I loved the Secret Life of Bees, but couldn't stand the Mermaid Chair. Go figure.

I'm also getting mightily annoyed at Wolf Totem. It's a mostly autobiographical book about a young Chinese student who goes to study and live with Mongolian sheep herders, and ends up staying there for 11 years, adopting a wolf cub and growing fascinated by the Mongolians reverence for wolves. As long as the author writes straightforwardly it's very interesting, but he is So Heavy Handed when it comes to comparing the Chinese (the "sheep") to the Mongols (the "wolves"), a comparison he dearly wants to make, over and over.

Recently read and liked: White Teeth by Zadie Smith, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Swedish writer Stieg Larssons crime trilogy (The Girl who played with Fire) has been a huge success in Scandinavia and I'm pretty sure it has been translated into English.