Delicious book recommendations...

so i recently sent off an email to my friends:

looking to get from you recommendations of the very very best, best, bestest books that you've read in the last year or two years (or however long)
books that you Truly enjoyed reading, found delicious even.
looking forward to compiling a list... so that i don't just go to the bookstore and randomly blow money on random books... this way i can have a Strategy.
not that i'm planning on buying anything much anytime soon. but a girl can Dream, no?
:)

oh yeah, and books like this that *i've* read recently? Here they are, but i warn you, simply fun reads are mixed in with truly "great" literature in the following:

-The Glass Palace (amitav ghosh)
-The Hungry Tide (amitav ghosh)
-Kissing in Manhattan
-On Writing (Stephen King)
-My Uncle Napoleon : A Novel(Iraj Pizishkzad)

i also read love creeps but really didn't like it. i also waded through john irving's recent one, Until I Find You... he needed an editor to chop it down. Bad.ugh.

so far, here are some of the recommendations I've gotten... will update this entry as more arrive (and oh do feel free to contribute!)

The In Between Life of Vikram Lall
Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo
Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi)