What to read? WNYC\'s Brian Lehrer searches for a good book before his vacation.

Brian Lehrer is getting ready to leave for a two-week vacation and he's asking for your help. What should he read or listen to? What current fiction are you reading and what new music are you listening to? Let's turn to the 'Brian Lehrer Community' for book and music picks!

See staff picks here

Listen to the callers' picks here:

And here is a sampling of what some of Brian's commentors had to say as well as some suggestions from Brian's Facebook page:

John from Brooklyn August 06, 2009 - 10:38AM
I highly recommend Jessica Anthony's novel 'The Convalescent.' If you want a Geek Love meets Hungarian tribal history type of story, this is for you. I actually wish I hadn't finished just so I can keep reading.
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Ashley Semrick DesRochers, Facebook
The album 'Disfarmer' by Bill Frisell. Tracks composed with inspiration from the depression era photographer Disfarmer... the result is stunning!

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Rachelle August 06, 2009 - 11:33AM
Bill Callahan's new album, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle, is AMAZING. Mellow but lovely. Perfect for a relaxing drive along the coast.
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Emily Miller, Facebook
The Hour I First Believed--Wally Lamb--It is somewhat depressing, but you can get wrapped up in it. . .It's a nice long one for a two week vacation.
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Helen from East Harlem August 06, 2009 - 11:36AM
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience by Kristin Downey.
Very readable and engaging nonfiction book about the first woman Cabinet member.
Frances Perkins was FDR' Sect. of Labor who helped us get Social Security, the minimum wage, safe work places, the end of child labor, CCC, WPA, and so on!
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Caitlin from Jersey City August 06, 2009 - 11:39AM
Aughh two whole Brianless weeks?!
Regina Spektor's new album is really great. Book: Liberation by Brian Francis Slattery - dystopian near-future hippy-novel-esque sci-fi.
Editor's Note: You can listen to an interview with Regina Spektor and hear her perform live on Soundcheck here

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Lynn Janovsky, Facebook
Not a novel, a funny memoir that reads like a novel (quickly): "Center of the Universe" by Nancy Bachrach. Loved it and read it in a day.
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Anna O August 06, 2009 - 11:40AM
I loved Sarah Waters' new book, The Little Stranger. I've been recommending it left and right, and everyone who reads it thanks me. It's a ghost story set in a decaying country manor in post-WW II Britain. It has all the pleasures of a summer house and a horror film rolled into one: rich characterization, beautiful writing, evocative setting, subtly creepy.
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Katie Sue from NY, NY August 06, 2009 - 11:49AM
http://www.myspace.com/nlxmusic
The track to listen to first is "Find Love"
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antonio from park slope August 06, 2009 - 11:51AM
Sag Harbor a novel Colson Whitehead. Lot of fun. Especially if you grew up in the ny area in the 80's...
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Binnie Klein, Facebook
I LOVED "The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals" by Charles Siebert - don't know if this is your thing, but he poetically and philosophically chronicles an amazing encounter with a retired Ringling Bros. chimp, among other things...Lyrical, haunting.
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SB from NYC August 06, 2009 - 11:52AM
For a rock pick, I'm hooked on the Silversun Pickup's album Swoon, particularly the song "Panic."
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Bushra from manhattan August 06, 2009 - 11:52AM
Jonathan Ames!
The Double Life Is Twice as Good
Ames is an NYC treasure who goes into his misadventures in great detail in this book. Raunchy and thoughtful. It just came out a few weeks ago.
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Terri from Brooklyn August 06, 2009 - 11:53AM
'The Gone-Away World' by Nick Harkaway.
Reading it is akin to tearing down a worn out old highway in a patched-over beater, parts flying off, dog hanging out the window, laughing and singing badly to a great old song on the radio---with a batch of cops on your tail. The man can write the hell out of a story. It comes out in paperback August 11.
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Andy from Brooklyn August 06, 2009 - 11:53AM
Hear it and see it: UsaIsAMonster's "No More Forever" with an animated video funded by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts
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ramatu from Brooklyn August 06, 2009 - 11:53AM
The Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Awesome book about a slave rebellion in Jamaica by a group of women. The degree of insight into the lives of the characters from the slave master to field slaves is uncanny.
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Nick from UWS August 06, 2009 - 11:55AM
Brian, you're going on vacation. You should do NOTHING. Listen to NOTHING. Read NOTHING. Stare into space. Clear your head. Meditate. Think of NOTHING. Clear your mind of all the absurd racket of modern popular culture and events.
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Matthew from Brooklyn August 06, 2009 - 11:56AM
I highly recommend the Decembrist's 'Hazards of Love' album. It's like a novel in music form.
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Derek from Inwood - Manhattan August 06, 2009 - 11:56AM
You could try "It Feels So Good When I Stop," by Joe Pernice. Just came out today, so I haven't read it yet, but it's both a novel and a music CD (purchased separately), which could be an immersible experience.

EDITOR'S NOTE: You can listen to an interview with Joe Pernice and hear him perform on Soundcheck

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inwoodgal from inwood August 06, 2009 - 12:03PM
I'm a classical musician and usually stick with that genre, but I recently had a chance to work with Sidiki Conde, singer and drummer, from Guinea. He has a CD, Sidiki, which I like more and more as I listen. Too bad you'll be out of town - he'll be at Lincoln Center out of doors on August 16 at 3. For anyone who's around then, check it out. You'll leave with more energy than you came with.
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Calls'em As I Sees'em from Langley, VA August 06, 2009 - 01:24PM
You crazy liberals listeners should all read the following books and demand that the highly paid public servants, Brian and Lenny have these authors on the air to discuss their books, instead of suppressing the full and fair discussion of important public issues.
These books are all on the NY Times Best Seller list, some for many weeks:
“The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression” by Amity Shlaes;
“Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto” by Mark R. Levin;
“Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies” by Michelle Malkin;
“Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change” by Jonah Goldberg.
WNYC and NPR are propaganda machines for the left and don’t tell you all, read and learn, my friends, read and learn.