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1. Tuesdays With Morrie An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson

In TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE, sportswriter and best-selling author Mitch Albom chronicles his weekly conversations with his former college professor and mentor, Morrie Schwartz, in the months before the Brandeis University sociologist succumbed to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease. Their Tuesday conversations ranged widely over basic human concerns--love, money, commitment, spirit, how people spend their days thinking and doing, and what really matters in the world. In what the publisher is calling "spirituality literature for grown-ups," the author recounts his mentor's final, lasting gift: the wisdom to see his own life as something different than the accretion of fame, money, and success.

2. Three Cups of Tea One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism And Build Nations One School at a Time

by Greg Mortenson; David Oliver Relin

Greg Mortenson recounts his experiences as co-founder of the Central Asia Institute, a nongovernmental organization that, since the 1990s, has done exemplary work in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where it has built and operated schools and improved public health. He tells how, by working side-by-side, the villagers and the staff of the CAI have overcome challenges, drawn on strengths, and worked toward breaking down the ignorance and prejudice that might otherwise have divided them. It has not been easy and the need is great, says Mortenson, and underscores the fact that the positive work of NGOs like the Central Asia Institute can go far in fighting terrorism.

3. Into the Wild

by Jon Krakauer

INTO THE WILD developed out of an article which Mr. Krakauer wrote for "Outside" magazine. The Emory University honors graduate Christopher Johnson McCandless--"Alexander Supertramp"--took off after school in rebellion against authority and his privileged upbringing. Krakauer reveals the details leading up to the boy's death in the Alaskan wilderness, where he was found by hunters in September of 1992, at the age of 24. The author shares personal reflections about his own risk-taking adventures, as well as impressions of those who knew Christopher. In 2007, the book was made into a film directed by Sean Penn.

4. The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

by Erik Larson

The 1893 Chicago World's Fair is the setting for this true account of two very different men: the celebrated architect Daniel H. Burnham who designed and supervised the construction of the "White City" around which the fair was built, and H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett), a fiendishly clever serial killer posing as a doctor who murdered scores of people, mostly young women, in his World's Fair Hotel, which contained a gas chamber and a handy crematorium for disposing of his victims. Telling their entwined stories in alternating points of view, Erik Larson illuminates the lives of these two men, but provides insightful commentary on the changes that were taking place in American society that allowed both phenomena--a grandiose World's Fair and a string of unsolved murders--to take place. The book contains cameo appearances by such late-19th-century celebrities as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison.

5. Dreams from My Father A Story of Race and Inheritance

by Barack Obama

When Barack Obama learns of the death of his African father, whom he hardly knew, he is compelled to trace his unusual family history. Obama, who became a nationally known figure in 2004 when he gave the keynote address at the Democratic Convention, writes movingly about being raised in Hawaii by his white mother. He goes on to describe his years at Harvard (where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review), his illuminating visit to family members in Kenya, and his work as a community activist in Chicago, where he eventually entered Illinois politics. While the book ends there, the rest is history. On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States of America.

6. Eat, Pray, Love One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

by Elizabeth Gilbert

Emotionally wrung-out from her divorce, the painful ending of a subsequent love affair, and a general, long-standing feeling of malaise, novelist and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert decides to recharge herself through a year's worth of travel, believing that her return to happiness could be found through exploring both physical gratification and spiritual peace and then determining an appropriate balance between the two. She pursues the first part of her program (eating, drinking, and talking) in Italy, the second in India (joining an ashram), and the third in Bali (studying with a medicine man).

7. Big Russ and Me Father and Son Lessons of Life

by Tim Russert

Journalist Tim Russert looks back at his childhood in Buffalo, NY, in the 1950s. Raised a Catholic by parents who taught him a combination of moral values and common sense, Russert grew up in a world with marked differences from today's, and he describes it with affection, eloquence, and humor. In particular, he concentrates on his father, Tim, Sr., who came home from World War II to drive a truck and raise a family, and who has been a source of inspiration and wisdom to his son all his life--a relationship Russert has tried to establish with his own son.

