Of special note to librarians; The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai. A small town librarian (actually the town is Hannibal, about thirty miles from the even smaller town I grew up in) helps a 10 year old boy run away from home - his mother is afraid he has "homosexual tendencies" and is sending him to some deprogramming camp run by a sleazy Reverend White Trash. The heroine says "he's only ten years old, I don't think he's anything-sexual" -- on the other hand, as another reviewer says, every adult that sees the kid thinks he's gay. Of course she ends up bringing him home in the end, without getting in trouble.  Adventures along the way - a very good read.

      For nonfiction, I just finished reading a wonderful book by John Yow, The Armchair Birder Goes Coastal: the secret lives of the birds of the Southeastern shore. A lot of it is about Dauphin Island. Anyway it takes each particular species of bird and tells travelogue style about his contact with it, descriptions, and what Audubon and other authorities say about it. Just really interesting especially if you start off being interested in birds.