FASCINATING, RIVETING, sometimes funny, true story of physicists working to unlock the secret of dark matter. B PLUS

THE 4 PERCENT UNIVERSE: DARK MATTER, DARK ENERGY, AND THE RACE TO DISCOVER THE REST OF REALITY
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)
2011

CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER Charles Hamilton Houston, mentor to Thurgood Marshall, profiled in engaging book. B PLUS

ROOT AND BRANCH: CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON, THURGOOD MARSHALL, AND THE STRUGGLE TO END SEGREGATION
Bloomsbury USA
2010

INSIDE THE STRANGER-THAN-FICTION world of endangered reptile smuggling; picaresque, quirky, ultimately sobering. B PLUS

STOLEN WORLD: A TALE OF REPTILES, SMUGGLERS, AND SKULDUGGERY
Crown Publishing Group
2011

A DECAYING HIGH-SOCIETY family and its wild dysfunctions, made vivid in this memoir by a Vanderbilt descendant. B PLUS

DEAD END GENE POOL: A MEMOIR
Gotham Books
2010

TRUE CRIME SUPERSTAR Ann Rule details a family’s quest to have a suspicious death declared murder, not suicide. SOLID B

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT: THE STRANGE DEATH OF RONDA REYNOLDS AND HER MOTHER’S UNCEASING QUEST FOR THE TRUTH
Free Press
2010

ENGROSSING BIOGRAPHY of 20th-century gay writer, scholar, tattoo artist, sexual revolutionary Samuel Steward. B PLUS

SECRET HISTORIAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SAMUEL STEWARD, PROFESSOR, TATTOO ARTIST, AND SEXUAL RENEGADE
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2010

SMART BUT NEVER HIGHFALUTIN book presents ten thought experiments in astrophysics. A must for SF writers! B PLUS

WHAT IF THE EARTH HAD TWO MOONS? by Neil F. Comins
New York: St. Martin’s Press
March, 2010

ENGAGING, CLEARLY WRITTEN bio is a love letter to activist Jane Jacobs’s fight vs. overdevelopment in NYC. SOLID B

WRESTLING WITH MOSES: HOW JANE JACOBS TOOK ON NEW YORK’S MASTER BUILDER AND TRANSFORMED THE AMERICAN CITY by Anthony Flint
New York: Random House
July 2009

ORANGE COUNTY through the eyes of the creator of “Ask A Mexican!”; well-researched, irreverent, poignant, and real. B PLUS

ORANGE COUNTY: A PERSONAL HISTORY by Gustavo Arellano
New York: Simon and Schuster
September 2008

RICHLY DETAILED BIOGRAPHY of Victorian England’s greatest acting duo follows the public and private lives of each. A MINUS

A STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY: THE DRAMATIC LIVES OF ELLEN TERRY, HENRY IRVING, AND THEIR REMARKABLE FAMILIES by Michael Holroyd
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux
March 2009