October 4th
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
by
Rhonda Janzen

At first, the worst week of Janzen's life—she gets into a debilitating car wreck right after her husband leaves her for a guy he met on the Internet and saddles her with a mortgage she can't afford—seems to come out of nowhere, but the disaster's long buildup becomes clearer as she opens herself up. Her 15-year relationship with Nick had always been punctuated by manic outbursts and verbally abusive behavior, so recognizing her co-dependent role in their marriage becomes an important part of Janzen's recovery (even as she tweaks the 12 steps just a bit). The healing is further assisted by her decision to move back in with her Mennonite parents, prompting her to look at her childhood religion with fresh, twinkling eyes.

If Jeffrey Toobin is right, Supreme Court decisions are decided less by constitutional law precedent than by personality and political intuition. His gripping behind-the-scenes account of the Court from the Reagan years to the 2006-7 term shows how a consensus of moderation grew in an environment of adversity. Drawing extensively on interviews with the justices themselves, he reveals how such independent, even quirky thinkers worked toward agreement on major issues.

December 6th
Stones into Schools
by Greg Mortenson & Khlaed Hosseini

In this dramatic first-person narrative, Greg Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003, recounting his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls in Afghanistan; his extensive work in Azad Kashmir and Pakistan after a massive earthquake hit the region in 2005; and the unique ways he has built relationships with Islamic clerics, militia commanders, and tribal leaders. He shares for the first time his broader vision to promote peace through education and literacy, as well as touching on military matters, Islam, and women-all woven together with the many rich personal stories of the people who have been involved in this remarkable two-decade humanitarian effort.

January 3rd
When Everything Changed
by Gail Collins

The first chapters of When Everything Changed will astonish many younger readers with their accounts of the casually expressed sexism of the Korean War and Vietnam eras; even older men and women will bristle with anger at Collins's stories of hard-fought battles for basic human rights. Like its predecessor, this narrative history by a veteran New York Times columnist avoids preachiness as it moves briskly forward.

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

A narrative about a Warsaw animal keeper who saves hundreds of Jews from Nazi gas chambers draws inevitable comparisons with Schindler's List, but Ackerman's artful, almost lyrical book occupies a genre of her own invention. Her narrative interlaces stories of Jan and Antonina Zabinski's improvised sanctuary with telling glimpses into the animal societies their hunted benefactors shared. Ultimately, this is a book about what it means to be human