Some of these were so good, they made the others look like puke on a page.

52. Dog On It by Spencer Quinn 7/9 (Woot! 52!)

Pick:
We wanted to give this book to my mother-in-law, so I had to read it first to make sure it was acceptable. Since it was my pick for her Book of the Month Club and all.

Thoughts:
This was very cute. The story is that Bernie Small is a private eye, and his best friend and partner, Chet, is a dog. Chet is the narrator, and the hero, of course. It was interesting because Chet is not a superdog; this is not The Unscratchables, with its anthropomorphic animal hero. Chet's just a dog. He's a good dog, strong and capable and fiercely loyal to his person, but no more and no less.

It's an interesting mystery because Chet finds out what's going on much sooner than Bernie does, and the course of the book is Bernie trying to figure out what Chet already knows but can't tell him; we the readers are curious because while Chet knows who's behind all of it, we have no idea why -- human motivations not being Chet's forte. I liked Bernie a lot, because I have trouble accepting that there are still such things as private eyes and they still get work in this day and age, but he seemed realistic to me, and it was fun to read it from the perspective of a dog who was also a partner in a PI firm and loved his job. It was great reading Chet: he barked, he sniffed, he ate anything he could and chewed up everything else; he was not cognizant of his own injuries and such, which I thought was realistic, since my own dog doesn't seem to feel pain, much of the time. So in a scene when Chet is stuck without water for a day or more, he describes simply that his tongue swells up and he feels tired; he doesn't do the human thing of pining for water and wailing about his impending death. Just his tongue swells up and he wants to sleep. I liked that, too: the urge to sleep came on him all of a sudden, in the middle of whatever he was doing, and he was likely to just lie down and snooze. I think it's a good system.

It was a very nice book, and well done. I plan to read the next one.


53. Under the Jolly Roger by L.A. Meyer 7/12

Pick:
Yarrrr! Bloody Jack Faber turns pirate! I had to read this one to get to my birthday present, which is the next book in this series.

Thoughts:
This one was great, though since I'm coming to expect that from Jacky Faber, it was less surprisingly great than the last one -- which was also more impressive because it was not in any way nautical. In this book, Jacky heads back to England, having been betrayed, she thinks, by her best friend at school, Amy Trevelyne. Jacky goes straight to Jaimy's house, where she is entirely spurned by Jaimy's mother, who definitely does not feel this little guttersnipe-turned-ship's-boy-turned-charm-school-dropout is good enough for her son -- a feeling that is only increased by the new book that has become all the rage, which tells the story of Bloody Jack Mary Faber -- the first novel in the series, having been written by Amy Trevelyne based on Jacky's stories during their school days together. It was a nice conceit, to have the books actually coming out during the story. Anyway, Jacky takes it too hard, and goes home to Cheapside; she eventually learns of an opportunity to catch Jaimy and she goes for it -- but sees him kissing another girl and runs away.

Where she runs into a press gang, and being dressed as a boy at the time (in order to sneak up on Jaimy), she gets pressed and dragged off to a Royal Navy ship on duty on the blockade of Napoleon's France. She announces she's a girl -- at which point the captain, who is a remarkably appalling scumbag, decides he's been given a golden opportunity for some depraved ravishing on his own ship, and decides to keep her on board. Though at her request, he does give her the midshipman's rank she earned before, in the first book.

From there, a series of events (All quite realistic, by the way, which was impressive), Jacky ends up taking command of the ship and capturing several smugglers as prizes. One of these she keeps for herself, and turns into a privateer on her own, as the startup of Faber Shipping, Worldwide, her only dream now that she thinks Jaimy is lost to her. Things go well for a while -- until she finds out that the British government has found out that she kept a ship she captured while commanding a British naval vessel, which therefore belonged to the Crown, and she is named a pirate for real, since they retroactively revoke her permission to capture enemy ships. Which sucks. She gets caught, and goes to the Battle of Trafalgar, and takes part in that -- and is then released by her captors in gratitude for her brave assistance during the battle, and their prior admiration for her.

