Uplifting Reads

Try these books if you're looking for:
•    Inspiring stories
•    Uplifting information
•    History
•    Feel-good reads
•    Nonfiction or Fiction

Outliers: The Story of Success

Malcolm Gladwell

302 GLA 2008

Identifies the qualities of successful people, posing theories about the cultural, family, and idiosyncratic factors that shape high achievers, in a resource that covers such topics as the secrets of software billionaires and why the Beatles earned their fame.

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and their Quest for Gold at the1936 Berlin Olympics

Daniel Brown

797.123 BRO 2013

Daniel James Brown’s robust book tells the story of the University of Washington’s 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans.

All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr

F DOERR

A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France both try to survive the devastation of World War II.

The Invention of Wings

Sue Monk Kidd

Fiction KIDD

Traces more than three decades in the lives of a wealthy Charleston debutante who longs to break free from the strictures of her household and pursue a meaningful life; and the urban slave, Handful, who is placed in her charge as a child before finding courage and a sense of self.

The Happiness Project, or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning,Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Gretchen Rubin

158 RUB 2009

A thoughtful and prescriptive work on happiness filled with practical advice, sharp insight, charm, and humor.

The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness

Jerome E. Groopman

616.0019 GRO 2004

Explores the diverse ways in which hope and other positive emotions influence the healing process, drawing on real-life experiences to analyze the biology of hope, as well as its benefits and limits.

Triumphant Stories

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Historical books (fiction and nonfiction)
• Stories about the strength of the human spirit

The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
By Jamie Ford
F FORD
When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at Seattle's Panama Hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a personal quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment and of Keiko, a Japanese girl whose love transcended cultures and generations.

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China
By Jung Chang
951.05 CHA
Chang recounts the evocative, unsettling, and consistently gripping story of how three generations of women in her family fared in the political maelstrom of China during the 20th century.

Shabanu: Daughter of the Wind
By Suzanne Fisher Staples
YA F STAPLES
When eleven-year old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledg ed in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes.

Between Two Worlds: Escape from Tyranny: Growing Up under the Shadow of Saddam
By Zainab Salbi
BIOGRAPHY SALBI
Salbi had an unusual childhood: her secular, educated parents, part of Iraq's elite society, were trapped in Saddam Hussein's extended circle, and she grew up spending weekends at a house "Amo" Hussein purchased for her family. Naively enjoying the perks at first, she grew up to realize that the socioeconomic privilege came at extraordinary personal cost. Salbi calmly but frankly looks back on those years, cataloging her growing awareness of the terrible hold Hussein had on her family.

Killer Angels
By Michael Shaara
F SHAARA
The late Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (1974) concerns the battle of Gettysburg and was the basis for the 1993 film Gettysburg. The events immediately before and during the battle are seen through the eyes of Confederate Generals Lee, Longstreet, and Armistead and Federal General Buford, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, and a host of others. The author's ability to convey the thoughts of men in war as well as their confusion-the so-called "fog of battle"-is outstanding.

Upbeat Historical Family Dramas with a Touch of Romance

Try these books if you're looking for:

• Historical titles
• Family stories
• A little bit of romance

Papa Married a Mormon
By John D. Fitzgerald
BIO Fitzgerald
An autobiography by the creator of “The Great Brain” children’s series. Mr. Fitzgerald tells about the old "wild west" and the people who made America the strong nation that it is today. A Catholic man falls in love with a Mormon woman and they raise their family in Utah in the late 1860s. This short but engaging book includes gunfights, saloon kings, as well as faithful reverends, charitable women, and people whose lives changed for the better.

Peace like a River
By Leif Enger
F Enger
The quiet 1960s Midwestern life of the Land family--father Jeremiah, and children, Reuben, Davy and Swede--is upended when Davy kills two teenage boys who have come to harm the family. On the morning of his sentencing, Davy escapes from his cell and the Lands set out in search of him. Their search is at once a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world.

Mr. Darcy’s Daughters
By Elizabeth Aston
F Aston
One of the best Pride and Prejudice ‘sequels’, this story picks up in 1818, twenty years after Elizabeth and Darcy fall in love. They have gone to Constantinople, giving us an opportunity to get to know their five daughters, who have left the sheltered surroundings of Pemberley for a few months in London. While the eldest, Letitia, frets and the youngest, Alethea, practices her music, twins Georgina and Belle flirt and frolic their way through parties and balls and Camilla -- levelheaded and independent -- discovers what joys and sorrows the city has to offer an intelligent young woman.

The Blue Castle
By L. M. Montgomery
YA F Montgome
At twenty-nine Valancy had never been in love, and it seemed romance had passed her by. Living with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt, she found her only consolations in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle. Then a letter arrived from Dr. Trent -- and Valancy decided to throw caution to the winds. For the first time in her life Valancy did and said exactly what she wanted. Soon she discovered a surprising new world, full of love and adventures far beyond her most secret dreams.

The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak
F Zusak
Set during World War II in Germany, this is the story of Liesel, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

Classic Coming of Age Stories

Try these books if you are looking for:

• Classics
• Coming of Age Novels
• Uplifting Stories

Hatchet
by Gary Paulsen
YA F PAULSEN
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive initially with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

The Scarlet Pimpernel
by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
F ORCZY
Who is the elusive and mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel? A master of clever disguises, stealth and elegant escapes -- skills that he uses to rescue doomed French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. His signature -- a tiny scarlet flower. The Pimpernel's true identity is unknown except to a small group of co-conspirators who work with him and together comprise the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is a secret hero who risks his life on a daily basis in order to save countless others. Written a few hundred years after Alexandre Dumas’ works, this book still holds to old standards and captures some of the same adventurous spirit that Dumas’ novels held.

Anne of Green Gables
by L.M. Montgomery
YA F MONTGOMERY
Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, siblings who run a farm in Avonlea, decide to adopt a boy to help on their farm. They are mistakenly sent Anne Shirley, and are obliged to let her stay the night before returning her to the orphanage the next day. Fortunately, Anne wins them over instantly with her charm and eager-to-please nature. Being a child of imagination, Anne takes much joy in life, and the reader can't help but start to see the world through her eyes.

The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd
F KIDD
Set in the American South in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act and intensifying racial unrest, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees is a powerful story of coming-of-age, of the ability of love to transform our lives, and the often unacknowledged longing for the universal feminine divine. Addressing the wounds of loss, betrayal, and the scarcity of love, Kidd demonstrates the power of women coming together to heal those wounds, to mother each other and themselves, and to create a sanctuary of true family and home.

Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
F MARTEL
Life of Pi is an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). After fighting among the animals, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination.