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Fiction:
 The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
Houghton Mifflin, $13.00
Ed loved The Book of Salt! (It was one of his five favorite novels of 2003.) Filled with beautiful sentences, this first novel is simply lovely: rich in style, in language, and in nuanced characters. The voice is that of a gay Vietnamese cook who has answered a want-ad placed by Gertude Stein and Alice B. Tolklas in 1929 Paris. Seeing the world through Binh’s eyes, we learn how culture, language and sexuality act as filters or lenses in interpreting the world. (The characters of Monsieur and Madame provide an especially eye-opening look at French colonialism in Vietnam!) Truong provides incredibly evocative scenes of Binh’s own family back in Vietnam, of the Stein/Tolkas household (including their dogs Basket and Pepe!) and Binh’s lover, referred to as “you” and told, interestingly enough, in the 2nd person. Amazing characters, amazing language, amazing story. Robert recommends as well!
 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Mariner, $13.95
Ed has to say that this is one of the most amazing novels he has ever read—a joyful, clever, imaginative, heartbreaking treasure. It is rambunctious and stylistically adventurous, and Foer shows a virtuosity and wisdom beyond his young age. read this because is it beautiful. Profound. Brilliant. Ed loved this novel, as did much of the rest of the staff. Highly recommended.
 The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
Houghton Mifflin, $13.95
The Hungry Tide, one of Ed’s favorite novels of 2005, is about love, language, and land, a masterful story of adventure and romance. You will literally “inhabit” this novel, with its lush descriptions of the backwaters of India’s treacherous Sundarban Archipelago. The island provide a colorful backdrop to the unfolding story of
Piya: A Young Indian-American marine biologist.
Kanai: A cultured New Delhi businessman.
Fokir: An illiterate local fisherman.
The terrible beauty of the tide country, with its man-eating tigers, cyclones, river dolphins, crocodiles, and ever-present tides, suggests the fragility of human endeavor when compared to the power of the earth. With its historical and ecological detail, its strange and mythic setting, and its climactic ending, the book comes highly recommended. Ed loved it!
 The Laments by George Hagen
Random House, $14.95
Ed found himself irresistibly drawn to the affably dysfunctional family at the center of this beguiling first novel: the aptly named “Laments.” George Hagen’s chronicle of the family, their restlessness, their questions of family identity, their responses to adversity, gives us a portrait of a family as eccentric as it is universal. The sweep of the story, set in the 1950s and 60s, breezily takes us from Zambia to Bahrain to England and finally to New Jersey. With its heartbreak and hilarity, The Laments is as enjoyable as an early John Irving novel. Highly recommended!
 Saturday by Ian McEwan
Anchor, $14.95
The New York Times named Saturday one of the “Best Books of 2005,” and Ed agrees. He finds Ian McEwan the best English author writing today, and this novel is superb. A suspenseful and reflective book, it is filled with outstanding subtlety and substance. The fictional format is that of “a-day-in-the-life-of,” but the book’s larger themes and concerns make it one of the most serious contributions to post-9/11 literature yet. Ed and Robert highly recommend.
Nonfiction:
 The Mystery Guest by Gregoire Bouillier.
Mariner Books, $12.95.
This is a book that travails the inexplicable happenstance of life wrapped around the enigmatic torture of love. The story, framed around a birthday party, a bottle of wine, and a satellite, reveals the circular nature of experience--how one life-event blends into another, and how happiness is sometimes as elusive as the soul-mate. The years will always add up, and you need to remember, "what's important isn't that you say everything, but in the end that everything be said!" A short but amazing read from Gregoire Bouillier. Stefan highly recommends!
 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan.
Penguin, $16.00
This fascinating journey up and down the food chain is Michael Pollan's exploration of the ecology of eating in the 21st century. The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world, and our food choices have huge implications for our health and the health of the environment. This is brilliant, eye-opening, compelling writing about the pleasure and politics of food, from the appalling state of industrial food production ("If you eat industrially, you are made of corn") to Joe Salatin's remarkable farm (post-industrial organic) to the slow-food movement. This book is amazing. We can't stop thinking about it. Ed and Robert recommend!
 The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by Maarten J. Troost
Broadway, $12.95
Totally and completely hilarious! Robert giggled through Troost’s well-written account of his two years in the South Pacific, where he and his girlfriend endured water shortages, electricity outages, food difficulties, and misunderstandings with the islanders, both the natives and other ex-pats. Witty, warm, and wonderful, this is the book for David Sedaris and Bill Bryson fans. You might as well go ahead and get the sequel, Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu, it is equally entertaining. Robert and Ed recommend.
 I Am Not Myself These Days: A Memoir by Josh Kilmer-Purcell.
HarperCollins, $13.95.
Looking for the new Augusten Burroughs? Meet Josh Kilmer-Purcell, and his drag alter-ego, Aqua. This captivating memoir is a cautionary tale about loving an addict, a celebratory story of New York nightlife in heels and goldfish bowl tits, and a questioning tale of identity: who are we, in or out of drag? Robert loved this book so much he read it twice in a month, and no one we've recommended it to here at the store has ever told us we steered them wrong!
 City of Oranges: An Intimate History of Arabs and Jews in Jaffa
by Adam LeBor.
Norton, $14.95.
1000-year old Jaffa, in present day Israel, next to the site where Tel Aviv grew, was one of the great cosmopolitan Mediterranean cities, a place where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived and worked together. This book is the story of ordinary people--at least 4 generations of Jewish and Christian and Arab families-- in extraordinary times: the painful history of modern Palestine. Adam LeBor collects their intimate, personal narratives and weaves a memoir of a city that is compassionate, compelling, and beautifully written! Interspersed through the Jaffa citizens' stories is the broader political narrative of the conflict which has defined the region--and it's the single best, concise, readable, understandable history of that conflict we've ever read. Ed and Robert urge you to read this highly recommended book.
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