I always have been fascinated in making processes more efficient and organized. At buffet lines, I am the one who sees that the ability to form two lines (one on each side of the table) is there, and I create that second line--cutting down the wait time for everyone in line. I am also extremely intrigued by human behavior and why we behave the way we do. When I saw the quote Why We Drive the Way We Do (And What It Says About Us) underneath the title of a book called Traffic, I knew that was a book for...

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Let's look at more top books published and released in 2009. Brooklyn: A Novel (Colm Toibin) Set in the 1950s, Brooklyn is the story of Eilis Lacey, a 15-year-old from Enniscorthy, Ireland, who travels to the US after World War II as an immigrant. Sponsored by Father Flood, a priest who travels from Ireland to America and back to help other immigrants find jobs in New York, Eilis left her older sister and mother behind to start a new life in Brooklyn. She has luck finding a job as an employee at a high-end department store, where she meets Tony, an...

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There are some first-time writers who can write like veterans; one example is Elena Gorokhova. Her first book, A Mountain of Crumbs, a Memoir, is like the product of a writer who has written many books. The book gives us a view of how it was to grow up inside the Iron Curtain, deprived of the right to be a part of the world, deprived of the right to live with freedom. But there is more to Gorokhova's memoir than just the description of the kind of life she had inside the Soviet Union four decades ago, it is an...

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As I shared with you (and only you) a few months back, my favorite book above all others is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  If you've only seen the movie, you have no idea what you've missed.  Author Douglas Adams' use of the English language is a joy to behold, and his mastery of sarcasm and irony are unparalleled. And so it is with some trepidation that I embark upon reading the sixth installment in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Trilogy.   In the past, the release of a new Hitchhiker's book is a minor holiday in...

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What's the greatest book you read in 2009? Are you looking for something new to read? Here is Amazon.com's list of top books for 2009. Let The Great World Spin (Colum McCann) Award-winning novelist Colum McCann has released his best novel yet. Let The Great World Spin is about New York City and its people in the 1970s. Corrigan is a radical and young Irish monk, who lives among prostitutes in the Bronx. Mothers gather to grieve for their sons who died in Vietnam. Tillie, a grandmother at 38, continues to play tricks with her teenage daughter to provide for her family and...

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