THE YELLOW BIRDS by Kevin Powers

Gorgeous. One small story that paints a poignant, sweeping picture of what it's like to go to war. Exquisite, painful, poetic, immediate. Add to the canon of must-read war literature, with Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE? by Maria Semple

A terrific beach read for people, like me, who aren't the beach read type. When brilliant, sharp-tongued, socially phobic Bernadette goes missing, her 8th grade daughter, Bee, seeks to find her. At once a satire about life in Seattle and sweet mother-daughter story, well crafted, well written, nicely built characters, funny. I devoured it in in a few sittings.