Good to Great

When I first got the book, I expected it to be a boring, serious and professional economy/business book. However, after reading the first 10 pages, I realized that I was entirely wrong. How to run a business is exactly like how to live a life. Prepare for the most inspirational non-fiction book of the year, and change your life from good to great.

-Emma

The Lady and the Monk

Pico Iyer goes to Japan in order to learn more about Zen Buddhism and the Japanese culture. As he spends one year in Japan he learns more about Buddhism and also finds his new love Sachiko, who is already married. The journey of Iyer is very slow-paced but it is a good book to read if you want to spend a peaceful afternoon by yourself.

-Kelly

The Good Good Pig

When I was shopping in the bookstore with my mom, I was interested in this book because there was a cute little pig on the cover. The Good Good Pig, by Sy Montgomery, is in fact a book about a pig named Christopher Hogwood. Sy and her husband, Howard, received Chris because he was the runt at the local farm. At first, Chris ceased to grow. However, he eventually did start to grow, and his relationships with the people around him grew as well. You don't have to love pigs to enjoy reading this book because a lot of the book is about the relationships with the pig, not just the pig in general. At the end, you learn a good lesson about life and how a small pig named Christopher Hogwood grew to be 750 pounds and changed many lives of the people around him.

-Michelle

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert is an account of the author's journey to rediscover the true meaning of happiness. Elizabeth has it all, a job she enjoys doing, a devoted husband, and a new house. But why can't she stop crying? Elizabeth then gives up everything to travel to Europe and discover herself. There, she finds spiritual enlightenment, delicious food, and love for herself and others.

-Belinda

Born to Run

I've been running for over 20 years, and Born to Run is the first book that made me think about how I'm doing it, and actually convinced me to change my running technique. The book has three elements, all of which are intertwined in a provocative expose. The first element is an anthropological study of an Indian tribe in Mexico. The tribe just happens to run outrageously long distances (for days at a time), partly for fun, and partly for practical reasons. The second part of the book is an impassioned argument against running shoes, to be replaced by barefoot running or running with minimal cushioning. This is where the title of the book comes from. The argument is that humans were, for ages, subsistence hunters, meaning we hunted to stay alive. Since our prey could run faster than us in short spurts, we would run just fast enough to keep them in sight, forcing them to keep running in short spurts until they overheated (animals can't sweat) and we could finally get close enough to kill them. We were, quite literally, born to run, having evolved to allow this sort of long-distance hunting. But running shoes distort the runner's form and actually end up causing injuries, or so the argument goes. The third element of the book is the story of an ultra-marathon, a 100-mile race involving some of the best ultra-marthoners in the U.S. and several of the members of the Mexican tribe competing against one another. It's a riveting account, and ties together the other two sections of the book. If you're into running or human evolution, this book is highly entertaining.

-Brett Potash