GIST
Her ideology leads her to look for evidence that entry-level jobs-the kind that women leaving welfare are likely to land-are dehumanizing. Naturally, she finds what she is looking for while working as a maid, a nursing home worker, a Wal-Mart clerk, and a waitress. She doesn't stick around long enough to see how lives change and people progress.

GIST
Action moves back and forth between the POWs, held in near starvation conditions; increasingly desperate Japanese soldiers; and Rangers sent behind enemy lines to extract the prisoners before the Japanese could kill them. One chapter shows the crucial role chaplains played in keeping up POW morale.

GIST
In the years immediately after ratification of the Constitution, it was not clear that a republic spread over such a vast territory could survive. Ellis looks at the issues, personalities, and compromises to increase the odds of survival. Through his portrayal of the Founders he shows that ideas have consequences.

GIST
In this lively exposé, Eric Schlosser depicts the fast-food industry as the source of many evils: decline of the family farm, homogenization of the urban landscape, enlargement of the American waistline. With sometimes twisted statistics and an eye for gruesome detail, he portrays a fast-food threat and demands a governmental solution.

CAUTION
Contains scattered profanities.