This reading list is based on Nancy Pearl's gateways of character, language, story and setting. Please add a short description for each title.

Character
Dawn French Dear fatty
Peter Fitzsimons Tobruck
Mark Seymour Thirteen ton theory
Catherin Hamlin Hospital by the river
Greg Bottoms Angel head
Susan Wyndham Life in his hands
Don Tate The war within
Dr Mohammed Khadra Making the cut : a surgeons' story of life on the edge
Helen Mirren In the frame: my life in pictures

Language
A steroid hit the earth: the catastrophic world of misprints Martin Toseland
Atonement Ian McEwan
Shots Don Walker
American journeys Don Watson
Speeches that changed the world

Story
Scratch beginnings Adam Shephard
At a cannibals table
Never say die Chris O'Brien
Escape Carolyn Jessop
Grand Central winter Lee Stringer
The cloud garden Tom Hartdyke and Paul Winder
Shot Gail Bell
Marley and me John Grogan
White Gold Giles Milton
Secrets of the red lantern: stories and Vietnamese recipes from the heart Pauline Nguyen

Setting
Alan Wiseman The world without us
Alexa Thompson Antarctica on a plate
Robert Hughes The fatal shore
Chloe Hooper The tall man
Simon Schama Landcape and memory
Joel Kotkin The city reader
The letters of Gertrude Bell
Susan Duncan Salvation Creek
Tim Smit The lost gardens of Heligan
Alexander Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipeligo
Rusty Young Marching Powder