1. Triumph: the untold story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics — Jeremy Schaap (2007) [review here]
2. The Wapshot Chronicle — John Cheever (1957) [review here]
3. A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson (2003) [review here]
4. Beyond the Blue Event Horizon — Frederik Pohl (1980) [review here]
5. From Sawdust to Stardust: The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek‘s Dr. McCoy — Terry Lee Rioux (2005) [review here]
6. Andersonville — MacKinlay Kantor (1955)
7. On Writing — Stephen King (2000)
8. Liberia: History of the First African Republic — Abayomi Cassell (1970)
9. The Bridge of San Luis Rey — Thornton Wilder (1927)
10. March — Geraldine Brooks (2005)
11. Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag — Kang Chol-Hwan & Pierre Rigoulot (2000)
12. True Grit — Charles Portis (1968)
13. America’s War: Talking about the Civil War and Emancipation on their 150th anniversaries — edited by Edward L. Ayers (2011)
14. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas — Gertrude Stein (1933)
15. Under the Banner of Heaven: A story of violent faith — Jon Krakauer (2003)
16. Instant City: life and death in Karachi — Steve Inskeep (2011)
17. A Study in Scarlet — Arthur Conan Doyle (1887)
18. God Is Not Great: How religion poisons everything — Christopher Hitchens (2007)
19. Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam — James M. McPherson (2002)
20. The Day the Martians Came — Frederik Pohl (1988)
21. Lavinia — Ursula K. Le Guin (2008)
22. Drift: the unmooring of American military power — Rachel Maddow (2012)
23. Slouching Towards Bethlehem — Joan Didion (1968)
24. Hotel Du Lac — Anita Brookner (1984)
25. Paul Newman: a life — Shawn Levy (2009)
26. Every Third Thought: a novel in five seasons — John Barth (2011)
27. Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs) — Unknown (ca. AD 1200). Translated by Frank G. Ryder (1962)
28. Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War — Tony Horwitz (2011)
29. The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe — Peter Godwin (2010)
30. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, & Power, of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill — Thomas Hobbes (1651)
31. The Taqwacores — Michael Muhammad Knight (2004)
32. No Man Knows My History: the life of Joseph Smith — Fawn M. Brodie (1945)
33. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice — William Shakespeare (1603/04)
34. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness — Michelle Alexander (2010)
35. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln — Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005)
36. Breakfast of Champions — Kurt Vonnegut (1973)
37. Danny, the Champion of the World — Roald Dahl (1975)
38. Last Orders — Graham Swift (1996)
39. Beowulf — Unknown (ca. AD 650-1000). Translated by Seamus Heaney (2000)
40. Grendel — John Gardner (1971)
41. Soccernomics: why England loses, why Spain, Germany, and Brazil win, and why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey—and even Iraq—are destined to become the kings of the world’s most popular sport — Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski (2009)
