Agnes Reads!  

An exciting, but controversial tale about how one woman’s cancer cells have gone on to contribute towards scientific research long after her death and without her permission.

How to Breathe Underwater has been awarded the Joseph Henry Jackson Award, the Northern California Book Award, and was declared a New York Times Notable Book. It has been adapted to the stage, read on National Public Radio and BBC Radio 4, and has been translated into at least nine languages.

Warren St. John is a reporter for The New York Times. His book, Outcasts United, has been translated into at least five languages.

Einstein's Dreams has been translated into thirty languages. It was runnerup for the PEN New England/Boston Globe Winship Award, and was the National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" Book Club pick in 1998. It has been adapted for the stage more than twenty-four times. Alan Lightman was the first professor at MIT to be appointed jointly to both the sciences and the humanities.

Persepolis is a graphic novel autobiography that tells of Marjane Satrapi's life growing up in Iran. Persepolis made Time Magazine's top ten best comics list in 2003. Satrapi co-wrote and co-directed the film version, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Feature Film.

American Woman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Susan Choi has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has also won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction.

Catherine Clinton received her doctorate in history from Princeton University. She currently teaches U.S. history at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has written for the History Channel and is a member of the Screen Writer's Guild.

Bee Season was a New York Times Notable Book, was awarded the Borders New Voices Prize, and was nominated for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Barnes and Noble Discover Award. Bee Season has been adapted to film.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been awarded the American Book Award, the Bay Area Reviewers Award, the PEN Josephine Miles Award in fiction and the South Asian Literary Association Distinguished Author Award.

Julia Glass has received the National Book Award for fiction, three Nelson Algren Awards, the Tobias Wolff Award, the Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Medal for best novella, and the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in fiction.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was chosen as a notable book by the American Library Association. Two of Julia Alvarez's other works have also gained this distinction. Alvarez has also been awarded prizes from the Academy of American Poets, and received the Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Alvarez a member of the U.S. delegation to the inauguration of Hipolito Mejía, the new president of the Dominican Republic in 2000.

The Bonesetter's Daughter was nominated for the Orange Prize for fiction. Amy Tan has also been nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has received the Commonwealth Gold Award and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Her books have been translated into thirty-five languages.

Rebecca Wells has won the Western States Book Award and the Adult Trade ABBY Award. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood has been adapted to film.

Stephen Jay Gould received the American Book Award for science, the Science Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Gould was elected President of the American Society of Naturalists, the Paleontological Society, the Society for the Study of Evolution and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2000, the Library of Congress delcared him a Living Legend.

Frank McCourt received the Pulitzer Prize in biography for Angela's Ashes, as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award.

Josephine Humphreys has been awarded the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Prize for the best American first novel, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lyndhurst Fellowship.

Margaret Atwood has been awarded the E. J. Pratt Medal, the Governor-General's Award (twice), the President's Medal from the University of Western Ontario, the Canadian Centennial Commision Poetry Competition's first place prize, a prize for poetry from the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation, the Bess Hoskins Prize for Poetry, the City of Toronto Award, the Canadian Bookseller's Association Award, the St. Lawrence Award for fiction, the Canada Council Molson Prize, and the Radcliffe Medal.

Gail Godwin received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.

For Stones for Ibarra, Harriet Doerr has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, an American Book Award for first fiction, the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California, and the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Acdemy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She also received the Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing from Standord University and the Transatlantic Review's Henfield Foundation Prize

Clyde Edgerton has received a Best Book citation from Publishers Weekly, Five notable book citations from the New York Times, and the 1997 North Carolina Award for Literature. He has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Lyndhurst Fellowship.

Alice Walker was awarded the Lillian Smith Award, the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Rosenthal Award, the American Book Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award in Fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She was nominated for the National Book Award. She has also received the Charles Merrill writing fellowship and a Guggenheimer fellowship.

'Night Mother received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama, the Hull-Warriner Award, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and four Tony Award Nominations. Marsha Norman was also awarded the John Gassner New Playwright's Medallion, the George Oppenheimer Newsday Playwriting Award, and a Tony Award for the musical The Secret Garden. She has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Letters.

