Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott

A fun little book about a world where there are only two dimensions, and how one of its inhabitants discovers that there is another world with three. Filled with little satirical barbs. Appeals to the nerd in me and contained some surprising little pleasures...

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The Giver by Lois Lowry

It's sort of Brave New World for kids, and is surprisingly heavy for a kids' book. It's set in a future world where society is perfectly ordered through sameness, and the main character is the one person who is chosen to be the holder of memories of things from before: emotion, color, art, music, violence, and so on. A friend who used to be a teacher recommended it; interesting read.

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Jim and Casper Go To Church by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper

A nifty idea for a book - a minister and an atheist go to a bunch of churches and talk about what they think - that just doesn't quite come off as authentic. It's not their observations, it's the way it's written; the conversations sound like they were put together from written notes, and just sound very stilted. But there are some interesting observations about churches, particularly mega-churches, and the chapter in which they visit Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church is funny, devastating, and the one time they get seriously critical about what they're seeing.

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