Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Galileo Galilei's telescopes allowed him to discover a new reality in the heavens. But for publicly declaring his astounding argument--that the earth revolves around the sun--he was accused of heresy and put under house arrest by the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Living a far different life, Galileo's daughter Virginia, a cloistered nun, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through the difficult... (more)

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Modern Library Paperbacks)

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (Modern Library Paperbacks)

by Edmund Morris

Described by the Chicago Tribune as "a classic," The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt stands as one of the greatest biographies of our time. The publication of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt on September 14th, 2001 marks the 100th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt becoming president.

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else

by Michael Gates Gill

Now in paperback, the national bestselling riches-to-rags true story of an advertising executive who had it all, then lost it all—and was finally redeemed by his new job, and his twenty-eight-year-old boss, at Starbucks . In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a mansion in the suburbs, a wife and loving children, a six-figure salary, and an Ivy League education. But in a few short years, he lost his job,... (more)

Tis: A Memoir

by Frank McCourt

Frank McCourt's glorious childhood memoir, Angela's Ashes, has been loved and celebrated by readers everywhere for its spirit, its wit and its profound humanity. A tale of redemption, in which storytelling itself is the source of salvation, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Rarely has a book so swiftly found its place on the literary... (more)

All over but the Shoutin'

by Rick Bragg

This haunting, harrowing, gloriously moving recollection of a life on the American margin is the story of Rick Bragg, who grew up dirt-poor in northeastern Alabama, seemingly destined for either the cotton mills or the penitentiary, and instead became a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times. It is the story of Bragg's father, a hard-drinking man with a murderous temper and the habit of running... (more)

Dead Man Walking (Vintage)

by Helen Prejean

In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana's Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier's death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. At the same time, she came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job... (more)

Essex County Volume 1: Tales From The Farm

Essex County Volume 1: Tales From The Farm

by Jeff Lemire

Xeric-Award-winning cartoonist Jeff Lemire (Lost Dogs) illustrates the tale of Lester, an orphaned 10-year-old who goes to live on his Uncle's farm. Their relationship grows increasingly strained and Lester befriends the town's gas station owner, and damaged former hockey star Jimmy Lebeuf. The two escape into a private fantasy world of super-heroes, alien invaders and good old-fashioned pond Hockey. Tales from... (more)

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur

The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur

by Daoud Hari

I am the translator who has taken journalists into dangerous Darfur. It is my intention now to take you there in this book, if you have the courage to come with me. The young life of Daoud Hari–his friends call him David–has been one of bravery and mesmerizing adventure. He is a living witness to the brutal genocide under way in Darfur. The Translator is a suspenseful, harrowing, and deeply moving memoir of... (more)

Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India

Marrying Anita: A Quest for Love in the New India

by Anita Jain

Is arranged marriage any worse than Craigslist? One smart and feisty woman’s year in India looking for a husband the old-fashioned way reveals a rapidly changing culture and a whole host of ideas about the best way to find a mate. Anita Jain was fed up with the New York singles scene. After three years of frustration and awkward dates, and under constant pressure from her Indian parents to find someone, she... (more)

St. Patrick of Ireland : A Biography

by Philip Freeman

Ireland's patron saint has long been shrouded in legend: he drove the snakes out of Ireland; he triumphed over Druids and their supernatural powers; he used a shamrock to explain the Christian mystery of the Trinity. But his true story is more fascinating than the myths. We have no surviving image of Patrick, but we do have two remarkable letters that he wrote about himself and his beliefs -- letters that tell us... (more)

T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E.

by Sanyika Shakur

The follow up to his best-selling memoir Monster , Sanyika Shakur’s T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. is a vicious, heart-wrenching and true-to-life novel about an LA gang member that masterfully captures the violence and depravity of gang life. Shakur’s protagonist is Lapeace, the leader of the Eight Tray Crips gang in South Central Los Angeles. In a deadly gunfight with Anyhow, a Blood and Lapeace’s rival since childhood,... (more)

GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVERobert A. HEINLEIN

GRUMBLES FROM THE GRAVE

by Robert A. HEINLEIN

Persepolis : The Story of a Childhood

by Marjane Satrapi

A New York Times Notable Book A Time Magazine “Best Comix of the Year” A San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times Best-seller Wise, funny, and heartbreaking, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow... (more)

Night Trilogy: Book 1

Night

by Elie Wiesel

In Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's memoir Night , a scholarly, pious teenager is wracked with guilt at having survived the horror of the Holocaust and the genocidal campaign that consumed his family. His memories of the nightmare world of the death camps present him with an intolerable question: how can the God he once so fervently believed in have allowed these monstrous events to occur? There are no easy answers... (more)

Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones

Old Gods Almost Dead: The 40-year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones

by Stephen Davis

The acclaimed, bestselling rock-and-roll biographer delivers the first complete, unexpurgated history of the world’s greatest band. The saga of the Rolling Stones is the central epic in rock mythology. From their debut as the intermission band at London’s Marquee Club in 1962 through their latest record—setting Bridges to Babylon world tour, the Rolling Stones have defined a musical genre and experienced... (more)

The Hills of Tuscany

by Ferenc Mate?

Ferenc Mate and his painter wife Candace arrived from New York in the late 1980s, knowing almost no Italian and with only four weeks to find themselves a new home. After many mishaps, they finally conclude the deal for their perfect house, an ancient farmhouse in the Tuscan hills, by drawing on the hood of a rusty tractor. Mate brings the real Tuscany to life, the neighbours, the countryside, country-life, the... (more)

Crazy

by Pete Earley

Pete Earley had no idea. He'd been a journalist for over thirty years, and the author of several award-winning-even bestselling-nonfiction books about crime and punishment and society. Yet he'd always been on the outside looking in. He had no idea what it was like to be on the inside looking out until his son, Mike, was declared mentally ill, and Earley was thrown headlong into the maze of contradictions,... (more)

Thomas Jefferson: A Life

by Willard Sterne Randall

The highly praised one-volume biography of Thomas Jefferson that provides illuminating new insights into his public and private life--by the award-winning author of A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin at War with His Son and Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor .

Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World

Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World

by Charley Boorman, Ewan McGregor

It started as a daydream. Poring over a map of the world at home one quiet Saturday afternoon, Ewan McGregor -- acclaimed actor and self-confessed bike nut -- noticed that it was possible to ride all the way round the world, with just one short hop across the Bering Strait from Russia to Alaska. It was a revelation he couldn't get out of his head. So he picked up the phone and called his fellow actor-slash-biker... (more)

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

by Lewis Buzbee

“I cannot remember when I read a book with such delight. ” —Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Bookstore November, a dark, rainy Tuesday, late afternoon. This is my ideal time to be in a bookstore. The shortened light of the afternoon and the idleness and hush of the hour gather everything close, the shelves and the books and the few other customers who graze head-bent in the narrow aisles. I’ve come to find a... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: biography/memoir

A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love

by Dava Sobel