Shady Side Academy Senior School Summer Reading List 2015

Shady Side Academy Senior School
                               Summer Reading List 2015

Summer Reading is an opportunity for students to explore some contemporary or classic books,
challenging themselves with new ideas or becoming immersed in a gripping plot. You should choose
books that appeal to you and enjoy the process of reading. This is not the time to choose the
shortest book or scurry onto the internet for a bland and superficial summary; this is not a time to
follow someone else’s expert recommendation. Rather, this is a time where you lose yourself in a
story, under a tree, basking in the beautiful summer. Dig in and enjoy!

The directions for summer reading are as follows: choose two books from the list for the form you
will be in next year. As you read, think about a question that arises naturally from the text. What
issues are in it that you would like to talk about with other students? Then pose and answer that
question in a 1-2 page written response, referencing and quoting from your book as appropriate.
Write a question and response for each of your books. These questions will become part of the
Summer Reading Day book discussions in the fall.

In summary: read two books of your choice from your specific form. Craft a question for each of
your two Summer Reading Books and a 1-2 page written answer to that question by Summer
Reading Day, which will take place in the morning on the second day of school.

                                 Lower Form (forms III and IV):

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, All the Light We Cannot See is the story of Marie-Laure,
an inquisitive young woman from Paris who happens to be blind, and of Werner, an orphan from a
German mining town whose skill with mathematics and machines takes him far away from the sister
he loves. In this novel, the stories of these two characters swoop back and forth in time and place,
sometimes bringing these characters tantalizingly close, sometimes separating them by hundreds of
miles or by decades. Throughout this novel of World War II, we are reminded of the fine line that
sometimes exists between decency and depravity. Well-plotted, this novel stands out for its lyrical
language and its ability to evoke the thrill and terror of war and of growing up.

Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck

Unburdened by the material necessities of the more fortunate, the denizens of Cannery Row discover
rewards unknown in more traditional society. Henry the painter sorts through junk lots for pieces of
wood to incorporate into the boat he is building, while the girls from Dora Flood’s bordello venture
out now and then to enjoy a bit of sunshine. Lee Chong stocks his grocery with almost anything a
man could want, and Doc, a young marine biologist who ministers to sick puppies and unhappy
souls, unexpectedly finds true love. Cannery Row is just a few blocks long, but the story it harbors is

suffused with warmth, understanding, and a great fund of human values. First published in
1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is—both the exuberance of community and
the loneliness of the individual. John Steinbeck draws on his memories of the real inhabitants of
Monterey, California, and interweaves their stories in this world where only the fittest survive—
creating what is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works.

The Chosen, Chaim Potok

Reuven and Danny meet as adversaries on a baseball field in Brooklyn but soon become linked by
their deep faith and admiration for each other’s intellectual and spiritual commitment. Potok’s
portrayal of their growing relationship against the backdrop of post-WWII America provides a warm
personal lens through which to view the challenges of faith, family, and friendship.

Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best
friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely
begun. Code Name Verity is the story of two young women who should never have crossed paths, yet
were destined to become the best of friends and embark upon the covert mission that would
determine which of them would live or die. Courage born of friendship, fierce hope, and surprising
ironies abound in this spell-binding novel that will appeal to teens and adult readers alike. A Michael
L. Printz Award Honor book that was called "a fiendishly-plotted mind game of a novel" in The New
York Times, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how
far true friends will go to save each other. [From Amazon overview]

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially
fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts
Bay during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory of McCarthyism, when the U.S.
government blacklisted accused communists. Miller himself was questioned by the House of
Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of "contempt of
Congress" for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize, this novel tells the story of Pi Patel, a young Indian boy who
finds himself on a most remarkable journey of survival in the Pacific Ocean. It involves a curious
confluence of religion, zookeeping, someone named Richard Parker, the power of perseverance, and
the importance of storytelling. Do read the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book, which is
actually part of the novel, and a crucial one . . .

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

This is one of the books you should read sometime during your youth and then, again, sometime
during your adult years. This is the original from which so many popular youth oriented dystopias
have sprung. Read it. You will be better for having done that and, more than that, it’s a great story.
This famous novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding relates the story of a group of
British school boys abandoned on a desert island during a global war. They are alone on the island,
the only two adults having been killed when the plane carrying them crashed. Golding's work is a
parable about the inherent evil in human nature and an exploration of the nature of good, evil and
innocence. ["Overview: Lord of the Flies." Characters in 20th-Century Literature. Laurie Lanzen Harris.
Detroit: Gale, 1990. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 May 2015.]

