Nonfiction Independent Reading Project
This quarter, students are required to read one nonfiction book as independent reading. Students
may choose a title from the approved list or choose their own selection, but the book MUST be
approved by the teacher and have a Lexile level of 1000 or higher if the student is reading a book
not on the approved list. Only full-length works are acceptable for this project; short works of
nonfiction, such as collections of essays, are not acceptable. The purpose of this assignment is to
give students greater awareness and experience with longer pieces of nonfiction prose. The
project is due on Thursday, February 11th.
Project Guidelines:
1) Write a 5-7-sentence summary of the overall main idea of this book. Within this summary,
include 3-5 main points the author makes (most important, or ones you find most interesting).
This needs to be a tight, concise, accurate paragraph of writing. Avoid critique at this point; just
focus on short description that has specific main points.
2) List 5 (only 5) different rhetorical strategies used in this book (see rhetorical terms handouts).
For each one, discuss the following: A) Name the rhetorical strategy, and define it; B) Write a
short, unified paragraph that explains how the author uses the rhetorical strategy—what is he or
she trying to convince the reader to think, and how, and why? What is the author’s purpose in
using this strategy? Is it effective? Why or why not? C) Support your analysis with specific
references to the text (i.e. quotes, correctly formatted and cited with an MLA parenthetical
citation). Weave all of this together in to a well-developed paragraph for each example. For each
separate paragraph, label the separate parts: A, B, C, etc.
3) What do you think was the author’s goal in writing this book? Did s/he achieve it? Did she/he
convince you of his/her point of view on the topic discussed? Did reading this book change your
thinking on the topic, and if so, how? If not, why not? (250 word minimum)
4) Write a short book review (5-7 sentences) for this book. Pretend you are trying to convince
someone you know (who is reluctant) to read it. Be creative! Include at least one interesting
thing about it; here is where you get to put in your opinion. It is okay to say you disliked it, but
be attention-getting (humor, satire, irony, and strong critique are all appropriate). Write in the
style of Steven Colbert, John Stewart, Saturday Night Live writers/comedians, The Onion
journalists, or other news parody/critical commentary writers. (i.e. don’t be silly just to be silly;
make a point.)
5) Evaluate nonfiction as a valuable genre. Provide three properly cited quotes from the text to
support this evaluation. (250 word minimum)
6) Create a Work Cited entry for the nonfiction book in correct MLA citation format.
 Although it is not required, students are encouraged to purchase the book they have
chosen and annotate as they read. An alternative method, of course, is to take notes in a
notebook or on sticky notes.
 Obtain your book as soon as you can in the beginning of this grading quarter, so you can
have it read and the assignment completed before the February 11th deadline, as other
papers and/or projects will be assigned throughout the quarter as well.
Nonfiction Reading List – Possible Selections
Fermat’s Last Theorem
Infidel
A History of God
Of Beetles and Angels
Double Fold
The Size of Thoughts
Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil
All over But the Shoutin’
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
A Walk in the Woods
Another Planet
Running with Scissors
Quiet: The Power of Introverts…
The Rape of Nanking
Beyond the Narrow Gate
Wishing on the Moon
Glass, Paper, Beans
The Road from Coorain
Dispatches from the Edge
Salvation on Sand Mountain
Columbine
Disarmed
The Death of Satan
Guns, Germs, and Steel
The Year of Magical Thinking
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Calendar
102 Minutes
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
What is the What
Nickel and Dimed
American Sphinx
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science…
The Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down
Walking the Bible
Amir Aczel
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Karen Armstrong
Mawi Asgedom
Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker
Karen Blumenthal
Ishmael Beah
John Berendt
Rick Bragg
