INSIDE THE WORLD OF hallucinations with Oliver Sacks, the Willy Wonka of the human brain. Fun, informative.

PLAYFUL, ABSORBING DISQUISITION on women as chefs, with lots of interviews, lots of chefs’ perspectives.

A FATHER’S MEMOIR of his son’s experience of autism reflects their shared humor and bookish quirkiness.

A HORRIFYING CHILDHOOD OF desperate poverty and abuse in 1950s Dublin, vividly recalled.  Harsh, compelling.

THE COMPLICATED CHILDHOODS and eccentric adult lives of Charles Dickens’s nine children, engagingly related.

TOUCHING, POETIC MEMOIR of a life spent studying a group of endangered orcas in Alaska. Vivid, impassioned.

ENTERTAINING, ACCESSIBLE LOOK at particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider, the search for the Higgs Boson.

ENCYCLOPEDICALLY CREEPY HISTORY of US mass murderers and serial killers, from the 18th century through today.

FASCINATING STORIES OF the lives of the Russian aristocracy, from the eve of revolution to later reprisals.

QUIRKY MEDITATIONS ON love and loss throughout history, and in the writer’s personal life. Entertaining!