It was a great plot, and a rollicking good pirate story, and Bloody Jack. I loved it.

54. Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger 7/13

Pick:
I loved the title, and the concept. I actually started reading this before I got the Vine books, Temeraire and Darren Shan; I put it down to read those, and then got caught up in others, like the dog mystery for Jo and my new Bloody Jack book. But I figured hey, why not finish it?

Thoughts:
The main insight here was not terribly insightful. Here's the best part of the book: if you draw an arc of simplicity to complexity, with one end being the most simple possible system and the other end being the most complex possible system, the best system is generally in the middle, halfway between simple and complex. There you go. Now you know everything there is to know about simplexity.

The book touted the new science of studying simplicity and complexity, which sounds real interesting, but the science is, I think, a bit too new to have really reached any major breakthroughs, so there isn't that much to say about it. Basically each chapter talked about a specific artifact of our culture -- modern medicine, how babies learn to speak, economic meltdowns like the Great Depression -- and tried to go through how the causes and forces that run through this thing are either simple, complex, or both, and it isn't always what you'd expect. It was interesting, but the problem is, without some large concept to tie it together, it just seemed like a long list of "Isn't that neato?" kind of observations. Look! The mind of a baby learning to speak is incredibly complex; isn't that neato? Look: the forces that control Wall Street are actually quite simple, largely based on the wisdom, or the madness, of crowds (Which I already read a MUCH better book on); isn't that neato? There wasn't a whole lot of there, there.

But there were some interesting parts, and I liked the analysis of some of his subjects, so it was worth reading. A businessperson might find it more useful, since that was largely his goal, to show how your business plan should try to identify the simple and the complex parts of your intended industry, and treat them both appropriately. For me, for instance, that simplexity arc comes down to this: since I am a writer, the complex side is to do with different offerings I could create and send out, different fields I could try to break into. The shotgun approach, then, at the complex side of the arc. On the simple side of the arc is my single strongest writing approach; I could focus only on that and just keep honing it until I have it just right. The advantage of the complex side is that it gives me the most chances to be noticed, the most opportunities to reach potential readers, who have different tastes and needs; the simple side limits my opportunities to reach my audience, since only the people who want to read modern dark fantasy novels will be within my grasp. On the other hand, if I branch out into short stories and editorials and blogs and reviews and greeting cards and graphic novels and everything else under the sun, I won't be able to hone my craft very much, and my work, while it will reach more people, will not be as good, and won't inspire the ones I reach -- or is less likely to, at least. So the best situation for me would be halfway in between: focusing on a single novel, which gets most of my energy, but also doing several small writing projects in between and around the novel writing, in order to get my words out there and catch people's attention.

But see, I already knew that without knowing it. And that's the problem with this book, and why I say it lacks insight. But it wasn't bad.



55. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon & Georges Jeanty 7/14

Pick:
We had to get this because it's Buffy! By Joss Whedon! And we love graphic novels, too! I read it now because Toni pointed out that I should, so we could know whether this series is something we want to pursue, before we head back to Powell's where we could buy more -- or not.

Thoughts:
We'll buy more. This is the show, all the best parts of it, in comic book form. The art is great, excellent demons and nice combat, and the characters look like themselves without being parodies or caricatures. The coolest part was that it sounded like them -- naturally, since it was written by the same guy. That was great fun, though it could sometimes be hard to follow; there are some Buffy-esque conversational tidbits that you really don't get the first time around, which I had forgotten from the show since we've now watched the whole series three or four times.

The tough part about this is that Buffy tends toward the cliffhanger. Whedon always has several story lines going on at the same time, and one of his favorite things to do with a new season is drop us into the middle of them -- look at the third season of Buffy, when we come upon Buffy in the middle of her life as an LA waitress, and the guys back home have been slaying without her, and Willow has been learning to become a witch; and then in short order, Angel comes back from Hell and Faith appears, and then we find out the Mayor is actually a bad guy and has been for more than a century -- all things that were working behind the scenes without us knowing about them. That's Joss Whedon, and that's this comic. But the solution here is to do what we did with the TV show: now that we have cleverly waited until the entire run is out, we just have to get the whole thing and read it all several times, so that we can understand all of the stories and not have to wait anxiously for our answers. Simple. Perfect.

