What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life
by James Hollis, PH.D.
Non-Fiction
Book 110

Book Description
Why are we here?
What is the meaning of existence?
What truly matters the most in life?

We have all felt the looming presence of these questions, but it's never easy to examine our life's path and its meaning. To begin finding answers, we must start by exploring our own internal ideals, values, and beliefs.

Taking a fresh look at the concept of happiness, James Hollis encourages you to learn to tolerate ambiguity, embrace growth over security, engage spiritual crisis, and acknowledge the shadow of mortality. Providing inspiring wisdom and personal reflections to address our deepest worries, What Matters Most will help you get to the heart of the matter, to discover what it means to truly live life to its fullest, most meaningful state - as fully engaged citizens of the world - and to risk being who you really are.

Testament: Memoir of the Thoughts and Sentiments of Jean Meslier
by Jean Meslier
Non-Fiction
Book 109

From Publishers Weekly
"Know, then, my friends, that everything that is recited and practiced in the world for the cult and adoration of gods is nothing but errors, abuses, illusions, and impostures. All the laws and orders that are issued in the name and authority of God or the gods are really only human inventions . . . .

"And what I say here in general about the vanity and falsity of the religions of the world, I don't say only about the foreign and pagan religions, which you already regard as false, but I say it as well about your Christian religion because, as a matter of fact, it is no less vain or less false than any other."

These are not the words of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or any other outspoken contemporary atheist. In fact, they are the words of a quiet, modest parish priest named Jean Meslier, who died in early 18th-century France and left behind his copious Testament as a legacy for his parishioners. This obviously controversial work, which influenced such noted thinkers as Baron d'Holbach and Voltaire, and is viewed by some historians as anticipating both the French Revolution and Karl Marx, is now available in English for the first time.

In impassioned tones but with analytical precision, Meslier presents a methodical deconstruction of Christianity and the governments that support it, along with a thoughtful defense of the fundamental human rights of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. He reveals himself not only as a materialist and unbeliever but also as a man of revolutionary sentiments who firmly opposes the governments of his day, which he maintains keep the common people in ignorance, fear, and poverty through religion. Moreover,he urges his former parishioners to wake up and inform themselves about the truth of their governments and religion.

This fascinating document, which is an early forerunner of many later critiques of religion, is must reading for freethinkers, skeptics, and anyone with an interest in the history of religion and dissent.

Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation
by Molefi Kete Asante
Non-Fiction
Book 108

From Publishers Weekly
In this scathing analysis of the history of racism in America, Asante divides the nation into two camps: a white majority who perceives America as a land of promise, and a black minority that is relegated to exist in a wilderness on the margins of society. Asante, the chair of African-American studies at Temple University and a proponent of Afro-centrism, lays out a non-linear history of racial matters in America, weaving the 17th century arrival of the first indentured African servants with the Los Angeles race riots of 1992 and his own experiences as a black man in America. The key to bridging the racial divide, he argues, lies in getting all Americans to understand and confront the history of slavery. Otherwise, the gap will remain open and the significance of all subsequent racial injustices, from lynchings to police profiling, is lost. Asante can be sketchy in some of his examples of headline-making events involving race (including the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, for instance). Whether one agrees with him or not, however, he backs many of his harsh accusations with tough questions, carefully crafted solutions and engaging personal anecdotes. In the end, anyone who has struggled to understand race relations in America or to engage others in open debate about it will glean something valuable from this book.

Murder Behind the Badge: True Stories of Cops Who Kill
by Stacy Dittrich
Non-Fiction
Book 107

Book Description
Foreword by Criminal Profiler Pat Brown

Most men and women who aspire to be police officers begin their careers with a noble dream of community service, upholding the law, and helping those in need. Yet over time the rigors and emotional strain of dealing with society's worst element wear on even the most idealistic officers like a sheet of sandpaper, until what used to be a compassionate human being is slowly rubbed away. A few become corrupted and slip into criminal behavior, directly contradicting their oath to guard the public. Even worse, there are some who hide behind their badges to commit the most heinous crimes imaginable.

