funny memoir, a suddenly single father--and nationally known environmental reporter--takes his children on a world tour of some of the world's rare and endangered life forms while reckoning with loss, change, and the challenges of parenting.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Nature
    Updated 5.8.03
  • Y: The Descent of Man
    Author: Jones, Steve
    Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 25 ISBN: 0618139303 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    Updated 3.31.03
  • A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance
    Author: Juska, Jane
    Publisher: Villard $ 23.95 ISBN: 1400060117 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    This funny, poignant utterly unique memoir tells of a schoolteacher who, in her later years, went in search of a sexual relationship via the personals section ofThe New York Review of Books.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 3.13.03
  • The Peloponnesian War
    Author: Kagan, Donald
    Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670032115 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    One of the world's foremost historians presents a fresh look at the greatest war of ancient Greece and a pivotal moment in Western civilization that still resonates today.
    Suggested Reading: Greece
    Updated 5.19.03
  • The Beginning of Wisdom: A Companion to the Book of Genesis
    Author: Kass, Leon
    Publisher: Free Press $ 35 ISBN: 0743242998 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    Updated 3.31.03
  • Masters of Doom: The True Story of How Two Guys Created a Video Game Empire, Transformed Pop Culture and Unleashed Doom
    Author: Kushner, David
    Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375505245 Date: 2003
    starLibrary JournalstarBooklist
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 4.9.03
  • Clubland: The Fabulous Rise and Murderous Fall of Club Culture
    Author: Owen, Frank
    Publisher: St Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312287666 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    In this striking debut, a journalist explores the nightclubs of the 1990s and the rise and fall of a decadent nocturnal empire that stretched over several American cities and spawned its own subculture of celebrities and wannabes.
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg
    Author: McPherson, James M.
    Publisher: $ ISBN: 0609610236 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarKirkusstarLJ
    McPherson takes us on one of his Gettysburg tours, with stops at important spots. He reflects on the meaning of the battle in the hearts and minds of Americans, describes the key events of those terrible three days in July 1863, and places the struggle in the greater contexts of American and world history.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | All Stars
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Wild Card Quilt: Taking a Chance on Home
    Author: Ray, Janisse
    Publisher: Milkweed $ 22 ISBN: 1571312722 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    By the author ofEcology of a Cracker Childhood comes the story of a woman's return to her childhood home in Baxley, Georgia.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 4.28.03
  • The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth's Antiquity
    Author: Repcheck, Jack
    Publisher: Perseus $ 26 ISBN: 073820692x Date: 2003
    starLJ
    The subject of this expertly crafted narrative is James Hutton, the gentleman farmer from Edinburgh who discovered that the earth is millions of years old, not six thousand, and paved the way for Darwin's theory of evolution.
    Updated 5.19.03
  • Nature Via Nurture: Genes, Experience, and What Makes Us Human
    Author: Ridley, Matt
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0060006781 Date: 2003
    starLibrary JournalstarBookliststarPW
    Armed with extraordinary new discoveries about genes, acclaimed science writer Matt Ridley turns his attention to the nature versus nurture debate to bring readers a stunning book about the roots of human behavior.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 4.29.03
  • In Search of King Solomon's Mines
    Author: Shah, Tahir
    Publisher: Arcade $ 24.95 ISBN: 1559706414 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    A shop near the site of the temple built by King Solomon is where Shah, the author of the much-praisedTrail of Feathers andSorcerer's Apprentice, begins his journey. Intrigued by a map he finds there, he sets out to find the king's gold mines, and the clues point across the Red Sea to Ethiopia. Tahir Shah's trail takes him and his readers on a quest described as both "quixotic" (Huntsville Times) and "challenging" (Publishers Weekly).
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Dark Star Safarai: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
    Author: Theroux, Paul
    Publisher: Houghton Miffliin $ ISBN: 0618134247 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    Widely acclaimed as one of the world's best travel writers, Theroux takes readers on the ultimate journey across the world's most complex and mysterious continent.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 1.16.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

April

  • The Enemy at His Pleasure
    Author: Ansky, S.
    Publisher: Metropolitan $ 30 ISBN: 080505944x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Finally available in English, the great Yiddish writer's account of a neglected time and place. In daily accounts, Ansky details his struggles: to raise funds; to lobby and bribe at the tsar's court; to procure and transport food, medicine, and money to the ravaged Jewish towns. This story is at once powerful and poignant, a rare and invaluable addition to the historical record.