The Martian, a novel by Andy Weir,

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's
sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to
evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to
even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone
long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The
damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to
kill him first. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—
and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable
obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against
him? [from Barnes and Noble overview]

More Curious, by Sean Wilsey

This is a collection of essays about modern American culture and also Marfa, Texas by the journalist
and memoirist Sean Wilsey. There are antique Chevy pickup trucks and talking cardboard cutouts,
inexplicable lights in the desert, and Craigslist wins. There is also some mature language and
imagery, and an account of 9-11 by a resident New Yorker. Wilsey tries to make sense of the great
patchwork quilt that is our country, and make fun too, where fun is called for. [Note: This book
contains some mature material.]

The River King, Alice Hoffman

The setting of Alice Hoffman’s novel is Haddan, Massachusetts and a “prestigious prep school.”
Locals do not mix with students, and the school itself has its cliques with their defined boundaries,
and everyone has to figure where he or she belongs. Yet, as is often the case, boundaries will be
broken. A student will try to develop a relationship with a “townie,” a wild photographer wants to
marry a conservative teacher, and a student’s body is found in the river behind the school. (This
information is paraphrased from the cover of the book.) This book was included before for summer
reading; students loved it; and we had a great conversation.

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, imagines life after a pandemic wipes out most of the
world’s population. Following the experiences of Kirsten Raymonde, a child actress who finds a
kind of family performing with the Traveling Symphony after the pandemic, this novel takes the
reader back and forth from the night the pandemic hits to the difficult days just after everything falls
apart and on to the experience of survivors decades later. The Traveling Symphony’s motto is
“Because survival is insufficient,” and this novel explores what we really need, physically and
emotionally. Through a variety of points of view and points in time, Station Eleven asks us to
imagine what can be lost and found in a world stripped down to the essential.

When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka

“On a sunny day in Berkeley, California, in 1942, a woman sees a sign in a post office window,
returns to her house, and matter-of-factly begins to pack her family’s possessions. Like thousands of
other Japanese Americans they have been reclassified, virtually overnight, as enemy aliens and are
about to be uprooted from their homes and sent to a dusty internment camp in the Utah desert. In
this lean and devastatingly evocative first novel, Julie Otsuka tells the story of one Japanese
American family from five flawlessly realized points of view—the mother receiving the order to
evacuate; the daughter on the long train ride to the camp; the son in the desert encampment; the
family’s return to their home; and the bitter release of the father after almost four years in captivity.
When the Emperor Was Divine is a work of enormous power that makes a shameful episode of our
history as immediate as today’s headlines.” [Summary taken from
http://www.julieotsuka.com/when-the-emperor-was-divine/]

                                   Upper Form (forms V and VI):

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Winner of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, All the Light We Cannot See is the story of Marie-Laure,
an inquisitive young woman from Paris who happens to be blind, and of Werner, an orphan from a
German mining town whose skill with mathematics and machines takes him far away from the sister
he loves. In this novel, the stories of these two characters swoop back and forth in time and place,
sometimes bringing these characters tantalizingly close, sometimes separating them by hundreds of
miles or by decades. Throughout this novel of World War II, we are reminded of the fine line that
sometimes exists between decency and depravity. Well-plotted, this novel stands out for its lyrical
language and its ability to evoke the thrill and terror of war and of growing up.

Angel of Losses, by Stephanie Feldman

This beautifully written novel combines history, family drama, fantasy and mysticism. Two sisters
are separated by an ideological divide. Between them are the stories that their grandfather told, and
half told. As the stories become increasingly “real,” the relationships between family members
becomes increasingly conflicted. While this novel does feature female characters, this is not a “girl”
book but a well written, well received novel by an emerging young author that has something to
offer everyone.