56. In the Belly of the Bloodhound by L. A. Meyer 7/16

Pick:
My birthday book! Bloody Jack! Yay!

Thoughts:
So in this one, Jacky goes back to school in Boston, since she is now wanted in England as a pirate. The story takes a BIG twist when the girls head out on a field trip for the day, to one of the many small islands out in Boston harbor (And reading these books makes me want to go back to Boston and really explore, like I never did while I lived there. Sigh. Stupid missed opportunities. Stupid childhood stupidity.), and they get kidnapped by slavers, who intend to sell them as harem girls in Egypt -- that's the title, because The Bloodhound is the ship that carries them. The story is the girls trying to effect an escape before they reach their destination. It's a hell of a book, again, with a very different plot line and emphasis from the past ones -- and yet, it is still Jacky being resourceful and determined and brave and figuring out how to handle the seemingly impossible situation she finds herself in. And I loved this book, too. I want to read more -- but now I fear the end of the series! Or at least the end of the currently published books. Man, I hate when I hit that wall.

Fantastic birthday book. Loved it.


Unfinished: A Traveler's History of Russia, Third Edition by Peter Neville

Pick & Thoughts:
I got this from the public library, because I'm thinking of doing a unit next school year based on Communist Russia and I don't know jack about it. Besides, Toni wanted to do photo research, and I went along for the ride. I like riding in the car.

I had to put this book down, after getting a little more than halfway through it, because: the author treated the history of the country as a history of the rulers, which was okay but not a great perspective; he seemed to assume that I already knew much of the rest of European history, which I don't -- he'd make passing reference to something that I know nothing about like I had already done my dissertation on the Franco-Prussian war -- and it was getting boring and repetitive. Okay, Russia had a lot of fucked-up rulers; I got it. Can I hear something about how the peasants, the regular folk lived, since that came to play such a major role in the course of Russia's evolution? Guess not.

And then there were the typos, of which there were many -- and normally I don't care too much about typos, except this was a third edition. Shouldn't those have been weeded out by now? And then the biggest problem came when the author made a snide reference to Lincoln freeing the slaves -- pointing out that Lincoln wasn't so very abolitiony, since he only freed the slaves in the Southern states, which people forget (snide snide). Fine and good, except he said that Lincoln freed the slaves with the Gettysburg Address.

Which made me lose faith in his expertise as an historian. So: away with the dull book from the stupid man, and we'll look for something a little more to the point.

So I let them pile up. It was my birthday last week.

44. (NTY) Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison 6/12

Pick:
Utterly bleak depression, followed by utterly depressing stupidity and shallow egotism -- can I read something nice now?

Thoughts:
This book reiterated why I like the Hollows books, but not as much as I like all of our other paranormal favorites. This one had a little bit less of the good stuff, because there weren't really any new creations in the mystical world, which is Harrison's strongest point -- she has fantastic ideas about demons and witches and elves and gargoyles and pixies, and the world they inhabit, and those are great fun to read about -- but there were some great parts with our favorite characters, which made up for much of the bad parts. The bad parts: I hate many of Rachel's habits and proclivities. I hate her whining and attempts to avoid trouble, all the way up until it crosses her personal moral line, and then she makes a stand even if it kills her and everyone around her -- which I admire, I suppose, but I can't help thinking that she could have prevented the problem from getting that bad if she had handled it better in the first place. I don't know, maybe this is my own self-criticism coming out through Rachel, but it seems like she takes that whole enjoying-danger thing so far that she lets problems come to a head before she tries to deal with them. I don't like that.

