Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Shadow is a man with a past. But now he wants nothing more than to live a quiet life with his wife and stay out of trouble. Until he learns that she's been killed in a terrible accident. Flying home for the funeral, as a violent storm rocks the plane, a strange man in the seat next to him introduces himself. The man calls himself Mr. Wednesday, and he knows more about Shadow than is possible. He warns Shadow that... (more)

I'm a Stranger Here Myself

Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away

by Bill Bryson

After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly 3 million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens--as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty-four-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the... (more)

The Lost Continent

Travels in Small-Town America

by Bill Bryson

An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town.

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee

Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. This is a lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this story - a black man charged with raping a white girl in the Deep South of the 1930s. To Kill a Mockingbird has become a staple of American literature and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name.

Fast Food Nation

by Eric Schlosser, Eric Schlosser

Fast food has hastened the malling of our landscape, widened the chasm between rich and poor, fueled an epidemic of obesity, and propelled American cultural imperialism abroad. That's a lengthy list of charges, but Eric Schlosser makes them stick with an artful mix of first-rate reportage, wry wit, and careful reasoning. Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions, where the... (more)

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book) Teacher's Edition: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book) Teacher's Edition: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction

by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, David Javerbaum

Jon Stewart, host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show, and his coterie of patriots, deliver a hilarious look at American government. American-style democracy is the world's most beloved form of government, which explains why so many other nations are eager for us to impose it on them. But what is American democracy? In AMERICA (THE BOOK), Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writing staff offer... (more)

I Am America (And So Can You!)

by Stephen Colbert, Michael C. Brumm

Congratulations--just by looking at this webpage, you became 25% more patriotic. From Stephen Colbert, the host of television's highest-rated punditry show The Colbert Report , comes the book to fill the other 23¿ hours of your day. I Am America (And So Can You!) contains all of the opinions that Stephen doesn't have time to shoehorn into his nightly broadcast. Dictated directly into a microcassette recorder... (more)

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

Tragic tale of a retarded man and the friend who loves and tries to protect him. With illustrations from the movie starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

Made in America

by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson, who gave glorious voice to The Mother Tongue, now celebrates her magnificent offspring in the book that reveals once and for all how a dusty western hamlet with neither woods nor holly came to be known as Hollywood...and exactly why Mr.Yankee Doodle call his befeathered cap "Macaroni."

A Walk in the Woods

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson has made a living out of traveling and then writing about it. In The Lost Continent he re-created the road trips of his childhood; in Neither Here nor There he retraced the route he followed as a young backpacker traversing Europe. When this American transplant to Britain decided to return home, he made a farewell walking tour of the British countryside and produced Notes from a Small Island .... (more)

American Wife

by Curtis Sittenfeld

On what might become one of the most significant days in her husband’s presidency, Alice Blackwell considers the strange and unlikely path that has led her to the White House–and the repercussions of a life lived, as she puts it, “almost in opposition to itself.” A kind, bookish only child born in the 1940s, Alice learned the virtues of politeness early on from her stolid parents and small Wisconsin hometown. But... (more)

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Noted Fitzgerald biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli draws upon years of research to present the Fitzgerald's Jazz Age romance exactly as he intended according to the original manuscript, revisions, and corrections--with explanatory notes. Reprint.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

The Road is a post-apocalyptic novel by Cormac McCarthy - the tale of a journey taken by a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unnamed cataclysm that destroyed all civilization and, apparently, most life on earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.

Outlander: Book 4

Drums of Autumn

by Diana Gabaldon

The magnificent saga continues.... It began in Scotland, at an ancient stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past--or the grave. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice. Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became legend--a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present... (more)

Little House

Little House in the Big Woods

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

For the first time in the history of the Little House books, this new edition features Garth Williams’ interior art in vibrant, full color, as well as a beautifully redesigned cover. Laura Ingalls's story begins in 1871 in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Four-year-old Laura lives in the little house with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their trusty dog, Jack. ... (more)

Little House: Book 3

Farmer Boy

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The story of a boy named Almanzo Wilder . . . While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Almanzo and his brother and sisters work at their chores from dawn to supper most days-no matter what the weather. There is still time for fun, though, especially with the horses, which Almanzo loves more than anything. Farmer Boy is the... (more)

The Revolution: A Manifesto

by Ron Paul

This Much Is True: You Have Been Lied To. The government is expanding. Taxes are increasing. More senseless wars are being planned. Inflation is ballooning. Our basic freedoms are disappearing. The Founding Fathers didn't want any of this. In fact, they said so quite clearly in the Constitution of the United States of America . Unfortunately, that beautiful, ingenious, and revolutionary document... (more)

A People's History of the United States, Abridged Teaching Edition, Updated Edition

A People's History of the United States, Abridged Teaching Edition, Updated Edition

by Howard Zinn

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews,... (more)

The Catcher in the Rye

by J. D. Salinger

Ever since it was first published in 1951, this novel has been the coming-of-age story against which all others are judged. Read and cherished by generations, the story of Holden Caulfield is truly one of America's literary treasures.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: america

by Neil Gaiman

Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away

by Bill Bryson

Travels in Small-Town America

by Bill Bryson

by Harper Lee

by Eric Schlosser, Eric Schlosser

by Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, David Javerbaum

by Stephen Colbert, Michael C. Brumm

by John Steinbeck

by Bill Bryson

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

by Curtis Sittenfeld

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Jonathan Safran Foer

by Cormac McCarthy

by Diana Gabaldon

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

by Ron Paul

by Howard Zinn

by J. D. Salinger