The Book of Strange New Things, by Michel Faber

A monumental, genre-defying novel that David Mitchell calls "Michel Faber’s second
masterpiece," The Book of Strange New Things is a masterwork from a writer in full command of his
many talents. It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a
lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the
mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as
USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a
dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings—his Bible is their “book of strange new things.”
But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and
earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the
guiding light of their lives, begins to falter. Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly
distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is
threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the
needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for
survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our
responsibility to those closest to us. Marked by bravura storytelling and Faber’s precise
language, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional
complexity and genuine pathos. [Adapted from book overview at Barnes and Noble website]

Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the 7th and latest novel by the celebrated British author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of
the Day. As do many of his novels, this story concerns the problems of memory, in this instance in
the context of medieval Britain, where apparently the people cannot remember their past very
clearly. The central characters, Axl and Beatrice, take a journey across the countryside to try to solve
this problem, along the way encountering an aging Sir Gawain, among other odd characters, and
dealing with the possible presence of a dragon. In the process they must decide whether they really
want to remember everything, since knowing the truth about their past might threaten their own
relationship as well as the peace of the entire realm.

Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler

Nicholas Rubashov, a member of old vanguard of the Russian Revolution, now finds himself a
prisoner during Stalin's purges in the 1930s. As he endures interrogation and torture at the hands of
his former comrades for crimes he did not commit, Rubashov reflects on his life in the Communist
Party and the world he helped create. In the process he is forced to confront the paradoxes of the
Revolution: In order to create a perfect utopia, do the ends justify the means? Is Rubashov willing to
sacrifice himself for the "good" of the Revolution? I chose this book because, after reading it in AP
European history in high school, I was intrigued by the idea that in the attempt to create a perfect
world in the most ruthless way possible, you will inevitably taint the final result, regardless of your
intentions. It can be a somewhat claustrophobic story, as Rubashov is mainly in his prison cell for
most of the book and there is not much "action," but it is packed with ideas that will challenge the
reader about ends and means, and what justice is. Plus, the best villains are the ones who think they
are the good guys and it is even more interesting when one of the villains is forced to reflect on their
crimes and decide whether or not they must pay for them.

The Divide, by Matt Taibbi

Over the last two decades, America has been falling deeper and deeper into a statistical mystery:
• Poverty goes up. Crime goes down. The prison population doubles.
• Fraud by the rich wipes out 40 percent of the world’s wealth. The rich get massively richer. No one goes to jail.
 In search of a solution, journalist Matt Taibbi discovered the Divide, the seam in American life
where our two most troubling trends—growing wealth inequality and mass incarceration—come
together, driven by a dramatic shift in American citizenship: Our basic rights are now determined by
our wealth or poverty. The Divide is what allows massively destructive fraud by the hyperwealthy to
go unpunished, while turning poverty itself into a crime—but it’s impossible to see until you look at
these two alarming trends side by side. Through astonishing—and enraging—accounts of the high-
stakes capers of the wealthy and nightmare stories of regular people caught in the Divide’s punishing
logic, Taibbi lays bare one of the greatest challenges we face in contemporary American life:
surviving a system that devours the lives of the poor, turns a blind eye to the destructive crimes of
the wealthy, and implicates us all. [Adapted from Barnes and Noble overview]

Excellent Sheep, by William Deresiewicz

As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students,
some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think
critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are
turning out conformists without a compass. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure
conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in
the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As
schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing
the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-
discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge

their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over
the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.

Galileo’s Daughter, by Dava Sobel

Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of his daughter
Maria Celeste, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has crafted a biography that dramatically recolors the
personality and accomplishments of a mythic figure whose early-seventeenth-century clash with
Catholic doctrine continues to define the schism between science and religion-the man Albert
Einstein called "the father of modern physics-indeed of modern science altogether." It is also a
stunning portrait of Galileo's daughter, a person hitherto lost to history, described by her father as "a
woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me." Moving between
Galileo's grand public life and Maria Celeste's sequestered world, Sobel illuminates the Florence of
the Medicis and the papal court in Rome during the pivotal era when humanity's perception of its
place in the cosmos was about to be overturned. During that same time, while the bubonic plague
wreaked its terrible devastation and the Thirty Years' War tipped fortunes across Europe, Galileo
sought to reconcile the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic with the heavens he revealed through
his telescope. Filled with human drama and scientific adventure, Galileo's Daughter is an unforgettable
story. [Taken from Barnes and Noble book overview]

Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressefield.

