BOOK: What The Dog Saw

The author of a couple non-fiction books that I'm sure you have at least seen sitting on end tables and book shelves at various friends' houses, including Tipping Point and Blink, Malcolm Gladwell has released a new book. Different than his previous two, this one is a collection of essays, all of which appeared in The New Yorker at one point or another.

What The Dog Saw is a hodge-podge, theme-wise, but not a mess. Never losing the insight that made his aforementioned books best-sellers, Gladwell investigates odd facets of life, most of have spent only a passing minute pondering. His chapter on why there are not multiple varieties of ketchup, as opposed to mustard brings about some very creative journalism and interviews, while looking into the social problem of homelessness is just plain inspiring. Combining elements of another essay-based best-seller, Freakonomics, Gladwell's analysis of how people make hiring decisions when they don't know who to hire is fascinating.

The short and mostly unrelated pieces in this book make for an easy and fragmented read. This book and the topics within are great for lively conversation and debate as well as simply a new way to consider the world.

Sergio del Limónar

BOOK: Go Ask Alice

The diary-book, Go Ask Alice, is by no means a literary masterpiece. It is really no more than the rambling thought of an average teenage girl in the late 1960's. The only difference is this girl got messed up in the drugs of the era and wrote about it in detail.

The extraordinary thing about this piece of work, published in 1971, is not only the candor and emotion the anonymous author exhibits, but the remorse she feels toward her family, friends, and herself. It's difficult to read at times, especially as she relapses. Sometimes this seems to occur suddenly as we are only privy to her diary entries which are often times sporadic and even lacking dates at times.

Although the authenticity of the book - whether it was an actual diary or really a work of fiction - is still up for debate. Regardless, the ideas in the various entries and the roller coaster of emotions the girl goes through are enough to influence another generation to stay off drugs.

Sergio del Limonar

BOOK: Mary Roach

I would love to hang out with author Mary Roach. Reason numero uno? She is the queen of inside jokes. I feel that, if she is in conversation, anything like her writing style, we would be the obnoxious people at a dinner party who keep laughing and, when someone inquires as to the joke and we tell them, they don't get it because they weren't there twenty minutes ago. Or last week. Or the last dinner gathering.

That's the way I feel when I reading a Mary Roach book. Sly, insanely clever, and perfectly timed, as a reader you often feel you are right along side Roach, as she investigates various bizarre and seldom researched topics, when she leans over and whispers something inappropriate in your ear.

I recently finished Roach's second book, Spook, about scientific investigations into the supernatural. I was introduced to her through her spectacular first piece, Stiff, about what happens to human cadavers after family members bid their farewells, and Bonk, about the science of sex.

Each of these books takes Roach on a tour of studies near and far, to fully funded by legitimate organizations and not-so-much experiments, meeting all types of investigators - scientific to just curious, all in the goal of getting to the bottom of often ignored or misunderstood corners of science. Writing intelligently, but also for the layman, Roach does a phenomenal job of making the method of science accessible and interesting to everyone. Have a I mentioned she's funny?

Sergio del Limonar

BOOK: Friday Night Lights

In honor of football season starting up this weekend, it seems appropriate that we give a big Zonino! to one of the best gridiron-themed books around - Friday Night Lights. This phenomenally narrated piece of non-fiction, written during the fall of 1988 by H.G.Bissinger, follows the always emotional season of high school football at Permian High School in Odessa, Texas.

Bissinger wraps the reader in all the intricacies of west Texas culture - the potlucks, booster meetings, post-game keggers, economic woes, racial lines, religious influences, political leanings and more - to paint a picture that convinces those of us not from this corner of the country that this is much more than a game. He justifiably makes the players, coaches, parents, alumni, and town-folk into more than just characters or personalities in a story. They become people that you feel you know; when they suffer a disappointment, it too becomes your disappointment.

While this book is about football, its soul is about people. It's about dreams - having them, wanting them, longing for them, and missing them.

Sergio del Limonar

BOOK: A Long Way Gone

I'm not generally a fan of non-fiction stories. You also won't find me reading much fantastical fiction either. I enjoy a story about a person or people that could conceivably happen, but didn't. Which is why I think I enjoyed A Long Way Gone so much; it shouldn't have happened, but unfortunately, it did.

The story, subtitled "Memoirs of a Boy Soldier," by Ishmael Beah, is about Ishmael's trials and experiences during one of the many civil wars in Sierra Leon's bloody history. During the early 1990's, Ishmael's hometown was destroyed by rebel forces and he is forced to flee, in the process losing everything that was his old life: house, friends, family...history. In his wanderings through the once friendly, now distrusting country, he eventually becomes one of many child soldiers the world never hears about. A great injustice to childhood in general, Ishmael is forced to grow up quickly and becomes one of those whom he had previously despised.

Ishmael and I are about the same age and, as I read the book, kept thinking about what I was doing and thinking about when he was hiding in the bush or holding his first AK-47. It also saddens me that I didn't even know there was a war going on in Sierra Leon, let alone the fact that people my age were fighting it. I wonder what would have been different if the general population of the U.S. had read this story, or a similar account, when it was happening instead of 10 years later.

This is definitely a story I would recommend to anyone regardless of their genre preferences. I think it is a good reality-check that the world does not stop at our shores and there are bigger problems than that fender-bender you got into this morning or the number of hours the boss is making you clock.

I wish it hadn't happened, and it did, but I'm glad I am aware of it now.

Sergio del Limónar