Gail Brandeis
My Life with the Lincolns (Holt Books for Young Readers)
A delightful novel about a twelve-year old girl who becomes convinced that her family is the reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln's, and tries to keep her father safe as he involves her in the Chicago Freedom Movement, marches with Dr. King and tries to bring integration to the suburbs all while evading her flighty mother and dealing with her obnoxious sisters.

Edwin Burrows
Forgotten Patriots (Basic)
The untold story of the British abuse of American POW's in New York during the Revolutionary War, by the co-author of Gotham.

Mollie Caldwell Crosby
Asleep: The Epidemic That Became Medicine's Greatest Mystery (Berkley)
The forgotten story of encephalitis lethargica or "sleeping sickness," an epidemic that plagued New York City during the 1920's, affecting 5 million people worldwide, in which victims fell into a deep sleep, many dying, but thousands more surviving, their minds permanently damaged and spending the rest of their lives in mental asylums.

Pratap Chatterjee
Halliburton's Army (Nation Books)
The inside story of the oil company that took America to war.

Staceyann Chin
The Other Side of Paradise (Scribner)
The celebrated performance poet's memoir of growing up in Jamaica. "The is A Portrait of the Artist written for our age"--Walter Mosley.

Philip Clark and David Groff
Persistent Voices (Alyson)
An anthology of poets lost to AIDS, from Reinaldo Arenas, Tory Dent, and James Merrill to Paul Monette, Essex Hemphill, and Joe Brainard.

Cliff Conner
A People's History of Science (Nation Books)
A revolutionary account of how science was developed by ordinary people, rather than a few geniuses.

John D'Agata
The Lost Origins of the Essay (Graywolf)
An exploration of the roots of the essay form, from ancient Mesopotamia to classical Greece and Rome, from fifth-century Japan to nineteenth-century France, and beyond. With seminal works by Heraclitus, Sei Sho-nagon, Michel de Montaigne, Jonathan Swift, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, Octavio Paz, and many more.

Martin Duberman
The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein (Knopf)
A life of the great impresario and driving force in American modernism.

Elana Dykewoman
Risk (Bywater)
A beautifully told novel chronicling life and politics from the 80's through the post 9/11 era. Carol is an idealistic, Berkeley-educated, Jewish lesbian living in Oakland, California. Through Carol’s life, Dykewomon explores the changing times and values in America.

Hester Eisenstein
Feminism Seduced: How Global Elites Use Women's Labor and Ideas to Exploit the World (Paradigm)
A pioneering reinterpretation of the role of mainstream feminism, and the ways it has been coopted by global capitalism.

Martin Espada
The Republic of Poetry (W.W. Norton)
The eighth collection of poems by "the Pable Neruda of North American authors" (Sandra Cisneros).

Brian Evenson
Fugue State (Coffee House)
Hallucinatory and darkly comic stories of paranoia, pursuit, sensory deprivation, amnesia, and retribution. "Brian Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar Allan Poe." Jonathan Lethem

Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Writers on Twain (Library of America)
A collection of writings on Twain and his continuing influence on international literature.

Susanne Freidberg
Fresh: A Perishable History (Harvard)
A history of the global trade in fresh foods, and how it has transformed our diet and our ideas of what food is and should be.

Joan Friedman
Emotionally Healthy Twins (Da Capo Lifelong)
The seven simple concepts to raising twins as emotionally healthy individuals even while encouraging them to cherish their special sibling relationship.

Barry Golson
Retirement Without Borders (Scribner)
Barry Golson and his wife Thia explore all the ways in which retiring abroad is becoming a viable alternative to Sun City and Florida, giving advice, locations, and practical tips for resettling.

Bruce Grierson
U-Turn (Bloomsbury)
A highly original anatomy of the "secular conversion," the experience of throwing over one's beliefs and crossing over to the other side.

