Looking for some fascinating nonfiction? Here are our recommendations:
Ada's Algorithm : How Lord Byron's daughter Ada Lovelace Launched the Digital Age by James Essinger
Did you know Lord Byron's daughter was a mathematician who wrote the earliest "programs" for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine? I did not! You don't need to be a computer scientist to understand Ada's story, and you'll likely gain insight into how computers work at their most basic level. Ada was not raised by her father, but possessed genius and extraordinary character. She sadly died at 36, the same age as Lord Byron. - Elisa
Born a Crime: stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
The compelling memoir is made up of stories of Noah's experiences growing up during the tail-end of apartheid in South Africa. He gives homage to his mother, who raised him well, and set him on the unlikely path from Africa to the desk of The Daily Show. I listened to the audio version on Libby and it was fantastic because Noah narrated it himself. This memoir had me horrified one moment and laughing the next…and there were tears. "Born a Crime" has it all - heart, humor, trauma, and sadness. But overall it was a hopeful and well-written book. - Emma
Debt-Free Forever by Gail Vaz Oxlade
I read this book in my 3rd year of university as I was looking towards my Masters Degree. Overcome by the amount of debt I was already in (my parents didn’t pay for my school) and looking to spend even more, I turned towards this book for answers. I loved the no-BS, “put your grown-up pants on” style that made me come face-to-face with my then finances, and gave me the tools and skills to take charge of my finances and have enough for now and plan for the future. The tips and tricks and the financial knowledge in this book have helped me now for decades. I loved the budget pie, which is what percentage of your income should be distributed to what categories, and how to pay off debt quickly, and how to save for retirement. What I found valuable when I first read it was the budget pie, which my family still uses to this day, and how to make your education debt work for you. Since I read this book, I have never read another financial budgeting book. This was the only one I needed. You really can be “Debt-Free Forever” and stay out of debt, but be prepared to face the music and put your grown-up pants on! - Mary
Fire Weather by John Vaillant
"Fire Weather" by John Vaillant is riveting account of the 2016 wildfire that blasted through Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry, turning neighbourhoods into firebombs, forcing thousands of people to flee, and causing billions of dollars of damages in a single afternoon. This book covers a range of topics including Canadian history, the science of fire, world climate statistics, and the politics of oil, gas and coal companies while also including detailed accounts of Fort McMurray residents as they fled the disaster. Both entertaining and alarming, this is a must read. - Natashia
Walden or Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau
“When I wrote the following pages…I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from my neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months.” So begins Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, his account of his life at Walden Pond from July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847. In this short volume, he explores the ideas of self-sufficiency, voluntary poverty, the injustice of slavery, civil disobedience, man’s relations to his neighbors, and his relation to the natural world. Thoreau is one of America’s great philosophers, but he is remarkably easy to read and very quotable. (My personal copy of Walden is heavily underlined and annotated). “I went to the woods,” Thoreau wrote, “because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” Thoreau is the perfect antidote to our modern malaise. - Ken