A Fortunate Age by Joanna Smith Rakoff (21)

Joanna Smith Rakoff wrote A Fortunate Age about a very detailed and specific subculture - Jewish, liberal, upper middle class, city dwelling Gen X-ers. The main characters are five liberal arts Oberlin grads. The book dips into their personal narratives as they go to grad school, make it big, make it nowhere, marry, breed, and halfheartedly try to remain friends in the decade after their undergrad days together.

I'm from a slightly different subculture. I lived a pretty homogeneous life until public high school, when I encountered and befriended people from different classes, religions, political parties. I remember hearing about the dot com boom, but I was really just thinking about Sailor Moon at the time. Because I and my closest friends are still childless and not quite 30, I think I'm missing something in Rakoff's novel.

The timing and style of the book are interesting in a jumbled way. Each character tells a bit of the story from a half stream of consciousness, half omniscient third person point of view. The reader experiences memories in the middle of action. Sometimes just as you get involved in a character's life, the chapter ends, and you're moved on to less sympathetic person. But it's like life. We narrate our own lives, judge our friends from our view, and hear mutual friends' theories on each other.

It's a serious and complicated novel about relationships and personal struggles. It's the post adolescent coming of age - which seems like how coming of age comes now a days.

Under The Tuscan Sun: At Home In Italy by Frances Mayes (20)

Frances Mayes's epic poem to Tuscany. Under The Tuscan Sun is slow and leisurely. If you're reading it in a recliner or in the sun, it's quite likely you'll just ease into a nap after a few pages. You won't be napping from boredom, but from a desire to siesta like the village in which Mayes makes her summer home.

The book arouses the jealousy of the amateur chef. Tales of bountiful home gardens blooming like Eden without any care, fresh ingredients from town markets, and quality olive oil and wine for cheap make the Key Foods down the street even more dismal. My fire escape herb garden fights to survive, but in Italy, wild sage and rosemary spread like dandelions. What a pleasure it must be to cook so simply and so well.

And that is the point, if there is any, of the book. The pleasure and beauty of life, even if you have to go to the Mediterranean to find it.

Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism's Work is Done by Susan J. Douglas (19)

Sexism is still around and keeping ladies down. I agree with the basic message of this book that women still have to fight for equal opportunity. I also acknowledge that our society does little to support women at home and at work.

But I have to say that this is a very tiring book from an unimaginative feminist. The book is far longer than it ought to be to make her point. Douglas is repetitive and easily distracted with an irritating habit of interrupting important sentences with constant sarcastic asides that sacrifice clarity for labored humor.

I do appreciate her attitude and I loved reading the chapter on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess, two of my favorite shows as a kid. Those fantasies of powerful women kicking evil butt were encouraging escapes for a tiny, shy girl with glasses as big as her head. Yet, the author did little to mention how media can encourage women or how media could or does further feminist causes. She only took hundreds of pages retelling 90210 or Xena or Boston Legal, shows she obviously enjoyed watching, explained how they supported the new sexism, and offered no counter examples.

Douglas has less than a basic understanding of economic theory or practice and she considers only one vision of how the country can support families: the federal government does it all. Apparently national day care is going to solve everything for women. Because the only men who can help us care for our children are the ones we elected.

Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (18)

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Kay, Men In Black

Lay and professional economists are too optimistic about citizens' reactions to laws, markets, and incentives. I studied economics at a conservative college and slid into thinking that people know themselves and care enough to make relatively informed decisions about their lives. Thaler and Sunstein are honest about the human laziness and apathy that economists ignore, though they say it nicely.

Thaler and Sunstein make gentle, convincing arguments that people need a little nudge when making big , rare decisions with little feedback or chance for correction - mortgages, loans, health insurance, and other important things that people often mess up.

It was difficult to follow the flow of Nudge at first after a fiction binge, but the arguments are easy to understand and the writing is personable and earnest. Thaler and Sunstein build trust by exposing personal flaws to the readers, like forgetting to turn in health insurance forms at work for good coverage. It's a great read for people who are moderately interested in political issues, but are repulsed by the vitriol of current political discussion. It is balanced and logical without jargon or superiority. Plus, the elephants are cute.

Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann (17)

Let The Great World Spin, a mosaic of stories in the tunnels of New Yorkers lives, is the best Manhattan-based novel I've read. The characters are caricatures, cliches, and exaggerations of New Yorkers. The story I liked best was the one with the most regular characters - a group of mothers meeting to commiserate over the loss of their sons in Vietnam. It was full of the tension, uncertainly, awkwardness and regret of real life.

It is a quick read because it is precisely written, with paragraphs of concrete examples pulled from characters' thoughts. It is also a good, fulfilling read, and pretty much worth all the hype.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (16)

Reading Murakami is like listening to someone describe a vivid dream. He writes in contradictions, broken metaphors, mystic poetry. Sometimes you're not even sure he knows what he talking about.

Kafka on the Shore was sometimes indecipherable, occasionally shocking, mostly lovely - full of art and music and natural beauty. There are a two characters I absolutely adored - Oshima, a wise, transgendered librarian assistant with a charming smile and Hoshino, a Hawaiian shirt-wearing truck driver who feels protective of grandfatherly types and learns to like Bach. It was a mystery, coming of age, epic journey fantasy. It felt like a race to the answers at the end of the book, but one through Wonderland. Most of the questions are left mysteries, and though that is a little confusing (like the whole novel), it's better. It wouldn't be as beautiful with all the secrets revealed.

Sophie's World by Jostien Gaarder (15)

Philosophy can and should be a part of our everyday lives. It elevates us, helps us understand humanity and the world, and is a part of culture whether or not most people are aware of its influence. I can't say that I agree with most philosophers who (unsurprisingly) assert that the philosopher is the highest level a human can reach. But I do agree with Jostien Gaarder, and my old professors, about the importance of the subject.

Sophie's World is quite a novel. It's now been about 20 years since it's first publication in Norwegian, but a book containing an understandable and concise history of philosophy is never irrelevant. The reader learns to become a philosopher along with the main character, Sophie. And what makes a person a philosopher? Asking questions, keeping one's mind open to possibilities, and learning from history. It's simple, really.