Barresi’s Short List

I think (here at the 11th hour) that there are some clear frontrunners, especially if the goal is to grab young readers and keep them reading: Outliers (What can’t Gladwell write about and make interesting?); Me Talk Pretty One Day (Sedaris is laugh-out-loud-funny, poignant—the whole nine yards); The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (The non-fiction book of the last two years, it raises all kinds of fascinating topics/questions); The Help (Readable, fun, popular, meaningful). And to that list I add two books that just sound fascinating from their descriptions: The Known World and Next: A Novel. 

(Submitted by Dorothy Barresi)