In 480 B.C., an invading Persian army, two-million strong, came to the mountain pass of
Thermopylae in eastern Greece. Led by King Xerxes, they were met by the finest three hundred
Spartan warriors where the rocky confines were so narrow that the Persian multitudes and their
cavalry would be at least partially neutralized. Here, the Greek loyalists hoped, the elite force could
hold off, at least for a short while, the invading millions. Narrated by the sole survivor of the epic
battle - a squire in the Spartan heavy infantry - Gates of Fire is a depiction of one man's
indoctrination into the Spartan way of life and death, and of the legendary men and women who
gave the culture an immortal gravity. Culminating in the electrifying and horrifying epic battle, Gates
of Fire weaves history, mystery, and heartbreaking romance into a literary page-turner that brings the
Homeric tradition into the 21st century [from Barnes and Noble overview]

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family
were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no
apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the
murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates
both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its
moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence. [From Amazon overview]

Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg

In response to Sandberg’s 2010 TED Talk on the ways women are held back—and the way we hold
ourselves back—viewers around the world shared their own stories of struggle and success. This
overwhelming response inspired Sheryl to write this book. In Lean In, she shares her personal
stories, uses research to shine a light on gender differences, and offers practical advice to help
women achieve their goals. The book challenges us to change the conversation from what women
can’t do to what we can do, and serves as a rallying cry for us to work together to create a more
equal world.

The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick’s novel follows a cast of characters negotiating life in 1962 in San Francisco, a major
city in the Pacific States of America, part of the Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. This
alternate universe novel takes readers into a world where the United States never entered World War
II and the Axis powers triumphed. Japan and Germany settled into their own version of the Cold
War, developing nuclear weapons and their own space programs, and leading to a world where
travel to Mars is easier than watching TV. The Man in the High Castle tells the story of several
characters, including Frank Frink, who works as a forger of American “artifacts” prized by the
Japanese occupiers who romanticize the American past. Frank symbolizes many of the novel’s
questions about reality and truth, as he must hide his occupation, as well as his true identity as a
Jewish man. The Man in the High Castle is a fascinating alternate history as well as a philosophical
examination of the interpretation and intersection of true and false realities, as well as questions of
justice and injustice, gender and power, cultural identity and inferiority, and the long-term effects of
the totalitarian devaluation of human life.

Mornings on Horseback, by David McCullough

Mornings on Horseback is David McCullough’s biography about 17 years in the life of Theodore
Roosevelt. It covers Roosevelt’s life from ages 10 to 27, before he became the iconic figure we
remember—before he was “President Roosevelt” or rough-rider Teddy charging up San Juan Hill.
This is the story of how a frail child handicapped by severe asthma attacks grew into the legend we
see on Mt. Rushmore. We know so little about Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson; this is a
wonderful opportunity for young adults experience the “becoming of a legend” in his formative
years.

The Pearl that Broke Its Shell, by Nadia Hashimi

Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and
the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of
the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See. In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted
father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely
leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young
Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend

school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters. But Rahima is not the first in her family to
adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-great grandmother, Shekiba, left orphaned by
an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way. Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl that
Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar
destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a
man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
                        – Summary taken from http://www.harpercollins.com/books/9780062244758

The Practice of the Wild, by Gary Snyder

This is a collection of beautifully crafted and free-associative essays about nature and our place in it
by the poet Gary Snyder. Snyder is particularly fascinated by the relationship that indigenous
cultures formed with their natural habitat, and explores the possibility for migrant cultures (that's us)
to develop similar relationships.

A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is a universally acclaimed author best known for his travel and history writing. In A Short
History of Nearly Everything, Bryson turns his keen wit and insatiable desire for understanding on the
nature of scientific knowledge and inquiry. Tapping into the curiosity he first felt when reading an
elementary school geology book, Bryson is motivated by a desire to know not only what scientists
know but how they managed to figure it all out. “That,” he says in his introduction, “remained the
greatest of all amazements—how scientists work things out. How does anyone know how much the
Earth weighs or how old its rocks are or what really is way down there in the center? How can they
know how and when the universe started and what it was like when it did? How do they know what
goes on inside an atom? And how, come to that—or perhaps above all—can scientists seem to
know nearly everything but then still can’t predict an earthquake or even tell us whether we should
take an umbrella to the races next Wednesday?”

