Old Men at Midnight by Chaim Potok wasn't my favorite of his, but it wasn't bad either. I wonder if I don't know enough about Judaism to understand the third part of the book. The first two sections were both fairly straight-forward, while the last was more obtuse.

Robert D. Kaplan's The Ends of the Earth was great, if a bit depressing. He travelled many of the third world countries describing what he saw. The book starts off in western Africa and ends in southeast Asia after traversing many of the countries between. His travels were in the early 90's, so some things have changed since then, but I have a feeling that most of the poverty and problems he saw are still there.
posted by Kristin Buxton at 1:33 PM