Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. At the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor, living with the doctor's bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood... (more)

Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood

Baby Laughs: The Naked Truth About the First Year of Mommyhood

by Jenny McCarthy

Jenny McCarthy’s hilarious, no-holds-barred personality has made her an instantly recognizable TV personality and a bestselling author. In Baby Laughs she examines the full range of challenges that new mothers face, including: • The humiliations of postnatal "numbing spray," Tucks medicated pads, and adult diapers; jelly belly, balding, and gum disease; and becoming a "five-foot puke rag" for the baby ... (more)

Nickel and Dimed

On (Not) Getting by in America

by Barbara Ehrenreich

The New York Times bestseller, and one of the most talked about books of the year, Ni ckel and Dimed has already become a classic of undercover reportage. Millions of Americans work for poverty-level wages, and one day Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that any job equals a better life. But how can anyone survive, let... (more)

Dry: A Memoir

by Augusten Burroughs

From the bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Dry —the hilarious, moving, and no less bizarre account of what happened next. You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had to drinks, Augusten was circling the... (more)

The Professor and the Madman

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

by Simon Winchester

The Professor and the Madman , masterfully researched and eloquently written, is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary -- and literary history. The compilation of the OED began in 1857, it was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led... (more)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

by John Berendt

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.... (more)

High Fidelity

by Nick Hornby

Is it possible to share your life with someone whose record collection is incompatible with your own? Can people have terrible taste and still be worth knowing? Do songs about broken hearts and misery and loneliness mess up your life if consumed in excess? For Rob Fleming, thirty-five years old, a pop addict and owner of a failing record shop, these are the sort of questions that need an answer, and soon. His... (more)

Tuesdays With Morrie

An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

by Mitch Albom

It’s been ten years since Mitch Albom first shared the wisdom of Morrie Schwartz with the world. Now–twelve million copies later–in a new afterword, Mitch Albom reflects again on the meaning of Morrie’s life lessons and the gentle, irrevocable impact of their Tuesday sessions all those years ago. . . _____ Maybe it was a grandparent, or a... (more)

The Memory of Running

by Ron McLarty

Every decade seems to produce a novel that captures the public’s imagination with a story that sweeps readers up and takes them on a thrilling, unforgettable ride. Ron McLarty’s The Memory of Running is this decade’s novel. By all accounts, especially his own, Smithson "Smithy" Ide is a loser. An overweight, friendless, chain-smoking, forty-three-year-old drunk, Smithy’s life becomes completely unhinged... (more)

What is the What

by Dave Eggers

In a heartrending and astonishing novel, Eggers illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States. We follow his life as he's driven from his home as a boy and walks, with thousands of orphans, to Ethiopia, where he finds safety — for a time. Valentino's travels, truly Biblical in scope, bring him in contact with government... (more)

Disobedience

by Jane Hamilton

From Jane Hamilton, author of the beloved New York Times bestsellers A Map of the World and The Book of Ruth , comes a warmly humorous, poignant novel about a young man, his mother's e-mail, and the often surprising path of infidelity. Henry Shaw, a high school senior, is about as comfortable with his family as any seventeen-year-old can be. His father, Kevin, teaches history with a decidedly socialist tinge... (more)

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

by Michael Chabon

Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers' Award, New York Library Book Award Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, PEN/Faulkner Award, Los Angeles Times Book AwardJoe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City.His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to... (more)

Stiff

The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

by Mary Roach

An oddly compelling, often hilarious forensic exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.For two thousand years, cadaverssome willingly, some unwittinglyhave been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. They've tested France's first guillotines, ridden the NASA Space Shuttle, been crucified in a Parisian laboratory to test the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin,... (more)

Perfume

The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Suskind

The year is 1738; the place, Paris. A baby is born under a fish-monger’s bloody table in a marketplace, and abandoned. Orphaned, passed over to the monks as a charity case, already there is something in the aura of the tiny infant that is unsettling. No one will look after him; he is somehow too demanding, and, even more disturbing, something is missing: as his wet nurse tries to explain, he doesn’t smell the... (more)

Greenwich Killing Time

by Kinky Friedman

With a new introduction by the author, Greenwich Killing Time is now available for the first time in more than a decade. This is the first of Kinky Friedman's mystery novels. To quote the author: "Greenwich Killing Time was the first book I ever wrote. I wrote it in 1984 and it was published in 1986. I was doing a lot of Peruvian marching powder at the time so I don't remember too much about writing it,... (more)

Front Row at the White House : My Life and Times

Front Row at the White House : My Life and Times

by Helen Thomas

"Thank You, Mr. President." From the woman who has reported on every president from Kennedy to Clinton comes a privileged glimpse into the White House -- and a telling record of the ever-changing relationship between the presidency and the press. Helen Thomas wanted to be a reporter from her earliest years. She turned a copy-aide job at the Washington Daily News into a powerful and successful career... (more)

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

by Ishmael Beah

My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?” “Because there is a war.” “You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time.” “Cool.” I smile a little. “You should tell us about it sometime.” “Yes, sometime.” This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s.... (more)

Suite Francaise

by Irene Nemirovsky

Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart.... (more)

Infidel

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

In this profoundly affecting memoir from the internationally renowned author of The Caged Virgin, Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells her astonishing life story, from her traditional Muslim childhood in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her intellectual awakening and activism in the Netherlands, and her current life under armed guard in the West. One of today's most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi... (more)

Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir

by Marina Nemat

What would you give up to protect your loved ones? Your life? In her heartbreaking, triumphant, and elegantly written memoir, Prisoner of Tehran , Marina Nemat tells the heart-pounding story of her life as a young girl in Iran during the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini's brutal Islamic Revolution. In January 1982, Marina Nemat, then just sixteen years old, was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death for... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

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A Memoir

by Augusten Burroughs

by Jenny McCarthy

On (Not) Getting by in America

by Barbara Ehrenreich

by Augusten Burroughs

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

by Simon Winchester

by John Berendt

by Nick Hornby

An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

by Mitch Albom

by Ron McLarty

by Dave Eggers

by Jane Hamilton

by Michael Chabon

The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

by Mary Roach

The Story of a Murderer

by Patrick Suskind

by Kinky Friedman

by Helen Thomas

by Ishmael Beah

by Irene Nemirovsky

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

by Marina Nemat