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Recommendations based on Infidelby Ayaan Hirsi Ali
* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson
A man's mission to build schools in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan to promote peace.
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s ... (Goodreads)
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan
Exploration of the modern food chain, examining the impact of food choices on our health and the environment.
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire , how we answer it today, at ... (Goodreads)
The God Delusion
by Richard Dawkins
Scientific exploration of the evidence for and against religious belief.
A preeminent scientist - and the world's most prominent atheist - asserts the irrationality of belief in God, and the grievous harm religion has inflicted on society, from the Crusades to 9/11. With ... (Goodreads)
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
A gripping tale of a child soldier's journey to survive and reclaim his humanity.
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.,"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?","Because there is a war.","You mean, you saw people running around with guns and ... (Barnes & Noble)
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
by Jon Krakauer
A gripping narrative of the 1996 expedition on Mount Everest that resulted in tragedy.
When Jon Krakauer reached the summit of Mt. Everest in the early afternoon of May 10, 1996, he hadn't slept in fifty-seven hours and was reeling from the brain-altering effects of oxygen depletion. ... (Goodreads)
Letter to a Christian Nation
by Sam Harris
A refutation of religious dogma and an argument for the supremacy of reason.
In response to The End of Faith , Sam Harris received thousands of letters from Christians excoriating him for not believing in God. Letter to A Christian Nation is his reply. Using rational ... (Goodreads)
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
by Blaine Harden
True story of a man who escaped from a North Korean prison camp and his journey to freedom.
A, New York Times, bestseller, the shocking story of one of the few people born in a North Korean political prison to have escaped and survived. North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and ... (Goodreads)
Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
by Nicholas D. Kristof
Examining the global struggle of women and how to empower them in the face of oppression.
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. With Pulitzer ... (Goodreads)
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
by Sam Harris
An exploration of religion, its implications for our world and how it can be replaced with reason.
In The End of Faith , Sam Harris delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. He offers a vivid, historical tour of our willingness to suspend reason in ... (Goodreads)
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
by Barack Obama
An exploration of the Obama family history, tracing the threads of identity and race.
In this lyrical, unsentimental, and compelling memoir, the son of a black African father and a white American mother searches for a workable meaning to his life as a black American. It begins in New ... (Goodreads)
The Bookseller of Kabul
by Åsne Seierstad
An intimate look into the lives of an Afghan family, exploring culture and faith.
In spring 2002, following the fall of the Taliban, Åsne Seierstad spent four months living with a bookseller and his family in Kabul. For more than twenty years Sultan Khan defied the authorities—be ... (Goodreads)
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen
by Christopher McDougall
A thrilling exploration of the Tarahumara tribe and their superhuman running abilities.
Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does ... (Goodreads)
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens
Criticism of organized religion, arguing it is the root of much suffering in the world.
With his unique brand of erudition and wit, Hitchens describes the ways in which religion is man-made. "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is ... (Goodreads)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
by Azar Nafisi
Memoir of a professor's struggle in Iran, using literature to find freedom.
The book consists of a memoir of the author's experiences about returning to Iran during the revolution (1978–1981) and living under the Islamic Republic of Iran government until her departure in ... (Wikipedia)
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
by Anne Fadiman
Exploring the cultural divide between the Hmong people and the medical establishment.
Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, ... (Goodreads)
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
by Tracy Kidder
A story of one man's journey to fight poverty, illness, and injustice around the world.
At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, ... (Goodreads)
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
by Jon Krakauer
An exploration of the fundamentalist Mormon faith, its history, and the power of religious extremism.
A Story of Violent Faith A multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. This is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of ... (Goodreads)
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers
by Loung Ung
An inspiring true story of survival and resilience during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
From a childhood survivor of the Cambodian genocide under the regime of Pol Pot, this is a riveting narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her ... (Goodreads)
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
by Barbara Demick
Exploration of the lives of North Koreans during the famine and repression of the 1990s.
Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years—a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the ... (Goodreads)
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
A captivating overview of the natural sciences, spanning the history of the universe.
In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory ... (Goodreads)
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
by Alexandra Fuller
An autobiographical account of a white family in Rhodesia, struggling to survive in a war-torn land.
Alexandra Fuller's book tells the story of her family of white Zimbabwean tenant farmers in the years before and after Independence. These are not the wealthy landowners demonised by the present ... (Wikipedia)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond
Tracing the origins of human civilizations through the lens of geography, technology, and biology.
"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: ... (Goodreads)
Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail
by Malika Oufkir
An autobiographical account of a family's struggle to survive two decades in a Moroccan prison camp.
A gripping memoir that reads like a political thriller–the story of Malika Oufkir's turbulent and remarkable life. Born in 1953, Malika Oufkir was the eldest daughter of General Oufkir, the King of ... (Goodreads)
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
A comprehensive study of the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, and the unique cabinet he assembled.
Winner of the Lincoln Prize Acclaimed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius in this highly original work, as the one-term congressman and prairie lawyer rises from ... (Goodreads)
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
by Katherine Boo
Explores the lives of the people living in Mumbai's slums and the harsh realities they face.
From Pulitzer Prize-winner Katherine Boo, a landmark work of narrative nonfiction that tells the dramatic and sometimes heartbreaking story of families striving toward a better life in one of the ... (Goodreads)
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
A study of evolutionary biology, exploring how genes act and how they impact behavior.
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The ... (Goodreads)
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
by Jonathan Haidt
Exploring the underlying moral foundations of political and religious beliefs and how they shape our views.
An alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780307377906 can be found, here., Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about ... (Goodreads)
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking
by Susan Cain
An exploration of the power of introversion, examining the implications of modern society's emphasis on extroversion.
The book that started the Quiet Revolution, At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking; who innovate and create but dislike ... (Goodreads)
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by Immaculée Ilibagiza
True story of a woman's faith and resilience in the face of the Rwandan genocide.
Immaculee Ilibagiza grew up in a country she loved, surrounded by a family she cherished. But in 1994 her idyllic world was ripped apart as Rwanda descended into a bloody genocide. Immaculee’s family ... (Goodreads)
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
by Atul Gawande
An exploration of the human experience of mortality and the importance of end-of-life care.
In, Being Mortal, author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern ... (Goodreads)
