Here are some of my suggestions:

You Poor Monster: Or This Should Answer Your Questions, My Son by Michael Kun- I read this about two years ago and it totally blew me away. The gimmick is that the book you’re holding isn’t supposed to be on the market yet. While the story focuses on the problems the main character is having with his neighbor, through foot notes and removed chapters another story starts to come across. It’s an easy and very engaging read.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer- This is another book with a gimmick. Actually it has about 1,000 gimmicks, including writing in dialect, jumping around in time line, author’s quasi-self-insertion, and parts of the story told in letters. Underneath the gimmicks is a decent story about a guy going to the Ukraine to find out more about his grandfather’s past. Some people love it, some people hate it. Would make for good discussion.

These books I haven’t read, but want to:

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst- This book was actually written by someone who used to play Forumwarz. A man’s wife dies and he tries to teach their dog to speak so he can find out the truth behind it. Sounds like an interesting premise and we’d be reading one of our own.

Generation Kill by Evan Wright- Non-fiction. It’s follows a unit of First Recon Marines during the first month or so of the Iraq War. They made a mini-series for HBO based on the book. Probably not a light-hearted read, but it’s probably interesting.