Shelfology Book Pairing

A Memoir

by Jeannette Walls

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - TWO MILLION COPIES SOLD 'Tragic and comic at the same time... an outrageous story, one that will break your heart' Sunday Independent 'A terrific story, grippingly told' Sunday Times 'I read The Glass Castle straight through in an evening, wearing an expression of slack-jawed amazement' Spectator While Jeannette Walls was living on Park Avenue, covering the Academy Awards and attending black-tie parties at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, her parents were squatting in an abandoned building on the Lower East Side. Rex Walls, her father, was an ingenious adventurer and a hopeless alcoholic. Her mother was an artist who abhorred domestic routine and the chores of motherhood: 'Why should I cook a meal that will be gone in an hour when I can do a painting that will last forever?' Funny sad, quirky and loving, The Glass Castle is an almost incredible story of a nomadic, impoverished childhood. NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING BRIE LARSON, WOODY HARRELSON AND NAOMI WATTS

One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World

by A. J. Jacobs

Biography detailing the comic effects on Jacobs' life that occur when he attempts to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes A to Z.