Title: The Girl on the Fridge
Author: Etgar Keret
Genre: Fiction

Etgar Keret’s specialty is really brief, quite surreal and abstract fiction.His short stories (seriously short, not even a page in some cases) aren’t linear tales of events but, as he described it when I saw him speak earlier this week, his attempts at hanging on to a feeling. I like that description. If someone asked you what happens in a Keret story they’ve asked the wrong question. The right question is how did you feel or perhaps even more accurate what feeling did the story share with you?

Title: A Conspiracy of Paper
Author: David Liss
Genre: Fiction

I don’t read a lot of historical fiction so maybe I’m easily impressed by a novel that “reads” like the era its set in. The words and phrasing of this novel, set in early 18th century London, really set a tone and feeling. Unfortunately though the overall topic was a bit over my head. Perhaps ironically that subject is a deep conspiracy that involves the earliest form of the British stock market, buying and selling stock, and all matters of deep financial dealings that in my cases left the rich richer and the poor poorer. Like I said the topic was a bit over my head (not unlike the current financial crisis our country is in the middle of) so I had a bit of a hard time losing myself in the mystery of it all. That’s not to say that I disliked the book, just that I probably wouldn’t choose to read it again.