Deb­bie Ja­cob

?You have to put some non-fic­tion on your hol­i­day read­ing list. I have com­piled my top ten non-fic­tion list from the books that I bought for my li­brary this last aca­d­e­m­ic year. There are some riv­et­ing reads. Books can be found at lo­cal book­stores, or­dered on Ama­zon.com or bor­rowed from Nalis.

Top non-fic­tion books:

1. Ava Gard­ner: Love is Noth­ing by Lee Serv­er – She was con­sid­ered to be one of the most beau­ti­ful women who ever graced a Hol­ly­wood stage. Men swooned over her and women want­ed to be her.

This bi­og­ra­phy tells the sto­ry of a tal­ent­ed movie star who found her beau­ty to be both an ad­van­tage and a curse. A sim­ple farm girl who fell in love with tough char­ac­ters like Frank Sina­tra and Robert Mitchum, Gard­ner nev­er seemed to have felt to­tal­ly com­fort­able with her fame.

2. Ba­nana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World by Dan Koep­pel – The ba­nana in­dus­try shaped pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics in many Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries. This is a fas­ci­nat­ing look at how the US de­vel­oped po­lit­i­cal clout in "ba­nana re­publics." There's al­so a lot of fas­ci­nat­ing in­for­ma­tion on the his­to­ry of ba­nanas and why ba­nanas may be­come an ex­tinct crop.

3. Hitler's Will­ing Ex­e­cu­tion­ers: Or­di­nary Ger­mans and the Holo­caust by Daniel Jon­ah Gold­ha­gen–Much has been writ­ten about Nazi Ger­many dur­ing World War II. This book tries to look at how or­di­nary Ger­man cit­i­zens be­came caught up in the pol­i­tics of the era. The book rais­es a lot of ques­tions about group be­hav­iour and how in­di­vid­u­als who have a set of moral stan­dards re­act in sit­u­a­tions where the group pre­vails. This is an in­valu­able so­cial his­to­ry of Ger­many dur­ing World War II .

4. Dewey the Small-Town Li­brary Cat Who Touched the World by Vic­ki My­ron–A sim­ple, feel-good book about a warm, fuzzy li­brary cat who at­tract­ed peo­ple from all over the world. Dewey was cru­el­ly left in a li­brary re­turn box when he was a kit­ten. The li­brar­i­an took him in and made him a fix­ture in the li­brary. Dewey helped cre­ate an at­mos­phere that made peo­ple want to vis­it the li­brary he called home. This book is be­ing turned in­to a movie star­ring Meryl Streep.

5. Titu­ba, Re­luc­tant Witch of Salem: Dev­il­ish In­di­ans and Pu­ri­tan Fan­tasies by Elaine Bres­law–

Titu­ba was the Bar­ba­di­an slave that set the Salem Witch tri­als in mo­tion. isun­der­stood be­cause of her cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences, she was ac­cused of be­ing a witch. What is in­ter­est­ing is how Titu­ba's race has changed over time. Re­cent books about Titu­ba–in­clud­ing this one–say she was prob­a­bly an Amerindi­an slave from Guyana–and not an African slave–who had been a slave in Bar­ba­dos be­fore be­ing car­ried to the US.

6. The Defin­ing Mo­ment: FDR's Hun­dred Days and the Tri­umph of Hope by Jonathan Al­ter–

This bi­og­ra­phy of Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent Franklin De­lano Roo­sevelt was a best-sell­er last year be­cause cur­rent Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma was read­ing it. It is a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry of how FDR shaped his per­son­al­i­ty and his po­lit­i­cal style af­ter com­ing in­to of­fice. Roo­sevelt was a very out­go­ing man who had to scale back his life af­ter he con­tract­ed po­lio. He in­vent­ed and rein­vent­ed him­self along the way. Many per­son­al de­tails make this a riv­et­ing read.

7. Team of Ri­vals: The Po­lit­i­cal Ge­nius of Abra­ham Lin­coln by Doris Kearns Good­win–

This am­bi­tious bi­og­ra­phy of US Pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln is yet an­oth­er book made fa­mous be­cause Oba­ma was read­ing it dur­ing the elec­tion. You cer­tain­ly can see how Oba­ma is shap­ing his lead­er­ship style when you read this book.

Lin­coln was a fas­ci­nat­ing leader, a good lis­ten­er, smart and in­tu­itive man who was both pro­found and sim­ple. This was a chal­leng­ing read. I have not been able to get this book out of my mind. It is tru­ly a fas­ci­nat­ing read that makes you think about what lead­er­ship re­al­ly is.

8. The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Great­est Texas Oil For­tunes by Bryan Bur­rough–

This is the sto­ry of four ec­cen­tric and very un­e­d­u­cat­ed men who put Texas on the oil map. A nov­el could not read bet­ter than this non-fic­tion ac­count. There's every­thing from polygamy to ma­jor wheel­ing and deal­ing.

It is im­pos­si­ble to un­der­stand pol­i­tics in the US with­out read­ing this book that shows how oil dol­lars be­gan to bankroll po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates such as for­mer Pres­i­dents Lyn­don B John­son and the Bush­es. This is a great book for any­one in­ter­est­ed in his­to­ry, pol­i­tics, eco­nom­ics, bi­ogra­phies or a gen­er­al riv­et­ing read.

9. The Lost Ger­man Slave Girl: The Ex­tra­or­di­nary True Sto­ry of Sal­ly Miller and Her Fight for Free­dom in Old New Or­leans by John Bai­ley–

This is a book I dis­cov­ered while I was do­ing my in­tern­ship at Nalis last year. This is the sto­ry of a girl who was sup­pos­ed­ly en­slaved and passed off as African mixed al­though she was sup­posed to be a Ger­man im­mi­grant. A lawyer who was do­ing re­search un­cov­ered court tran­scripts and wrote a book about this fas­ci­nat­ing case.