Deborah Harkness
The Jewel House: Science in Elizabethan London (Yale)
A fascinating exploration of science in bustling, raucous Elizabethan London.

Jennifer Heath
The Veil: Women Writers on its History, Lore and Politics (University of California)
An anthology of essays by internationally prominent women scholars and authors, the first to deal with the culture and politics of the veil in Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

Dale Hrabi
The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for the Excessively Motivated New Parent (HarperCollins)
Former editor-in-chief of Blender and Radar editor Dale Hrabi's mock child-rearing manual -- a hilarious illustrated guide in the tradition of The Official Preppy Handbook.

Fred Jerome
Einstein on Israel (St. Martin's)
Einstein's little-known writings on Israel and Palestine, in support of a bi-national state, compiled and annotated by the author of The Einstein File.

Harriet McBryde Johnson
Accidents of Nature (Holt Books for Young Readers)
This stirring book tells the story of Jean, a 17-year-old with cerebral palsy, who attends a camp for the disabled, where all her assumptions are turned upside down.

Ann Jones
Kabul in Winter (Metropolitan/Holt)
A shattering ground-level view of real life in Afghanistan after the Taliban.

Anna Lappe
Diet for a Hot Planet (Bloomsbury)
The misunderstood link between the world food system and climate change, by a rising star advocate of sustainable living.

Camilo Mejia
The Road from Ar Ramadi (New Press)
The memoir of a soldier in Iraq who refused to go back, and now speaks out against the war.

Stephanie Mencimer
Blocking the Courthouse Door (Free Press)
How corporations and right-wing politicians are taking away your right to sue, and getting away with murder.

Rutu Modan
Jamilti and Other Stories (Drawn & Quarterly)
A collection of stories, by the author of the acclaimed graphic novel Exit Wounds.

Craig Murray
Dirty Diplomacy (Scribner)
Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Murray was ousted when he became an outspoken critic of the "War on Terror." A vivid, gripping memoir. (Published in the UK summer 2006.)

Heather O'Neill
Lullabies for Little Criminals (HarperPerennial)
Baby is 12-going-on-20, growing up on the streets in Montreal; a luminous debut novel, winner of the Canada Reads competition for 2007.

Miriam Peskowitz (with Andrea Buchanan)
The Double Daring Book for Girls (HarperCollins)
The follow-up to the smash hit Daring Book for Girls, with all-new adventures and lore for girls.

Adrienne Rich
A Human Eye (Norton)
New essays on art and society by one of America's foremost poets.

Mark Scroggins
The Poem of a Life: A Biography of Louis Zukofsky (Shoemaker & Hoard)
A life of the singular Louis Zukofsky, a poet whose work spanned the divide from modernism to postmodernism.

John Siceloff and Jason Maloney
Your America (Palgrave)
From the producers of the PBS series NOW with David Brancaccio: profiles of local activists who are taking bold intiatives to change their communities.

Tom Tomorrow
The Future is so Bright I Can't Bear to Look (Nation Books)
The latest collection of the bitingly satirical comic strip This Modern World. In full color!

Brad Tuttle
How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American City (Rutgers)
A lively history of the embattled city, from its foundings to its present revivial.

Jay Wexler
Holy Hullabaloos (Beacon)
Boston University Law School professor and humor writer Jay Wexler's slightly skewed tour of First Amendment battle sites, where some of the most important struggles over free speech, press, religion, and assembly have taken place.


Martha Ackmann
Vesuvius at Home: Ten Days in the Life, Loves and Mystery of Emily Dickinson (Smithsonian)
A narrative exploration of the forces that shaped the author as a poet, seen through the prism of ten pivotal days, including her struggles with God, secret anguish, and passionate love.

Susan Bordo
The Anne Boleyn Diet (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The English queen as proto-feminist heroine.

Dorothy Cotton
If Your Back's Not Bent: The Civil Rights Movement, from Victim to Victory (Atria)
A memoir and stirring call to action by the only woman member of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s inner circle, who headed up the Citizenship Education Program which trained activists like Rosa Parks in nonviolent action.