Let me be specific. In this one Rachel has to deal with her shunning by the witch world, which happened at the beginning of the last book and which Rachel didn't do anything to try to fix, just resented it and tried to live with it (Yup, sounds like me.), which I could accept if there wasn't a clear path to fix it -- but there is, because this book introduces (It's been mentioned before, but now we meet them) the Coven, the governing body of the witch world and their ultimate police force. Now granted, these people suck, but the worst part is having them come after you, which they do, because Rachel has tried to ignore the problem. And then there's Nick, who she can't trust and shouldn't trust -- but keeps fucking trusting, because she used to have feelings for him and she can't resolve the problem. And then, of course, there's her absolute refusal to cross the line into what she considers black magic -- which again, would be admirable, if she would take enough action in the first place to avoid being pushed into a corner and forced to cross the line. This time when she doesn't cross that line, Matalina dies. Now we were expecting that, but man, it was hard to read.

I liked the witch prison on Alcatraz, I liked the exploration inside Jenks's stump, I actually liked the fairies and I hope they turn into regular characters. Al and Jenks were the best, of course; Trent was interesting but frustrating, as was Rachel; the book started slow and didn't need Ivy really at all. But the ending was great, and hopefully things are looking up in the Hollows world.


45. (15) Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville 6/13

Pick:
I needed something off the shelf, but not too much thinking, please -- school's almost over.

Thoughts:
This book was very sweet.

What's that, you say? You question how a book about a Millennial cult trying to escape Armageddon, and dragging two unwilling teenagers (whose parents are willing cult members) along with them into the wilderness, where they struggle with truth and faith and self-doubt until it all ends in a massacre can be sweet?

That's the interesting part. It's sweet because it's a romance, and the romantic parts are very sweet; I thought Marina fell in love with Jed a little quickly, but I suppose that's par for the course when you're talking fourteen-year-old girls without much experience of boys. I really enjoyed Jed's chapters (the point of view switches between them) because I liked his struggle between trying to do the right thing, and thinking everyone around him is a jackass and a religious nut -- and often being right. I liked the way the preacher/cult leader came off as a reasonable man who just happened to have some unreasonable beliefs, and the way both Jed's father and Marina's mother came off as dangerous crackpots who are trying to escape some larger problem by believing in this hooey about the end of the world, and are obviously wrong to drag their kids into this rather than dealing with their problems (which seems to be a theme in the reading, of late. Heh.). The action at the end is great, though brutal and very surprising. You see, the cult believes the end of the world is at hand, and God will wipe everyone out with a rain of fire, except for his 144 Chosen, who will be preserved on their mountaintop. So the faithful gather until they reach exactly 144 (With a nice bit of theater when the preacher's long-lost son wanders in to be their final member -- staged, maybe?) and then they blockade the road in and string an electric fence around the perimeter. And then a few more members of the church show up, which is a problem because they want to be saved, too; and the father of a kid who is in the compound with her mother shows up, and isn't allowed in to see his daughter, which is a bigger problem, since he calls the police. The book ends when the people outside the gate break in, and the people inside the gate use guns to defend themselves -- thereby proving, once more, that the right to bear arms is the single most useful and civilized and reasonable right, regardless of the changes in society and reality since the Constitution was penned -- and it all goes to shit. Which is funny, because the only place that gets washed in blood and cleansed in fire? The mountaintop where the Chosen were waiting to be saved. And if that isn't a non-subtle message about exclusivist religious extremism, I don't know what is.

Sweet book.

46. (NTY) Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman 6/17

Pick:
I was looking for some sociology, a little non-fiction at Powell's, and I remembered this guy because a student I actually liked read this book, thought it was hilarious, and said I should read it. I picked it up now because -- essays. Short reading good. End of year, brain numb.

