When I'm in the mood for something relatively "light", but thoughtful, usually with some really good quotable lines, I often look towards Nick Hornby.  It's not his latest, but I have recently finished Juliet, Naked, a novel about the art of music appreciation.  Annie and Duncan are in their early 40s and have been a couple in a small seaside town in England for about 15 years.  Duncan is obsessed with an American singer/songwriter who walked away from his craft abruptly in the mid-80s (Tucker Crowe) whom Annie mildly enjoys but humors Duncan anyway.  When an acoustic version of Tucker's most famous album, Juliet, is released called Juliet, Naked Duncan and Annie's competing opinions of the album call to light the problems with their relationship.  I won't divulge how, but Tucker comes into the picture and challenges the opinions of him and his supposed genius and all three of these characters must confront the meaning of appreciating another's art and the impact that appreciation can have on ones own life.  I enjoyed this book for it's good characters and the overt and sometimes covert question, "What have I done with my life?"   

I like the show Criminal Minds so I think I was attracted to the description of Killing Time when I read that the main character is a criminal psychologist.  This man, Dr. Gideon Wolfe, lives in New York in the near future.  The world is completely saturated by information from all forms of technology and Gideon begins to question the quality and accuracy of the information when he is very suddenly swept into a conspiracy.  This conspiracy contains geniuses and authoritative figures from many different disciplines (physics, psychiatry, etc.) and is very appealing to Gideon until he begins to question the accuracy and morality of what even the "good guys" are trying to accomplish.  Caleb Carr does a great job of carrying the reader through the questions that Gideon is asking himself through his adventures around the world including musings about the cure being worse then the disease.

Maurice Sendak

While driving to work this morning I heard the news that Maurice Sendak passed away.  What a loss to the world of literature.  I want to write "children's literature", but according to him he didn't write for children.  The radio station I was listening to played an excerpt from a recent interview with Maurice Sendak from Stephen Colbert.  In it, Mr. Sendak said that he didn't write for children.  He wrote stories and then people would say, "That's for children!"  When asked what he thought of the current state of children's literature he called it "abysmal".  Apparently he was a funny guy.  I believe it.  Who could have thought up characters like Max from Where The Wild Things Are or Mickey from In The Night Kitchen?  They are two of the most stubborn, brattiest, and inventive boys we've seen in books.  Well, Mr. Sendak certainly made his mark and now I hope he is able to rest in peace.

The Magicians

With big nods to The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series I also found myself thinking of The Catcher in the Rye. The book opens with the main character, teenager Quentin Coldwater, mopey, bitter, and lonely in Brooklyn. He is also secretly in love with a popular children's fantasy series about siblings who discovery Fillory through walking into a grandfather clock. Now here's the Harry Potter part...while Quentin is interviewing for admission to Princeton he has a disturbing and strange experience which leads to him being transported to a college for potential magicians. His ensuing years of college are interesting to read about as he seeks happiness in the world of magic that he had only hoped was real. The annoying part is Quentin's adolescent angst about his parents, girls, and friendship. A constant theme of being happy with oneself no matter where you are is great, but living through that growing knowledge with Quentin can become tedious and I found myself wanting to slap him near the end of the book. That being said, it really is worth the read for anyone who has a tolerance for magic and fantasy fiction. If you don't, you might want to take a pass.