In a heartrending and astonishing novel, Eggers illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee now living in the United States.

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence — when the whole American cause was riding on their success…

Much like The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but published ten years before, Drown focuses on the lives of Dominicanos who are either dealing with life in the Dominican Republic or trying to make that life work in America. It is a short story collection which, to me, isn’t as good as Wao….but then again, I felt Wao was one of the best books of the last five years or so.

That isn’t me saying Drown was bad; it was actually very good. It reminded me of Interpreter of Maladies, a short story collection by Jhumpa Lahiri. But instead of the lives ofDominicanos, Maladies mainly focuses on the arranged marriages in the Indian culture.

Reading a short story collection is much different than reading a novel, and I believe you have to approach them differently. There are some stories that are incredibly deep for a short read, but there are others that are nothing but glimpses into a life. I like those best. They are like snapshots; where a novel is an photo album, these short stories are a single photo. I think that’s about right. Anyways, sometimes a single photo tells a lot more about a life than an entire album and that’s what Drown is all about.

One of the things I liked best about Interpreter of Maladies was that by reading it I was introduced to a world I knew nothing about. I do not understand arranged marriages and the effects it has on the relationship and reading the book was, in a way, an education. Drown was the same thing to me. I don’t understand the struggles faced by Dominicanos, or any citizen in a third world country for that matter, and Drown was a way of learning and, as much as you can by reading a book, understanding.

The titular Oscar is a 300-pound-plus “lovesick ghetto nerd” with zero game (except for Dungeons & Dragons) who cranks out pages of fantasy fiction with the hopes of becoming a Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien.

No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.

Selected from sermons delivered by C. S. Lewis during World War II, these nine addresses offer guidance and inspiration in a time of great doubt.These are ardent and lucid sermons that provide a compassionate vision of Christianity.

In December 1995, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the 43-year-old editor of French Elle, suffered a massive stroke that left him permanently paralyzed, a victim of “locked in syndrome.” Once known for his gregariousness and wit, Bauby now finds himself imprisoned in an inert body, able to communicate only by blinking his left eye. The miracle is that in doing so he was able to compose this stunningly eloquent memoir.

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard.

Filled with blazing intelligence, colourful characters, wry humour, and an equal passion for soccer and humanity, How Soccer Explains the World is an utterly original book that makes sense of our troubled times.

Last night I stood in a line for an hour or so and ended up sitting in a perfect seat to watch the new Batman movie. I’m not really a big fan of comic books, or even comic book movies, but the last Batman took me by surprise and after seeing the previews I kind of had to see this one…