The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Awesome book. I had trouble getting into it during the first 10-15 pages but after that I was hooked. And I loved it. It's very rare that you get to read two great books back to back the way I had with People of Paper and The Namesake.

Many of the scenes and story lines really hit home with me because of the whole theme of leaving home, adjusting, having issues with how "home" does or doesn't define you, etc etc.

At one point with about 100 pages left in the book, it hit me that I knew how it was going to end. I was half thrilled and half disappointed. For someone like me (who never looks ahead into the story of the movie or book) to be so sure of how such a great book would end made it all feel cheap, cliche. Luckily, I was dead wrong, and the book went off on its own the way it should've been.

Again, what a great book, and this isn't even the one she won the Pulitzer for (see Interpreter of Maladies, which I will most definitely check out at some point).

Next up: Probably Flicker by Theodore Roszak, which is supposed to be the next film that Darren Aronofsky is going to make. He already wrote the screenplay for it and the book clocks in at just under 600 pages.

Ouch.