Top Non-Fiction

#1.	The Gift of Thanks By Margaret Visser Whether her subject is the food on your dinner plate or your table manners, Margaret Visser has been able, in five award-winning works of nonfiction, to uncover and explain the intriguing and unexpected meanings of everyday objects and habits. Now she turns her keen eye to an exploration of another custom so frequently encountered that it often escapes attention: saying “thank you.” What do we really mean by these two simple words? What are the implications of gratitude, and why are we so enraged when we meet its opposite? This fascinating inquiry into all aspects of gratefulness ranges from the unusual determination with which parents teach their children to thank, to the difference between speaking the words and feeling them, to the way different cultures handle the amazingly complex and important matter of giving, receiving, and returning favours and presents. Visser illuminates the fundamental opposition in our own culture between gift-giving and commodity exchange, and the similarities between gratitude and its polar opposite, vengefulness. The Gift of Thanks considers cultural history, including the modern battle of social scientists to pin down the notion of thankfulness and account for it, and the newly awakened scientific interest in the biological and evolutionary roots of emotions. In Margaret Visser’s hands, gratitude becomes a key to understanding many aspects of everyday behaviour. Enlightenment is drawn from folklore, mythology, and fiction, as well as from common customs such as the wrapping of gifts, Remembrance Day ceremonies, and the “paying” and receiving of compliments. With her engaging combination of curiosity and erudition, Visser once again reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary.
#2.	David Suzuki's Green Guide By David Suzuki This book gives useful tips for how to make greener choices in the food you eat, the home you live in, the way you travel, and the things you buy. It also describes how you can ensure that your government supports sustainable lifestyles. With this indispensable and inspiring guide, you will learn how to lessen your impact on the environment, improve your health, save money, and become part of the solution as a steward of the planet.
#3.	Hot, Flat and Crowded By Thomas Friedman Thomas L. Friedmans no. 1 bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way. Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energyboth of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future. Friedman proposes that an ambitious national strategy which he calls Geo-Greenismis not only what we need to save the planet from overheating; it is what we need to make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure. As in The World Is Flat, he explains a new erathe Energy-Climate erathrough an illuminating account of recent events. He shows how 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the flattening of the world by the Internet (which brought 3 billion new consumers onto the world stage) have combined to bring climate and energy issues to Main Street. But they have not gone very far down Main Street; the much-touted green revolution has hardly begun. With all that in mind, Friedman sets out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need; he shows that the ET (Energy Technology) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive; and he explains why America must lead this revolutionwith the first Green President and a Green New Deal, spurred by the Greenest Generation. Green Is the New Red, White, and Blue is classic Thomas L. Friedmanfearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the world we live in today.
#4.	What Is America? By Ronald Wright From the award-winning, #1 bestselling author ofA Short History of Progresscomes another surprising, frightening and essential book. The USA is now the worlds lone superpower, whose deeds could make or break this century. For better and worse, America has Americanized the world. How did a marginal frontier society, in a mere two centuries, become the de facto ruler of the world? Why do Americas great achievements in democracy, prosperity and civil rights now seem threatened by forces within itself? Brimming with insight into history and human behaviour, and written in Wrights captivating style,What Is America?shows how this came to pass; how the United States, which regards itself as the most modern country on earth, is also deeply archaic, a stronghold not only of religious fundamentalism but of modern beliefs in limitless progress and a universal mission that have fallen under suspicion elsewhere in the west, a rethinking driven by two World Wars and the reckless looting of our planet. A fresh, passionate look at the past and future of the worlds most powerful nation,What Is America?will reframe the debate about our neighbour and ourselves.
#5.	When You Are Engulfed In Flames By David Sedaris David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," ("The Christian Science Monitor") is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of "flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from "a writer worth treasuring" ("Seattle Times").

#6.	Man Who Loved China By Simon Winchester In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of "The Professor and the Madman" ("Elegant and scrupulous"--"New York Times Book Review") and "Krakatoa" ("A mesmerizing page-turner"--"Time") brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country. Both epic and intimate, "The Man Who Loved China" tells the sweeping history of China through Needham's remarkable life. Here is an unforgettable tale of what makes men, nations, and, indeed, mankind itself great--by one of the world's inimitable storytellers.
#7.	What I Talk About When I Talk About Running By Haruki Murakami From the best-selling author ofThe Wind-Up Bird ChronicleandAfter Dark, a rich and revelatory memoir about writing and running, and the integral impact both have made on his life. In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Haruki Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, hed completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a slew of critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life andeven more importanton his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and includes settings ranging from Tokyos Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvellous lens of sport emerges a cornucopia of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after the age of fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical,What I Talk About When I Talk About Runningis both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in distance running.
#8.	Way of The World By Ron Suskind Ron Suskind's book promises to be a bracing international thrilleran ensemble of uranium merchants and panicked diplomats, stealthy Jihadist soldiers and CIA operatives, anxious Muslim children and angry world leadersa diverse cast of players who will define the struggle between hope and fear in the modern era. Suskind will close the Bush yearsa period he has helped to definewith a startling glimpse at what America actually faces across the roiling world. In the intelligence and military communities, the overwhelming concern is the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons and the ingredients from which weapons can be composed across a globe exploding with conflict and anti-American fervour. It is a failure of government that we are left with this overwhelming security issueboth domestically, where our security is deeply compromised, and internationally, where we face a host of seen and unseen threats. This book will explode in the middle of an election year with unparalleled disclosures and analysis. The books nature and timing will place it at the very centre of the election battle as it enters its final six months. It will be a must-read for anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent.
#9.	My Stroke Of Insight By Jill Bolte Taylor A brain scientist? journey from a debilitating stroke to full recovery becomes an inspiring exploration of human consciousness and its possibilities On the morning of December 10, 1996 Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours. As the damaged left side of her brain ?the rational, grounded, detail and time-oriented side ?swung in and out of function, Taylor alternated between two distinct and opposite realties: the euphoric nirvana of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace; and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized Jill was having a stroke, and enabled her to seek help before she was lost completely. In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world according to the insights gained from her right brain that morning of December 10th. Today Taylor is convinced that the stroke was the best thing that could have happened to her. It has taught her that the feeling of nirvana is never more than a mere thought away. By stepping to the right of our left brains, we can all uncover the feelings of well-being and peace that are so often sidelined by our own brain chatter. A fascinating journey into the mechanics of the human mind, My Stroke of Insightis both a valuable recovery guide for anyone touched by a brain injury, and an emotionally stirring testimony that deep internal peace truly is accessible to anyone, at any time.
#10.	In The Realm of  Hungry Ghosts By Gabor Mate In this timely and profoundly original new book, bestselling writer and physician Gabor Mate looks at the epidemic of addictions in our society, tells us why we are so prone to them and what is needed to liberate ourselves from their hold on our emotions and behaviours. For over seven years Gabor Mate has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV and, in many cases, all four. But if Dr. Mate's patients are at the far end of the spectrum, there are many others among us who are also struggling with addictions. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling and excessive inappropriate spending: what is amiss with our lives that we seek such self-destructive ways to comfort ourselves? And why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our lives? Beginning with a dramatically close view of his drug addicted patients, Dr. Mate looks at his own history of compulsive behaviour. He weaves the stories of real people who have struggled with addiction with the latest research on addiction and the brain. Providing a bold synthesis of clinical experience, insight and cutting edge scientific findings, Dr. Mate sheds light on this most puzzling of human frailties. He proposes a compassionate approach to helping drug addicts and, for the many behaviour addicts among us, to addressing the void addiction is meant to fill.