This semester, students are required to read one nonfiction book as independent reading.
Students may choose a title from an approved list or choose their own selection, but the book
MUST be approved by the teacher. Only full-length works are acceptable for this project; short works of nonfiction, such as collections of essay, are not acceptable.
The purpose of this assignment is to give students greater awareness and experience with longer pieces of nonfiction prose. This assignment will culminate at the end of the semester when students compose an original synthesis essay on a topic related to the nonfiction work using both the book itself as well as a variety of sources as support. In order to allow students time to digest the book and to find supporting materials for the synthesis essay, all major reading must be completed by the end of First Quarter.
To write the synthesis essay, students must not only read the nonfiction book they have chosen, but also find (online or in newspapers, magazines, or journals) and read the following:
1.
one-to-three articles about the book’s author(s) or the book (e.g. background, interviews, information about influences and/or style reviews, commentary, news articles about the incident/event/situation/topic detailed in the book, etc.)
2.
three-to-five articles about the content of the book (e.g. newspaper articles, magazine articles, scientific papers or scholarly journals)
On the date the synthesis essay is to be written, students are to bring the articles (and, if possible) the book to class. In their essays, students are required to use quotations from the book and/or the source material they have gathered for this assignment; supporting material
MUST be attached to the synthesis essay.
Although it is not required, students are encouraged to purchase the book they have chosen and to annotate as they read. An alternative method, of course, is to take notes in a notebook or on sticky notes.
Nonfiction Reading List – Possible Selections
Fermat’s Last Theorem Amir Aczel
Infidel
Double Fold
A History of God
Of Beetles and Angels
The Size of Thoughts
Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Karen Armstrong
Mawi Asgedom
Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker
Karen Blumenthal
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah
Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil John Berendt

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
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
The Year of Magical Thinking
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joan Didion
Jean-Dominique Bauby
Calendar
102 Minutes
David Ewing Duncan
Jim Dwyer
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
What is the What
Nickel and Dimed
Dave Eggers
Barbara Ehrenreich
American Sphinx
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science…
The Spirit Catches You & You Fall Down Anne Fadiman
Walking the Bible 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
Complications
Many Masks
Shot in the Heart
Outliers
Hot, Flat, and Crowded
The Culture of Fear
No Ordinary Time
Wait Till Next Year
Joseph Ellis
David Epstein
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
Malcolm Gladwell
Barry Glasser
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Doris Kearns Goodwin
The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction
We Wish to Inform You…
Linda Gordon
Philip Gourevitch

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
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
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
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

Reading Lolita in Tehran
The Average American
In the Heart of the Sea
The Botany of Desire
The Orchid Thief
For God, Country and Coca-Cola
Engineers of Dreams
Azar Nafisi
Kevin O’Keefe
Susan Orlean
Mark Pendergrast
Henry Petroski
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Nathaniel Philbrook
Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan
Neil Postman
Technology: The Surrender of Culture
Making the Corps
Neil Postman
Thomas Ricks
Genome
Bonk
Stiff
Matt Ridley
Mary Roach
Mary Roach
Overachievers: Secret Life of Driven Kids Alexandra Robbins
The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth Alexandra Robbins
Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's John Elder Robison
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes Joan Ryan
Lean In: Women, Work and the Will To Lead Sheryl Sandberg
Skyscraper
The Devil’s Candy
Iron and Silk
Jesus Land
Fast Food Nation
Karl Sabbagh
Julie Salamon
Mark Salzman
Julia Scheeres
Eric Schlosser
Mies van der Rohe
Learned Optimism
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
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
Franz Schulze
Martin E. P. Seligman
Rebecca Skloot
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