Thoughts:
That kid didn't know the half of it, because some of these things would have gone totally over her head. Like the argument Klosterman makes (And this was only one essay in a whole book full of interesting essays) comparing Pamela Anderson to Marilyn Monroe -- not because both were bombshell blondes, and not saying that the plastic Anderson was as attractive as the human Monroe (Though to be honest, if you've seen the pre-surgery Anderson, she was really lovely; and since her post-surgery face and figure simply reflect what Americans men seem to prefer in their women, with her absurdly disproportionate breasts and lips, there's a case to be made that Anderson is indeed just as attractive as Monroe, within her paradigm. Klosterman makes that argument.), but because both had similar acting abilities, with Monroe becoming overrated posthumously because of her attractiveness and her early death, and, more importantly, because both of them represented the sexual ideal of their time, both as individuals and because of who they had sex with. Monroe was unattainable, and so even though she married or slept with the greatest men of her generation (DiMaggio, Miller, Kennedy), she was still too miserable to live; it gives the feeling that nothing on Earth could have kept Marilyn happy, and since she was so overly sexual, it made it seem like no man on Earth could satisfy her, and this was the ideal of sex in the 1950's -- fabulous and unattainable. And Anderson, with her inhuman proportions lathered over a really attractive young woman, and her -- how do I put it -- in your face sexuality considering her sex tape with Tommy Lee (whom Klosterman uses to represent the cult of celebrity in our era, which is entirely fitting because Tommy Lee is famous for -- what? Not really the Crue any more, since they weren't any more than a mediocre hair metal band; no, Tommy is famous for being famous, for being Tommy Lee -- and led to the wonderful statement that Pam Anderson fucked celebrity itself, confirming this with her move from Tommy Lee to Kid Rock), is just as much the epitome of sexuality in the 90's: unrealistic expectations that sex could look like porn, but feel like love. The point Klosterman should have made, but didn't, was that much of this desire to have non-genuine or at least non-emotional sex with plastic people with unrealistic proportions -- and I include Tommy Lee's schlong in that description -- was directly related to fear of AIDS. Seems to me that people were combining the sexual freedom of the 70's with the sexual repression of the 80's and AIDS, and coming up with this: the desire to have appallingly vigorous sex with someone who didn't even seem human, to release all of that pent-up desire in a single encounter, and then leave that person behind entirely so as not to risk a real relationship, which maybe felt too dangerous.

Anyway. I loved the book, which made me bust out laughing several times ("I mean come on -- you just know Rodney Rogers is sitting in the locker room before every game reading Nietzsche, and he's totally thinking to himself, 'If Ron Artest tries to step to me one more time, I'm gonna slap jack his brisket, Philly style.'") and gave me much to think about other times. It's a little sad that Klosterman knows so much more than I do and writes good essays because of it, because once again it makes me feel too much like a generalist and an ignorant duffer to write really well, even though I don't think that's actually true, but I loved the book and I want to read more.


47. (Re-read) Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris 6/19

Pick:
Toni finished reading the Sookie books, and I felt like reading something fun.

Thoughts:
I forgot that this one was a bit less fun than most of the Sookie books. This is the one with the fairy war that spills over into Sookie's life, between her great-grandfather Niall and the fairies led by his son. This one features several bad things, death and torture and sadness. Still great books, though, and fun to read. I'm glad for the end, in a way, because it seems to wrap this fairy storyline up, and I don't like it as much as the vamps or weres.

48. (NTY) Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris 6/23

Pick:
Had to catch up with the series, didn't I? That was the point of reading the last one, so I could read this one. We got this book because my friend Amber Horn very kindly bought it for us as repayment, since I loaned her every book leading up to this one. Which I thought was a good deal.

Thoughts:
This book was not any lighter than the last one; not that I expected it to be, considering where the last one left off. It did have more to do with Sookie's life and less to do with the supernatural struggles, which I thought was good; not that there are no supernatural parts, because of course there are. We are starting to see more conflict over the shifters' public announcement, which comes home for Merlotte's a little; Bill is still trying to recover from the silver poisoning he suffered in the last book -- and Sookie may regret what she did to help with that, but I'm glad for it; I want Sookie's love life to move on, not get stuck on the revolving hamster wheel of past boyfriends and current boyfriends going round and round and round; Claude moves in with Sookie, which is amusing; and Eric's sire shows up with his crazy vampire child. Those two were annoying, but interesting, like most of the powerful vampires we have seen. There is less fighting, and only a little bit of sex (Unlike freaking True Blood -- good lord, that show turned these books into violent vampire porn, which they bloody well aren't, and these books are so much better than that), but Sookie has changed in ways I think I like, and that I would certainly expect considering the trials and travails of the last few books of this series. I am curious about where this book leaves the fairy elements, and I definitely sense a change in Sookie's love life a-coming. I just hope she doesn't go for Sam.


