What are you reading?

Photo by Janet McK via Flickr

Life seems to slow down these last 2 weeks of the year, which means most of us get to read more than our usual share of books.

Books can take you on travels without even leaving your home, and I love discovering (or even rediscovering) a city this way.  Don’t you?

This month I’ve read 3 that I really enjoy, and I’m going to share them with you below.

(I’m putting in Amazon affiliate links to all the books below, but you can just as easily get them at the library or the used book store because they have been out for a while.)

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon is set in Barcelona just after the Spanish Civil War.  The story starts with a boy at the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and tells a complex tale about love, lies, power, and corruption.  What is most amazing to me about this book is how good it is in the English translation.  I just wish my Spanish was good enough to read it in the original (weird that a book about Barcelona was written in Spanish and not Catalan).  This is the second time I’ve read this book over the last few years, and I loved it just as much this time.
• Duma Key by Stephen King had me on the edge of my seat for most of the last couple of days.  I don’t read a lot of Stephen King (though I loved his On Writing), and every time I do I am amazed that someone could have that many stories in their head.  This novel is set on the Gulf Coast of Florida and tells the story of a man who is in a terrible accident (as bad as the one King suffered a few years ago) and how he rehabilitates himself mentally and emotionally.  Of course there is murder, mystery and eccentric characters along the way.  As a student of the human condition, I’m always interested to read about how people overcome setbacks and I loved the imagery of the Gulf Coast.
• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is the most interesting book on economics you’ll ever read.  Instead of talking about money, which is what you usually associate with an economist, Levitt and Dubner explore the data of topics like crime, how your name predicts your success in life, and why most drug dealers still live with their moms.  Whether you agree with the findings or not, you’ll be fascinated by the connections they make and may start seeing the world a little bit differently.

So tell me:  What have you been reading lately?  Tell me why you loved it in the comments.  If this feature becomes popular enough we’ll run it on a regular basis.  We can call it Book Porn for those of us who really love to read.