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Great Expectations

Non-Fiction That Reads Like Fiction

  1. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
    Berendt, John
    Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? Berendt skillfullyinterweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the old south with the unpredicatable twists and turns of a landmark murder case.

  2. A Trip to the Beach: living on island time in the Caribbean
    Blanchard, Melinda
    A humorous chronicle of mishaps, at times quite poignant, takes shape as the Blanchards try to open a restaurant on the tiny Caribbean island of Anguilla. They meet face to face with pampered patrons, no electricty, and a devastating hurricane, all to the beat of "island time". At Blanchard's Table: a trip to the beach cookbook (2003) is the logical follow-up to A Trip to the Beach. It is primarily a cookbook, but it also includes short humorous stories about running a restaurant in the Caribbean Islands.

  3. Breaking Clean
    Blunt, Judy
    Judy Blunt grew up on a Montana ranch in the 1960s, an independent girl in a man's world. Her novel-like memoir of her spare-the-rod spoil-the-child upbringing, marriage after high school to an older rancher, and eventual divorce, is a vivid picture of life at the mercy of nature on one hand and iron-clad tradition on the other. Her description of the blizzard of 1964 is absolutely unforgettable.

  4. An Italian Affair
    Fraser, Laura
    Stunned when her husband of barely a year left her for his high school sweetheart, Laura Fraser fled to Italy to recover. on the island of Ischia she met a sophisticated, married Parisian art professor. Their subsequent meetings in a variety of sumptuous locations from London to Marrakech form the basis of this globetrotting love story.

  5. Leap of Faith: memoirs of an unexpected life
    Noor, Queen of Jordan
    Queen Noor was born Lisa Halaby in the United States, went to Princeton, and met and married King Hussein of Jordan when she was 26.

  6. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: how my mother raised 10 kids on 25 words or less
    Ryan, Terry
    Terry Ryan's biography of her mother Evelyn could have been grim - after all, Evelyn had an alcoholic husband and ten children to feed in the 1950s, when women were expected to be nothing other than housewives. But Ryan's book is instead a heartwarming tribute to her mother's resourcefulness at supporting the family through winning jingle-writing contests, The antics of the children and their pets are laugh-out-loud funny.

  7. Hamlet's Dresser: a memoir
    Smith, Bob
    Bob Smith's fascinating memoir interweaves growing up with a beloved, profoundly disabled sister, his recent work sharing his love of Shakespeare with senior citizens, and his years as a young man working as a dresser for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Katherine Hepburn, Jessica Tandy, Bert Lahr and other familiar figures co-star as he gives the reader an intimate picture of life behind the scenes at the festival.

  8. Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown
    Theroux, Paul
    As a young man in the 1960s Theroux came of age in Africa, serving in the Peace Corps and later as an English teacher. Decades later, as he travels the length of the continent using only locally available transportation, he finds an Africa very different from the one seen in wildlfe safaris and tourist centers - an Africa painfully different from that of his youth.

  9. The Bear's Embrace: a true story of surviving a grizzly bear attack
    Van Tighem, Patricia
    Hiking in the Canadian Rockies, Patricia Van Tighem and her husband are savagely attacked by a grizzly bear. Trained as a nurse, Van Tighem endures multiple reconstructive surgeries. Her disfigurement is a personal and professional ordeal. She worries that it will cause employers to doubt her abilities. "What I see isn't even me." Her achingly honest account of despondence and ultimate recovery leaves the reader amazed at the strength of the human spirit.

  10. The Professor and the Madman: a tale of murder, insanity, and the making of the Oxford English Dictionary
    Winchester, Simon
    Dr. W. C. Minor provided thousands of entries to the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary from his rooms in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.