National Book Week

Well, I just found out that it's National Book Week, which makes me very happy, but also makes me feel like an idiot for not knowing this until Tuesday. So. Many. Emotions. Anyway, in honor of this most joyous occasion and ridiculous made up holiday, here's a list of books that I've read lately and greatly enjoyed.
1. Just Kids, Patti Smith: Her memoir about her early days in New York and her friendship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The prose is beautiful and poetic, and Smith tells her story with the sort of forthrightness that could only come from the Godmother of Punk. I highly recommend this for anyone who has ever romanticized what it is like to be young, poor, and talented in New York City. It also won National Book Award, so it must be good, right?
2. This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper: The story of a man returning home to sit shiva after his father's death from cancer, it is also the story of a dysfunctional family at it's most vulnerable. Dealing with the recent infidelity of his wife, the death of a father with whom he had a strained relationship, and the stress of being trapped in his childhood home with his 3 siblings and sex-therapist mother, the narrator tells a tale both heart-breaking and darkly hilarious.
3. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson: The narrator, a preacher in a small Midwestern town, has come to the end of his life, and so, to deal with the fact that he will be leaving behind a much younger wife and his very young son, he has set about to write a letter detailing his life and his ancestors' lives so that his son may at some point know the man who died when he was so young. Both beautiful and heartbreaking, it is the type of book that will reaffirm your faith in human kind.
4. A Girl Named Zippy, Haven Kimmel: Another memoir, this tells about the childhood of a very funny, very strange little girl in rural Indiana in the 1960s and 70s. It outlines her family, friends and her struggles with faith as a small child. It's hilarious at some points and poignant at others, a very light read that can be easily finished in a day or two.
5. One Day, David Nicholls: The movie version of this starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess (that guy from Across the Universe) is out soon, so I suggest reading this asap. It's the story of two people and their lives together and apart over the course of twenty years, each chapter covering the same day (July 15) of each year. It's like a Nicholas Sparks story, but well-written and clever. Oh, and it will make you cry so many times. If it doesn't, you have a cold robot heart, and I don't want to know you.

Those are the best that I've read lately, but of course, any book is worthy, just as long as you're reading and learning. And as long as it's not actually a Nicholas Sparks book; that doesn't count.