For nonfiction, I am reading an excellent book that came out June 2011, The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, who also wrote The Men Who Stare At Goats, later made into a movie, and Them, about fringe cults in America. The psychopath test, invented by psychologist John Hare, is a checklist of "attributes that psychopaths possess" although all of us have them to some degree, and psychopaths are excellent at manipulating people, so it's not exactly an infallible tool.  The unvarying condition of all psychopaths though, is lack of empathy;
           
                        "(She) was interviewing a psychopath once. She showed him a picture of a frightened face  and asked him to identify the emotion. He said he didn't know what the emotion was but it was the face people pulled just before he killed them."

     Anyway the book is told first-person story style and is funny and interesting.



    Another book that came out about the same time, The Hottest Dishes of Tartar Cuisine by Alina Brodsky, is another first person narrative, fiction this time, by one bazinga of an old lady, set in modern day Russia. Actually she's middle-aged, but she keeps things moving, especially with her completely cowed daughter and her grandaughter. This one is pretty funny too, mainly because you can't believe some of the things this old bat does. Reminds me of some of Ruth Rendell's old ladies.