The Oxford Illustrated Jane Austen: Volume VI: Minor Works

Written by: Jane Austen

First line: The Uncle of Elfrida was the Father of Frederic; in other words, they were first cousins by the Father's side.

Why you should read this book: You should only read this book if you love-Love-LOVE Jane Austen. The stories here comprise early works, including juvenilia, and a number of rambling/incomplete novels and novellas, which showcase the young Austen's shrewd eye and wit, along with her sense of ridiculousness when she turns that eye and wit toward her society. If you're already familiar with Austen, then you may find this book funny or interesting, but these are "minor works" for a reason.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You don't love-Love-LOVE Jane Austen.

Without You, There Is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite

Written by: Suki Kim

First line: Time there seemed to pass differently.

Why you should read this book: I know I'm not the only American fascinated, bewildered, and curious about life in North Korea, as evidenced by the number of months I had to wait for this library reserve, and it did not disappoint in terms of sheer, mind-blowing insanity, and its descriptions of a world that is hardly imaginable. Suki Kim, born in South Korea, immigrated to America at age 13, and was also curious about the closed country where some of her relatives had disappeared before she was born, so she disguised herself as a Christian missionary among a group of Christian missionaries disguised as teachers, and spent two semesters living in a virtual prison while gathering intelligence about the most closed country on the planet. I devoured this fascinating narrative in a few hours and highly recommend it to anyone with the least interest in North Korea, oppressive regimes, the meaning of freedom, human rights, or brainwashing an entire country.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are a Christian missionary disguised as a teacher for the purpose of maintaining a presence in North Korea in case the country should ever open up enough to enable you to proselytize there.

In Real Life

Written by: Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang

First line: Anda, wake up!

Why you should read this book: Anda is a shy and nerdy teenager who begins to develop her own self-confidence when she’s invited to play as a team member in an online game, and offered missions that pay real life money. When she comes to understand that her online “enemies” are actually impoverished Chinese teenagers, working at the most boring part of the game to create in-game value that they can then sell to rich American gamers, she begins to develop a social conscious and an interest in helping others. Anda’s attempts to unionize the Chinese gamers backfires at first, but eventually things work out for the best.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: The feel-good ending seems a bit forced and unbelievable; it works out a little too easily considering things that could potentially happen to a poor Chinese teenager.

Out of My Mind

Written by: Sharon M. Draper

First line: Words.

Why you should read this book: Born with an extreme form of cerebral palsy, which renders her incapable of walking or talking or even feeding herself, Melody is trapped inside her eidetic memory with no more than a baby's symbol board to communicate the complex nuances of her thought processes. When the school finally decides to mainstream some of the special ed kids in her class, Melody manages to express her need for a computer that will speak for her, and finds herself navigating the social world that had always excluded her, joining the school's quiz team and helping the group win a slot in the national competition in Washington, DC. With passion and pathos, she tells the story of her life in a way that wins the reader's admiration but never asks for sympathy.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You can't stop talking.

I Wish That I Had Duck Feet

Written by: Dr. Seuss (writing as Theo LeSieg)

First line: I wish that I had duck feet.

Why you should read this book: A classic easy reader, this book follows an imaginative boy's flights of fancy as he considers how various mutations would make him more popular around town, particularly with local girls, while creating problems with his parents and the school bully. Hearkens back to its origins in the 60s, when the debate over conformity really began to heat up, but concludes that being a freak is dangerous and unfulfilling. Seuss used this pseudonym for books he wrote but did not illustrate; both the text and the pictures are darling.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You constantly assure your precious little snowflake that they can be anything they want to be. 

Mother, Come Home

Written by: Paul Hornschemeir

First line: Do you remember that summer—I think you were sixteen—when you went horseback riding?

Why you should read this book: A young boy’s inability to come to terms with the death of his mother is exacerbated by his father’s even greater difficulty dealing with the loss. As the boy struggles to take control of his world, the father drifts farther and farther away, until he is lost completely. The child sets off to bring him back, only to learn how deeply the complications and pains of adult knowledge can go.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: Haunting examination of death and its effect on the living.

The Giver

Written by: Lois Lowry

First line: It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.

Why you should read this book: Above all, sameness is prized in Jonas’s community, where everyone is content and cared for, and everyone conforms to the rules, unless they want to be “Released” and go live “Elsewhere.” When he turns twelve, the age at which all children have their future careers revealed to them by the Elders, Jonas is selected to become the Receiver of Memories, to learn and hold all the history—good and bad—that the community has chosen to forget in order to create their perfect society. What Jonah learns from the old Receiver, now the Giver, shreds his faith in his world and causes him to question everything and everyone he has ever known.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You never question authority.

