Non-Fiction
BRAIN ON FIRE: MY MONTH OF MADNESS by Susannah Cahalan
Susannah Cahalan’s illness came out of nowhere. One day she was living a perfectly normal life as a New York Post journalist; weeks later she was strapped to a hospital bed, experiencing seizures, paranoid hallucinations, and catatonia. The doctors were ready to send her to a psychiatric ward, but her family insisted that there must be a medical cause. Something was wrong with Susannah, and it wasn’t mental illness. After a month of tests, procedures, and turmoil, doctors finally found a diagnosis just in time to save Susannah’s life. Although Susannah has nearly no memories of her “month of madness,” she has reconstructed her path through illness and recovery based on family recollections, journals, and hospital records. Her memoir is intense and fascinating, forcing readers to reexamine their perception of mental illness and reminding us how little we know about the remarkable human brain. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in memoirs or medicine!
THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND by William Kamkwamba
Although his culture placed great importance on magic, William Kamkwamba always knew the importance of science and education. He was determined to succeed in primary school and make it to one of the top secondary schools in Malawi. But drought and famine destroyed his dreams, plunging his farming family into poverty and forcing him to drop out of school. Once the famine subsided and survival was no longer the only thought in his mind, William decided to educate himself. At his village’s library, he stumbled upon the text book Explaining Physics and began to experiment with the concepts and technology described in the book. His house filled up with the trash he collected from the junkyard for his experiments. People in the village began to mock him, thinking him mad. But when he created a windmill that produced electricity for his home (and eventually a reliable water pump to stave off famine) he became a hero to his village and to scientists around the world.
In this autobiography, Kamkwamba tells the story of his childhood and his eventual success as an inventor and scientist. The story is a blend of cultural history and detailed scientific narrative, all told with Kamkwamba’s great sense of humor. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is truly inspirational and will be particularly engaging for readers with an interest in both world cultures and science.
A PRACTICAL WEDDING: CREATIVE IDEAS FOR PLANNING A BEAUTIFUL, AFFORDABLE, AND MEANINGFUL CELEBRATION by Meg Keene
I’ve been reading a lot of wedding planning books these past few weeks, and while most of them aren’t worth mentioning, I was particularly impressed with A Practical Wedding. While most wedding books are filled with pretty pictures to give you ideas for your wedding “look,” A Practical Wedding is filled with questions to give you ideas for your wedding will “feel.” By picking apart wedding “traditions” and their history, this book gives engaged couples a great starting point for deciding what is important to them. Then, as the title would imply, it provides practical advice for how to put your plans into action while also sticking to your budget.
A Practical Wedding also addresses some of the rarely-discussed emotional aspects of wedding planning—not the “what to do if your bridesmaids aren’t supporting your rustic-vintage-rainbow-emu theme” problem that the other magazines seem more eager to discuss, but rather weddings in the face of grief, health problems, etc., and how to negotiate the deeper emotional and logistical issues of creating a new family out of your and your fiance’s families of origin. I definitely recommend reading this book, ideally at the beginning of your wedding planning process. It can help you sift through the wedding culture madness and frame your wedding planning with the values that are important to you and your fiance.
QUIZ WHIZ: 1000 SUPER FUN, MIND-BENDING, TOTALLY AWESOME TRIVIA QUESTIONS by the National Geographic Society
Get your thinking caps ready because the quizzes in this book are far from easy! Whether you’re a kid who is interested in strange-but-true facts or an adult preparing for trivia night at your local bar, you will learn a lot of interesting things from this book. The quizzes cover a broad range of categories, including geography, science, animals, pop culture, statistics, and weird fads. If you enjoy testing your knowledge or just want to learn something new, this is a great book to check out!
