Short List of Nominated Titles for 2008-2009 Freshman Common Reader
(Three Finalists Marked in Parentheses)

(Summaries provided by Amazon.com)

• Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (FINALIST)
  • Author: Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
  • Pages: 368
  • Year of Publication: 2007
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $15.00
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Cups-Tea-Mission-Promote/dp/0143038257/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9931283-6531856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191265761&sr=8-1
  • Summary: Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen,Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.
• The Farming of Bones
  • Author: Edwidge Danticat
  • Pages: 320
  • Year of Publication: 1998
  • Publisher: Penguin
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $14.00
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Farming-Bones-Edwidge-Danticat/dp/0140280499/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9931283-6531856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191364764&sr=1-1
  • Summary: The almost dreamlike pace of Danticat's second novel (Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1994) and the measured narration by the protagonist, Amabelle Desir, at first give no indication that this will be a story of furious violence and nearly unbearable loss. The setting, the Dominican Republic in 1937, when dictator Trujillo was beginning his policy of genocide, is a clue, however, to the events that Amabelle relates. She and her lover, Sebastien Onius, are Haitians who have crossed the border. Amabelle is a servant to a patrician family, while Sebastien endures the brutal conditions of work in the cane fields. The lovers each have poignant memories of parental deaths, and other deaths enter the narrative early, subtly presaging the slaughter that is to come. Haitians in the DR, always regarded as foreigners, are "an orphaned people, a group of vwayaje, wayfarers." When a military-led assault against them does erupt, it is a surprise, however, and as Amabelle barely survives a massacre by soldiers and an equally bloodthirsty civilian population, the narrative acquires the unflinching clarity of a documentary. In addition to illuminating a shameful, little known chapter of history, Danticat gives us fully realized characters who endure their lives with dignity, a sensuously atmospheric setting and a perfectly paced narrative written in prose that is lushly poetic and erotic, specifically detailed (the Haitians were betrayed by their inability to pronounce "parsley") and starkly realistic. While this novel is deeply sad, it is infused with Danticat's fierce need to bear witness, coupled with a knowledge that "life can be a strange gift" even when memory makes endurance a difficult task.
• The Glass Castle
  • Author: Jeannette Walls
  • Pages: 288
  • Year of Publication: 2006
  • Publisher: Scribner
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $15.00
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Castle-Memoir-Jeannette-Walls/dp/074324754X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9931283-6531856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191366123&sr=1-1
  • Summary: Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover.
  • Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
  • Author: Richard Louv
  • Pages: 335
  • Year of Publication: 2005
  • Publisher: Algonquin Books
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $11.16
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Woods-Nature-Deficit-Disorder/dp/1565125223/sr=1-1/qid=1160456438/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-6551438-0506469?ie=UTF8&s=books
  • Summary: Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.
• Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America
  • Author: Mike Yankoski
  • Pages: 224
  • Year of Publication: 2005
  • Publisher: Multnomah
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $11.99
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Overpass-Journey-Streets-America/dp/1590524020/ref=sr_1_1/103-9931283-6531856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191439712&sr=8-1
  • Summary: As a college student in Santa Barbara, Yankoski was comfortable with his life. However, listening to a Sunday sermon one morning, he began to wonder whether his faith would remain as strong if his privileged upbringing and typical college existence were taken away. So began his decision to put his faith to the test. After discussing his plans with his family and various advisors, he and a friend took a leave of absence from their studies and their middle-class lives to enter the world of the homeless. They spent five months in 2003 on the streets of Denver; Phoenix; Washington, DC; and other cities. Playing their guitars and panhandling, they relied entirely on charity. The harshness, hunger, dangers, and indignities they faced are reported in detail. They formed friendships with other homeless people and watched many of them struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction. Yankoski steers clear of preachy or patronizing tones, and his dry sense of humor makes the book thoroughly readable. Teens will appreciate the frankness with which he approaches the day-to-day challenges and his personal struggles.
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel
  • Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
  • Pages: 368
  • Year of Publication: 2005
  • Publisher: Mariner Books
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $11.16
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Extremely-Loud-Incredibly-Close-Novel/dp/0618711651/sr=1-2/qid=1160362194/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-6551438-0506469?ie=UTF8&s=books
  • Summary: This follow-up to Foer's extremely good and incredibly successful Everything Is Illuminated (2002) stars one Oskar Schell, a nine-year-old amateur inventor and Shakespearean actor. But Oskar's boots, as he likes to say, are very heavy--his father, whom he worshiped, perished in the World Trade Center on 9/11. In his dad's closet a year later, Oskar finds a key in a vase mysteriously labeled "Black." So he goes searching after the lock it opens, visiting (alphabetically) everyone listed in the phone book with the surname Black. Oskar, who's a cross between The Tin Drum's Oskar Matzerath and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time's Christopher Boone, doesn't always sound like he's nine, but his first-person narration of his journey is arrestingly beautiful, and readers won't soon forget him. A subplot about Oskar's mute grandfather, who survived the bombing of Dresden, isn't as compelling as Oskar's quest for the lock, but when the stories finally come together, the result is an emotionally devastating climax. No spoilers here, but we will say that the book--which includes a number of photographs and some eccentric typography--ends with what is undoubtedly the most beautiful and heartbreaking flip book in all of literature.
• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change (FINALIST)
  • Pages: 204
  • Year of Publication: 2006
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $13.95
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Field-Notes-Catastrophe-Nature-Climate/dp/1596911301/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-9931283-6531856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191631910&sr=8-2
  • Summary: On the burgeoning shelf of cautionary but occasionally alarmist books warning about the consequences of dramatic climate change, Kolbert's calmly persuasive reporting stands out for its sobering clarity. Expanding on a three-part series for the New Yorker, Kolbert (The Prophet of Love) lets facts rather than polemics tell the story: in essence, it's that Earth is now nearly as warm as it has been at any time in the last 420,000 years and is on the precipice of an unprecedented "climate regime, one with which modern humans have had no prior experience." An inexorable increase in the world's average temperature means that butterflies, which typically restrict themselves to well-defined climate zones, are now flitting where they've never been found before; that nearly every major glacier in the world is melting rapidly; and that the prescient Dutch are already preparing to let rising oceans reclaim some of their land. In her most pointed chapter, Kolbert chides the U.S. for refusing to sign on to the Kyoto Accord. In her most upbeat chapter, Kolbert singles out Burlington, Vt., for its impressive energy-saving campaign, which ought to be a model for the rest of the nation—just as this unbiased overview is a model for writing about an urgent environmental crisis.
• Enrique's Journey (FINALIST)
  • Author: Sonia Nazario
  • Pages: 336
  • Year of Publication: 2005
  • Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
  • Available in paperback: yes
  • Price: $14.95
  • Link to reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Enriques-Journey-Sonia-Nazario/dp/0812971787/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7986763-1830424?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191937862&sr=8-1
  • Summary: Seeking to understand why Latina single mothers leave their children to come to the U.S., and why many children undertake the hazardous journey to reunite with them, Nazario traced one family's story. Enrique was determined to find his mother, who left him in Honduras when he was five. At 16, after seven attempts to make it to Texas, robbed by bandits or police, beaten, jailed, and deported again and again, he finally reached the Rio Grande and earned enough to call her. She sent him money to pay a coyote to smuggle him across the border and the two were reunited, but they are strangers now, their relationship strained. Meanwhile, Enrique's girlfriend in Honduras bore his child. Ultimately, she joined him, leaving their three-year-old            daughter behind. Mothers leave their children to send back money for better food, clothing, and schooling, yet years of separation strain family ties. The author retraced Enrique's journey by traveling on top of trains, hitchhiking, taking buses, facing the dangers the teen faced. Photographs and interviews with him, family members, other children, and those who provide aid along the way document the hazards of migration. Descriptions of rapes, beatings, and jailing of immigrant children and accounts of those who suffered loss of limbs falling from freight trains are graphic and disturbing. But no one can doubt the authenticity of this reporting.

2008 Freshman Common Reader – Final List of All Nominated Books

• 1968: The Year That Rocked the World, Mark Kurlansky
• 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Life & Death, Don Piper
• A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Dave Harvey
• A Columbine Survivor's Story, Marjorie Lindholm
• A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up in Small Mooreland, Indiana, Haven Kimmel
• A Hatred for Tulips, Richard Lourie
• A Heart Divided, Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld
• A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League, Ron Suskind
• A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest Gaines
• A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Ishmael Beah
• A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut  
• A Monk Jumped Over a Wall, Jay Nussbaum
• A Time to Kill, John Grisham
• A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink
• A World Without Us, Alan Wiseman
• Above the Cry of Battle, Charles Holsinger 
• Abraham: A Journey to the Hearts of Three Faiths, Bruce Feiler
• Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border, Luis Alberto Urrea
• An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina
• Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope, Jenna Bush
• Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
• Angry Black White Boy: A Novel, Adam Mansbach
• Another Country: Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders, Mary Pipher
• Arabian Jazz, Diana Abu-Jaber
• Barrel Fever, David Sedaris
• Behind the Veil: An American Woman's Memoir of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Debra Johanyak
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston
• Black and Blue, Anna Quidlen
• Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin
• Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming, Paul Hawken
• Blink, Ted Dekker
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell 
• Born on a Blue Wednesday: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant, Daniel Tammet
• Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
• Burning Bright, Tracy Chevalier
• Catch Me if You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake, Frank Abagnale
• Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
• Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart
• Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender, Ralph Nader
• Crimes Against Logic, Jamie Whyte
• Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury
• Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri
• Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Kevin Bales
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
• Enrique's Journey, Sonia Nazario
• Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth, Dan Millman
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel, Jonathan Safran Foer
• Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
• Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, Elizabeth Kolbert
• Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, Kenneth R. Miller
• For One More Day, Mitch Albom
• Framework for Understanding Poverty, Ruby Payne
• Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
• From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas L. Friedman
• Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, Ben Carson
• GIMP: When Life Deals You a Crappy Hand, You Can Fold or You Can Play, Mark Zupan and Tim Swanson
• Highway 61: A Father-and-Son Journey Across Middle America, William McKeen
• Homeless Bird, Gloria Whelan
• How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
• Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, Richard Rodriguez
• I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker Max
• In the Name of Honor: A Memoir, Mukhtar Mai
• Into the Wild, John Krakauer
• Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury
• Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit, Daniel Quinn
• James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (Pivotal Moments in American History, Richard Labunski
• Jay's Journal, Beatrice Sparks
• Jennifer Government, Max Barry
• Jim the Boy: A Novel, Tony Earley
• Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil, Deborah Rodriguez and Kristin Ohlson
• Kindred, Octavia Butler
• Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv
• Launching a Leadership Revolution, Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward
• Lay That Trumpet in Our Hands, Susan Carol McCarthy
• Less Than Zero, Bret Easton Ellis
• Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
• Life – Changing Jobs, Phoebe Damrosch
• Life of Pi, Yann Martel
• Little New York Bastard: A Memoir, M. Dylan Raskin
• Lucky: A Memoir, Alice Sebold
• Man Overboard: Confessions of a Novice Math Teacher in the Bronx, Ric Klass
• Maus a Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History, Art Spielelman 
• Mayada, Daughter of Iraq: One Woman's Survival Under Saddam Hussein, Jean Sasson
• Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
• Miracle in the Andes, Nando Parrado
• Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, Robert J. Conley
• My Sister's Keeper: A Novel, Jodi Picoult
• Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel - Why Everything You Know Is Wrong, John Stossel
• Native Son, Richard Wright
• Nicked and Dimed:On (Not) Getting by in America, Barbara Ehrenreich
• Night, Elie Wiesel
• No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court, Edward Humes
• Nuklear Age, Brian Clevinger
• Of Beetles and Angels:  A Boy's Remarkable Journey from a Refugee Camp to Harvard, Mawi Asgedom
• Outside Shooter, Philip Raisor
• Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi
• Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America, Stephen Bloom
• Practicing the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence
• Quiet Strength, Tony Dungy
• Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession, Studs Terkel
• Ransomed, Candy Morehouse
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, Azar Nafisi
• Reefer Madness:  Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market, Eric Schlosser
• Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—and Doesn't, Stephen Prothero
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!, Robert Kiyosaki
• Rocket Boys, Homer Hickman
• Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America, Leon Dash
• Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis
• See You at the Top, Zig Ziglar
• She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, Jennifer Finney Boylan
• Smashed: Story of  Drunken Girlhood, Koren Zailckas
• Still Woman Enough: A Memoir, Loretta Lynn
• Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert
• Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck 
• Suicide Junkie, S. Westwood
• Taking Care of Cleo, Bill Broder
• Teacher Man: A Memoir, Frank McCourt
• The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team, John C. Maxwell
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John C. Maxwell
• The Assault on Reason, Al Gore
• The Blackbird Papers, Ian Smith
• The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, Michael Lewis
• The Burn Journals, Brent Runyon
• The Celestine Prophecy, James Redfield
• The Covenant with Black America, Tavis Smiley
• The Courage to Survive, Dennis Kucinich
• The Devil's Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea
• The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf
• The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Jeffrey Sachs
• The Farming of Bones, Edwidge Danticat
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
• The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, Amity Shlaes
• The Fred Factor: How Passion in your Work Life Can Turn the Ordinary into the Extraordinary, Mark Sanborn
• The Ghost Map, Stephen Johnson
• The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls
• The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
• The Joy of Freedom: An Economist's Odyssey, David Henderson
• The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini
• The Mercury 13: The True Story of Thirteen Women and the Dream of Space Flight, Martha Ackmann
• The Middle of Everywhere: Helping Refugees Enter the American Community, Mary Pipher
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, Michael Pollan
• The Pact: Three Young Men Make a Promise and Fulfill a Dream, Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, Rameck Hunt
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
• The Piano Tuner, Daniel Mason
• The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life, Marie Winn
• The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
• The Power of Logical Thinking, Marilyn vos Savant
• The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, Terry Ryan
• The Pursuit of Happiness, Chris Gardner
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• The School of Dying Graces, Richard Felix and Rob Wilkins
• The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman
• The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
• The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, James W. Sire
• The Wednesday Letters, Jason Wright
• The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas L. Friedman
• The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, Timothy Egan
• The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story, Diane Ackerman
• Thermopylae: The Battle for the West, Ernle Bradford
• Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism, Temple Grandin
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
• Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson, Mitch Albom
• Under the Overpass: A Journey of Faith on the Streets of America, Mike Yankoski
• We Are All the Same: A Story of a Boy's Courage and a Mother's Love, Jim Wooten
• We Were the Mulvaneys, Joyce Carol Oates
• What's So Great About America, Dinesh D'Souza
• Where We Stand: Class Matters, Bell Hooks
• Writing to Change the World, Mary Pipher
• You've Been Warned, James Paterson
• Zenzele, J. Nozipo Maraire