Nectar In a Sieve was named a notable book by the American Library Association in 1955.

Dale Loves Sophie to Death won the National Book Awards prize for first novel.

Toni Morrison received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for the National Book Award. She was the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gift From the Sea narrates Lindbergh's struggle to balance her family life and her creative work.

Bring Me A Unicorn is the diaries and letters of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, detailing her courtship with Charles Lindbergh.

Gail Godwin received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the American Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.

Wallace Stegner received the Little, Brown Novelette Prize, the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the Houghton Mifflin Life-In-America Award, the Commonwealth Club Gold Medal, and was the first recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for Life Achievement from the Los Angeles Times.

Eudora Welty received the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the National Institute of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for the Novel, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the American Book Award's National Medal for Literature.

Reynolds Price has received the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Literature Award, and the Sir Walter Raleigh award for fiction. In 1993 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

George E. Reedy was press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Mark Van Doren received a Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems, the Hale Award, the Huntington Hartford Creative Award, and the Emerson Thoreau Award.

Muriel Spark received the Ingersol Foundation T. S. Eliot Prize, the Italia Prize, and was nominated for the Best International Man Booker Prize. She was given the title Dame Commander of the British Empire and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been adapted to the stage, film, and television.

Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in 1899, but the book did not gain any recognition until the 1950s. Chopin is now considered one of the most significant writers of her time.

W. J. Cash spent over a decade perfecting The Mind of the South. The book was praised by The New York Times, the N.A.A.C.P. and Time Magazine. Time reported that "Anything written about the South henceforth must start where he leaves off."

John Keats was a reporter for The Washington Daily News. His books were translated into many languages and appeared on best seller lists.

Muriel Spark received the Ingersol Foundation T. S. Eliot Prize, the Italia Prize, and was nominated for the Best International Man Booker Prize. She was given the title Dame Commander of the British Empire and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has been adapted to the stage, film, and television.

Loren Eiseley was named Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science in 1961.

For The Chosen, Chaim Potok received the Edward Lewis Wallant Award and a National Book Award Nomination. He has also received the National Jewish Book Award and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture Achievement Award in Literature.

Lillian Smith has received the Page One Award, the Constance Skinner Lindsay Award, and the Sidney Hillman Award, along with a citation from the National Book Awards Committee.

Reynolds Price has received the National Institute of Arts and Letters' Literature Award, and the Sir Walter Raleigh award for fiction. In 1993 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

For A Separate Peace John Knowles received awards from the William Faulkner Foundation and the Rosenthal Foundation.

The Moviegoer won the 1962 National Book Award in fiction. Walker Percy also received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the St. Louis Literary Award. Percy was also a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Viktor Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, on scavenged slips of paper. The book has sold over ten million copies and had been translated into twenty-four different languages.

From 1965-1967, Charles Frankel was Assisstant Secretary of State for Education and Cultural Affairs.

Jacob Bronowski was the President of the British Library Association from 1957-1958, and Carnegie visiting professor of History MIT in 1953.

Lord of the Flies has made Time's list of 100 best English-language novels (from 1923 to 2005) and number 68 of the American Library Associations 100 most challenged books from 1990-1999. It has been adapted to film twice. William Golding recieved the Nobel Prize in literature in 1983.

To Kill A Mockingbird has won the Pulitzer Prize, been translated into at least ten languages and sold more than forty million copies. The book celebrated its fiftith anniversary in 2010. It was number 21 on the American Library Associations' 100 most challenged books from 2000-2009. In a 1999 poll conducted by Library Journal, To Kill a Mockingbird was voted best novel. It has been adapted to film twice. In 2007 Harper Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work.

Albert Camus is a French writer, who received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1957.

A study of American life and social character, which gained great popularity in the 50s, and is still considered relevant today. David Riesman was the subject of an article of Time magazine in September 1954, and appeared on the cover, the first social scientist to do so.