Set during the Great Depression, Water for Elephants tells the story of Jacob Jankowski, a 23 year old man who runs away to join the circus after a personal tragedy. Employed as a veterinarian in the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, he faces a number of challenges in finding his place in the hierarchy of the traveling circus.

The story is presented as a series of flashbacks by elderly Jacob, now living in a nursing home. He finds his life at 93 intolerable, fleeing the curses of old age by escaping to his memories of life with the circus as a young man.

A colorful and engrossing portrait of an era, Water for Elephants humanizes the unusual characters who populate the circus. According to the author, many of the anecdotes used in the story were based upon real events, culled from the diaries and personal histories of old-time circus performers.

After twelve weeks on the New york Times Hardcover bestseller list, the paperback edition became a major hit on summer reading lists in 2008.

Faith in Fakes: Travels in Hyperreality by Umberto Eco is a superbly entertaining beginner's guide to semiotics. To what? Semiotics is the study and interpretation of symbols. In our increasingly iconic age, the discipline has much to say, and to do so must delve deeper and wider, into sociology, philosophy and psychology. In this superb selection of essays, Umberto Eco discusses topics as widely spaced as blue jeans, the film Casablanca, ancient monuments and theme parks. Throughout, he manages to communicate intensely difficult ideas with ease, making Faith In Fakes a truly enlightening read that both informs on theory and entertains via the mundane.

The reader must be prepared to go part-way into the discipline, however, especially in relation to specific authors and rarefied vocabulary. While names such as McLuhan, Foucault and Barthes might not deter most readers, words such as oneiric, corybantism, synecdoche, mytonymy, eversive and anthopophagy could prove to be stumbling blocks. There aren't many of these specialist words, however, because overall Umberto Eco's style is beautifully communicative and easy to read.

Buzz about the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road appears to be propelling the rise of the book on the Indie Bestseller List.

McCarthy won the Pulitzer Prize for post-apocalyptic tale of father and son traveling through a American wasteland ravaged by an enigmatic disaster. In the bleakness of settings, the love of the father for his son transcends the daily struggle against starvation and the horrors they witness on their journey.

The film version of The Road, set for release in 2009, was directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and stars Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.

Another of McCarthy's bestselling novels, No Country for Old Men, was adapted into a 2007 Academy Award-winning film directed by the Coen Brothers and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem.

Exodus/Éxodo
Charles Bowden, Julian Cardona
312 pages
115 black-and-white photos
Hardcover: $50
University of Texas Press, 2008

There are many ways to write about illegal immigration. One way is to shuffle through Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports, cherry-pick the latest data and file an article from a safe distance. Another way is to step into the fray, boots-on-the-ground, and act as an eyewitness. Author Charles Bowden and photographer Julian Cardona have chosen to be two such witnesses, and their stunning book Exodus/Exodo is a pointed reminder of the heartbreak and struggle at our back door.

"Mexico," Bowden writes, "is our one intimate brush with the majority of the planet where people have little or nothing and the future of their homelands promises even less."
Both Bowden and Cardona know our southern border region well. Cardona is based in Juarez, a city famous for drug cartel violence and the disappearances -- and deaths -- of hundreds of young women. Bowden, from Tucson, is the author of six nonfiction books and dozens of articles on the border and the Southwest, including a piece for Mother Jones that formed the basis for this incredible, well-documented journey.

2666, the epic novel that was the major preoccupation of Chilean writer Robert Bolaño in the last five years of his life, can finally be enjoyed in English. The English-language translation by Natasha Wimmer, which became available in the US in November, is holding fast on the Independent Hardcover Bestseller List.

The book he raced against death to complete is an darkly beautiful, unsettling murder mystery centered on an eclectic group of characters. Among them are three academics on the trail of a reclusive German author; a New York reporter on his first Mexican assignment, a teenage student alogn with her widowed, mentally unstable father and a police detective in love with an elusive older woman.Their lives intersect in Santa Teresa, a fictional Ciudad Juárez on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers have disappeared.

Published to great acclaim after Bolaño's death, 2666 was hailed as his masterpiece. While beloved by critics, it is hardly a light read. Bolaño's style is innovative and cryptic,  subjects terrifying and he leaves many mysteries unresolved.

Steven Covey has written numerous self-help books with the most famous of them being The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He could have named his latest book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Schools, but he probably thought that it would have been too repetitive and instead named it The Leader in Me: How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child At a Time.

The book begins with several pages of testimonies from different Teachers, community leaders, School Principals, and other administrators all praising Steven Covey and his effective methods of success. In a nutshell, Covey believes that when you put your children in mind stimulating environments, it will lead them to do great things.