Recommended by Ellen, one of our adult reference librarians.

Check our other Fave Five lists, too!

A Girl Named Zippy

by Haven Kimmel
When Haven Kimmel was born in 1965, Mooreland, Indiana, was a sleepy little hamlet of 300 people. Nicknamed "Zippy" for the way she would bolt around the house, this small girl was possessed of big eyes and even bigger ears. Laced with fine storytelling, sharp wit, dead-on observations, and moments of sheer joy, Haven Kimmel's straight-shooting portrait of her childhood gives us a heroine who is wonderfully sweet and sly as she navigates the quirky adult world that surrounds Zippy.

I'm Not the New Me

by Wendy McClure
A hilarious and sometimes poignant look at the absurdities of weight-loss culture. From the creator of the websites Pound and Candyboots, this is the memoir of Wendy McClure's odyssey on-line and off-through the Valley of The Shadow of Her Really Big Ass. It's about the universe she created for herself when she couldn't see herself as a kicky Weight Loss Success Story, only she put it all on a website and became sort of an inspiration anyway.

She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders

by Jennifer Finney Boyle
An utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and celebrates the power of family.

Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love

by Jill Conner Browne
Since the early 1980s, this group of belles gone bad has been the toast of Jackson, Mississippi, with their glorious annual appearance in the St. Patrick's Day parade. In The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, their royal ringleader, Jill Conner Browne, introduces the Queens to the world with this sly, hilarious manifesto about love, life, men, and the importance of being prepared.

A Walk in the Woods

by Bill Bryson
Back in America after 20 years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakesand to a writer with the comic genius of Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the astounding silliness of his fellow human beings.