Dee Brown
Bill Bryson
Elinor Burkett
Augusten Burroughs
Susan Cain
Iris Chang
Leslie Chang
Donald Clarke
Leah Hager Cohen
Jill Kerr Conway
Anderson Cooper
Dennis Covington
Dave Cullen
Gregory Curtis
Andrew Delbanco
Jared Diamond
Joan Didion
Jean-Dominique Bauby
David Ewing Duncan
Jim Dwyer
Dave Eggers
Dave Eggers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Joseph Ellis
David Epstein
Anne Fadiman
Bruce Feiler
The Whole Shebang
Six Easy Pieces
True Story
Swallow the Ocean
Eating Animals
Gorillas in the Mist
Next of Kin
Beirut to Jerusalem
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Complications
Many Masks
Shot in the Heart
Blink
Outliers
The Culture of Fear
No Ordinary Time
Wait Till Next Year
The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction
We Wish to Inform You…
Autobiography of a Face
A Civil Action
The End of Faith
The Total Package
God is not Great
Lost in Translation
A People’s History of the Supreme Court
Emergence
Empires of Light
Woman Warrior
Balkan Ghosts
The Liar’s Club
Orange is the New Black
Mountains Beyond Mountains
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold…
Clone
Flu
Savage Inequalities
There Are No Children Here
Into the Wild
Into Thin Air
Under the Banner of Heaven
Cod
Salt: A World History
The Arabs
The Africans
American Ground
Timothy Ferris
Richard Feynman
Michael Finkel
Laura Flynn
Jonathan Safran Foer
Diane Fossey
Thatcher Freund
Thomas Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
Atul Gawande
Brendan Gill
Mikal Gilmore
Malcom Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell
Barry Glasser
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Linda Gordon
Philip Gourevitch
Lucy Grealy
Jonathan Harr
Sam Harris
Thomas Hine
Christopher Hitchens
Eva Hoffman
Peter Irons
Steven Johnson
Jill Jonnes
Maxine Hong Kingston
Robert Kaplan
Mary Karr
Piper Kerman
Tracy Kidder
Denise Kiernan
Gina Kolata
Gina Kolata
Jonathan Kozol
Alex Kotlowitz
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer
Jon Krakauer
Mark Kurlansky
Mark Kurlansky
David Lamb
David Lamb
William Langewiesche
Devil in the White City
The Big Test
Freakonomics
Detroit: An American Autopsy
The Middle East
The Accidental Asian
Young Men and Fire
Four Arguments for Elimination of TV
Angela’s Ashes
Born to Run
Fatal Vision
Coming into the Country
Battle Cry of Freedom
Greasy Rider
City of the Century
Blue Highways
Theodore Rex
Three Cups of Tea
The Power of Myth
Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Average American
The Orchid Thief
For God, Country and Coca-Cola
Engineers of Dreams
In the Heart of the Sea
The Botany of Desire
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Technology: The Surrender of Culture
Making the Corps
Genome
Bonk
Stiff
Overachievers: Secret Life of Driven Kids
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
Lean In: Women, Work and the Will To Lead
Skyscraper
The Devil’s Candy
Iron and Silk
Jesus Land
Fast Food Nation
Mies van der Rohe
Learned Optimism
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Erik Larson
Nicholas Lemann
Steven Leavitt
Charlie LeDuff
Bernard Lewis
Eric Liu
Norman Maclean
Jerry Mander
Frank McCourt
Christopher McDougall
Joe McGinniss
John McPhee
James McPherson
Greg Melville
Donald Miller
William Least Heat Moon
Edmund Morris
Greg Mortenson
Bill Moyers
Azar Nafisi
Kevin O’Keefe
Susan Orlean
Mark Pendergrast
Henry Petroski
Nathaniel Philbrook
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Neil Postman
Neil Postman
Thomas Ricks
Matt Ridley
Mary Roach
Mary Roach
Alexandra Robbins
Alexandra Robbins
John Elder Robison
Joan Ryan
Sheryl Sandberg
Karl Sabbagh
Julie Salamon
Mark Salzman
Julia Scheeres
Eric Schlosser
Franz Schulze
Martin E. P. Seligman
Rebecca Skloot
Galileo’s Daughter
The Black Swan
The Mole People
How Children Succeed
The Guns of August
Why We Shop
Call of the Mall
Triangle
Gang Leader for a Day
Assassination Vacation
The Glass Castle
Mississippi
The Beak of the Finch
The World Without Us
Forever Open, Clear, and Free
The Professor and the Madman
Shaping a Nation
The Right Stuff
The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Dava Sobel
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Jennifer Toth
Paul Tough
Barbara Tuchman
Paco Underhill
Paco Underhill
David Von Drehle
Sudhir Venkatesh
Sarah Vowell
Jeanette Walls
John Walton
Jonathan Weiner
Alan Weisman
Lois Wille
Simon Winchester
Carter Wiseman
Tom Wolfe
Gary Zukav