Research Guides: Leisure Reading at Ginsburg: Non-Fiction/Bios

Biographies/Memoirs

When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
Call Number: B San

Esmeralda Santiago's story begins in rural Puerto Rico, where her childhood was full of both tenderness and domestic strife, tropical sounds and sights as well as poverty. Growing up, she learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs in the mango groves at night, the taste of the delectable sausage called morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. As she enters school we see the clash, both hilarious and fierce, of Puerto Rican and Yankee culture...
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Call Number: B Ang

Here is a book as joyous and painful, and as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou's first memoir, published in 1969 is a modern American classic beloved worldwide...

Biographies/Memoirs

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Call Number: B Nor

This unforgettable memoir was the basis for the Academy Award nominated film 12 Years a Slave. This is the true story of Solomon Northup, who was born and raised as a freeman in New York. He lived the American dream, with a house and a loving family - a wife and two kids. Then one day he was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in the deep south...
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai; Christina Lamb (As told to)
Call Number: B You

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive...

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Would you recommend these books?

When I Was Puerto Rican

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

12 Years a Slave

I am Malala

Lean In: for Graduates

Dragnet Nation

Gulp

When I Was Puerto Rican: 1 votes (20%)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: 3 votes (60%)

12 Years a Slave: 1 votes (20%)

I am Malala: 0 votes (0%)

Lean In: for Graduates: 0 votes (0%)

Dragnet Nation: 0 votes (0%)

Gulp: 0 votes (0%)

Total Votes: 5

Non-Fiction

Lean In: for Graduates by Sheryl Sandberg
Call Number: Nonfiction San

Expanded and updated exclusively for graduates just entering the workforce, this extraordinary edition of Lean In includes a letter to graduates from Sheryl Sandberg and six additional chapters from experts offering advice on finding and getting the most out of a first job; résumé writing; best interviewing practices; negotiating your salary; listening to your inner voice; owning who you are; and leaning in for millennial men.
Dragnet Nation by Julia Angwin
Call Number: Nonfiction Ang

An inside look at who's watching you, what they know and why it matters. We are being watched. We see online ads from websites websites you've visited, long after we've moved on to other interests. Our smartphones and cars transmit our location, enabling us to know what';s in the neighborhood but also enabling others to track us. And the federal government, we recently learned, has been conducting a massive data-gathering surveillance operation across the Internet and on our phone lines. In Dragnet Nation, award-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin reports from the front lines of America's surveillance economy...
Gulp by Mary Roach
Call Number: Nonfiction Roa

"America's funniest science writer" (Washington Post) takes us down the hatch on an unforgettable tour. The alimentary canal is classic Mary Roach terrain: the questions explored in Gulp are as taboo, in their way, as the cadavers in Stiff and every bit as surreal as the universe of zero gravity explored in Packing for Mars. Why is crunchy food so appealing? Why is it so hard to find words for flavors and smells? Why doesn't the stomach digest itself? How much can you eat before your stomach bursts? Can constipation kill you? Did it kill Elvis? In Gulp we meet scientists who tackle the questions no one else thinks of--or has the courage to ask...

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