are both non fiction. The first, "Lost in Shangri La" by Mitchell Zuckoff, is an interesting tale based on the true story of a DC-3 that went down in the New Guinea jungle during WWII and had on board around 22 "sight seers", nurses and mechanics looking for a primitive settlement that was spotted on an earlier flight. The pilots were inexperienced and not prepared for the conditions, yet there were survivors and they relied on these natives to survive.

The other on the list is "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" by Timothy Snyder, a Yale history professor. Exhaustively researched, it looks at the geographic area between the Black Sea and Baltic Sea between 1930-1948, (mainly Poland, the Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus) which first suffered from mass starvation under Stalin's "Great Famine" of the 30's, then the partitioning of Poland between tyrants, then Nazi Germany's occupation, and finally Stalin's retaking of these lands and retribution on its citizens. It sounds darker than it really is, and while a very academic study of the incredible loss of life during this period, Snyder maintains your interest throughout with his painstaking attention to detail.

Definitely am going to read "1493" soon.

Still in the midst of 1Q84, by Murakami, which was translated and released this year. Reading 1Q84, (a play on 1984) is like entering a vast and wonderful dream world, but one that is real and vibrant. Lovely writing, and great literature too. The characters are fully developed and the plot curves rich and provocative.

Also The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson was pretty good, although a bit obscure at times. Her feminist analysis of modern art was comprehensive although a bit academic, and the narrative would fall into a overbearing graduate school fugue that didn't quite work for me. Nonetheless an important work on a subject which creative people and Americans in general need to examine more.

I have to say the Steve Jobs biography is really fascinating, because you learn what an incredibly complex, difficult and visionary guy he was, but it's also an eye-opening history of the personal computer. Very surprising to find out what a total hippie Jobs was.

I know he's been pimping it a fair amount, but I'd consider reading it if someone has a good opinion on it.

A brilliant Canadian philosopher, historian and social critic:

Check out . . .

Voltaire's Bastards, The Doubter's Companion and The Unconscious Civilization (his 1995 Massey Lecture)

and

The Collapse of Globalism

Steven Pinker: The Better Angels of our Nature. I haven't finished it yet but so far this is an amazing book that provides a scientific analysis of human history and makes a very convincing case that we are actually making moral progress and becoming less violent.

Anthony Summers: The Eleventh Day. I've read many books on 9/11, from both sides of the argument Truthers and those who debunk Truther theories and more or less support the view that it was terrorists that launched the attack. This is without question the best book I've ever read on 9/11. On the one hand he does a great job of showing the absurdity of most of the truther conspiracy theories. On the other hand he also does a great job of showing the incredible incompetence of the Bush administration. Incompetence so extreme, and so mired in agendas that had nothing to do with US security (shitting on anything that Clinton suggested, supporting the interests of Bush's Saudi pals, emphasizing Star Wars and other big ticket BS items rather than actually caring about defending the country) that to me its no different than if they were actually complicit in the attack.

Ian W. Toll: Pacific Crucible. A history of WWII in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to Midway. I've read many books on WWII and especially the war in the Pacific and I almost didn't bother with this thinking there would be nothing new I could possibly learn. I'm glad i bothered, this book was amazing. Probably the best book on the topic I've ever read. It was a real page turner, one of those books that you don't want to put down but also that you want to savor. He did an amazing job of presenting the most significant details and of just turning it into a story that read more like a novel than history.

Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell
Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Lush Life by Richard Price
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

"Obama's Wars" is what I'm in the middle of right now.

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.

"You are Not so Smart"
by David McRaney

Each chapter is a succinct anecdotal bit on how your brain works, and what influences your thinking.
It lets you know why "You are Not so Smart", without making you feel stupid.
It's very insightful... and despite being a psychology book, it's a real page turner.
I highly recommend it for every thinker out there.