Recommended Books:

Recommended Books from Oprah's Magazine. Each month, the Oprah Magazine features the books that made a difference in the life of a prominent person.

Hilary McLellan recommends:

Pobby and Dingan, by Ben Rice (2000) Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group. ISBN: 1400031885.
This enchanting tale is at once a beautifully rendered narrative of childhood loss and a powerfully simple fable about the necessity of imagination. Pobby and Dingan are Kellyanne Williamson’s best friends, maybe her only friends, and only she can see them. Kellyanne’s brother, Ashmol, can’t see them and doesn’t believe they exist anywhere but in Kellyanne’s immature imagination. Only when Pobby and Dingan disappear and Kellyanne becomes heartsick over their loss does Ashmol realize that not only must he believe in Pobby and Dingan, he must convince others to believe in them, too.

The Angel with One Hundred Wings: A Tale from the Arabian Nights, by Daniel Horch (2002). Publisher: St. Martin's Press. ISBN: 0312284187.
The brief events of this graceful novel take place in ancient Baghdad. Abulhassan, an elderly alchemist, is a close friend of the sultan's and acts as an adviser to the young men from the empire's best families. But Abulhassan's retiring life is shattered when one of these men, a prince who shares the elderly alchemist's name, falls in love with the sultan's favorite mistress. The young lovers beg Abulhassan's assistance in helping them escape to Spain, and he is torn. He knows that both he and the prince might lose their lives if they betray their ruler, yet he is moved by the lovers' passion. And their plight kindles in him a reexamination of his own life, including the decisions he made as a young man and the way those decisions shaped his relationship with his own family. Steeped in rich imagery, The Angel with One Hundred Wings is a beautiful and compelling tale wrapped in a moral quandary. Inspired by a story from the The Arabian Nights, this fairy tale has an ending that, for all its moral ambiguity, is very, very right. This book provides wonderful insight into the remarkable cultural heritage of Iraq.

The Last Algonquin, by Theodore Kazimiroff (1997). Publisher: Walker & Company. ISBN: 0802775179
Astonishing as it may seem, as late as 1924 one lone Algonquin still inhabited a wild, isolated corner of New York City. And he believed that as long as one person could still tell the story, the Indians would live on in the rocks and trees that had once been their home. So Joe Two Trees, the last surviving member of a band of the once powerful Algonquin people, told his story to a 12-year old boy whom he befriended in the last winter of his life. In this book, the story is passed on by the little boy's son.

Roger Wyatt recommends:

A Baker's Dozen Plus Three: A Bibliography of America in the 20th Century
America's Secret War : Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies, by George Friedman. ISBN: 0767917855.
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century, by Thomas L. Friedman. ISBN: 0374292884.
From the Cold War to a New Era: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1983-1991, by Don Oberdorfer. ISBN: 0801859220.
Accidental Empires, by Robert X. Cringely. ISBN: 0887308554.
The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics, by Bruce J. Schulman. ISBN: 030681126X.
1968 : The Year That Rocked the World, by Mark Kurlansky. ISBN: 0345455819.
Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965, by Juan Williams. ISBN: 0140096531.
Our Vietnam/Nuoc Viet Ta: A History of the War 1954-1975, by A.J. Langguth. ISBN: 0684812029.
The Week The World Stood Still: Inside The Secret Cuban Missile Crisis, by Sheldon M. Stern. ISBN: 0804750777.
America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2002, Updated, by Walter Lafeber. ISBN: 0072849037.
The Fifties, by David Halberstam. ISBN: 0449909336.
D Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, by Stephen E. Ambrose. ISBN: 068480137X.
Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States), by David M. Kennedy. ISBN: 0195144031.
Anxious Decades: America in Prosperity and Depression 1920-1941 (Norton Twentieth Century America Series), by Michael E. Parrish. ISBN: 0393311341.
Theodore Rex, by Edmund Morris. ISBN: 0812966007.
Pivotal Decades: The United States, 1900-1920, by John Milton Cooper. ISBN: 0393956555.