1)
Z for Zachariah
by Robert C. O’Brien
256 pages
Publisher: Simon Pulse; 1st Collier Books
Ed edition (April 30, 1987)
ISBN-10: 0020446500
ISBN-13: 978-0020446507
Z for Zachariah is a novel by Robert C. O'Brien which was published posthumously in
1973. He died when writing the last chapter, so his family finished the book for him. It is
written from the first person perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl named Ann Burden,
who survives a nuclear war in a small American town. The town's location is in a
geographically distinct and remote valley that shelters it from the nuclear fallout. The
book takes the form of a diary kept by Ann as she recounts the events that followed the
war.
Z for Zachariah won an Edgar Award in the juvenile category in 1976. The book's title is
explained by the main character. Recalling that Adam, whose name begins with the first
letter of the alphabet, was the first man according to a Bible-themed children's alphabet
book, she presumes Zachariah is the Bible's last person, as he is the last person named in
the book.
"After the bomb is dropped a young girl finds that she is the only survivor in a small
valley in New York. Because of her determination and smarts she is able to feed and
shelter herself. Then one day she spots a stranger in a bio suit coming over the ridge- is
he friendly? Can the two of them co-exist? Or will the stranger’s fears and domineering
attitude force her to move on?"
Andi Puntoriero, Resident Scholar
2)
This Boy's Life: A Memoir
By Tobias Wolff
Published by Grove Press, 2000
ISBN 0802136680, 9780802136688
304 pages
This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young
Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning.
Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on
the move, yet they develop an extraordinarily close, almost telepathic relationship. As
Toby fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new
stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff does a masterful
job of re-creating the frustrations and cruelties of adolescence. His various schemes running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars - lead eventually to an act of
outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility.
3)
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
By Max Brooks
Published by Broadway; Reprint edition (October
16, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0307346617 ISBN-13: 978-0307346612
342 Pages
“The end was near.” —Voices from the Zombie War
The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven
by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from
those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the
world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the
most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men,
women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the
undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had
access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also
the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years.
4)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
By Betty Smith
Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics
(January 18, 2005)
ISBN-10: 0060736267 ISBN-13: 978-0060736262
528 pages
Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human
nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with
a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too
freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early
the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and
hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant
need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar
gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive. Betty
Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published over 50 years
ago. Her frank writing about life's squalor was alarming to some of the more genteel
society, but the book's humor and pathos ensured its place in the realm of classics--and in
the hearts of readers, young and old.