Rain Fall - Barry Eisler

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9780451209153-0 - I borrowed this thriller from the library based on Aunty Marji's recommendation. The books stars John Rain, a half-Japanese/half-American special-forces trained assassin. After he kills a man on the subway, he finds himself connected with the man's daughter and caught-up in the international intelligence community where he doesn't know who to trust and who to murder. The book takes place in Tokyo and there are detailed descriptions of the train stations, as well as the various neighborhoods - this was particularly fun to read about given our recent trip to Tokyo. The focus on martial arts was a little excessive for my taste, but overall I found the story and the character's struggle as a constant outsider interesting. There are five more books in the John Rain series and I plan to read them all!!

The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780316346627-0 - Similar to Freakonomics, The Tipping Point examines cultural phenomenons and epidemics and gets to the heart of what causes some ideas/illnesses/products to take off and others to just die away. He explores the importance of word of mouth - and the nature of the people spreading the word and what causes us to make certain decisions. He looks at one of the exact same questions as Freakonomics - what caused the sudden decline in crime in the 1990s, and answers it in a very different way. I particularly liked the chapter on what makes Sesame Street and Blue's Clues so popular with young children. Gladwell's observances about different types of people and how the way people behave changes depending on circumstance were very interesting to me. This was definitely a fun book and I'm waiting to borrow his more recent book, Blink from the library soon.

A Man Without a Country - Kurt Vonnegut

http://www.powells.com/biblio/2-9781583227138-3 - A collection of excerpts from essays and speeches by Vonnegut during the last five years of his life. I noticed there is some overlap with God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, but this is still worth checking out. Vonnegut can get a bit repetitive in his rants, but every couple pages there is a line that had me laughing out loud. He talks about American life, politics, religion, his time in Vietnam - I noticed that many of the reviews, while positive, have an undertone of "this is getting old." Perhaps it's a good thing this was his last hurrah before he passed on. His pessimistic humor, however, does make me want to go back and re-read some of the books I read by him in college. I have a feeling I'll get much more enjoyment out of them this time around.

The Year of Magical Thinking* - Joan Didion

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781400043149-5 - This is Didion's memoir of the year following the sudden death of her husband of 40 years. During the year of coping with her immense loss, Didion's daughter is also suffering from a long-term illness that keeps her in and out of the hospital. I knew going in what this book was about, but I was hit immediately with an overwhelming sense of grief - and by page 50 I was in tears. Didion's writing is straight-forward - almost colloquial in nature that it seems like it would be so easy to replicate. Yet, she is able to convey simply the complexity of her emotions in a way that I don't think many people, even those who have sustained similar losses, could do. This book is filled with tremendous heartache - so I hesitate to recommend it to anyone. It doesn't contain strategies for dealing with death or a panacea for eliminating sadness. It's just a raw tribute to the emptiness that remains when we lose someone we love.

(* - winner 2005 National Book Award for Non-Fiction)

Born on a Blue Day - Daniel Tammet

http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9781416535072-0: This is the memoir of a high-functioning individual with autism. Daniel Tammet grew up in England, the eldest of eight children, at a time when no one was very familiar with autism. He wasn't diagnosed until he was in his early 20s, and the book tells the story of growing up as an outsider. He also goes into great detail about how he learns - how he visualizes numbers as colors and shapes, which allows him to calculate extraordinary sums (and memorize pi out to more than 22,500 places) and learn new languages in mere weeks. This is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an individual with autism - and an important book in general about how different people learn and how complex our minds can be. With so many barriers, Tammet has managed to create a successful, happy, and productive life - it's enough to give someone with no barriers a complex.

In a Sunburned Country - Bill Bryson

http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780767903868-4 - This is Bryson's account of his travels across Australia - and armchairs travel at its best. Bryson is pretty funny and fills this book with entertaining anecdotes and observations. I've never been to Australia, and in a way I think that made this book less enjoyable than it otherwise could have been. I found most interesting the parts of the book where he attempts to delve into the tricky relationship between white Australians and the Aborigines. It's clear there is severe racism in the country, and that there are problems with Aboriginal poverty and alcoholism. But, he didn't seem to be able to get much out of the locals (except obvious disdain) in terms of what the country is doing, if anything, to remedy the problems. I am interested in learning more about this issue in Australia and whether it parallels many of the issues in our own country with respect to Native Americans. I am also interested in reading his book about walking the Appalachian Trail, A Walk in the Woods - as that's something I've always thought would be awesome to do, but will probably never get around to.

Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781400082773-10 - the first memoir/biography from the Presidential hopeful recounts his struggles coming to terms with his bi-racial identity. As the child of a white mother and a Kenyan father who he only meets once in his life, Obama spends his early life listening to stories of his father's legacy. The first part recounts Obama's childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii - as just one of a handful of black kids. After college, Obama moves to Chicago to help organize the African-American communities. Finally, following his father's death in a car accident, Obama travels to Kenya to meet his family, and discover more of the truth behind where he comes from. This is a beautifully written book - filled with amazing stories - not just about Obama, but about his family and the people he worked with. For people interested in learning about Obama's political beliefs or plans, this is not the right book to read. But, to learn about who Obama is and to understand the lens through which he views the world, this is the one. I also think for anyone who is bi-racial, who has never known a parent, or who attempts in one way or another to fit simultaneously into a variety of communities, this is a fair portrayal of that constant struggle.