In 1970s Harlem, Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is a quiet, unassuming driver to one of NYC's most notorious drug lords. When his boss suddenly dies, Frank steps into the power vacuum to become an even bigger crime kingpin. Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) is the hardnosed cop determined to bring Frank to justice. This is a gangster movie based on a true story. It focused on character rather than action and on the intricacies of people's backgrounds, strategies and motivations, a sprawling, fascinating look into the complicated mind and operations of the head of a crime syndicate. Watch (American Gangster) Trailer.

Mr. Thundermug is the "inventive and poignant story of a baboon who acquires the ability to eloquently speak human language".

As squatters in a condemned apartment building in a fictional city (think London), Mr. Thundermug and his family face eviction. His trouble escalates when he is arrested for, of all things - cruelty to animals! "The amusing and frustrating transactions between baboon and society attain urban-legend status".

This little fable-like tale is enchanced by moody, sepia-toned photographs throughout. A noteworthy debut for British Cornelius Medvei.

No Country for Old Men, a Coen Brothers’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s fast-paced thriller gives us a “disturbing look into the vortex created by drugs and violence in America and a moving meditation on good and evil, freedom and fate, time and change”, guaranteed to keep you at the edge of your seat.

The film version of Beowulf , an epic poem, is a big-budget, digitally-enhanced tale of a warrior sent to battle monsters terrorizing the countryside.

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez is an enduring classic about two star-crossed lovers. I heard the adaptation is equally engaging.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death by Jean-Dominique Bauby is an autobiographic story of the author who became completely paralyzed at the age of 43. Artist Julian Schnabel received Festival de Cannes Best Director award for this remarkable film.

Rivalry: A Geisha's Tale* is the first complete English translation of Nagai Kafu's 1918 portrait of geisha life, and is based on an unexpurgated version of the Japanese text published in the 1950s.

Originally serialized, Udekurabe (transleted as Rivalry) first appeared in a literary journal in August, 1916. The author, a respected novelist and university lecturer was married briefly to a celebrated dancer, the model for Komayo - the geisha central to the story.

Set in the entertainment district of Shimbashi, Tokyo, during Taisho-era Japan, it recounts the precarious fortunes of a talented and ambitious geisha, as she navigates among patrons rivaling for her favors and the envies of her peers. Modern readers will find it an authentic and beautifully realized portrait of a fascinating and significant Japanese subculture at a place in time.

* = Starred Review

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey has pulled a discredited children's book, Forrest Carter's The Education of Little Tree, from a list of recommended titles on her Web site, blaming an archival "error" for including a work considered to be the literary hoax of a white supremacist, according to the International Herald Tribune. Carter, who died in 1979, was identified as Asa Earl Carter, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and speechwriter for former Alabama governor George Wallace.

First published in 1976, Little Tree was supposedly the real-life story of an orphaned boy raised by his Cherokee Indian grandparents; the book became a million seller and sentimental favorite. In 1991, the American Booksellers Association gave "Little Tree" its first ever ABBY award, established to honor the 'hidden treasures' that ABA bookstore members most enjoyed recommending.

According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of industry sales, Little Tree" has sold about 11,000 copies in 2007.

For the end of Banned Books Week, I shall write my third and final book blog—which suits me just fine, as I don’t think I’ve read more than three books in my life—about another high school and banned book staple, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. If you haven’t read it, it’s great. Stunning analysis, I know, but I actually want to clarify book banning. Only one school or library in the entire country (of which there must be dozens… maybe more) has to challenge or ban a book to make the American Library Association’s list. And even though Of Mice and Men is amazingly depressing, coarse, and violent, why would any library not carry it, or a school not create a forum to discuss it? We need controversial books, books that make us react to them whether it be, we love them, are disgusted by them, or they make us hungry. We need to read a book and want to talk about why we love it or why it should never be read by another human, but we shouldn’t ban books. That’s not discussion. That’s the end of discussion.

George Orwell’s essay “Such, Such Were The Joys…” lamented his days in British preparatory school. Roald Dahl’s autobiography, Boy, lamented his days in British preparatory school. Orwell and Dahl wrote ten years apart and for different audiences, and Orwell had a much shorter career, yet they both wrote about overbearing, cruel teachers and schoolmasters, strict rules on everything, floggings over trifles, deprivation of food, warmth, and supplies. Not surprisingly, Orwell’s books like 1984 and Animal Farm and Dahl’s books like James and the Giant Peach, BFG, and Matilda share a theme of mistrust of authority.

Everyone reads The Catcher In The Rye in high school. I did, my parents did, my children—err… my hypothetical children will. J.D. Salinger's oft-banned book is oft lauded as a classic tale of teenage angst. Holden Caulfield, the would-be titular catcher and the smoking, drinking, prostitute-soliciting (for conversation only, mind you,) prep-school-flunking antihero has angered parents since his first publication. Even though not all teenagers smoke and drink (or flunk or solicit) Holden is a typical teen, rebellious and occasionally preoccupied with the opposite sex. Of course, to write this off as merely a wonderful story of teenagerism would hardly give it enough credit (slight spoilers ahead.)

Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, Chinese author Xiaolu Guo’s first novel written in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is at once sexy, sad and funny .

Zhuang ("Z"), a 23-year-old Chinese woman from rural China is in London enrolled in English classes. Loneliness and her attraction to a much older man at an artsy film soon make them live-in lovers. His bisexuality bothers her less than his vegetarian diet. It becomes clear to the readers that her ever-improving English does not help her understanding of western culture and gets her in some dangerous situations.

“Guo's U.S. debut ...(is)a compelling and moving tale of first love. An often-charming exploration of learning, love and loss.” ~ Kirkus Reviews

Xiaolu Guo was born in 1973. After graduating from the Beijing Film Academy, she published a number of books in China. Since 2002, she has been dividing her time between London and Beijing. She has written and directed award-winning documentaries including The Concrete Revolution; her first feature film, How Is Your Fish Today?, was screened at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 International Women’s Film Festival.

If you liked The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, or Andrew Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli, you would enjoy Camille DeAngelis' debut novel Mary Modern.

Though not strictly time travel, critics are calling it "imaginative, near-future, genre-bending" and "a literary mix of love story, s(cience)f(iction) and thriller".

The year is 2009. Frustrated geneticist Lucy Morrigan decides to clone her own grandmother when both academic tenure and pregnancy elude her. A blood-stained apron and her father's experimental equipment in the basement of the family home produces an indignant 22-year-old version of Lucy’s grandmother, Mary. While finding life in the 21st century challenging, Mary quickly adjusts, with the help of a little book called Everyday Life in the Twenty-First Century, penned by another mysterious time-traveler.

What Lucy does not anticipate is for her lived-in boyfriend, a classics professor to fall hopelessly for Mary. What is Lucy to do?

The plot-twists, competent characterization, and inventive storytelling will keep you turning pages. The religious-moral-ethical issues at the heart of the story would make this a good book group choice.