FORTUNE’S BONES: THE MANUMISSION REQUIEM by Marilyn Nelson
Commissioned by the Mattatuck Museum in Connecticut, The Manumission Requiem mourns the death and celebrates the life of a man named Fortune, a slave owned by Dr. Preserved Porter who—after Fortune’s death—dissected his body and hung his skeleton for display in his office. Fortune’s bones passed through many hands, finally coming to rest in the Mattatuck Museum, and Fortune’s identity was only recently rediscovered. The collection poems with which Marilyn Nelson remembers Fortune is short but powerful; it is a Coretta Scott King Award Honor book. I would recommend Fortune’s Bones to teens and adults who are interested in reading stories about slavery or who enjoy thought-provoking poetry.
Shakespeare for Kids
Happy Birthday to the Bard! Several years ago, I created a pathfinder resource for parents and teachers hoping to find Shakespeare materials for their elementary schoolers. The pathfinder includes my reviews of books and Internet resources for children and for educators. You can access it from the link below.
TITANIC: VOICES FROM THE DISASTER by Deborah Hopkinson
On April 15, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, resulting in the deaths almost 1500 people (over 2/3 of those on board). Deborah Hopkinson brings the Titanic’s tragic story to life by focusing on the stories of individual survivors. Using their memories and words, she reconstructs the narrative of the Titanic from its initial departure to its sinking and the aftermath for the 700 survivors—most of them women and children whose husbands and fathers perished in the wreck. Titanic: Voices From the Disaster is engaging, horrifying, and informative. Although the book is marketed to upper-elementary school-aged children, I highly recommend it to anyone (children, teen, or adult) who is interested in learning more about the Titanic or who enjoys survival stories.
If you liked Titanic: Voices From the Disaster, you might also like Revenge of the Whale.
SHADOW DIVERS: THE TRUE ADVENTURE OF TWO AMERICANS WHO RISKED EVERYTHING TO SOLVE ONE OF THE LAST MYSTERIES OF WORLD WAR II by Robert Kurson
The world of commercial diving is competitive. The minute a shipwreck’s location is leaked, dive teams will sprint to it, hoping to get their hands on some of its fascinating artifacts. The divers that received the secret coordinates to “something big” lying sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey (and 230 feet below the ocean’s surface) were excited to explore an untouched wreck. But they were not prepared for what they found: a sunken German U-Boat, undocumented in any historical record. The divers were elated with the discovery–especially John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, two experienced and adventurous divers who also shared a passion for history. Each diver hoped to be the one to discover the U-Boat’s identity and its story. But diving to 230 feet is perilous, and it wasn’t long before the wreck began to claim lives. As most of the surviving divers gradually gave up on the dangerous wreck, only Chatterton and Kohler remained, determined to discover the U-Boat’s identity–even at the risk of their own lives.
I could not put this book down! Before I began reading Shadow Divers, I knew nothing about commercial diving. The logistics and dangers of deep sea dives are fascinating, as are the stories of the people who engage in such a life-threatening activity. Between the danger and suspense of each dive and the intriguing mystery of the U-Boat, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough! I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history, who likes survival stories, or even who enjoys reading thrillers. It is wonderful–a new favorite!
Thanks for the recommendation, Sally!
A CENTURY OF WISDOM: LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF ALICE HERZ-SOMMER, THE WORLD’S OLDEST LIVING HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR by Caroline Stoessinger
Alice Herz-Sommer was an accomplished concert pianist when the Nazis invaded her home of Prague. Through her years in the Theresienstadt camp, it was music that kept Alice and her young son alive. Alice played numerous concerts for the Nazi officers, and her name never appeared on any of the deportation lists for Auschwitz. Now at age 108, Alice still plays daily and is described by her family and friends as eternally cheerful and optimistic.
Caroline Stoessinger tells the story of Alice’s life with a focus on the positive worldview that has filled her difficult life with so much joy. The chronology in this vignette-style biography is often confusing, but the story is moving and uplifting. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys biographies and memoirs with an optimistic tone.
Thanks for the recommendation, Helen!
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Susan the Librarian 