Bryson spent three years on his quest to answer these questions, and many more. The result is a
book that beautifully and hilariously captures one of our most basic human drives: to understand the
world around us. In his pages, you will meet scientists who are eminently human: bumbling,
confused, arrogant, painfully shy, brilliantly right and epically wrong (a respected early 20th century
astronomer was convinced that the dark spots we see on the moon were due to “seasonally
migrating insects”). You will learn about astronomy, cosmology, particle physics, geology,
paleontology, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, evolution, and human origins. But above all, you will
be entertained. Not only by Bryson’s writing but by the astounding human accomplishment that is
the never-ending pursuit for truth and ever-changing body of knowledge that we call “science.”

Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel, imagines life after a pandemic wipes out most of the
world’s population. Following the experiences of Kirsten Raymonde, a child actress who finds a
kind of family performing with the Traveling Symphony after the pandemic, this novel takes the

reader back and forth from the night the pandemic hits to the difficult days just after everything falls
apart and on to the experience of survivors decades later. The Traveling Symphony’s motto is
“Because survival is insufficient,” and this novel explores what we really need, physically and
emotionally. Through a variety of points of view and points in time, Station Eleven asks us to
imagine what can be lost and found in a world stripped down to the essential.

Their Life’s Work, Gary Pomerantz

Just as every citizen of the United States should know the story of our country and its founding
fathers, every member of Steelers Nation needs to know the story of the Empire that was the 1970s
Pittsburgh Steelers and its players. “Mean” Joe Greene. Franco Harris. The Chief. These figures
forged a team, a dynasty, and ultimately a legacy that has endured long after Harris scored the final
touchdown to secure victory in Super Bowl XIV. Pomerantz tells the story of the greatest football
team in NFL history in a way that celebrates their heroics and acknowledges their humanity. Read
the book while wearing your favorite jersey. “Here we go.”

The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an
elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the
humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal
morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to
truly live and how easy it is to kill. Donna Tartt, winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her most
recent novel, The Goldfinch, established herself as a major talent with The Secret History, which has
become a contemporary classic.

Swing, by Phillip Beard II

Students will have the opportunity to discuss Swing with its writer Phil Beard II, who will lead the
discussion in the fall. In a review of the book, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports columnist Gene Collier
writes, "If your sensibilities allow for the careful blending of baseball nostalgia and muscular
literature, Swing is right there in your wheelhouse. Mr. Beard’s richly formed characters each
command the reader’s interest from the quiet urgency in their evolving selves, but none is as
unforgettable as John Kostka, a legless veteran who swings himself on and off PAT buses with
varying degrees of success. That the story unfolds against the backdrop of the decidedly non-fiction
Pittsburgh Pirates of 1971 is not just a literary device for time and place. It’s a launch point for Mr.
Beard’s own subtle beauty-of-baseball treatise, and the beauty here lies as much in the writing as in
the game. The reader needs no special affinity for either the team or even the sport to enjoy
SWING. Still, in the game’s most elemental terms, Mr. Beard’s swing here is just about perfect. In
fact, he crushes it." –

Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss

This spy mystery takes place in eighteenth century Pennsylvania. When a one of George
Washington’s most valued spies, Ethan Saunders, finds himself disgraced in the face of serious
accusations of treason following the American War for Independence he must redeem himself at the
expense of his nemesis, Alexander Hamilton. The action takes place in both the backwoods of the
southwestern Pennsylvania frontier village of Pittsburgh and the cosmopolitan environs of
Philadelphia. Readers will become familiar with well-known historical characters like Hamilton as
well as lesser-known figures who are just as important to the American story such as Hugh
Brackenridge (founder of the University of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh Gazette and the first known
American writer of fiction). With the historical backdrop of the Whiskey Rebellion, David Liss
offers his audience a fast-paced adventure as the competition to get the upper hand between Joan
Maycott, a frontier settler, and Saunders unfolds and the fate of the infant republic hangs in the
balance. Liss takes great care to present an authentic portrait of the period and includes scenes that
are founded in actual historic events. It is a wonderful work of historical-fiction.

Wild, by Cheryl Strayed

Wild is a memoir that tells the true story of Cheryl Strayed who at the age of twenty-two has to cope
with the death of her mother, with divorce, and with separation from family. Strayed goes into “free
fall,” including drugs and bad relationships, but in the midst of the disintegration of her Self, she
courageously decides to hike the Pacific Coast Trail solo, a journey of 1,000 miles from the Mojave
Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State. This ordeal, Strand’s strength, and the
people she meets along the way will heal, and ultimately, save her.