Adult

Incredible memoir by a California state park ranger. If you read this book and do not come away feeling deeply disturbed about our treatment to the environment, perhaps you began your day kicking puppies and dumping cigarette butts out your car window. The last nature book I read that hit me this deeply was Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. I highly recommend this book, and I know I will seek more books by Jordan Fisher Smith.

What can I say – I am an aspiring Cliff Clavin who loves random information to impress people (or, more likely, myself) with at parties. This book is filled with all sorts of wonderful useless information, making it the perfect book for waiting in the car or dazing on the toilet.

Do you know what I like best about short stories (besides being short)? Good short stories contain some of the quirkiest characters and storylines. I loved this book the moment I read about the bridge painters who talk down jumpers. Quirky, lovely – I wish I could write as well as Orozco. This book is a gem.

Knowing I live for anecdotes, my buddy Michael Stevenson recommended this book of tales about hypnotherapist Milton Erickson. Wow! There are some really cool things he did with patients, just through the vehicle of story-telling.

I have not read a modern satire this good in a long time. Israeli author Castel-Bloom is irreverent in her portrayal of a warped doctor-turned-mother. While the book is short, the story will linger in your mind for a long time asking questions and trying to re-think what an “overbearing Jewish mother” really is.

I have spent a lot of time recently reading books about the importance of “purposeful practice.” Malcolm Gladwell touches upon it in Outliers, and Matthew Syed’s Bounce is also a good read on the subject. This is a great book for those who have resolved to apply the principles used by highly successful people from all fields.

To appease my readers, I am trying to include more works of fiction and short stories. To appease me, I selected Binchy because I devour tales about two of my passions: travel and Ireland.

I have been listening to "The Dilbert Principle" on CD to and from work, and I think Scott Adams might be just about the funniest writer in America. His observations rival Douglas Adams, author of the wonderful "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

I am ashamed to say I had never heard of Dana Spiotta before reading this book. The woman sitting next to me on a plane was reading Stone Arabia, and we had a long conversation about Spiotta. Now I understand why she was a National Book Award finalist, as I found myself wondering whether I should laugh or cry as I plowed through this story.

More folks keep asking me to give them romance recommendations, and I found this story of a couple facing foreclosure, joblessness and the end of their marriage to be engaging and touching.

Would you believe that I had never read a book by the deceased prolific mystery writer Sanders? Sped through this one, and I have a bunch more to read on my bedside table. Terrific writer for airplanes and beach outings!

I really enjoy Trillin's manner of complaining in this series of short essays about family life. As curmudgeonly as he may appear, you can see his heart and his humor in every story.

So the book is a little over my page limit? The pages are small and the font is big, so give me a break! I figured everyone could use a great reminder for the beginning of the year to stop taking themselves and everything around them so seriously. As Bobby McFerrin said: “don’t worry, be happy!”

I must confess that this was not an easy book to read, as a lot of the math and history went over my head. Still, Seife weaves a fantastical historical account of the origins of the number “zero,” something we take for granted today.

Say what you want about the French, they sure can cook! My wife has gotten me to start watching the Food Network, which is torturous as I enter the third week of my diet (I've been on the Atkins Diet for two weeks and lost 14 days). I enjoyed this book for providing motivation, inspiration and some really good recipes (which I will proceed to ruin in my kitchen). This is part cook book, part self-help book.