Snow Falling On Cedars

In 1954, on San Piedro, a Washington State island of strawberry farms and salmon boats, a fisherman is found drowned in his own net and a Japanese American fisherman, Kabuo Miyamoto, is charged with murder. The trial takes place during a heavy snowstorm, under the shadow of World War II and the internment of the island's Japanese residents. Among the reporters is the editor of the island newspaper, a veteran who lost an arm fighting in the Pacific and once loved Hatsue, now the accused man's wife. David Guterson's novel weighs justice and prejudice between neighbors. Guterson, a teacher, wrote it over ten years in the early mornings, and it won the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Bryan Callen, co-host of The Fighter and the Kid, included it in his Top Three Must Reads recommendations.