Hot,Flat and Crowded, by Thomas Friedman

...This choice was not mine originally. I decided to read this book because it was one of the books Obama took on his vacation.
I did not finish the book. Mr. Friedman is too wordy for me. I was reading the book and hoped he would cut the cr...p and get to the point sooner then he did. I did not learn anything new. I already knew everything he was talking about. So it was a waste of my time :-(

P.S. I wonder what would the President say about the book.

The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran

I went to Beirut, Lebanon, on a business trip and one of my colleagues, a Lebanese woman, told me that I had to read The Prophet if i wanted to learn about Lebanese culture. I borrowed the book from the library and read it. I liked the poetry and wisdom of short essays, and found a lot in common with the author's philosophy.

In Lebanon I traveled to one of the oldest cities - Byblos. There, in historical quarter, at a tiny bookstore I bought The Prophet...

The Reader, by Bernard Schlink

I read the book before I watched the movie. I thought that it would help me "see" things that are usually hard to narrate on the screen via acting. Things like inner monologues, streams of thoughts, etc.. Then I saw the movie. I liked acting, but felt puzzled by changes the director made in this movie. In other words, I saw interpretation that I could not explain.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami

Last year I read a lot of books from the category Art Instructions and not so much anything else. A good portion of my time was also absorbed by the presidential elections in US. I never watched CNN so much in my entire life.
Shortly after New Year's Eve I made my resolutions list. One of the them was about what I would like to read this year.
My first pick was a novel by contemporary Japanese writer Murakami. Last time I read a book by the writers of this country were Cobo Abe and Kenzaburō Ōe, but it was so long time ago that I don't even remember what those novels were about.
I am still 'digesting' The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and trying to understand how I feel about it. I feel lost and find it difficult to describe the impression it made on me, but it was worth reading for sure.