a foray into nonfiction

I finished Marya: A Life by Joyce Carol Oates this morning. She's just a brilliant writer and the only reason it took me a couple of weeks to read the novel was because I've been (and am still) traveling.
I don't know much about Joyce Carol Oates but the book definitely had a semi-autobiographical feel and it was such an unusual structure; it's not the usual story arc but really more snippets of life experiences. Though the main character has some horrid experiences I like that there isn't an attempt to analyze her or let her writhe in self-pity so the book ends up edgier and more provocative than I expected.

I just wandered my around my parents' apartment - they have hundreds and hundreds of books - and picked up Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick, a nonfiction book that won the National Book Award in 2006. I looked for their copy of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian but my mom thinks it was given away. I saw Barack Obama's book on the floor in the living room and may pick that up next.

Books have trailers?

A post on a forum alerted me to the fact that books now have their own trailers, posted, of course, on YouTube. Here's the one for Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. This books has been recommended to me and I may pick it up later this summer.
I can't say that the trailer has much influence on me one way or the other, certainly not like the effect a movie trailer may have, and I wonder if it's just an example of viral marketing.