Dave Eggers' book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was one of those books that kept floating around in conversation. The title has a way of catching that sticky spot on your brain that doesn't fully retain information but doesn't entirely let it go, either. For awhile, I continuously confused this book with The Unbearable Lightness of Being -- for some reason, the titles sound the same to me. After reading the latter, I called my friend to ask her why she was such a fan of the book, and she fully began describing the former. Awesome.

So years, literally years, later, a friend of mine dropped A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius into my hands, saying, "I just finished it. Give it a go." Given its sticky-status, I thought I should finally just get the damn book out of my system already.

The premise: Dave and his brothers and sister survive the terrible loss of both of their parents to cancer in the space of about 5 weeks. One death was expected, the other was quite sudden. Suddenly, alongside dealing with the technicalities of their parents' deaths as well as their personal grief, Dave and his two older siblings find themselves legally responsible for their seven-year-old brother Toph. The majority of the child-rearing falls on Dave's 21-year-old shoulders, and this book is the autobiographical story of the two brothers' life together.

There were parts of this book that were absolutely riveting. I would call them the first 100 pages. And then the rest of the book was very, very longwinded. And this is coming from somebody who she herself is very long-winded, so just trust me when I say it's long-winded. 437 pages of long-winded (Note: In the preface, Eggers himself mentions that the best part of the book is in the first 100 pages, curiously enough).

Sure, it's heartbreaking. It is. I just don't know so much about the staggering genius part.

Still, there was something about this book that kept me reading. Well, ok, skimming. I brought it with me everywhere I went, and pulled it out whenever I had a 2-or-more-minute wait for a train/bus. I even looked forward to transporation time because it meant reading time, and hey! That must mean I liked the book, right?

Except I didn't, really. I found it sort of tiresome. And I'm apparently in the minority here, because the book was a #1 bestseller. But so was A Million Little Pieces, and I found that book tiring in the exact same way, although Eggers is clearly a more talented writer than James Frey.

If you're curious, I copied one sentence out of the book for illustrative purposes. It's about Dave and Toph "meeting" President Clinton:

We Need to Talk About Kevin - even the title is intense, urgent, and upsetting. Don't get me wrong: this book is good. Oh yes, excellent writing, amazing character development, even unexpected humor at some of the darkest of moments. Kudos to Lionel Shriver. But man, this book is intense.

The premise: At fifteen years old, Kevin Khatchadourian orchestrates the killing of seven of his his high school peers, along with a teacher and a custodian. His mother, Eva, recounts his life leading up to the crime via letters to her husband, Franklin. Tracing her pregnancy and Kevin's birth, his odd and unsettling childhood, and then the years shortly before his killing, Eva dissects a mother's relationship with her son.

And man, is it haunting. Eva is smart, quirky, and frighteningly believable. Her horrific strories of the early years of raising her son are still tinged with a sort of motherly worry, even in the retroscpect of her child's terrible crime. I devoured the book, finishing it in a few days and sneaking in reading breaks when I should have otherwise been socializing. And the final pages are absolutely incredible.

Read it: We Need to Talk About Kevin - by Lionel Shriver

The woman at the local bookshop told me that she hasn't liked the selections for the Man-Booker Prize every since it added that pesky Man on the front. Before, she argued, when it was just the Booker Prize, the pickins were good. Now, she says, they tend to be more racy and raunchy - although still quite well-written - books.

And woooo... was she right. At least when it came to the pick for 2005.

The Line of Beauty is Alan Hollinghurst's tribute to rampant cocaine use and gay sex, with a little bit of sentimentality thrown in. Or maybe it goes the other way: sentimentality first, and then all that wild stuff second. Well, I can't decide.

Really, though, behind its flashy scenes and regular use of the word "bumshoving," The Line of Beauty has a wonderful, delicate side. The book is entertaining, but touching, and - although I would hesitate to ever say the book is a comedy - I found a few scenes where I laughed out loud.

The selection at the Frankfurt airport was an enticing array of New York Times Bestsellers, but I can't exactly say what posessed me to select The Tipping Point over, say, a Nora Roberts novel. I think it might have something to do with having grabbed the book and, at random, opening the page to a fascinating tale of how "Sesame Street" came to be. I read three pages standing there in the store, and then decided to fork over the eight euros for the whole book.

I am glad I did. The book made the plane ride fly (!) by, and was an amusing read that I still think of at random moments even now, several weeks later.

The Tipping Point is Malcolm Gladwell's book on "how little things can make a big difference." While the book claims to analyse how unpopular items such as Hush Puppies can become overnight sensations, how New York city can go from having tons of crime to far less in just a few years, or how Gold Box advertising really changes things, I had a hard time stringing together the entire book into a cohesive, nicely-wrapped package. Still, I enjoyed all the bits and pieces.

A good friend of mine is writing her thesis on Russell Banks. I can't remember why, or what exactly she's discussing, but the fact that someone I consider intelligent would spend so much time thinking about the guy was enough to convince me to pick up The Darling, his most recent book.

I read it in four days, sneaking time to read it in between metro stops and waits at the eye doctor's. Usually, this kind of behavior means I REALLY love a book. But now, several weeks down the line, I still don't know what to make of The Darling.