Book 27 - "Jennifer Government" by Max Barry

Mercurys had sold as if they were religious artifacts, but for John the whole campaign had taken on a sour taste, thanks to Hack's inability to be a proper fall guy. Now he and his psychotic girlfriend had vanished, and it was only a matter of time, John was sure, before Jennifer Government came calling.

This is the third book I've read recently (the others being "Snow Crash" and "The Paper Eater") where big business has more or less taken over running the world and the power of government has shrunk correspondingly. In this book, the major corporations are associated with two loyalty schemes, each of which is keen to suppress both the rival scheme and the remaining powers of the government.

I've always been a bit of a dystopia fan, so this book was right up my street.

Book 28 - "Strangers" by Taichi Yamada

I suddenly had this feeling that I did not want to meet the man's wife. To meet her would be to instantly obliterate the glorious time I was having because of the man's uncanny likeness to my father; I would have to come crashing back to reality. No, wait. That wasn't it. Or at least that wasn't all. A part of me was actually entertaining a secret hope, experiencing a secret terror. It couldn't be, could it? Surely it couldn't be.

A ghost story set in present-day Tokyo. Middle-aged television scriptwriter Harada has become dislocated from his friends and family since leaving his wife and is living a solitary existence in the apartment he used to use as an office. But things take a strange turn when he takes a trip to the area he grew up in and meets a man who looks exactly like his father. But Harada was 12 when his father died and this man is younger than Harada is now, so is he a ghost or could the resemblance just be coincidental?