Title	Author	Category	Summary
Guns, Germs, and Steel	Jared Diamond	Society, history	The best non-fiction book of 1998. Evolutionary approach to human history -- an intelligent refutation of racism.
The Geography of Nowhere	James Kunstler	Society	A terrific book explaining why suburban sprawl is so unpleasant, even though it was designed with the opposite goal, and what to do about it.
Touching The Void	Joe Simpson	Adventure	The best first person adventure book ever written.
My Antonia	Willa Cather	Novel	A beautifully written story of a woman's life on the prarie. 
The Third Chimpanzee	Jared Diamond	Society, History	Evolutionary approach to human behavior and sexuality.
Jazz	Toni Morrison	Novel	A great, lyrical novel.
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	Novel	Great pre civil-rights era story of race and growing-up.
A Thousand Acres	Jane Smiley	Novel	King Lear retold from the daughter's point of view and set in the midest. Pulitzer prize winner.
The Perfect Storm	Sebastian Junger	Adventure	A real-world account of an enormous east coast storm.
Martha Quest	Doris Lessing	Novel	One in the "children of violence" novels -- a coming of age tale in pre WWII Africa.
Into Thin Air	Jon Krakauer	Adventure	The chilling account of egoism vs. Everest.
Wild Swans	Jung Chang	Society, history	Traces the history of China's path through communism through the history of three generations of women.
A Random Walk Down Wall Street	Burton Malkiel	Society, economics	Why paying your broker a lot of money is stupid.
Liar's Poker	Michael Lewis	Humor, economics	A hillarious account of the Wall Street culture.
A Pattern Language	Christopher Alexander et. al.	Society	Influential perspective on the humane design of towns and buildings.
Longitude	Dava Sobel	History	Fascinating account of the ardurous history of the development of accurate timekeeping.
Breaking The News	James Fallows	Society	A superb analysis of how things get filtered into the media.
Memoirs of a Geisha	Arthur Golden	Novel	The story of a Geisha in 1930's Japan.
The Sportswriter	Richard Ford	Novel	Portrait of an American man, novelist turned sportswriter, as he sheds the familiar details of his middle-class, middle-aged life.
Affliction	Russel Banks	Novel	Explores the self destruction of a small town police officer afflicted with a lifetime of family violence.
The Sweet Hereafter	Russel Banks	Novel	Poignant story of the repercussions of a tragic school bus accident.
My Son's Story	Nadine Gordimer	Novel	Tells the story of a colored South African schoolteacher, his role in the struggle to end apartied, and the effect of his extra-marital affair with a white activist on his family.