In a shocking true-crime narrative that reads like a thriller, former police officer, former detective, and mystery writer Stacy Dittrich tells eighteen stories about cops who kill. From the brutal to the bizarre, the senseless to the extreme, these men and women abused their power, took human life, and are now paying the consequences.

Some killed for love, others for money, and still others because of seemingly trivial personality conflicts. Dittrich profiles, among others:

· Drew Peterson, unquestionably, the most profiled --and allegeged murder-by-cop mystery of this century.

· New Orleans cop Antoinette Frank, who brutally murdered three innocent people, including a fellow officer

· Canton, Ohio police officer Bobby Cutts Jr., who murdered his former girlfriend when she was nine-months pregnant

· California highway patrolman Craig Peyer, who pulled over San Diego State college student Cara Knott over a frivolous traffic violation, then murdered her.

· Columbia, Missouri officer Steven Rios, who slit the throat of his gay lover, after he threatened to tell everyone of their relationship.

As a veteran police officer with seventeen years of experience, Dittrich is careful to emphasize that the vast majority of law enforcement officers dutifully uphold their oath to protect the public trust. The fascinating stories she tells are examples of the few whose character flaws turned them into the very criminals they themselves at one time pursued.

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays
by Zadie Smith
Non-Fiction
Book 106

Book Description
A sparkling collection of Zadie Smith's nonfiction over the past decade.

Zadie Smith brings to her essays all of the curiosity, intellectual rigor, and sharp humor that have attracted so many readers to her fiction, and the result is a collection that is nothing short of extraordinary.

Split into four sections-"Reading," "Being," "Seeing," and "Feeling"-Changing My Mind invites readers to witness the world from Zadie Smith's unique vantage. Smith casts her acute eye over material both personal and cultural, with wonderfully engaging essays-some published here for the first time-on diverse topics including literature, movies, going to the Oscars, British comedy, family, feminism, Obama, Katharine Hepburn, and Anna Magnani.

In her investigations Smith also reveals much of herself. Her literary criticism shares the wealth of her experiences as a reader and exposes the tremendous influence diverse writers-E. M. Forster, Zora Neale Hurston, George Eliot, and others-have had on her writing life and her self-understanding. Smith also speaks directly to writers as a craftsman, offering precious practical lessons on process. Here and throughout, readers will learn of the wide-ranging experiences-in novels, travel, philosophy, politics, and beyond-that have nourished Smith's rich life of the mind. Her probing analysis offers tremendous food for thought, encouraging readers to attend to the slippery questions of identity, art, love, and vocation that so often go neglected.

Changing My Mind announces Zadie Smith as one of our most important contemporary essayists, a writer with the rare ability to turn the world on its side with both fact and fiction. Changing My Mind is a gift to readers, writers, and all who want to look at life more expansively.

Crocodile Tears: An Alex Rider Novel
by Anthony Horowitz
Fiction
Book 105

Book Description
It's just another day in the life of an average kid. If you're Alex Rider, that is. A con artist has realized there is big money in charity-- the bigger the disaster, the greater the money flow! So that is what he will produce: the biggest disaster known to man, all thanks to genetically modified wheat that can release a virus so potent it can knock out an entire country in one windy day. But Alex Rider will face whatever it takes--gunfire, explosions, hand-to-hand combat with mercenaries-- to bring down his most dangerous adversary yet. Often imitated, never equaled, the series that triggered a reading phenomenon is back, exhilarating and addictive as ever.

Brain Sense: The Science of the Senses and How We Process the World Around Us
by Faith Hickman Brynie
Non-Fiction
Book 104

Book Description
Have you ever wondered why you remember color images and scenes so much better than those in black and white? The answer is in the way our brains interpret and process the sights, smells, tastes, and touches that make up our lives. "Brainsense" explores brain function and the senses, and offers new insight about what makes us tick. Based on new research and interviews with renowned scientists, readers will discover how the brain really works. Divided into chapters, one for each sense, "Brainsense" offers a new perspective into how we process the world around us. Both enlightening and engaging, this book will help us understand the elusive mysteries of the brain.

