1. You Remind Me of Me, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

By Dan Chaon (Ballantine Books, $13.95) Sometimes I am wooed by language. Chaon has an incredible gift with language, and I found myself circling passages, almost ripping pages out to carry around in

2. Where I'm Calling From, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

By Raymond Carver (Vintage, $16.00( Perhaps you recognize the name. Someone once told you, you should read some Carver. In my opinion this is the very best American short-story writer of all time. No

3. The God of Small Things, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

By Arundhati Roy (Random House, $15.00) This is the book I hand to you with goosebumps pricking up my arms. I am almost tempted to pull it back. Because this is the sort of novel that changes people.

4. Buddhism for Mothers, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Nonfiction)

By Sarah Napthali (Allen & Unwin, $15.95) What a relief this book has been. As a brand-new mom with a full-time job, I've stumbled through days raw-eyed and manic. Each emotion, be it exquisite

5. Sharp Objects, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

by Gillian Flynn (Three Rivers Press, $14.00) Oh, this nasty little gem! Gillian Flynn has broken into the boy's club of hardboiled. Deceptively coy, often funny, and maybe even a bit demur, this

6. Revolutionary Road, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

by Richard Yates (Vintage, $14.95) This is slow-cooking suspense masked by the crisp calm of suburbia. From page one you will witness a family's narrow escape from disaster, time and time again, k

7. Hardcore Hardboiled, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

Edited by Todd Robinson (Kensington, $14.00) If late nights with Grand Theft Auto have you debating carpal tunnel surgery, or maybe you're still mourning the final episodes of The Wire; never fe

8. Self-Help, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Fiction)

by Lorrie Moore (Knopf, 12.95) This is a master class in short fiction. I was assigned this book in college and it has impacted everything I have read since. Subtle, lovely, wry, and crushing.

9. Thunderstruck, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Nonfiction)

by Erik Larson (Crown, $25.95) Imagine a time before cell phones and internet, a world in which information could only be communicated person to person and with print. To travel across oceans was to

10. Woman in Berlin, Written by: Allison
(Staff Picks/Nonfiction)

by Anonymous (Picador, $14.00) A harrowing and vastly unacknowledged account of World War II. For those of us who feel confident in our freedoms and basic human rights, this is a must-read. Anony