Steve

"Hey, check out this new book we got in. It's really messed up, depressing, and Japanese. You'll like it." While that's not verbatim, that's pretty close to how Kelly greeted me when I walked into the store when the hardback first hit the shelves. Turns out she was right on all counts. Author Keigo Higashino cuts to the chase pretty quickly, so I'm not giving anything away when I tell you that single mother Yasuko, with the help of her teenage daughter, accidentally kills her scumbag ex-husband, nor am I spoiling the story when I say that their neighbor Ishigami, a reclusive math teacher who is in love with the woman, comes up with a perfect, logical plan to keep her out of jail. The police, grasping at straws, enlist the aid of brilliant physicist Manabu Yukawa, which turns out to a real stroke of luck, because not only does he know Ishigami, he also knows that Ishigami is much, much smarter than the average bear. Excellent characters and a gripping, twisty plot explain why Higashino is one of Japan's biggest authors- if Alexander Smith continues to translate his work into English, he should become pretty big in the States, too.

The story of a young man relocated to the US after his village is destroyed by American soldiers, The Book of Jonas is a haunting look at the consequences of war for both the victims and the perpetrators.

What with all the "fiscal cliff" talk going on, it's certainly a good time to try and understand how the heck our national budget process really works. Of course, most of us aren't economics majors- and considering how complicated some of these issues are, that might not even help- so the folks at the National Priorities Project have put together a wonderfully concise book that explains how every dollar of the federal budget is spent.