Assembling California by John McPhee
Drawing on his travels along the fault lines of the earth's shifting plates, the author discusses how a half dozen large pieces of country have drifted from far and near to coalesce as California.

Bird by Bird: Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
Presents an intensely personal, inspirational, and witty guide to living a writer's life, including step-by-step pointers on aspects of writing such as dialogue, plot, character, setting, revision, point of view, writing groups, writer's block, and publication.

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux by Black Elk
Reveals the life of Lakota healer Nicholas Black Elk as he led his tribe's battle against white settlers who threatened their homes and buffalo herds, and describes the victories and tragedies at Little Bighorn and Wounded Knee.

The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
Focusing on the human relationship with plants, the author uses botany to explore four basic human desires--sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control--through portraits of four plants that embody them: the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato.

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang To Black Holes by Stephen Hawking
Professor Hawking shares his blazing intellect with nonscientists everywhere, guiding us expertly to confront the supreme questions of the nature of time and the universe. From Galileo and Newton to modern astrophysics, from the breathtakingly vast to the extraordinarily tiny, Professor Hawking leads us on an exhilarating journey to distant galaxies, black holes, alternate dimensions--as close as man has ever ventured to the mind of God.

Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water by Marc Reisner
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. This is the story of the early settlers, lured by promises of paradise. The author documents the rivalry between government giants and other institutions, in the competition to transform the West, and projects on the future problems of limited groundwater reserves, silting up of reservoirs, and contamination of soil.

The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics by Gary Zukav
The history and concepts of physics, including quantum mechanics and relativity theory, are viewed within the framework of Eastern thought to unravel the mysteries of the physical universe.

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville's monumental book is as relevant today as when it was first published in the mid-nineteenth century, and it remains the most comprehensive, penetrating, and astute picture of American life, politics, and morals ever written -- whether by an American or, as in this case, a foreign visitor.

Eats Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynn Truss
Former editor Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.

The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander
Chronicles the perilous 1914-1915 expedition of Sir Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica, when he and his crew became stranded in the frozen Weddell Sea and faced a twenty-month struggle for survival.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
An intriguing study of the rise of civilization argues that human development is not based on race or ethnic differences but rather is linked to biological diversity, discussing the evolution of agriculture, technology, writing, political systems, and religious belief.

Hiroshima by John Hersey
The classic tale of the day the first atom bomb was dropped offers a haunting evocation of the memories of survivors and an appeal to the conscience of humanity.

In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences by Truman Capote
Dramatically reconstructs the investigation and trial that followed the meaningless murder of a Kansas farm family by two ex-convict drifters.

The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher by Lewis Thomas
A physician and cancer researcher shares his personal observations on the uniformity, diversity, interdependence, and strange powers of the earth's life forms.

London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd
A chronicle of the city from the time of the Druids to the beginning of the twenty-first century discusses its ability to grow and change, and describes stories of London's wealthy streets and impoverished alleys.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks
Presents a series of stories about men and women who, representing both medical and literary oddities, raise fundamental questions about the nature of reality.

The Mother Tongue: English & How it Got That Way by Bill Bryson
Offers a journey through the intricacies, puzzles, and quirks of the English language, tracing the history of English from its earliest origins to the present day.

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Chronicles United States history from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events from 1492 through the current war on terrorism.

The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
Describes how more than ten thousand definitions were submitted for the first Oxford English Dictionary from Dr. W. C. Minor, an American Civil War criminal whose life of genius and insanity make this true story both fascinating and unique.

Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor
Traces the lives of three generations of the author's family, and recounts the circumstances that led them to emigrate from Mexico to the United States.

Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII by Iris Chang
Relates an account of the 1937 massacre of 250,000 Chinese civilians in Nanking by the invading Japanese military, a carnage for which the Japanese government has never admitted responsibility.

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
The author describes growing up in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the group of young women who came together at her home in secret every Thursday to read and discuss great books of Western literature.

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls by Mary Bray Pipher
A clinical psychologist observes the psychological pitfalls faced by teenage girls growing up in a dangerous world in which violence, sexual harassment, eating disorders, promiscuity, and drug use have become the norm.

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol
A look at the systematic denial of a good education to lower-class children in the United States and the built-in inequality of the public school system examines urban schools in Camden, Chicago, San Antonio, and other cities.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson
A publishing correspondent chronicles a year's worth of reading to explore how the world of books intermingled with her relationships, a journey during which she discovered that the books chose her as much as she chose them, came to recognize the intimacy of the written word, and learned to recognize emotional responses to literary themes.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the opening of the American West by Stephen Ambrose
A chronicle of the two-and-a-half year journey of Lewis and Clark covers their incredible hardships, first encounters with Native Americans, the contributions of Sacajawea, and Lewis' post-journey depression.

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle
Examines the intricate relationship between faith and art by analyzing what makes art Christian and what it means to be a Christian artist.

Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences by Ed Tenner
A science historian takes a close-up look at the unexpected ramifications of technological development, examining the paradoxical, ironic consequences of the things we do to supposedly improve our lives.