Now reading:
I Found This Funny: My Favorite Pieces of Humor and Some that May Not Be Funny at ALL, edited by Judd Apatow. It's a fantastic collection of short stories and essays by people known for their humor (David Sedaris, Nora Ephron, Steve Martin, Lorrie Moore) and people who....usually aren't (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor). As a collected work, it's easy to see why Apatow is the king of "cringe humor."
Recently read:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I saw the movie on HBO about a month ago, then read the book. I wasn't going to do either, because the topic (a boy who loses his dad in the tower collapse on 9/11) sounded depressing and uninspiring. But it actually *is* inspiring- a powerful story of grief and healing filled with memorable characters. The book's narrative is always told from first person, but it's not always the same narrator so the style changes quite a bit. It also includes photographs and drawings that sometime seem completely random while somehow enhancing the story. The narrative style is perhaps on the more experimental side, but it works. Oh, and I finished the book at the BFP Reunion, so if anyone there saw me sitting in the hotel bar with my face in an iPad looking a bit teary-eyed, that's why. I swear.