<h3>wily wiley reads.</h3>

1.

a man without a country by kurt vonnegut

- lately lin has been letting me scour her bookshelves for things she has loved that i have yet to read.  this amazing vonnegut piece reads like an essay or more truthfully, an old man's rant.  i found it filled with wisdom and thought of so many quotes i wanted to include here, but think it will be better if you all go out and read this.  it is short and filled with vonnegut's hilarious takes on everything from marriage to the state of our environment.  and i have to admit, i will never look at a blue mailbox the same way again.

2.

big fish by daniel wallace

- so i may be the only person alive that has not yet seen the film this book became, but i decided to give the novel a go before watching the movie and i am so glad i did.  the story is beautiful and sad and funny and full of wit.  wallace has a way of writing ridiculous things without even causing you to blink.  like watership down, this is one i can picture reading to my own kids down the road. 

3.

this is where i leave you by jonathan tropper

- i think this may be the best book i have read in quite awhile.  tropper's writing style, at least in this novel, is lewd and hilarious.  it is a story about a very dysfunctional family brought together by a tragedy, but don't let that fool you, there was much more laughter than tears in my reading of this novel.  i am really looking forward to picking up some of his other books and have already passed this one along to my sister for airplane reading.  my advice: read, read, read!

4.

columbine by dave cullen

- i like to mix up my reading with fiction and non-fiction and when my friend callie suggested this book i decided it might be a fascinating read.  the book was sad.  no getting around that.  hearing the first hand accounts of parents, children and friends losing the people they love was particularly hard, but cullen does so with a sensitivity that made the book easier to read.  i enjoyed the way cullen approaches the subject from a psychological standpoint and he really attempts to understand the motives behind what happened from the killers, to the media, to the local police.  overall, i learned a lot from this book and think it helped me see beyond the media hype that came along with the tradgedy at columbine high.

so it's that time again.  i have a few things on my reading pile at the moment, but am always looking for more suggestions.  i have found that my blog is such an excellent way to find out about new books to love.  so please, please, please pass along more of your favorite reads.