Sweet Tooth is a book about reading, disguised as a book about intrigue. Nothing is more fitting than that. Serena Frome — rhymes with 'plume' — is an avid reader of pop lit who barely passes as a math student at Cambridge. She is recruited by MI5, not for her way with numbers, but her love of the written word. Mistaken for someone who is "rather well up on modern writing... awfully well read and quite in with the scene," she is assigned to asses the politics of up-and-coming writer Tom Healy — and that's where the fun begins. McEwan always leaves you guessing, unraveling this story little by little. While not laugh out loud funny, Sweet Tooth is witty and playful, and amazingly written. The novel explores how readers read and what is really taken from the writing they fall into. Highly recommended for the avid reader on your list. - Anne