8. The Color of Water A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother

by James McBride

A young black man's search to uncover his white mother's past and his own identity. Born in Poland, the daughter of a rabbi, James McBride's mother grew up in the Southern United States, ran away to Harlem, married a black man and founded a Baptist church, and then proceeded to put 12 children through college. McBride examines her life, his own childhood in Brooklyn's Red Hook housing projects, and the force of his mother's love which guided his and his siblings' lives.

9. Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generation

by Joseph J. Ellis

This group portrait of the Founding Fathers emphasizes the sometimes intense associations and rivalries among Jefferson, Hamilton, Burr, Adams, Franklin, Madison, and Washington.The author examines six defining moments when the personal and the political collided, and shows how their distinctive styles and visions forged a new nation. A New York Times Notable Book for 2001.

10. Black Elk Speaks

by John G. Neihardt

This is the autobiography of Black Elk, a Lakota Indian fighting for freedom at the end of the 19th century, as told to author John G. Neihardt. While his tale glows with eyewitness accounts of historic events and Lakota Sioux customs, the heart of the book is Black Elk's soulful visions of a better future for his people and, by extension, for all humanity. He urges us to follow the "good red road" of interconnectedness and respect for all life, to honor the past without becoming mired in it, and to regard the earth as sacred. It is this emphasis on earth-centered spirituality that has made BLACK ELK SPEAKS a classic of Native American literature and the environmental movement.

11. John Adams

by David Willis McCullough

This biography of the second President of the United States is by the esteemed historian whose biography TRUMAN won a Pulitzer Prize. McCullough tells of Adams's life as a farmer and lawyer, his relationship with his beloved Abigail, and the role he played in the turbulent events which led to the founding of a nation. He explores his relationships with the other Founding Fathers, especially the important differences with his rival, Thomas Jefferson. A New York Times Editors' Choice selection for 2001.

12. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

by Dave Eggers

Undoubtedly one of the most inventive and unorthodox memoirs ever written, A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS became an instant bestseller, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and made Dave Eggers's name as a brilliant, risk-taking young writer. Orphaned in college when his parents both died of cancer in the span of 32 days, Eggers and his kid brother Toph moved to San Francisco and set up a delightfully unorthodox life together, a mix of carefree adolescence and the unexpected responsibilities of adulthood. In between enrolling Toph in school, finding a home, juggling various romances, and auditioning for THE REAL WORLD, Eggers founded MIGHT, an independent magazine featuring a potent blend of commentary, cynicism, and comedy--the same raucous style that would fuel his memoir. Though AHWOSG turns the memoir genre on its head and teems with self-mockery and postmodern trickery, beneath the cleverness it is a remarkable story of youthful hope and zeal, a story that became an instant classic for the youth generation at the dawn of the 21st century.

13. Maus a Survivors Tale My Father Bleeds History

by Art Spiegelman

MAUS, the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel and illustrated biography by Art Spiegelman, is widely considered to have vaulted the graphic novel to new heights in terms of literary quality, artistic merit, and personal and historical complexity. Using anthropomorphic animal characters (Jews are depicted as mice, Germans as cats, Americans as dogs, etc.) and a combination of flashbacks, memories, and stories, Spiegelman recounts the experiences of his father Vladek Spiegelman before, during, and after World War II, including his harrowing years in concentration camps. The first volume, MY FATHER BLEEDS HISTORY, establishes Spiegelman's father in the present as an irritable old man with a bad heart living in Queens, New York, and then deftly moves back in time to shows his youthful romances and eventual marriage to the beautiful Anja. Their happiness, however, is short-lived: they are forced to relocate into the Jewish ghetto while worse dangers loom as the Nazis' Final Solution grinds into action. The use of cartoons to describe such appalling events seems problematic, but MAUS brilliantly captures not only the awful weight of history, but also humorous and humane moments from a dark time in human civilization.