Britton Reading Lists
- Reading Rainbow: Books Whose Title Contains a Color
- Books By a West Virginia Author or About West Virginia
- Pearl's Picks
- Books Set in North America
- Re-Read a Childhood Favorite
- From Book to Movie
- The "B" List
- Award Winners
- Author's Last Name Is a Color
- Books Set or Written During the 1950s
Pearl's Picks
There are 27 fiction titles and 15 nonfiction titles in this list.
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Nancy Pearl, a regular contributor to National Public Radio and a nationally known librarian who inspired a librarian action figure, releases a dozen book reviews each month, available at www.kanawhalibrary.org. Here are a few of her picks:
Fiction Titles
During the finals days of the Ottoman Empire, the young men of the village are instructed to battle the invading forces during the Great War and destroy the peace.
Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by
Recounts what happens when the citizens of an island must rely on all their ingenuity to communicate in an increasingly limited language when the government progressively bans letters from the alphabet.
Alister Clark and Walt Dunmore are the only survivors of a World War II plane wreck on Newfoundland's Labrador coast, but although only one man returns home alive, both of their families' lives remain entwined through the years.
Determined to beat Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in a race to the Pacific Ocean, Vermont schoolmaster, inventor, playwright, and explorer Ture Teague Kinneson and his nephew Ticonderoga head west.
Gossip Hound by
Grace Armiger's humdrum professional life as a publicist for a London publisher and personal life with a nagging mother, dishonest boyfriend, and dismal apartment are turned upside down by a chance encounter with a famous celebrity.
World War Z: An Oral History Of The Zombie War by
An account of the decade-long conflict between humankind and hordes of the predatory undead is told from the perspective of dozens of survivors who describe in their own words the epic human battle for survival.
When Diana Duprey, a female doctor and director of the Center of Reproductive Choice, is found murdered two weeks before Christmas, the crime threatens to reveal the small Colorado town's long-buried secrets and animosities.
Echo Maker by
Twenty-seven-year-old Mark Schluter, suffering from a rare brain disorder that causes him to believe his sister to be an impostor, endeavors to discover the cause of the motor vehicle accident that resulted in his head injury.
Hannah Gavener's fantasies about family, romance, and love collide headlong with the challenges, complexities, and realities of adult life and relationships.
When a million-dollar mansion in the wealthy gated community of Crystal Waters explodes following the receipt of an extortion letter, the fearful residents hire former businessman Dek Elstrom, whose own career has been ruined by scandal, to uncover the truth, but the case is complicated when Dek finds himself at the head of the suspect list.
As Commissario Guido Brunetti pursues his investigation into the supposed suicide of a young cadet at Venice's elite military academy, he must confront the military's wall of silence, reluctant witnesses, and possibly conspiracy.
What Is The What: The Autobiography Of Valentino Achak Deng by
A biographical novel traces the story of Valentino Achak Deng, who as a boy of seven was separated from his family when his village in southern Sudan was attacked by government helicopters and became one of the estimated 17,000 "lost boys of Sudan" before relocating from a Kenyan refugee camp to Atlanta in 2001.
Alternates three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in the popular culture. Presented in comic book format.
In the Company of the Courtesan by
The time is 1527, during and after the second sack of Rome by Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor; the beautiful and seductive courtesan, Fiammetta Bianchini, and her business manager and best friend, the dwarf Bucino flee Rome and end up in Venice, the city of Fiammetta's birth.
In her fifth work of fiction, she explores the sometimes fraught relationship between two very different sisters.
A rock music journalist is found murdered and, try as they might, the police can't seem to come up with a motive for the killing.
Minaret by
When Najwa and her family are exiled to London, after a coup overthrows the government of Sudan and her father is hanged by the rebels, she turns to her Islamic faith - long abandoned in her ultra secular upbringing - for comfort.
Nearly a decade after they graduated from Brown, three friends try to navigate the rocky waters of love and work in the months before and after September 11, 2001.
Jack Crabb, 111 years old, narrates the story of his event-filled life, which essentially began with the slaughter of his pioneering family on their way west after the Civil War.
The Year of Secret Assignments by
When they become penpals with three guys from a rival high school, Cassie, Lydia, and Emily discover romance, a mystery, a slew of Secret Assignments, and just how much fun "The Joy of the Envelope" (as their English teacher describes the letter writing assignment) can be.
At 75, John Perry joins the Colonial Defense Force, gets a vastly improved-over-the-original body of a 25 year old, and reports for active duty, where he and his platoon fight throughout the universe against a variety of aliens bent on the destruction of humanity.
Harboring romantic notions about golden-age Hollywood film stars, 31-year-old Philadelphia cafâe manager Cornelia Brown embarks on a too-good-to-be-true relationship with the debonair Martin Grace.
