Click here for Nomination Criteria.
To nominate a book, email Karen Roth at kmroth@ucdavis.edu

1. All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Life and Land by Winona LaDuke

2. Fatland: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser

3. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

4. Crowded Greenhouse: Population, Climate Change and Creating a Sustainable World by John Firor and Judith Jacobsen

5. Jarhead: A Marine’s Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by Anthony Swofford

6. Choosing Naia: A Family’s Journey by Mitchell Zuckoff

2005 Recommended Titles

1. The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2)

2. Assembling California by John McPhee (2)

3. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

4. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny by Robin Sharma

5. The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini (HC)

6. Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future in the Century – on Earth and Beyond by Martin Rees (HC)

7. Eat, Drink and Be Healthy: Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating by Walter C. Willett, P. J. Skerrett, Edward L. Giovannucci

8. “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” And Other Conversations About Race by Beverly Daniel Tatum

9. Cities of Salt by Abdelrahman Munif

10. Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

11. Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie

12. True Notebooks by Mark Salzman

13. Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean

14. Broken Music by Sting

15. Waiting for Snow in Havana by Carlos Eire

16. Dune by Frank Herbert

17. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin

18. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

19. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare

20. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

21. Best American Essays of the Century edited by Joyce Carol Oates

22. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler

23. Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability by Paul Longmore ($22 for paperback)

24. In the Little World: A True Story of Dwarfs, Love, and Trouble by John H. Richardson

25. That’s Not What I Meant: How Conversational Style Makes and Breaks the Relationship by Deborah Tannen

26. Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen and Roger Fisher

27. The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson

28. Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind

29. Watershed by Percival Everett

30. LifePlace: Bioregional Thought and Practice by Robert Thayer

31. Catfish and Mandala: A 2 Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam by Andrew Pham

32. Barefoot Heart: Stories of a Migrant Child by Elva Trevino Hart

33. America is in the Heart: A Personal History by Carlos Bulosan

34. The Run of the Litter by Pax ?? (Davis Graduate)

35. Genome by Matt Ridley

36. Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

37. Where I Was From by Joan Didion

38. Choosing Civility: The Twenty-five Rules of Considerate Conduct by P.M. Forni

39. America’s Dream by Esmeralda Santiago

40. Where We Stand: Class Matters by bell hooks

41. She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

42. To Africa with Spatula: A Peace Corps Mom in Malawi, 1965-67 by Jane Baker Lotter

43. The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Kang Chol-Hwan, Pierre Rigoulot, and Yair Reiner

44. Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen

45. Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation by Jonathan Kozol

46. A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman

47. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi

48. Mountains Beyond Mountains: Healing the World:The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer by Tracy Kidder

49. Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World by Thich Nhat Hanh

50. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

51. Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by John Krakauer

52. Into the Wild by John Krakauer

53. Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

54. Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in the Matrix, a collection of essays edited by Glenn Yeffeth

55. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann

56. An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain by Diane Ackerman

57. Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

58. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

59. One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal by Alice Dreger

60. Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin

61. All over Creation or My Fear of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

62. Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behaivor by David R. Hawkins

63. Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism by Dawn Prince-Hughes

64. Legacy of Luna by Julia Butterfly Hill