Living Life With No Regrets
by Dr. Ed Feyereisen
Non-Fiction
Book 103

Book Description
Feeling tense, over-worked and upset about relationships or tough economic problems? An effective antidote is a new book, Living Life with No Regrets: Your Guide to Lasting Happiness by Arizona author Ed Feyereisen, Ph.D., who prefers to be known simply as Dr. Ed . Drawing on his background as a teacher, corporate trainer and executive coach, Dr. Ed explains, Stress occurs when we feel a loss of control in certain key areas of our lives. There are ways to eliminate much of our stress. No matter what is happening in the world, we always have the power of choice. Happiness is a choice. It s elusive if you start chasing it out there but readily accessible on a daily basis in here by changing your thoughts. Most of us wake up to an alarm clock. What if we woke up to an Opportunity Clock and looked for positive things each day? This book, written in an easy-to-understand style, offers simple exercises and proven techniques to help readers achieve goals in both business and personal life. Using tools provided in this book, readers are startled into recognizing internalized messages that may sabotage their success and happiness. Dr. Ed asks people to explore their hidden talents, abilities and skills. Many times we focus on negative qualities and are the last to acknowledge the gifts we bring to our families and the world. What would happen to our level of happiness if we felt better about ourselves? We can learn to see the greatness in our lives. he adds. Blending irrepressible humor with storytelling, wisdom and practical tips for success, Dr. Ed urges readers to live fully and choose happiness each day. He presents seminars nationally and is the founder and CEO of the Native American Leadership Academy, a top training company in the Indian gaming industry.

The Saga of Gosta Berling (Penguin Classics)
by Gosta Berling
Fiction
Book 102

Book Review
"Among [women novelists] of great talent or genius, none, in my opinion, is to be placed higher than Selma Lagerlöf." -Marguerite Yourcenar

Book Description
A Swedish Gone with the Wind by the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature-published here in the first new English translation in more than 100 years

One hundred years ago, Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. She assured her place in Swedish letters with this sweeping historical epic, her first and best-loved novel, and the basis for the 1924 silent film of the same name that launched Greta Garbo to stardom. Set in 1820s Sweden, it tells the story of a defrocked minister named Gösta Berling. After his appetite for alcohol and previous indiscretions end his career, Berling finds a home at Ekeby, an ironworks estate owned by Margareta Celsing, the "Majoress," that also houses an assortment of eccentric veterans of the Napoleonic Wars. Berling's defiant and poetic spirit proves magnetic to a string of women, who fall under his spell against the backdrop of political intrigue at Margareta's estate and the magnificent wintry beauty of rural Sweden.

Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan
by Ali Eteraz
Non-Fiction
Book 101

Book Description
Ali Eteraz's Children of Dust is a spellbinding portrayal of a life that few Americans can imagine. From his schooling in a madrassa in Pakistan to his teenage years as a Muslim American in the Bible Belt, and back to Pakistan to find a pious Muslim wife, this lyrical, penetrating saga from a brilliant new literary voice captures the heart of our universal quest for identity.

Children of Dust begins in rural Islam at the lowest levels of Pakistani society in the turbulent eighties. This intimate portrayal of rustic village life is revealed through a young boy's eyes as he discovers magic, women, and friendship.

After immigrating with his family to the United States, Eteraz struggles to be a normal American teenager under the rules of a strict Muslim household.

In 1999, he returns to Pakistan to find the villages of his youth dominated by the ideology of the Taliban, filled with young men spouting militant rhetoric, and his extended family under threat. Eteraz becomes the target of a mysterious abduction plot when he is purported to be a CIA agent, and eventually has to escape under military escort.

Back in the United States, with his fundamentalist illusions now shattered, Eteraz tries to find a middle way within American Islam. At each stage of Eteraz's life, he takes on a different identity to signal his evolution. From being pledged to Islam in Mecca as an infant, through Salafi fundamentalism, to liberal reformer, Eteraz desperately struggles to come to terms with being a Pakistani and a Muslim.

Astonishingly honest, darkly comic, and beautifully told, Children of Dust is an extraordinary adventure that reveals the diversity of Islamic beliefs, the vastness of the Pakistani diaspora, and the very human search for home.