On this 40th anniversary year of Earth Day, I can’t think of anything better to read than a biography of Rachel Carson, arguably the founder of the modern environmental movement. Though not necessarily new, Linda Lear’s biography RACHEL CARSON: A WITNESS FOR NATURE is well worth reading. It delves deeply into Carson’s life, loves and motivations, which offers remarkable insights into her career. It’s a scholarly but hardly dry read. I highly recommend this. (Paperback, $17.95) Recommended by Kelly.

Part travel book, part cultural critique, and part ode to the bicycle, David Byrne’s BICYCLE DIARIES is simply a pleasure to read. Singer, writer, filmmaker and renaissance man Byrne recounts equally joyous and harrowing experiences astraddle his bicycle, his vehicle of choice. David Byrne is how occasionally irreverent Christian writer Anne Lamott imagines God. If this is how God writes and lives, I’m a follower. (Hardcover, $25.95). Recommended by Kelly.

Though most of you have probably already seen the movie, Julia Child’s memoir MY LIFE IN FRANCE is well worth the read. It yields insights into the legend that can’t be captured on film. For instance, you wouldn’t know it from Streep’s bold portrayal that for the lion’s share of her life, Child lacked confidence and felt sad and frustrated that for years she had been sheltered from the larger world that France and her husband opened up to her. Also, her detailed, sumptuous descriptions and spot-on recall of long-past favorite meals are astounding. Don’t read this book hungry. (Softcover, $15.00). Recommended by Kelly.

It is so nice to read a book that highlights what one person can do to make life better for so many. I felt this way about Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson (about creating schools for girls in Afghanistan), and now William Kamkwamba’s THE BOY WHO HARNESSED THE WIND has made the same difference, on another continent, for the people of his village by building a windmill to pump water to his drought stricken area. Using bicycle parts and scraps of wood, and his intelligence and bits of education, he transforms and saves many lives.

The other thing that was so impressive to me about this book was to see the world from William’s perspective. He grew up without our forms of communication, and hearing stories of lion hunts and creation tales from his grandfather and father. His village got a video player and monitor when he was a youngster and the village watched “Terminator” and thought that was what was really happening in the United States! This was a time before his family was finally able to afford sending him to a school in a nearby town.

A well written read for an uplift about life. (Hardcover, $25.99). Recommended by Julie.

Obsessions are hard to explain and even harder to justify if you’re a woman and they take you away from your family. Harder still if your obsession is “just” about birds. That’s why Olivia Gentile’s biography of Phoebe Snetsinger LIFE LIST is such an important book. Clearly, one of the world’s greatest birders, Snetsinger didn’t begin her career until she was 34 and had a suburban home, husband and four children. Therein lay the problem. To be the best birder in the world, you must embrace risk, overcome tremendous physical challenge, and you cannot–and Snetsinger would not–stay home. This is a fascinating book. (Hardcover, $26.00; due in paperback March, 2010). Recommended by Kelly.

Need a heroine? Trying to understand what the feminist movement was all about? I highly recommend WOMAN BEHIND THE NEW DEAL: THE LIFE OF FRANCIS PERKINS, FDR’S SECRETARY OF LABOR AND HIS MORAL CONSCIENCE by Kirsten Downey. Ms. Perkins was the first woman member of the cabinet. Her incredible story is a history of the US in the 20th century through World War II.

With cunning, intelligence and plain old hard work Francis Perkins pressed FDR, the congress, corporations and the labor movement (and sometimes the Supreme Court) to pass progressive legislation that impacts our lives today. Social Security, the minimum wage, the 40 hour work week, working conditions and child labor laws are among the laws that she was instrumental in having passed despite being harassed and vilified because of her gender. The one missing piece in her plan was universal health care–an issue that haunts us to this day. Hardcover, $35.00 Customer review: Martha.

Though originally published in 1982, a couple of years after Harvey Milk’s death, THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET by the late Randy Shilts well deserves the recent re-release in the wake of the movie “Milk”. The book not only captures the life and murder of the first openly gay person elected to any public office, it also provides a history of the gay revolution. Shilts’ journalistic eye and delicate pacing will please fiction and nonfiction readers alike.  Recommended by Kelly.  Softcover, $16.95.

I’ve never played a note on a guitar, but that didn’t matter; Glenn Kurtz’s memoir PRACTICING reached me. For anyone who has ever tried to create something of beauty and fallen short of what he or she imagined, this book will be a balm. After nearly 20 years of not touching the classical guitar Kurtz had been trained to play before audiences, he retrieved it from the back of his closet, dusted it off, and fell in love again. Rare is a writer this honest and vulnerable about artistic process.  Recommended by Kelly.

The author offers us thoughtful and thorough exploration of Lincoln as an extraordinarily talented writer. He recounts the literature that formed and informed his style, especially focusing on Lincoln’s early life and the influence of his beloved step-mother.  This book is a very significant addition to works on the analysis of Lincoln’s genius, and those who enjoyed Gary Wills’ LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG and Douglas Wilson’s LINCOLN’S SWORD: THE PRESIDENCY AND THE POWER OF WORDS will want to have this book.  Recommended by Pat.