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1	Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper A teenage girl who has survived a rare form of leukemia now needs a kidney transplant, in Jodi Picoult's novel. There's no trouble finding a perfect match, though, because the girl's parents conceived a little sister for their daughter specifically to provide a donor match. But there is a problem: the little sister, who's 13 now, has decided she would rather not be forced to donate a kidney. And she's hired a lawyer.
2	Jodee Blanco Please Stop Laughing At Me Jodee Blanco has traveled a road too many have traveled before her, and after her -- as a teenager, she was bullied in school in the 1970s. No, she was tormented in school. She turned the abuse around, though, and used it as a tool to make herself a successful adult.
3	Howell Raines The One That Got Away By 2001, veteran newspaperman Howell Raines had reached the top of his profession, with his appointment as executive editor of the New York Times. Within less than two years, Raines was painfully pulled down from that lofty perch by the Jayson Blair scandal at the Times, an episode that forced him to reassess his life and his career. One result of his rumination is his new memoir "The One That Got Away."
4	Timothy Tyson Blood Done Sign My Name In 1970 a young black man named Henry Marrow was murdered in Oxford, North Carolina, by a hot-tempered white businessman. That businessman's son was a friend of then-11-year-old Timothy Tyson, who's now a professor and who now retells the story -- and its tragic aftermath.
5	Keith Gessen All the Sad Young Literary Men Three young men not long out of college discover that it's tougher than they thought to carve out careers, relationships, and a life, in Keith Gessen's debut novel "All the Sad Young Literary Men." In what Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post called "a considerably better-than-average exercise in slacker fiction," Mark, Sam and Keith work to liberate their inner intellectuals, while staying in step with the larger world.
6	Linda Carroll My Mother's Daughter Writer and therapist Linda Carroll thought things would be different when she had a daughter, back in the mid '60s. Her daughter Courtney, she vowed, would never have to go through what Linda had experienced as an adopted child in the '50s. Courtney was a difficult child, however, who grew up to be a rock star -- we know her as Courtney Love -- and when she called her mother one day to say that she was pregnant, it inspired Linda Carroll to find her own mother. And that opened up a whole new chapter in her life. Carroll tells the story in a memoir called My Mother's Daughter.
7	Hollis Gillespie Confessions of a Recovering Slut Flight attendant turned columnist and NPR commentator Hollis Gillespie is becoming one of Atlanta, Georgia's favorite writers. From her very modest home in one of the city's more challenged neighborhoods, Gillespie has earned a serious following with her autobiographical essays. Her first book was called Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch.
8	Diana Gabaldon Lord John and the Private Matter Eighteenth century London is the backdrop for a murder mystery set in the context of a bestselling series of history-adventure novels. Author Diana Gabaldon has won the admiration of millions of readers with her Outlander series of books. This book focuses on the character of Lord John Gray, a minor player in the Outlander books.
9	Barack Obama Dreams From My Father Barack Obama was born to a Kenyan father and an American mother in 1961, but his parents divorced when he was just two years old. Obama has said his father was little more than a myth to him, at the time of the elder Obama's death in 1982. Just before he went off to law school, Obama traveled to Kenya to learn more about his father, and to try and put perspective on his mixed-race heritage. The result was his book "Dreams From My Father," first published in 1995. That's when Eye on Books talked with him. Get a FREE transcript
10	Ellen Feldman Lucy Much has been speculated about Franklin Roosevelt's love affair with his wife's social secretary, Lucy Mercer. But there is little factual history to go on, so Ellen Feldman has turned to fiction to help illuminate one of the most fascinating -- and perhaps historically significant -- love triangles of the 20th century.
11	Gary Paulsen How Angel Peterson Got His Name For three decades Gary Paulsen has been writing autobiographical fiction for young readers, and has built a large and loyal following for his true-to-life stories. His latest book is better than true-to-life, it's true. Paulsen tells stories from his own 13th year, a time when he and his buddies in Minnesota undertook what we would today call "extreme sports" -- but they were just trying to have fun.
12	Roger Mudd The Place to Be For twenty years, the CBS News Washington bureau was the most elite corps of television journalists. From 1960 to 1980, those who covered the news from that bureau made names not only for themselves but for the Tiffany Network - journalists like Dan Rather, George Herman, Eric Sevareid, Marvin Kalb, Fred Graham, Connie Chung, and .. Roger Mudd. It was "The Place to Be," which is the title of Roger Mudd's memoir of that time and place.
13	J. Peter Scoblic U.S. vs Them Conservatism has ruined America. Who says? The executive editor of the New Republic, J. Peter Scoblic. In his book "U.S. vs Them" he makes the argument that half a century of American conservatism, from William F. Buckley Jr. to George W. Bush, has left the country weaker, less safe, more isolated, and increasingly vulnerable to the very "evil" the Bush administration warns of.
14	Tyler Perry Don't Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings Mabel Simmons is 68 years old, has seen it all, and has a strong opinion on everything, from personal relationships to rap music. But of course, Mabel doesn't exist until actor-playwright Tyler Perry puts on his wig and costume and becomes his character, who is better known as "Madea." Now Madea has written a book -- even though it has Tyler Perry's name on it -- called "Don't Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings."
15	Richard Florida The Flight of the Creative Class The United States is facing a brain drain. Increasing numbers of the world's most intelligent and creative people are choosing to live and work elsewhere, says Richard Florida, a professor of urban planning and a leading voice in regional economic development. In 2002 he described what he called The Rise of the Creative Class, in a book by that name. Now he's describing something much more alarming.
16	Tammy Bruce The Death of Right and Wrong We're experiencing a "cultural meltdown," according to a new book that blames it on America's leftist elite. Its author is particularly disturbed by what's happening, because Tammy Bruce describes herself as a classical liberal.
17	Nathaniel Rich The Mayor's Tongue A young man and an old man, each from New York and each on a quest, both end up in Italy in the debut novel by Nathaniel Rich, "The Mayor's Tongue." Not just anywhere in Italy, mind you, but a particular, borderlands region of northern Italy, where the normal definitions of reality don't always seem to fit just right. It's a mosaic of love, madness, and language.
18	Kate Mosse Sepulchre Two women, living more than a century apart, find themselves drawn to the same estate in southern France, in the Kate Mosse suspense thriller "Sepulchre." In 1891, it's a young woman and her brother who accept the invitation of their widowed aunt to come for a visit, unaware of an evil presence that threatens the family. In the present day, an American graduate student tracing her ancestry arrives at the estate, which is now a hotel, to find another confrontation between good and evil.
19	Laura Lippman Another Thing to Fall After almost literally stumbling into a Baltimore location shoot by a Hollywood TV crew, private eye Tess Monaghan then stumbles into a job, in Laura Lippman's mystery "Another Thing to Fall." The company shooting the show "Mann of Steel" hires Tess to be bodyguard to the spoiled pop-tart female lead. But while Tess is still getting her bearings in this strange new world, there's a murder, and she finds herself in all-too-familiar territory once again.
20	Diane & John Rehm Toward Commitment NPR talk show host Diane Rehm and her husband John Rehm have remained happily married for well over four decades. Now, in hopes of encouraging other couples, they've written a book revealing how they've handled everything from in-laws and money to careers and religion.

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