Shantaram
By Gregory David Roberts (Scribe Publications)
A richly-detailed, fictional account of an escaped Australian convict who finds a home in the slums of Bombay. Roberts’ flawed hero takes us to the heart of the Indian mafia, on a quest for true love and, yes, even into the mountains of Afghanistan. By the time its curious name is explained somewhere in the middle of the book’s 936 pages, you’ve forgotten the question. A massive hit overseas, this novel got scant attention in the U.S. until Johnny Depp encouraged Warner Bros. to buy the rights, although filming is currently on hold. Plenty of time to read it first. –LLK

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
By Alexandar Fuller (Random House)
A moving coming-of-age memoir that describes growing up in a world where children learned to “shoot-to-kill.” Born in Africa during the Rhodesian civil war, Fuller’s memories are bittersweet. Three of her four siblings die in infancy, the family moves constantly to seemingly ever more hostile environments and she is surrounded by racists, including her parents. And yet, her gentle, loving accounts allow us access to the world of white southern Africa, a world we might otherwise dismiss for its political incorrectness. –LLK

Delivered From Distraction: Getting the Most Out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder
By Edward M. Hallowell, MD, and John J. Ratey, MD (Ballantine)

If you’ve ever looked around a 12-step meeting and marveled at everyone fidgeting, including yourself, Hallowell and Ratey could have some answers for you. Misnamed, misunderstood and often misdiagnosed, ADD can make life extraordinarily difficult even for those with a strong commitment to sobriety. Indeed, many addicts get into trouble in the first place by self-medicating their ADD. Hallowell and Ratey write with sufficient clarity for even the most distracted among us, and they present all options for treatment with the right balance of realism and hope. – CMY

13 Things That Don’t Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
By Michael Brooks (Vintage)
Why does the Blanding’s turtle, a species found in homely old Michigan swamps, not get old? They age, sure, but the older they get, the more energy they have and the more they reproduce. Humans can’t do that. We get decrepit. Why? Nobody knows. Formerly the features editor at New Scientist (the most readable of serious science magazines), Brooks has the wit and scientific competence to present the heaviest conundrums known to humanity as enthralling escapist non-fiction. Why does the placebo effect generate such powerful physiological reactions? Why are the Pioneer 10 and 11 space probes, launched in the early ‘70s, drifting off course by 8,000 miles a year in deep space? Your imagination will thank you for raising these questions. – CMY

Tao Te Ching
By Lao-tzu
The simple wisdom in this ancient book of spiritual poetry is as relevant to our modern 21st Century mind as it was 2,500 years ago. Each passage read on any given day will feel brand new when encountered the next day or the next. It never gets old, which makes it one for your Desert-Isle-must-take-with-you book bag. Or just keep it by the side of your bed for a little morning and evening serenity. Many translations are available; we’d suggest starting with Stephen Mitchell’s very accessible renderings. Then make your way back through the years to the more esoteric and perhaps poetic ones. As Lao-tzu would say: “Open yourself to the Tao, then trust your natural responses; and everything will fall into place.” – NOH

Zeitoun
By Dave Eggers (Vintage)
Human and mother nature at its worst and its best, this hauntingly beautiful post-Katrina story is told through the eyes and hearts of Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family. Love, fear, hope, danger, racism, cruelty, heroism, adventure: everyday feelings against a backdrop of unimaginable destruction. Zeitoun’s courage, big-heartedness, selflessness and humor, as he stays behind to help his neighbors, keep us turning the pages even though we know, simply because of his name, that he will meet up with forces much more destructive than a hurricane. How he handles himself in the face of it all makes him a power of example that we will carry with us long after the last word. – NOH

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York
By Luc Sante (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
This is a rare history book that grabs the reader in a head-lock from page one. It’s the filthy underbelly of Henry James’s genteel Washington Square and Edith Wharton’s town houses. Even the Pinkerton cops avoided the poor, lawless Five Points; but the author strides right in and recreates the stench of piss and poverty in tenements filled with bewildered immigrants and the wised-up second generation who preyed on them. Pimps, cut-purses, prostitutes, and psychos drank in low dives serving booze so poisonous that getting blind or dead drunk was no figure of speech. In rat-infested opium dens, whorehouses and gin mills, lives flickered as briefly as the gas jets that lit the city. – LL

In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer’s Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road
By Allan Weisbecker (Tarcher)
Wherever surfers are gathered on beaches where big waves roll in, you’ll find at least one tattered copy of this misadventure of a middle-aged writer/surfer who leaves it all behind him – and “it all” ain’t much – turning his truck into a home on wheels, heading south with his dog, laptop, and various addictions, to search for his old surfing buddy who’s rumored to be in Costa Rica. It’s at times a memoir of a life of crime on the high seas, a meditation on the Zen-like art of surfing, and a comedy cracking jokes into the heart of darkness. – LL

For those who either miss (or missed) their childhoods, never left them, or simply want a great story to read to their kids or grandkids, you can’t beat these two children’s classics.

Spinky Sulks
By William Steig (Square Fish)
Who among us hasn’t wanted to stay in bed all day, to refuse all efforts at cheering up, to draw an impenetrable cocoon of sullen self-pity around us just to show the world who’s boss? Spinky is enveloped in just such a pouty funk, and has taken to the hammock in the yard, refusing to get out, regardless of his family’s efforts to brighten his mood. A rainy night in the hammock, however, provides Spinky with the necessary impetus to let go of his resentments and return to his former self with a newfound appreciation for all the trouble his family went to on his behalf. – AKS

Flat Stanley
By Jeff Brown (HarperCollins)
A story about character defects in their incipient stage, namely, that insidious fascination many of us have in being something or somebody we ain’t. Stanley Lambchop, the title character, is crushed one night by a bulletin board that falls on him as he sleeps, leaving him unhurt but flat as a pancake. Learning that flat can be fun, Stanley celebrates his uniqueness. But slowly, the novelty wears off and he yearns to be ordinary again. Being flattened by life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Stanley, powerless on his own, needs help to regain his prior form. – AKS