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RECOMMENDED SUMMER READING LIST 2012

FICTION_____________________________________________________________________ Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor

Twelve-year-old Sunny lives in Nigeria, but she was born American. Her features are African, but she’s

albino. She's a terrific athlete, but can't go out into the sun to play soccer. There seems to be no place

where she fits. And then she discovers something amazing—she is a “free agent,” with latent magical

power. Soon she's part of a quartet of magic students, studying the visible and invisible, learning to

change reality. But will it be enough to help them when they are asked to catch a career criminal who

knows magic too?

American Dervish, by Ayad Akhtar

Hayat Shah is a young American in love for the first time. His normal life of school, baseball, and video

games had previously been distinguished only by his Pakistani heritage and by the frequent chill between

his parents, who fight over things he is too young to understand. Then Mina arrives, and everything

changes. Mina is Hayat’s mother’s oldest friend from Pakistan. She is independent, beautiful and

intelligent, and arrives on the Shah’s doorstep when her disastrous marriage in Pakistan disintegrates.

Even Hayat’s skeptical father can't deny the liveliness and happiness that accompanies Mina into their

home. When Mina meets and begins dating a man, Hayat is confused by his feelings of betrayal. His

growing passions, both spiritual and romantic, force him to question all that he has come to believe is

true. Just as Mina finds happiness, Hayat is compelled to act—with devastating consequences for all those

he loves most. American Dervish is a brilliantly written, nuanced, and emotionally forceful look inside the

interplay of religion and modern life.

The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander

seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of

five people are upended. As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to

confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one

another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth,

The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and

friendship and love, and about commitment—to oneself and to others.

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been

anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named

Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Support Group, Hazel’s story is about to be completely

rewritten. Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning-author John

Green’s most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic

business of being alive and in love.

Heft, by Liz Moore

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade.

Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich

school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career—if he can untangle himself

from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of

Arthur’s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene’s unexpected phone call to Arthur—a plea for

help—that jostles them into action. Through Arthur and Kel’s own quirky and lovable voices, Heft tells

the winning story of two improbable heroes whose sudden connection transforms both their lives. Heft is

a novel about love and family found in the most unexpected places.

Legend, by Marie Lu

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with

its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June

is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums,

fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as

they seem. From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s

brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and

mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a

shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the

sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. It all

waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes

fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy

sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the

crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned

bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have

been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—

impossible though it seems—they may still be alive. A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting

vintage photography, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone

who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it

was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of

breathtaking amazements. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two

young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by

their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing,

and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves,

however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker

and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play

out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons,

hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

The Submission, by Amy Waldman

A jury gathers in Manhattan to select a memorial for the victims of a devastating terrorist attack. Their

fraught deliberations complete, the jurors open the envelope containing the anonymous winner's name—

and discover he is an American Muslim. Instantly they are cast into roiling debate about the claims of

grief, the ambiguities of art, and the meaning of Islam. Their conflicted response is only a preamble to the

country's. The memorial’s designer is an enigmatic, ambitious architect named Mohammad Khan. His

fiercest defender on the jury is its sole widow, the self-possessed and mediagenic Claire Burwell. But

when the news of his selection leaks to the press, she finds herself under pressure from outraged family

members and in collision with hungry journalists, wary activists, opportunistic politicians, fellow jurors,

and Khan himself—as unknowable as he is gifted. In the fight for both advantage and their ideals, all will

bring the emotional weight of their own histories to bear on the urgent question of how to remember, and

understand, a national tragedy. In this deeply humane novel, the breadth of Amy Waldman’s cast of

characters is matched by her startling ability to conjure their perspectives.

Where Things Come Back, by John Corey Whaley

In the remarkable, bizarre, and heart-wrenching summer before Cullen Witter’s senior year of high

school, everything he thinks he understands about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town vanishes.

His cousin overdoses; his town becomes absurdly obsessed with the alleged reappearance of an extinct

woodpecker; and most troubling of all, his sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother, Gabriel, suddenly and

inexplicably disappears. As Cullen navigates a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile

family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young, disillusioned missionary in Africa

searches for meaning wherever he can find it. Through masterful plotting, these two stories are brought

face-to-face in a surprising and harrowing climax that is tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and

absurdity, and above all, hope.

NONFICTION________________________________________________________________ Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo

In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a

bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human. Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in

the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are

electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond

counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and

deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political

corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will

soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-

year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call

“the full enjoy.” But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a

global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic

envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true

contours of a competitive age are revealed.

Elizabeth and Hazel, by David Margolick

The names Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery may not be well known, but the image of them

from September 1957 surely is: a black high school girl, dressed in white, walking stoically in front of

Little Rock Central High School, and a white girl standing directly behind her, face twisted in hate,

screaming racial epithets. This famous photograph captures the full anguish of desegregation—in Little

Rock and throughout the South—and an epic moment in the civil rights movement. In this gripping book,

David Margolick tells the remarkable story of two separate lives unexpectedly braided together. He

explores how the haunting picture of Elizabeth and Hazel came to be taken, its significance in the wider

world, and why, for the next half-century, neither woman has ever escaped from its long shadow. He

recounts Elizabeth's struggle to overcome the trauma of her hate-filled school experience, and Hazel's long

efforts to atone for a fateful, horrible mistake. The book follows the painful journey of the two as they

progress from apology to forgiveness to reconciliation and, amazingly, to friendship.