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Gulag: A History
    Author: Applebaum, Anne
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 35.00 ISBN: 0767900561 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBookliststarLJ
    The Gulag entered the world's historical consciousness in 1972, with the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic history of the Soviet camps,The Gulag Archipelago. Applebaum has undertaken a fully documented history of the Soviet camp system, from its origins in the Russian Revolution to its collapse in the era of glasnost.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 3.31.03
  • Stone Voices: The Search for Scotland
    Author: Ascherson, Neal
    Publisher: Hill & Wang $ 25 ISBN: 0809084910 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Beginning with a breathtaking portrait of the country's landscape,Stone Voices is a rediscovery of Scotland's past and a wake-up call about its future, from a leading scholar-journalist.
    Updated 2.10.03
  • The Chinese in America: A Narrative History
    Author: Chang, Iris
    Publisher: Viking $ 29.95 ISBN: 0670031232 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Chang has written an extraordinary narrative that encompasses the entire history of the Chinese in America, an epic story that spans 150 years and continues to the present day.
    Updated 5.8.03
  • Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal
    Author: Christie, Ian R.
    Publisher: Harper $ 24.95 ISBN: 006052362x Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    Raucous, brash, and loud, this book is a definitive history of heavy metal told with wit, charm, and numerous devil signs.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 2.12.03
  • The Seashell on the Mountaintop: A Story of Science
    Author: Cutler, Alan
    Publisher: Dutton $ 23.95ISBN: 0525947086 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    The life and accomplishments of a 17th-century scientist-turned-priest are explored in this story of science, sainthood, and the humble genius who forever changed the understanding of the Earth and created a new science: geology.
    Updated 4.29.03
  • White Muguls: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
    Author: Dalrymple, William
    Publisher: Viking Books $ 34.95 ISBN: 0670031844 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    This compelling history of Britain's rule over India relates the true story of James Kirkpatrick, a British resident in the Court of Hyderabad in India, who converted to Islam and spied on the East India Company in the midst of an affair with the great-niece of the region's prime minister.
    Updated 1.26.03
  • A Tale of Two Valleys: Wine, Wealth and the Battle for the Good Life in Napa and Sonoma
    Author: Deutschman, Alan
    Publisher: Broadway $ 23.95 ISBN: 0767907035 Date: 2003
    starPW
    A Tale of Two Valleys takes young business writer Deutschman to one of America's favorite destinations--California wine country, where he explores the clash of the old and the new in Napa and Sonoma Valleys. This is an exciting romp that will remind readers of Tom Wolfe at his best.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 11.17.03
  • Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone
    Author: Dugard, Martin
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385504519 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Into Africa traces the journeys of Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Morton Stanley in alternating chapters, capturing with immediacy the dangers, disease, and beauty they encountered in the heart of Africa. The first book to examine the interworkings of physical challenges, political intrigue, and larger-than life personalities, this is a fascinating work of narrative history.
    Suggested Reading: Stanley and Livingston
    Updated 1.26.03
  • A Million Little Pieces
    Author: Frey, James
    Publisher: Nan A. Talese $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385507755 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBookliststarLJ
    Intense, unpredictable, and instantly engaging,A Million Little Pieces is a story of drug and alcohol abuse and rehabilitation as it has never been told before. Recounted in visceral, kinetic prose, and crafted with a forthrightness that rejects self-pity, it brings readers face-to-face with a provocative understanding of the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 4.29.03
  • Beauty Before Comfort
    Author: Glock, Allison
    Publisher: Knopf $ 20 ISBN: 0375401210 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Glock captures not only the irrepressible vitality of her maternal grandmother but also the rich ambiance of small-town, working class West Virginia during the twenties, the Great Depression, and the Second World War.
    Updated 2.23.03
  • The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magister's Pox: Ending the False War Between Science and the Humanities
    Author: Gould, Stephen Jay
    Publisher: Harmony $ 25.95 ISBN: 0609601407 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    For the metaphor of cunning versus persistence that runs through this title, Gould refers to the 7th century B.C., when the Greek soldier-poet Archilochus said that "the fox devises many strategies; the hedgehog knows one great and effective strategy."
    Updated 1.10.03
  • Miracles at the Jesus Oak: A History of Supernatural Politics in Reformation Europe
    Author: Harline, Craig E.
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 22.95 ISBN: 0385508204 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Historian Harline happened upon a vast collection of documents written in the 17th century by people who claimed to have experienced miracles and wonders. In this volume he recasts five of these testimonies into engaging vignettes that open a window on the people, politics, and religious movements of Counter-Reformation Europe.
