Annie Dillard’s AN AMERICAN CHILDHOOD; a memoir-paean to Pittsburgh—the childhood home to the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

Zlata Filipovic’s ZLATA’S DIARY: A CHILD’S LIFE IN WARTIME SARAJEVO; the journal of a ten-year-old records the bombings, snipers, gas, and food shortages during the 1990s.

Elizabeth Swados’s THE FOUR OF US: A FAMILY MEMOIR; a household is trounced by tragedy.

Herman Wouk’s THE LAWGIVER; when he turned ninety-seven the author satisfied his lifelong wish of writing an epistolary novel about Moses.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s MARY BARTON; the bitter and impoverished John Barton commits a murder.