Hot, by Mark Hertsgaard

Global warming is real and it has arrived—a hundred years sooner than expected. For twenty years, Mark

Hertsgaard investigated climate change, but it took the birth of his daughter to bring the truth home.

Another revelation came when an expert advised that, without doubt, global warming had arrived, more

than a hundred years earlier than expected. Now, with his daughter and the next generation in mind,

Hertsgaard delivers a resounding, motivating message of hope that will spur activism among parents,

college students, and all readers. He gives specifics about what we can expect in the next fifty years:

Chicago's climate transformed to resemble Houston's; the loss of cherished crops and luxuries, such as

California wines; the redesign of U.S. cities. Addressing problems we'll face very soon and revealing

where they'll be most serious, Hertsgaard offers "pictures" of what unbiased experts expect, and looks at

who is taking wise, creative precautions. Hot is, finally, a book about how we'll survive.

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

Bretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are

long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things

that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project. In this lively

and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving

the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be

happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that

money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the

very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, by Erik Larson

In this readable narrative, author Larson offers a real-life, eyewitness perspective inside the Nazi

hierarchy as Hitler came to power. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor from Chicago, became

the first US ambassador to Hitler's Germany in 1933. Dodd, his wife, their son, and their 24-year-old

daughter Martha lived in Germany for about five years. Drawing on Martha's diaries and letters, much of

the book centers on Martha's romantic affairs with high-ranking Nazi officials and her eventual heroism

as she realized Hitler's true character. Meanwhile, her father William Dodd informed the US State

Department of increasing Jewish persecution, with little response from the State Department. The book

sheds light on why it took so long for the world to recognize the threat posed by Hitler.

Lost in Shangri-La, by Mitchell Zuckoff

On May 13, 1945, twenty-four American servicemen and WACs boarded a transport plane for a

sightseeing trip over Shangri-La, a beautiful and mysterious valley deep within the jungle-covered

mountains of Dutch New Guinea. Unlike the peaceful Tibetan monks of James Hilton's bestselling novel

Lost Horizon, this Shangri-La was home to spear-carrying tribesmen, warriors rumored to be cannibals.

But the pleasure tour became an unforgettable battle for survival when the plane crashed. Miraculously,

three passengers pulled through. Emotionally devastated, badly injured, and vulnerable to the hidden

dangers of the jungle, the trio faced certain death unless they left the crash site. Caught between man-

eating headhunters and enemy Japanese, the wounded passengers endured a harrowing hike down the

mountainside—a journey into the unknown that would lead them straight into a primitive tribe of

superstitious natives who had never before seen a white man—or woman. Drawn from interviews,

declassified U.S. Army documents, personal photos and mementos, a survivor's diary, a rescuer's journal,

and original film footage, Lost in Shangri-La recounts this incredible true-life adventure for the first time.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick

A National Book Award finalist and National Book Critics Circle finalist, Barbara Demick’s Nothing to

Envy is a remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens. Nothing to

Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of

Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging

famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before

seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most

repressive totalitarian regime today—an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet,

in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of

affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can

send a person to the gulag for life. Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of

government censors.

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the

thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain, for the first time, why habits exist and how they can be

shaped and changed. The Power of Habit explores why some people and companies never achieve real

transformation, despite years of trying, while others remake themselves almost overnight. It takes you

inside laboratories where neuroscientists create and extinguish habits, as though flipping a switch. It tells

the stories of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil rights hero

Martin Luther King, Jr., and shows how the right habits were essential to their success. You'll go inside

Proctor & Gamble, Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, Target superstores, and the nation's largest

hospitals, where implementing so-called "keystone habits" can earn billions and mean the difference

between life and death. At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to

exercising regularly, becoming more productive, losing weight, raising exceptional children, tapping into

our reserves of creativity, building revolutionary companies and social movements, conquering our most

stubborn vices, and capturing success is to understand how habits work. By harnessing this new science,

we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Quiet, by Susan Cain

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to

speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on

their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled "quiet," it is to introverts that we

owe many of the great contributions to society—from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the

personal computer. Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real

people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so.

Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie’s birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony

Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the

twentieth century and explores its far-reaching effects. She talks to Asian-American students who feel

alienated from the brash, backslapping atmosphere of American schools. She questions the dominant

values of American business culture, where forced collaboration can stand in the way of innovation, and

where the leadership potential of introverts is often overlooked. And she draws on cutting-edge research

in psychology and neuroscience to reveal the surprising differences between extroverts and introverts.

Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with

more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson

has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative

entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal

computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing. At a time when

America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to

build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and

products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated

system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership,

and values.