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Appetites: Why Women Want
    Author: Knapp, Caroline
    Publisher: Counterpoint $ 24 ISBN: 1582432252 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    The bestselling author of Drinking: A Love Story and Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs has turned her brilliant eye towards how a woman's appetite--for food, for love, for work, and for pleasure--is shaped and constrained by culture. Includes a new discussion guide.
    Updated 3.31.03
  • A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers
    Author: Melton, Buckner F., Jr.
    Publisher: Free Press $ 25.00 ISBN: 0743232836 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Part maritime adventure, part legal thriller,A Hanging Offense brims with fascinating details about everything from 19th century naval discipline to the judicial processes of the time. Melton depicts the insular society of a warship, the challenge of command at sea, and the confrontation of two men of very different characters, beyond society's view or control.
    Updated 1.26.03
  • Manhattan to Baghdad: Dispatches from the Frontline of the War on Terrorism
    Author: McGeough, Paul
    Publisher: Allen & Unwin $ 17.95 (paper) ISBN: 1741140994 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    A foreign correspondent's analysis of the international repercussions from the events of September 11.
    Suggested Reading List 9/11 stars
    Updated 5.9.03
  • Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker
    Author: McManus, James
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 26 ISBN: 0374236488 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Written in the tradition ofThe Gambler andThe Biggest Game in Town, Positively Fifth Street is a high-stakes Las Vegas adventure, a penetrating study of America's card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand the eros and logistics of man's primary competitive instincts.
    Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble
    Updated 3.3.03
  • Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age
    Author: McKibben, Bill
    Publisher: Times $ 25 ISBN: 0805070966 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The bestselling author ofThe End of Nature now looks into the not-so-distant future, when genetic science, robotics, and nanotechnology will push against the very door of humankind's immortality, and he challenges readers to confront this most profound question of their existence with care, intelligence, and ultimately, humility.
    Updated 3.3.03
  • Taking a History: A Doctor's Training at Bellevue
    Author: Ofri, Danielle
    Publisher: Beacon $ 24 ISBN: 0807072524 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    This gripping memoir of learning medicine in the trenches is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country--and perhaps the most legendary.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Fried Butter: A Food Memoir
    Author: Opincar, Abe
    Publisher: Soho $ 18 ISBN: 156947334x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Food is life, and Opincar relishes it in this food memoir that brings back the moments and people he broke bread with and loved. The author's memories are joined to food, with references to eggs sunny-side up and first sex, cornmeal mush and his dotty aunt, garlic and his father's love.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars | Cooked Books
    Updated 1.10.03
  • The Path: A One-Mile Walk Through the Universe
    Author: Raymo, Chet
    Publisher: Walker $ 23 ISBN: 0802714021
    starKirkus
    Raymo describes the one-mile walk he has taken every day for the past forty years, exploring in-depth its natural features and historic relevance.
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
    Author: Roach, Mary
    Publisher: Norton $ 23.95 ISBN: 0393050939 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPW
    In her droll, intimate voice, Roach conducts an oddly compelling, often hilarious forensic exploration of the strange lives of bodies postmortem.
    Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 2.24.03
  • The Primal Teen: The New Discoveries About the Teenage Brain and How They Help Explain Teenage Behavior
    Author: Strauch, Barbara
    Publisher: Doubleday $ 24.95 ISBN: 0385503393 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    While raging hormones and an inclination toward rebellion are major players in the teenage drama, the brain is actually running the show. Strauch looks at the cutting-edge science that provides vital new information about what makes teens tick and shows that understanding these findings can lead the way to a saner and smoother relationship between parent and child.
    Updated 4.7.03
  • The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Caught Sleeping
    Author: Thompson, Marilyn W.
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 006052278x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    More than a thrilling read,The Killer Strain is a detailed examination of the federal government's inability to protect citizens from the acts of a determined madman. It shows how billions of dollars and a decade of elaborate bioterror dress rehearsals meant nothing in the face of a real Anthrax attack.
    Updated 3.27.03
  • Among Stone Giants: The Life of Katherine Routledge and Her Remarkable Expedition to Easter Island
    Author: Tilburg, Jo
    Publisher: Scribner $ 26 ISBN: 074324480x Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    The world's leading authority on the stone statues of Easter Island, Van Tilburg delivers a thrilling true-life tale of Katherine Routledge and her legendary exploration. Written with the full cooperation of the Royal Geographical Society, this fascinating book transports readers to the South Pacific island called Rapa Nui (meaning "land's end").
