Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

David Sedaris is seriously funny. The guy has a wicked sense of humor, and manages to tell some painful childhood memories in a way that gets you ROFLOL. Definitely a read worth the time if you like off-beat humor.

Tweak

Wow. This was so hard to read, because it is almost unbelievable how far this guy went into the tweaked-out world of crystal meth. The story is almost surreal, and its truly amazing he survived it all and managed to write about it. Lots of language and adult situations in this one, but for those able to stomach it, an amazing story of a smart kid with everything going for him and his descent into drug-induced hell, and back again.

My Sister's Keeper

Couldn't put this one down. Stem cell research, genetically designed babies, leukemia, and a family dealing with the trauma of life with a very ill family member. What would it be like to be the youngest child in a family where you had been planned, no, designed specifically to provide stem cells to an older sibling with cancer? Maybe you'd be proud to be able to help that way. But then, when the sibling has a relapse, and now they wanted bone marrow - okay, sure, of course you'd be willing to share. In five more years when the sibling relapses, has kidney failure and is on dialysis for 4 years, when your mom says you need to give your sister one of your kidneys... and you aren't given a choice in the matter... now what do you do? Because you love your sister and don't want her to die, but the doctors think she probably won't survive the operation anyway, do you give up your kidney? Or do you fight to keep it? Because either way, your sister is probably going to die.

The Bookseller of Kabul

Well written, but this book is making me really angry. I'm having a hard time not using my personal western values to judge the people in the story, and I know it isn't fair to do so. I keep getting really angry about the way the women are treated, and how they just lie down like doormats and let men walk all over them. Regardless of how many years of tradition and cultural history are involved, many things that occur just seem wrong to me on the basis of human rights violations. It was interesting that the author, who lived with the family featured in the book, says she never was as angry, or wanted to hit someone so much as during the time she spent living with the family writing the book. I've not yet finished, and am halfway through, so it will be interesting to see if my opinion changes after I'm done reading.