I read Terry Pratchett's Where's My Cow? at the bookstore last week. I'm really not quite sure what the target audience is, since it likely won't make sense to children that would normally read pictures books, but it was cute enough.

Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron is a nice piece of slightly-dated near-future (so basically now) cultural-study SF.

Thud! is typical Pratchett, so good, funny and worth reading.

I believe I picked up Luis Fernando Verissimo's Borges and the Eternal Orangutans due to a Nancy Pearl recommendation, but it was before I met her last week. It's short, surprising, and fun for someone who likes Borges (liking Poe would work as well).
posted by Kristin Buxton at 12:58 PM