John Donnelly
Do Good (Beacon)
A journalist explores the growing American desire to help orphans in Africa--focusing on the saga of one man who made it his mission to start an orphanage, and learned many hard lessons before ultimately triumphing.

Ray Douglas
Expulsion of the Germans (Yale)
The shocking, little-known story of the mass deportation of ethnic Germans from central Europe at the end of World War II.

Daniel Duane
Stock and Awe (Bloomsbury)
A hilarious memoir of cooking obsession, by the author of the classic surfing memoir Caught Inside.

Ronnie Gilbert
A Radical Life with Songs (University of California)
A memoir by the only female member of the iconic American singing group, The Weavers, who survived blacklisting and the McCarthy era.

Aram Goudsouzian
Bill Russell and the Basketball Revolution (University of California)
A look at Bill Russell, one of the greatest winners in sports, and how black players surged into professional basketball, how athletes responded to the civil rights movement, and how basketball became "big-time" in the pantheon of American sports.

Deborah Harkness
A Discovery of Witches (Viking)
A tale of science and magic in which a long-lost alchemical manuscript is discovered at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, leading to romance between a 1,500 year old vampire and a witch in denial of her powers. First of a trilogy; rights sold in 27 countries to date.

Ross Horsley
My First Dictionary (It Books/HarperCollins)
A wicked children's primer for adults, consisting of sunny children's book illustrations from the past paired with the author's irreverent and sometimes twisted definitions, based on the blog of the same name.

Michael Hudson
The Monster (Times Books)
The true history of subprime lending, from its roots in Southern California boiler rooms, to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, by a journalist who has been one of the primary chroniclers of predatory lending.

Steven Jaffe
New York at War (Basic)
A history of New York during wartime--how New York has been a strategic focal point in all of our wars, as a key port, as an industrial and financial center, and as a symbol of American power.

James Kugel
In the Valley of the Shadow (Free Press)
The Harvard biblical scholar and author of HOW TO READ THE BIBLE chronicles his two years on an experimental treatment plan for cancer, exploring what happens when someone is told he will likely die soon, and how this connects to an innate sense of human "smallness" that lies at the heart of all religions.

Chris Lombardi
I Ain't Marching Anymore (University of California)
The history of soldiers and veterans who have opposed war in America, from the Revolutionary War to Iraq.

Michael McMullen
I, Superhero (Citadel)
The author fights crime with an array of Real-Life Superheroes (real-world men and women who dress and act like comic book superheroes), from Mexico City's "Superbarrio Gomez", to Minnesota's "Geist", and the UK's "Angle-Grinder Man".

Arthur Neslen
In Your Eyes a Sandstorm (California)
A portrait of the Palestinians, through eye-opening interviews with a wide cross-section of Palestinian people.

Carla Peterson
Black Gotham (Yale)
A history of African-American life in New York in the 19th century, through the lens of the author's own family, prominent members of the black gentry.

Gretchen Reynolds
Peak: On the Frontiers of 21st Century Fitness (Little Brown)
The scientific research that is changing our understanding of exercise, fitness and training, including practical guidelines for achieving peak physical and mental performance.

Seth Tobocman, Eric Laursen, and Jessica Wehrle
Understanding the Crash (Soft Skull)
A radical primer on the Great Financial Meltdown of 2008, in stunning, pictorial form

Siva Vaidhyanathan
The Googlization of Everything (University of California)
How Google is transforming modern culture, commerce and communication...not necessarily for the better. UK rights sold to Profile Books.

Steve Wilson
Perros on the Pitch (Beacon)
A stirring account of a season spent with the talented Woodburn Bulldogs, a mostly Hispanic high school soccer team in Oregon, as they go for an ever elusive state championship against wealthier suburban teams, looking at what holds them back on and off the field.