    Updated 3.13.03
  • DNA: The Secret of Life
    Author: Watson, James D. with Andrew Berry
    Publisher: Knopf $ 39.95 ISBN: 0375415467 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarBooklist
    From a renowned scientist comes the first single volume to chart the entire genetic revolution--published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the DNA breakthrough. From genetically modified food to genetically modified babies, Watson reveals a future of choices and implications of which readers dare not remain uninformed.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Pointing From the Grave
    Author: Weinberg, Samantha
    Publisher: Miramax $ 25.95 ISBN: 1401351956 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    An astonishing account of the murder of a young scientist, this is the story of how she helped bring her killer to justice from the grave.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 2.23.03
  • Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded August 27, 1883
    Author: Winchester, Simon
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25.95 ISBN: 0066212855 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBookliststarPWstarLJ
    From the bestselling author ofThe Professor and the Madman andThe Map That Changed the World comes an examination of the enduring and world-changing effects of the catastrophic eruption off the coast of Java of the world's most dangerous volcano--Krakatoa.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars
    Updated 3.31.03
December | November |
October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

March

  • The Gate
    Author: Bizot, Francois
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 037541293x Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    A literary and historical tour de force: one man's astonishing experience in a land of pristine beauty on the eve of one of the 20th century's most barbaric spectacles. Bizot was a scholar of Khmer pottery in rural Cambodia in 1971--the days leading inexorably to genocide.The Gate recounts the nightmare of his arrest and captivity on suspicion of being an American spy.
    Suggested Reading: Cambodia
    Updated 2.28.03
  • Jefferson's Greatest Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon and the Men Behind the Louisiana Purchase
    Author: Cerami, Charles
    Publisher: Sourcebook $ 22.95 ISBN: 1570719454 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Updated 1.28.03
  • Better Than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream
    Author: Elliott, Carl
    Publisher: Norton $ 26.95 ISBN: 039305201x Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    From Viagra to Prozac, Americans have always been the world's most anxiously enthusiastic consumers of "enhancement technologies, " and this humane and provocative book is a resonant exploration of the paradoxes of these methods of self-improvement.
    Updated 1.16.03
  • Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
    Author: Hendrickson, Paul
    Publisher: Knopf $ 26 ISBN: 0375404619 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories from a Decade Gone Mad
    Author: Holman, Virginia
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 23 ISBN: 0743222857 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarLJ
    In a dexterous portrait of madness and shadows, Pushcart Prize winner Holman recounts the dark days her family was held hostage by her mother's delusions and her country was beset with the folly of the Watergate era.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoir Stars | Virginia Stars
    Updated 1.3.03
  • Growing Seasons: An American Boyhood Before the War
    Author: Hynes, Samuel
    Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670031933 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Looking back with a clear-eyed, unsentimental gaze, Hynes describes his Midwestern boyhood during the lean times of the Great Depression. With eloquence and humor Hynes recaptures the dreams, adventures, sins, and triumphs of his American boyhood in the years of hardship and innocence before the war.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 12.16.02
  • The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940
    Author: Jackson, Julian
    Publisher: Oxford $ 26 ISBN: 019280300x Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Updated 2.23.03
  • Gathering Moss
    Author: Kimmerer, Robin Wall
    Publisher: Oregon State $17.95 ISBN: 0870714996 Date: 2003
    starLJ
    Drawing on her diverse experiences as a scientist, mother, teacher, and writer of Native American heritage, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world. - Publisher Marketing
    Suggested Reading: Nature
    Updated 11.18.03
  • Oxygen: The Molecule That Made the World
    Author: Lane, Nick
    Publisher: Oxford $ 35 ISBN: 0198508034 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    For anyone interested in life itself, this title offers a fresh perspective on life and death, and the role of oxygen in the evolution of cells, organisms, animals, plants, and photosynthesis.
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Chasing Hepburn
    Author: Lee, Gus
    Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0609608762 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In the spirit of his lauded novelChina Boy, Lee's richly textured memoir is the story of the uniting of two culturally displaced clans as the Cultural Revolution sweeps China. Provocative, wise, and bittersweet, this is an unforgettable story of the clash between cultural ties and an ancient way of life.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 12.16.02
  • The Story of My Father
    Author: Miller, Sue
    Publisher: Knopf $ 22.50 ISBN: 0375414797 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    With the care, restraint, and consummate skill that define her beloved and bestselling fiction, Miller now writes an unforgettable book about caring for her father through his battle with Alzheimer's--her first book-length work of nonfiction.