Gypsy Girl

Author: Rumer Godden

First line: "If anyone," said the teacher, Mrs. Blount, in the classroom, "any one" and her eyes looked sternly along the lines of tables filled with boys and girls, "teases or bullies or jeers at Kizzy Lovell, they will answer for it to me."

Why you should read this book: This engaging story discusses the issue of Gypsies, now known as Travellers, living in England in the 1970s, glossing over civil rights for a more powerful examination of pure civility. When Kizzy's teacher uses threats to ask for more respect toward the unusual girl in her first grade class, others suggest she has made a mistake, and should have tried to romanticize the girl's life, but Kizzy cares nothing for their world, preferring the company of her great-great-grandmother and her geriatric horse, Joe, in the solitary caravan in the woods. When fate steal both Gram and the caravan away from her, Kizzy is forced to venture into the world she hates, teaching the people of the village to love her for her true self.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You continue your campaign to wipe those who refuse to conform off the face of the planet.

What the World Eats

Author: Peter Menzel

First line: Imagine for a moment that it is early Saturday morning in the United States.

Why you should read this book: Seeking to answer the question of what the world eats, this book centers around its food portraits--photographs of twenty-six families from twenty-one countries, posed in their kitchens with a week's worth of food, with the grocery list and budget on the facing page--along with several pages of accompanying text for each family, describing their lives, their relationship to food, and some cultural details, as well as a few recipes. Interspersed among the food portraits are graphs with data about obesity, fast food, literacy, meat consumption, access to drinking water, and more, plus photo collages creating a snapshot of how we eat. Although intended for a younger audience, this well-written and provocative book is appropriate for anyone with an interest in food, nutrition, global economy, and world culture.

Why you should read this book: You're on the supersize-me diet.

Tunnel Kids

Author: Lawrence J. Taylor

First line: The noon skies turned midnight black and cracked open, roaring with lightning.

Why you should read this book: They are street kids--cholos--who run with gangs, huff spray paint from old soda cans, and lie in wait amidst the filth of the tunnels that run under Ambros Nogales, ambushing the pollos trying to cross secretly into America, robbing them of their money, and sometimes worse. Yet they are still children, and human beings with intelligence, ambition, and emotion, as Lawrence and his partner, photographer Maeve Hickey learn over several summers spent volunteering at Mi Nueva Casa, a shelter for street kids on the Mexican side of the border. With Hickey's stark portraits of the children brought to life through Taylor's prose, this is part-documentary, part-ethnography, an outsider's peek into a dark, frightening, and often forgotten world of poverty and desperation at the US-Mexico border.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Your hobby is patrolling the border with a shotgun and you have INS on speed dial.

SCUM Manifesto

Author: Valerie Solanas

First line: Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

Why you should read this book: One part brilliant, two parts insane, equally funny and sad, this document lays out the blueprint for an anarchist gynocentric revolution, using fractured biology and psychology to explain why males are inherently inferior to females and ultimately detrimental to the wellbeing of humanity. There is a great deal here by which to be offended, along with too many interesting ideas for the book to ever go away, making this a classic work of alternative literature. No matter how you feel about gender, there are concepts here that, forty years after the original publication, continue to inform culture, no matter how outrageous they are.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think society's great just as it is now, but would be even better if you could go back in time sixty years.

Brave New World

Author: Aldous Huxley

Quote: "And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue--liking what you've got to do."

Why you should read this book: The architects of the new reality have created a brightly-colored, pleasant-smelling playground in which nobody is ever unhappy, alone, or sexually unsatisfied, and all they had to sacrifice were art, religion, science, love, family, emotion, and meaning. When Bernard Marx, alienated by virtue of his physical anomaly, and the object of his affection, the perfectly pneumatic and wholesome Lenina Crowne, stumble upon a man whose savage upbringing astounds even as his parentage can be exploited, they bring him back to civilization, initiating an intense dialog on the meaning of freedom and responsibility. Huxley's world, where sex and drugs are not merely encouraged, but actually mandatory, remains a reminder to modern readers of the luxury of pain, discontent, and loneliness in a novel that embraces the mind with candy-coated dystopia.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You believe people ought to be made to conform.

Freaks, Geeks, and Cook Kids: American teenagers, schools, and the culture of consumption

Author: Murray Milner, Jr.

First line: A great deal has been written about American teenagers.

Why you should read this book: Why do American teenagers, as a group, engage in so many behaviors that disturb adults? Milner argues that adolescent's lack of control over their own lives, combined with the very little bit of status available to them as a group, shapes high school society and adolescent behavior, and that reflects and contributes to the capitalist agenda. His research involved hundreds of reporters and observers providing field research over a space of years and covers the whole spectrum of the high school experience.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You haven't yet overcome the painful memories of your own puberty.