How about checking out these National Book Award winners for your next vacation read?

Europe Central by William T. Vollmann (2005 winner)

The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck (2004 winner)

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard (2003 winner)

Three Junes by Julia Glass (2002 winner)

Dream of the Blue Room began with a classified ad in the employment section of the New York Times. I was living on the Upper West Side, and I'd just quit my fatally boring cubicle job at Ogilvy New York City. Desperate for a paycheck, I answered an ad for an English tutor, and a couple of days later I was being interviewed by Tony, the president of a Chinese trading company in a posh apartment in midtown. We sealed the deal on the spot. For a bit more than I'd been making at the PR firm, I would accompany Tony to restaurants, farmers' markets, art galleries, design stores -- anywhere that he could learn new vocabulary.

My first day on the job, I assembled a vacuum cleaner in Tony's apartment. My task: to decode the instructions. I tried to explain to Tony that instruction booklets for home appliances do not represent the best of American English, but that did not compute. Three hours after we began, we stood admiring the partially-functioning vacuum cleaner. That's when Tony hit me with the news: "I go to China next Monday. You go Wednesday."

The New York Times Book Review asked leading literary types to choose the best work of American fiction in the last quarter century. Here are the results. (the article )

The Winner:

Beloved by Tony Morrison

The Runners-Up:

Underworld by Don DeLillo

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels by John Updike

Remember "Jenny 867-5309" from way back? Well, I was a kid when the song came out, and at that point in my life everyone called me Jenny. All I remember was everyone wondering who Jenny was, calling the number to ask for Jenny, and hearing stories that the people with that phone number had to have their phone disconnected because it wouldn't stop ringing (although that's probably an urban myth from the time, much like the rumor that Mikey from the LIFE cereal commercials died while drinking Coke and eating Pop Rocks). In any case, the idea always stuck with me, and every time I hear a song I wonder what inspired the writer and whether the content of the lyrics are real or mere creative license.

The Monroe County, IN, Public Library compiled a list of some fifty cult fiction classics. Here are six of our favorites:

1. The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
   
   
2. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
   
   
3. Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
   
   
4. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
   
   
5. The Gunslinger by Stephen King
   
   
6. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
   
   

I was always interested in writing and even took a shot as an undergrad at a student newspaper job while attending Florida State but aside from one article on street construction in Tallahassee I was unsuccessful.

I moved on to police work and have been quite happy with my choice since the first day in the academy. I like the physical nature of the job. I love the diversity I experience every day, never knowing exactly what my assignment might be. It may sound hokey, but I like helping people and see the relief on their faces when we show up at a disaster or particularly nasty crime scene.