    Updated 2.12.03
  • High Lattitudes: An Artic Journey
    Author: Mowat, Farley
    Publisher: Steerforth $ 15.95 ISBN: 1586420615 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In a voice alternately filled with rage, humor, and pathos, Mowat seasons his story with photos, maps, and verbatim transcriptions of testimonies from northern peoples, Inuit and white, at a time when the old ways of life were disappearing.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
    Author: Nafisi, Azar
    Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375504907 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarPWstarLJ
    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 | Reading Group Stars | Books About Books | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 3.21.03
  • In the Blink of an Eye
    Author: Parker, Andrew
    Publisher: Perseus $ 24.95 ISBN: 0738206075 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    An accomplished young scientist solves one of the greatest mysteries of evolution: What caused the dramatic explosion of life half a billion years ago?
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Return of the Crazy Bird: How the Dodo Manages to Never Really Die
    Author: Pinto-Correia, Clara
    Publisher: Copernicus $ 27.50 ISBN: 0387988769 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    What can the demise of the dodo tell modern society? How has our view of the world changed? Strong writing, powered by lively historical anecdotes and sober insights into human behavior, makes this beautifully illustrated book a page-turner to the end.
    Updated 1.29.03
  • Sicilian Odyssey
    Author: Prose, Francine
    Publisher: National Geographic $ 20 ISBN: 0792265351 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    A blending of art and cultural criticism, travel writing, and personal narrative,Sicilian Odyssey is Prose's imaginative consideration of the diverse cultural legacies found juxtaposed and entangled on the Mediterranean island of Sicily.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Walk on Water: Inside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit
    Author: Ruhlman, Michael
    Publisher: Viking $ 24.95 ISBN: 0670032018 Date: 2003
    starPW
    An award-winning journalist draws back the hospital curtain for a unique look at the near-superhuman skill and dangerous politics surrounding critical surgery.
    Updated 3.17.03
  • How the Cows Turned Mad
    Author: Schwartz, Maxime
    Publisher: Univ of California $ 24.95 ISBN: 0520235312 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Up-to-date, informative, and thoroughly captivating,How the Cows Turned Mad tells the story of a disease that continues to elude on many levels. Yet science has come far in understanding its origins, incubation, and transmission. This authoritative book is a stunning case history that illuminates the remarkable progression of science. - Publisher Marketing.
    Updated 3.13.03
  • Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles
    Author: Swofford, Anthony
    Publisher: Scribner $ 24 ISBN: 0743235355 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    When the Marines--or "jarheads" as they call themselves--are sent to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford is there, with a 100-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper's rifle in his hands. In this powerful memoir, he weaves his war experience with vivid accounts of boot camp, reflections on the mythos of the Marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family.
    Suggested Reading: Gulf War I | Marines
    Updated 10.11.05
  • Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast
    Author: Tidwell, Mike
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 23 ISBN: 0375420762 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Tidwell--a celebrated travel and environmental writer--introduces readers to the surprisingly varied population of the Louisiana area. He describes the food, the music, the culture, and the lives of those who live along the bayou--a complex, compelling character itself.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales | Nature
    Updated 1.10.03
  • Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer
    Author: Tucker, John C.
    Publisher: Carroll & Graf $ 26 ISBN: 0786711132 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Trial and Error is a legal memoir that gives an unvarnished account of life as a leading trial lawyers; detailing the path from nervous novice to the top of the legal profession. Reminiscent of Scott Turow's classic One L, Tucker employs honesty and fascinating detail to illuminate the difficult steps in learning the trial trade.
    Updated 1.10.03
  • Snowball Earth: The Story of the Great Global Catastrophe That Spawned Life as We Know It
    Author: Walker, Gabrielle
    Publisher: Crown $ 24.95 ISBN: 0609609734 Date: 2003
    starLibrary JournalstarPW
    Did the Earth once undergo a super ice age, one that froze the entire planet from the poles to the equator? In Snowball Earth, gifted writer Gabrielle Walker has crafted an intriguing global adventure story, following maverick scientist Paul Hoffman's quest to prove a theory so audacious and profound that it is shaking the world of earth sciences to its core. - Publisher Marketing.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 1.20.03
  • The General: The Godfather of Crime
    Author: Williams, Paul
    Publisher: Forge $ 24.95 ISBN: 0765306247 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    In a 20-year career marked by secrecy, brutality, and meticulous planning, Martin Cahill, a.k.a. The General, rose through the ranks of the Irish underworld until he became an international celebrity. This is the #1 internationally bestselling story of this Irish Mob boss and working class hero.
    Suggested Reading: True Crime Stars
    Updated 3.13.03
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

February

  • Confessions of a Country Lawyer: Memoir
    Author: Bumpers, Dale
    Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375505210 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    "Human interest and high politics blend with rare harmony in this charming autobiography."--James McPherson.
