January Book: The Glass Castle by JEANNETTE WALLS

The Glass Castle may be one of the best accounts ever written of a dysfunctional family -- and it must have taken Walls so much courage to put pen to paper and recount the details of her rather bizarre childhood - - which although it's like none other and is so dramatic - - any reader will relate to it. Readers will find bits and pieces of their own parents in Rex and Rose Mary Walls.

December Book: The Brothers K

It is a stunning work: a complex tapestry of family tensions, baseball, politics and religion, by turns hilariously funny and agonizingly sad. Highly inventive formally, the novel is mainly narrated by Kincaid Chance, the youngest son in a family of four boys and identical twin girls, the children of Hugh Chance, a discouraged minor-league ballplayer whose once-promising career was curtained by an industrial accident, and his wife Laura, an increasingly fanatical Seventh-Day Adventist. The plot traces the working-out of the family's fate from the beginning of the Eisenhower years through the traumas of Vietnam.

November Book: the Piano Tuner

Twenty-six-year-old Mason has penned a satisfying, if at times rather slow, debut historical. Edgar Drake lives a quiet life in late 19th-century London as a tuner of rare pianos. When he's summoned to Burma to repair the instrument of an eccentric major, Anthony Carroll, Edgar bids his wife good-bye and begins the months-long journey east. The first half of the book details his trip, and while Mason's descriptions of the steamships and trains of Europe and India are entertaining, the narrative tends to drag; Edgar is the only real character readers have met, and any conflicts he might encounter are unclear. Things pick up when Edgar meets the unconventional Carroll, who has built a paradise of sorts in the Burmese jungle. Edgar ably tunes the piano, but this turns out to be the least of his duties, as Carroll seeks his services on a mission to make peace between the British and the local Shan people. During his stay at Carroll's camp, Edgar falls for a local beauty, learns to appreciate the magnificence of Burma's landscape and customs and realizes the absurdity of the war between the British and the Burmese.

October Book: "Consider the Lobster" by David foster Wallace

Reading David Foster Wallace's new collection of magazine articles, you could be forgiven for thinking that the author of such defiantly experimental fictions as "Infinite Jest" (1996) and "Oblivion" (2004) has been an old-fashioned moralist in postmodern disguise all along. The grotesqueries of the 15th annual Adult Video News Awards, which Wallace writes about at considerable length here, present an easy target. And so, to a lesser extent, do the corruptions of English usage in America and the right-wing radio host John Ziegler. But Wallace poses an unsettling challenge to the way many of us live now when, while visiting the Maine Lobster Festival on behalf of Gourmet magazine, he asks if it is "all right to boil a sentient creature alive just for our gustatory pleasure." - PANKAJ MISHRA, NY Times book review

September Book: Netherland by Joe O'Neill

Join at us at John's for this post 9/11 novel.

What's President Obama reading these days?

In an interview for the upcoming issue of the New York Times magazine, the president said he's grown tired of briefing books and has been spending his evenings with Joseph O'Neill's 2008 novel "Netherland."

The acclaimed book, published last May, tells the story of Hans van den Broek, a Dutch financial analyst living in lower Manhattan who grows increasingly alienated from his wife following the September 11 attacks. During their separation, the main character spends a summer alone in New York and strikes up a friendship with a wily Trinidadian businessman named Chuck, who helps Hans re-discover his childhood love of cricket.

Reviewers likened the book to the Great Gatsby after its release. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 2009.

July 2009: You are not a Stranger by Adam Haslett

Enjoy this book of short stories from "one of the most acclaimed debut authors in years"...review coming soon.

June Book: Rising from the Rails

The story of the Pullman porters and the creation of the black middle class.

May: the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

A great book exploring generations of trauma in a Dominican family.

April 15: Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson

Join us for a "blast from the past" discussion as Bill Bryson takes us through his childhood memoir of growing up in Iowa in the 1950's. Bryson paints a picture of pure Americana in the 50's. He recalls simpler times that leave a mark on us and make us look deeper at our present. We will meet at Peter H's humble abode.

March book: History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Jared Diamond : collapsing societies

February book: The Quiet Girl

In this labyrinthine, intellectual thriller, Høeg focuses on the nature of sound, and in particular the music of Bach. In a near future where an earthquake and resulting flood have submerged a portion of the city of Copenhagen, Kasper Krone, a world-famous clown and passionate Bach fan, is about to be deported for not paying his taxes. But an official in a secret government agency known as Department H offers to make the charges disappear if Krone will help them locate a young girl, KlaraMaria, who was once his student and shares his peculiar psychic abilities. The blend of science, erudition and slow revelations could only have been written by Høeg, and will appeal to his many fans and other readers with a taste for the literary offbeat.

January 2009: Out stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Award-winning Norwegian novelist Petterson renders the meditations of Trond Sander, a man nearing 70, dwelling in self-imposed exile at the eastern edge of Norway in a primitive cabin. Trond's peaceful existence is interrupted by a meeting with his only neighbor, who seems familiar. The meeting pries loose a memory from a summer day in 1948 when Trond's friend Jon suggests they go out and steal horses. That distant summer is transformative for Trond as he reflects on the fragility of life while discovering secrets about his father's wartime activities. The past also looms in the present: Trond realizes that his neighbor, Lars, is Jon's younger brother, who "pulls aside the fifty years with a lightness that seems almost indecent." Trond becomes immersed in his memory, recalling that summer that shaped the course of his life while, in the present, Trond and Lars prepare for the winter, allowing Petterson to dabble in parallels both bold and subtle.