To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

 I don't know what to say about it, except that it fully deserves the praise that it has collected.  It's brilliant.  Weighty, but up-lifting.  Beautiful.  Honest.  Well worth the read.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande has taken a new direction with this book; still exploring what it takes to make our lives - both as a doctor and as a patient - better, this time he looks at the end of our lives. With death both natural and inevitable, what interventions are the most useful? What merely prolongs suffering, and what makes life more worth living- what gives us better, rather than just longer lives?  What interventions actually make things worse?

Aside from the critical, end-of-life stages, what about the later years? At what point is it time to seek assistance, and when do we have to turn over autonomy? Intriguingly, do we ever have to turn over autonomy?  He shares his research about these questions and some answers to them - good answers that are surprising in both what they have in common and what they do not.

Reading this was enlightening for me: Knowing that we all die, and that we all grow old (if we're lucky) - is not the same as thinking about those facts, and knowing how to deal with them.  Thought-provoking and informative, a straightforward read with beautifully clear prose; my favorite kind of non-fiction.

The Eye of Zoltar, by Jasper Fforde

As the impatiently-anticipated third installment in the wonderful and Strange Chronicles of Kazam series, this book did not disappoint. Fforde's cleverness at plotting-- while not neglecting to include a high ratio of random-- made this one of my favorite reads in a long time.

The Spark: A Mother's Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism, by Kristine Barnett

Kristine Barnett's son, Jacob, was so affected by autism that his pre-K teacher assumed he would never (re-)learn the letters of the alphabet. Now, he has set the world's record for being the youngest paid researcher in Physics.

Ms. Barnett seems to be one of those rare souls who has an intuitive grasp of what will help little children blossom; this book focuses on how she helped this transformation happen. It is neither a straightforward narrative nor a detailed description of her methods. It seems, instead, to be a best-parts version of both.

Her main takeaway message is that we can't give up on any child, even if the school system has declared them to be in essence unteachable. I was raised believing this-- our version is to say, "genius is as common as dirt"-- and it is therefore small wonder that I was so taken with this book.

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

This book is a fascinating look at the extraordinarily mundane tool, the humble checklist.   From pilots to surgeons to poor households in third world slums, this book talks about the utility of a checklist in helping people do - whatever they're trying to do - well.  Simple, concise, and well written; I cannot recommend it enough.

The Emporor's Soul

By Brandon Sanderson

Good book, but you may want to read Elantris  in order to understand a grand total of one of the references. It is also quite short, and not overly cheerful for most of the book, but not as depressing as, say, the Mistborn trilogy by the same author, which I intend to review as soon as I can refresh my memory of them.
Swearing: Medium, D-words are used infrequently.
Violence: Medium, a character is severely wounded in a fight.
Religious/Other: Mention of magically animated skeletons, the main character is a forger and can use a system of "Soulstamps" to rewrite the history of an object or person, various fictional religions are mentioned.

Harry Potter And The Natural 20

By Sir Poley

I am back!

Anyway, I really liked this story, although it is not as ridiculously awesome as I'm here to help, nor is it as long as Harry Potter and The Methods Of Rationality, it is consistently hilarious, and fairly kid-friendly, to boot.

The Blurb: Milo, a genre-savvy D&D Wizard and Adventurer Extraordinaire is forced to attend Hogwarts, and soon finds himself plunged into a new adventure of magic, mad old Wizards, metagaming, misunderstandings, and munchkinry. Updates Thursdays.

Comments: Technically accurate, and strikes me as amusing, to boot.

Language: Medium, a grand total of one D-word by the end of chapter 8, and possibly a S-word or two. "crud" and "parc(backwards)" are used fairly often.

Violence: Medium, killing of semi-sentient beings is done occasionally by a main character, said character occasionally attempts to kill sophonts threatening him or his friends, several characters are mentioned as being killed in the backstory, several characters are injured.

Religious/Other: Most characters use various powers referred to as magic, mention of demons, mention of a villain attempting to achieve immortality, one of the main characters comes from an alternate world where death can be reversed, mention of semi-arbitrary "alignment" determining a character's choices, references to "clerics" being able to heal wounds and resurrect the dead(if of "good" alignment), references to necromancy.