    Suggested Reading: Memoir Stars
    Updated 11.18.02
  • My 'Dam Life: Three Years in Holland
    Author: Condon, Sean
    Publisher: Lonely Planet $ 13.99 ISBN: 0864427816 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    Sean Condon has moved to Amsterdam. He got married, and he's unemployed (what's worse, so is his wife). Sean is back and funnier than ever, this time exploring the strange habits of the Dutch. He also keeps a watchful and wonderfully self-deprecating eye on the whole strange business of writing about yourself doing, well, nothing much, in this post-modern age. Sean's uncanny ability to find the absurd in everyday life misses nothing and My 'Dam Life will strike a side-splitting chord with anyone who has ever been unemployed, been married or tried not to be deported from a foreign land. - Publisher Marketing.
    Updated 2.28.03
  • Death in Slow Motion: My Mother's Descent into Alzheimer's
    Author: Cooney, Eleanor
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0066213967 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    When it was plain that Cooney's once glamorous and witty novelist-mother had Alzheimer's, Cooney moved her across the continent in order to care for her. In bitter, searing prose, Cooney documents the slow disintegration of both her mother and the powerful lifelong bond the two had shared.
    Updated 1.16.03
  • The Best Years of Their Lives: One Town's Veterans and the World They Made
    Author: Coyne, Kevin
    Publisher: Penguin $ 25.95 ISBN: 0670871508 Date: 2003
    starLibrary JournalstarBooklist
    Offering a gripping look at life in wartime, Coyne presents a compelling story of World War II and what happened in its wake in one small New Jersey town.
    Updated 1.25.03
  • Sealegs: Tales of a Woman Oceanographer
    Author: Crane, Kathleen
    Publisher: Westview $ 27.50 ISBN: 0813340047 Date: 2003
    starBookliststarLJ
    Updated 3.13.03
  • The Next American Essay
    Author: D'Agata, John (ed)
    Publisher: Graywolf $ 18 (paper) ISBN: 1555973752 Date: 2003
    starPW
    A literary tour of lyric essays written by the masters of the craft.
    Updated 1.15.03
  • Waiting for Snow in Havana
    Author: Eire, Carlos
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0743219651 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Narrated with the urgency of a confession,Waiting for Snow in Havana is both an ode to a paradise lost and an exorcism. More than that, it captures the terrible beauty of those times in readers lives when they are certain they have died--and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.
    Suggested Reading: Cuba
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Beyond the River: the Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad
    Author: Hagedorn, Ann
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0684870657 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Beyond the River brings to brilliant life the story of John Rankin and the forgotten heroes of the Ripley, Ohio, line of the Underground Railroad during the fierce "war before the war, " pitting abolitionists against slave chasers along the banks of the Ohio River.
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America
    Author: Huffington, Arianna
    Publisher: Crown $ 22 ISBN: 140047714 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The nationally syndicated columnist skewers corporate and government leaders who created an appalling system of fraud, lavishing in grossly inflated salaries and bonuses while while cheating the shareholders and citizens they claim to serve.
    Updated 1.28.03
  • 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
    starKirkusstarPWstarBooklist
    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 ofRagtime andSilence of the Lambs,The Devil in the White City is Larson at his best.
    Suggested Reading: Holmes:Scarlet Mansions by Allen Eckert (novel) andDepraved: 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 | Reading Group Stars | Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | True Crime | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 2.28.02
  • Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
    Author: Leblanc, Adrian
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 25 ISBN: 0684863871 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The result of over ten years of immersion reporting,Random Family charts a tumultuous decade in which girls become mothers, mothers become grandmothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation.
    Suggested Reading: Nonfiction That Reads Like Fiction | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Meeting the Other Crowd: The Fairy Tales of the Other Ireland
    Author: Lenihan, Eddie
    Publisher: Tarcher $ 24.95 ISBN: 158422061 Date: 2003
    starBooklist
    In these tales of fairy forts, fairy trees, ancient histories, and modern true-life encounters with theOther Crowd, Lenihan opens readers' eyes to this invisible world with the passion and bluntness of a seanchai--a true Irish storyteller.
    Updated 2.28.03
  • CAD: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor
    Author: Marin, Rick
    Publisher: Hyperion $ 23.95 ISBN: 0786868821 Date: 2003
    starPW
    For bad date to boyfriend, a brutally honest and hilarious view from the other side of the bed. Both a Candide of modern romance and a picaresque of sexual misadventure (a modern day Tom Jones?),Cad puts a fresh, biting spin on two popular genres: memoir and dating confessional.