Meg, the great-granddaughter of a southwestern frontierswoman, accompanies her grandmother to a family property that is being excavated and makes a discovery that challenges the authenticity of stories about her famous family's history.
Ladies Of Grace Adieu And Other Stories by
An anthology of stories set in a mysterious, fantastical version of England populated by petulant princesses, vengeful owls, and endless paths in the dark woods, and features the Duke of Wellington and other colorful characters.
Stuck in a state of purgatory in the Washington State house in which he lived and died, Evan Molloy, who had shot himself to death for a reason he cannot recall, now must deal with the home's new inhabitant, Maureen Keniston.
Lost Art Of Keeping Secrets by
Struggling to preserve her family's crumbling estate as well as their lifestyle in 1950s London, Penelope endeavors to fall in love, participates in a plot with her best friend's brother, and finds herself falling for a wealthy American movie producer.
Blow The House Down: A Novel by
Long obsessed with the abduction and murder of his agency mentor, veteran CIA officer Max Waller continues to investigate the crime, until he suddenly finds himself the target of powerful dark forces within the intelligence community.
Nonfiction Titles
A Perfect Union: Dolly Madison And The Creation Of The American Nation by call number: B M1826a
Madison was loved and admired by all (with the exception of her husband's political enemies) for the three decades she spent in the public spotlight; she was the first First Lady to carve out an important role for herself in the everyday workings of the new nation.
Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw: Travels In Search Of Canada by call number: 917.104 F35b
Will Ferguson writes about his native Canada with humor, affection, and occasional exasperation.
Stuffed: Adventures Of A Restaurant Family by call number: B V916
Patricia Volk delivers a hymn of love to both family and food. In a series of vignettes, Volk lovingly describes her adored extended family.
Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism by call number: 759.4 K54j
An illuminating history of a fascinating place and period: Paris, from 1863 to 1874. This was a particularly exciting time, because the French art world was torn between two extremes.
This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science Of A Human Obsession by call number: 781.11 L66t
Here are the ABCs of music theory and appreciation, for those of us who know nothing about music, but know what we like.
The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by call number: 973.04924 M53L
Ever since he was a child, Daniel Mendelsohn loved to listen to his grandfather's tales about their family's long and eventful history.
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by call number: 973.931 W95L
A riveting, gracefully written, profoundly disturbing account of the history of 21st century terrorism.
The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie by call number: 823.912 E12e
The author combines his 2002 train journey from London to Iraq with a look back at the life of mystery writer Agatha Christie, who took the Orient Express on the same 3,000 mile journey in 1928.
Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past And Present by call number: 915.1 H58o
This jam-packed account of his years in China as a freelance writer from 1999-2004 is filled with all sorts of interesting facts, life stories of Chinese men and women, and glimpses into Chinese history, both recent and long-past.
My Life in France by call number: B C536
Begun as a series of talks over a period of months with her grandnephew Alex Prud'homme, the finished product reads like a lively monologue, covering Child's marriage, their move to Paris, France following World War II, her growing love of French food, the great restaurants of the 1950s, her first tentative forays into cooking, and how the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her subsequent television program came about.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by call number: 970.5 B87b
Shouldn't be missed. Its systematic (and well documented) undermining of the mythology of westward movement was controversial when it was first published (in 1970), but Brown's retelling of the events from about 1860 to 1890 is now generally accepted by many historians.
Cancer Vixen by call number: 362.196994 M31c
What's a 43-year-old, seemingly terminally single, very attractive New York cartoonist to do when, after decades of dating, she finally meets Mr. Right; when her career finally seems to be taking off (her cartoons are appearing in both The New Yorker and Glamour, for example, with some regularity); when she discovers a lump in her breast, is diagnosed with cancer, realizes that she's let her health insurance lapse, has surgery, and undergoes chemo and radiation?
River Of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by call number: 918.113 M64r
Taking place shortly after Roosevelt lost his third-party campaign for President in 1912, it's the story of his literally, death-defying trip down a previously uncharted river in the Amazon rain forest, accompanied by his 24 year old son Kermit and Candido Rondon, the noted Brazilian explorer, among other daredevils and adventure-seekers.
The Worst Hard Time by call number: 978.032 E28w
Most people's knowledge and understanding of the Dust Bowl is largely shaped by John Steinbeck's engrossing novel The Grapes of Wrath, his story of American families fleeing the great drought that afflicted our country's midsection during the 1930s, and their migration westward to California to make new lives for themselves. Now we hear, in the words of those who stayed behind, what life was like during the "dirty thirties" in the great plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado, an area that, over plowed and over planted, had, literally, gone with the wind.
Shadow of the Bear: Travels in Vanishing Wilderness by call number: 599.78 P34s
Brian Payton goes beyond the art and folklore and journeys throughout the world to find the eight remaining bear species before - as he fears - they all become extinct.