Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (Helen Simonson)

This delightful novel focuses on a thoroughly proper upper-crust elderly Englishman whose brother dies. This simple event forces him to recognize complex issues of prejudice, family, greed, and love that he had resolutely ignored. Touching, warm, and true.

Eugene Onegin (Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin)

This English translation of a famous long novel by the Russian writer is quite remarkable. I don't know any Russian so I don't know how it compares, but the poem I read seemed quite natural in English, following an intricate rhyme scheme but still unforced, colloquial but not trendy. Nonetheless, I'm just not big on poetry. I was drawn into the story of the ne'er-do-well rake, bored with society and countryside alike, playing games with the affections and friendship of others, driven by a callous joke to killing his young friend in a duel and then spiraling downhill. But I kept getting distracted by the rhyme and stanza structure; I would have been more immersed in the story if it had been prose. Also, I couldn't identify with anyone in the story; everyone was cruel, or foolish, or histrionic, or otherwise just made me want to shake them. So I guess I'd have to say this was not for me. I'm glad I read it, though. That's what book clubs are best at; inspiring me to read things I otherwise wouldn't.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett)

In Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, the lines between white folks and the black women who clean their homes, cook their meals, and raise their children seem inviolable. This novel describes how one white woman's ambition to become a writer leads her to cross those lines, enlisting a dozen maids to tell their stories in a book that threatens to tear their society apart. Though simplistic in many ways, the story rings true. Stockett has captured the voices and the attitudes of her characters spot-on and built a world that is compelling and uplifting even as it breaks your heart.

The Invisible Gorilla (Christopher Chabris & Daniel Simons)

An accessible, scientifically supported, and fascinating look at the many ways in which our intuitions mislead us. The authors explore the illusions of attention, memory, confidence, knowledge, causation, and potential to show how the cognitive processes that normally serve us so well can, under the right circumstances, lead us dangerously awry. This book is a wonderful exploration of how our minds work, and how they don't, that gives us a glimpse behind the curtain of the mind. Highly recommended for anyone interested in cognitive psychology, or anyone who thinks (or thinks they think).

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)

This mystery thriller, set in Sweden, starts out slowly with a focus on a journalist involved in financial reporting, but a few hundred pages in suddenly takes off with the investigation of a decades-old missing person case and a deeply dysfunctional but powerful family. The violence was intense, graphic, and appalling, but it made for gripping reading. Though the focus was on the journalist, the most fascinating character was "the girl with the dragon tattoo," a thoroughly intriguing, kick-ass, flawed but stalwart young woman. I will definitely read the other books in the series to learn more about her and her background.

The Broken Window (Jeffrey Deaver)

A typically exciting example of the Lincoln Rhyme series, full of Deaver's usual twists and turns. A fiendishly clever serial killer uses the kind of data collected online about each of us not only to track his victims, but to frame others for the crimes. He is only caught after targeting Rhyme's cousin to take the fall for his latest killing. This is as much a warning about issues of cyber-privacy as it is a murder mystery.

A Taste of Fame (Linda Evans Shepherd & Eva Marie Everson)

This was an impulse selection at the library, and it was a mistake. Nothing against the book or the authors, but it's not for me. A group that started out as a bible study class morphed somehow into a catering club (not any kind of a formal business - women are just good at food, you know?). Through an unlikely set of circumstances they wound up as contestants on a national TV cooking contest. They are sure to win, collecting $1 million (for the church capital fund, of course), becoming closer together and resolving their personal issues in the process. I gave it about 40 pages before moving on. I found it too "chick-lit" - too much about girls hanging together, worried about husbands and kids and boyfriends, and clothes and jewelry and food.