    Updated 1.15.03
  • April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici
    Author: Martines, Lauro
    Publisher: Oxford $ 26 ISBN: 0195152956 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Written by a respected Renaissance scholar, this book reads like a novel as it tells the story of one of history's most ruthless bosses.
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tildon and the Stolen Election of 1876
    Author: Morris, Roy
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 27 ISBN: 0743223861 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJ
    Morris reveals that the bitter contest between Ohio Republican governor Rutherford B. Hayes and New York Democratic governor Samuel Tilden was not only the most sensational presidential election in American history, but also in some ways the last battle of the Civil War, as the two parties fought to preserve or overturn what had been decided by armies 11 years earlier.
    Link: HarpWeek Hayes vs Tildon
    Updated 12.23.02
  • Almost There: The Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman
    Author: O'Faolain, Nuala
    Publisher: Riverhead $ 24.95 ISBN: 1573222410 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    O'Faolain begins her story from the moment her life began to change in all manner of ways--subtle, radical, predictable, and unforeseen. It is a provocative meditation on the "crucible of middle age." It is also a story of good fortune chasing out bad--of an accidental harvest of happiness.
    Suggested Reading: Irish Stars
    Updated 3.31.02
  • Being American: Liberty, Commerce and Violence in an American World
    Author: Purdy, Jebediah
    Publisher: Knopf $ 24 ISBN: 0375413073 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The author ofFor Common Things explores how America simultaneously inspires love and hate; how it can be both an emblem of liberty and a symbol of runaway power; and how its export of free market and democratic ideals is sometimes welcome, sometimes read as an expression of violent imperialism.
    Updated 1.15.03
  • Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers
    Author: Quart, Alissa
    Publisher: Perseus $ 25 ISBN: 0738206644 Date: 2003
    starPW
    An incisive expos focuses on the underhanded advertising initiatives that target teens and explores their disturbing consequences.
    Updated 11.27.02
  • On the Natural History of Destruction
    Author: Sebald, Winfried Georg
    Publisher: Random $ 23.95 ISBN: 0375504842 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    A source of controversy on its first publication, Sebald's final work is a meditation on Germany's victimhood during World War II, Germany's guilt, and the universal consequences of denying the past.
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Spies Beneath Berlin
    Author: Stafford, David
    Publisher: Penguin $ 24.95 ISBN: 1585673617 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    Whether or not Operation Stopwatch/Gold was a success has been a point of contention, as new information about KGB mole George Blake and the Cold War has been uncovered. Now, using eyewitness interviews and source material--from KGB files to CIA documents--Stafford reveals the thrillingly complex story of this operation.
    Updated 12.23.02
December | November | October | September | August
July | June | May | April | March | February | January

January

  • The Red and the Blacklist
    Author: Barzman, Norma
    Publisher: Thunder's Mouth $ 24.95 ISBN: 1560254661 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Norma Barzman book is a memoir of the struggle against McCarthyism in Hollywood in the 1940s and Paris in the 50s and 60s.
    Suggested Reading: McCarthyism
    Updated 2.10.03
  • Wrapped in Rainbows
    Author: Boyd, Valerie
    Publisher: Simon & Schuster $ 30 ISBN: 0684842300 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    With the Harlem Renaissance, the Great Depression, and World War II as the historical backdrops, this riveting biography not only positions Hurston's work in her time, but offers implications for our own. Wrapped in Rainbows is a compelling profile of one of the most intrepid and inspiring writers of the 20th century.
    Suggested Reading: Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 12.16.02
  • The Emperor of Scent: A Story of Obsession, Perfume, and the Last Mystery of the Senses
    Author: Burr, Chandler
    Publisher: Random $ 24.95 ISBN: 0375507973 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBookliststarLibrary Journal
    This true story profiles a scientific genius with eerie powers of smell who uses his gifts to solve one of the body's last secrets: how the nose works.
    Suggested Reading: Nature | All Stars | Adult Books for Teens
    Updated 12.23.02
  • Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It
    Author: Dyer, Geoff
    Publisher: Random $ 22 ISBN: 0375422145 Date: 2003
    starPW
    In Dyer's deft hands, what seems like an abstract idea--the search for the essence of experience--becomes an opportunity for storytelling: for a bracing, riotous, and addictive chronicling of anticipation and expectation as he travels about the globe.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 12.16.02
  • The Devil That Dances on the Water
    Author: Forna, Aminatta
    Publisher: Atlantic Montlhly$ 25 ISBN: 0871138654 Date: 2003
    starPW
    Forna's intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an idyllic childhood that became the stuff of nightmare.The Devil That Danced on the Water is a book of pain and anger and sorrow, written with tremendous dignity and beautiful precision: a remarkable and important story of Africa.
    Updated 12.16.02
  • Coal
    Author: Freese, Barbara
    Publisher: Perseus $ 25 ISBN: 0738204005 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarLJstarPW
    Freese takes readers on a rich and fascinating journey as she tells how a simple black rock has altered the course of history.
    Suggested Reading: Nature | All Stars
    Updated 1.29.02
  • Agent 146: The True Story of a Nazi Spy in America
    Author: Gimpel, Erich
    Publisher: St. Martins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0312307977 Date: 2003
    starPW
    The spellbinding autobiography of one of the only Nazi spies to reach American soil.
    September 1944. Germany is burning at both ends and the Reich is crumbling. Word has drifted back to Berlin that the Americans are testing a secret weapon of unbelievable destruction. A weapon that will win the war. The Fuhrer himself calls upon Agent 146 in a last ditch effort to sabotage America's atomic program.
    Two months later, a German U-boat surfaces off the coast of Maine. Agent 146 and an American turncoat named William Collepaugh sneak ashore. Down the coast they go, ending up in New York. Once there, a fascinating game of cat and mouse begins as the FBI attempts to close in on the elusive Nazi spy. - Publisher Marketing.
    Updated 11.27.02
  • Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption
    Author: Kennedy, Randall
    Publisher: Pantheon $ 30 ISBN: 0375402551 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    From the author of Nigger andRace, Crime, and the Law comes a tour de force about the controversial issue of personal interracial intimacy as it exists within ever-changing American social mores and within the rule of law.
    Updated 1.29.03
  • Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
    Author: King, Ross
    Publisher: Walker $ 28 ISBN: 0802713955 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    The extraordinary story behind Michelangelo's masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel from the author of the acclaimedBrunelleschi's Dome. King paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early 16th century Rome.
    Updated 1.6.03
  • Something for Nothing: Luck in America
    Author: Lears, Jackson
    Publisher: Viking $ 27.95 ISBN: 0670031739 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    An award-winning historian offers a provocative alternative history of America that traces how luck, chance, and gambling have shaped and defined the national character. As surprising as it is illuminating, this is cultural history at its best.
    Suggested Reading: Take a Gamble
    Updated 1.29.03
  • Samurai William
    Author: Milton, Giles
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 24 ISBN: 0374253854 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBooklist
    An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author ofNathaniel's Nutmeg. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.
    Updated 1.06.03
  • City on Fire: The Forgotten Disaster That Devastated a Town and Ignited a Landmark Legal Battle
    Author: Minutaglio, Bill
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060185414 Date: 2003
    starLibrary Journal
    A dramatically rendered account probes the 20th-century's greatest manmade disaster--the 1947 petrochemical fire at the port of Texas City, Texas--and a small town's unexpected heroism.
    Updated 12.23.02
  • Lost in America
    Author: Nuland, Sherwin B.
    Publisher: Random $ 24 ISBN: 0375412948 Date: 2003
    starKirkusstarBookliststarPW
    From the author of the National Book Award-winningHow We Die comes a deeply moving account of his father's life and the shadow it cast over his own. Nuland reveals what it cost him to live with the specter of his father and to struggle for peace with the man's legacy, and with himself.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars | Memoir Stars
    Updated 12.16.02
  • The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland
    Author: Thomson, Hugh
    Publisher: Overlook $ 24.95 ISBN: 1585673552 Date: 2003
    starPW
    With the backdrop of the Andes mountains, Thomson's intoxicating history of the Inca people and their heartland is a thrilling mix of information and adventure.
    Suggested Reading: Travel Tales
    Updated 11.27.02
  • Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age
    Author: Watts, Duncan J.
    Publisher: Norton $ 27.95 ISBN: 0393041425 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Watts, one of the principal architects of network theory, sets out to explain the innovative research that he and other scientists are spearheading to create a blueprint of the connected planet.
    Small World Project Site - Can anyone in the world reach anyone else through a chain of only 6 friends?
    Updated 11.18.02
  • The Victorians
    Author: Wilson, A.N.
    Publisher: Norton $ 35 ISBN: 0393049744 Date: 2003
    starKirkus
    Wilson singles out those whose lives illuminate the 19th century--Darwin, Marx, Gladstone, Kipling, and others--and explains through these signature lives how Victorian England started a revolution that still hasn't ended. 111aq
    Updated 12.16.02
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