49. (NTY) Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik 6/29

Pick:
I had to get this one so I could read the next one, which I got for Vine.

Thoughts:
I love these books, I loved this book, but it was kinda hard to read; Temeraire and Lawrence are suffering because they did the right thing in a time of war, which of course makes them low-down dirty traitors. That pissed me off. Though I was very impressed that Novik managed to make me see both sides of the issue; sure, their choice to prevent the plague that the English would have unleashed on the French dragons was the right thing, because using germ warfare to wipe out potentially every dragon in Europe and beyond would be the most hideous of crimes, and of course Lawrence and Temeraire had to prevent that -- but then again, maybe they could have done it differently. And more to the point, because they prevented it, Napoleon invades England successfully, and now the entire country has to suffer because of that, which makes it harder to turn up the nose at the accusation of treason. Their country really is worse off because of what Lawrence and Temeraire did.

I really liked the Inglorious Basterds sort of plot element -- or maybe I should reference The Patriot, since I haven't actually seen the Basterds movie yet -- when Lawrence and Temeraire fight dirty for their country, and though I liked the big battle at the end, the final result of that was a total let-down, since the victory was not complete. Though I suppose that's historically accurate. Still an anti-climax. Good book, though, as all of these are.


50. (Vine) Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik 7/2

Pick:
I got all titillated when I saw this one on the Vine, because I LOVE these books -- I love the dragons, I love the alternate history, I love the war and the world that Novik has created. I even went so far as to buy the book before this one, which I had never read, so that I could order this from Vine and read it for free. I love the Vine.

Vine Review:
Assuming that nobody is looking into this book that hasn't yet read the entire series (Which, by the way, is outstanding and I highly recommend -- it starts with "His Majesty's Dragon," then "Throne of Jade," "Black Powder War," "Empire of Ivory," "Victory of Eagles," and then this one), I'll just skip the background. This one came as a bit of a surprise after the last, because this book has nothing to do with the Napoleonic Wars -- well, there is a connection, but it is very tenuous; something to do with the possibility of the French trying to disrupt English trade in Asia.

The series seems to be following this pattern: war book; exploration book; war book; exploration book. First the beginning of the war story, with Temeraire and Lawrence learning to fly and becoming part of the Corps; then we explore China. Then back to the war, with the battles over mainland Europe; then we explore Africa. Then back to the war, with the invasion of England; now we move to Australia. This one is not quite as interesting as the other two exploring books, but it's still good; the journey through the Australian outback tends to drag on, since there's just so much outback to cross, and the traveling companions that Temeraire and Lawrence are stuck with are just unfortunate -- though I am very interested in the new dragons who appear in this, especially the hatchlings -- but the plot twists and the new type of dragon, the Australian natives, are excellent, as always. The book ends with Lawrence and Temeraire seeming to settle into new roles on this new continent, and so I wonder if we are moving away from the final years of the Napoleonic empire; which would be fine, since that would probably be a little anti-climactic. The book has less combat than many of the other books, though there is an outstanding fight scene at the end; frankly, I found the lack of fighting appropriate, since Lawrence and Temeraire have had to suffer so much for the war. I expect them to be tired of it, and to be ready for some peace. Which they probably won't find here, because it probably couldn't be found anywhere in that world at war.

The book reconnects to China, and the next book will probably continue in that vein, simply because of the proximity of Australia and the new plot line that opens here; personally, I'm just bummed that Temeraire and Lawrence didn't go for the whole pirate idea in this book -- but maybe they will in future. I hope so. Because dragon pirates would be sweet.


51. (Vine) The Thin Executioner by Darren Shan 7/6

Pick:
I'm curious about Darren Shan, who wrote the Cirque du Freak books, and this one sounded very interesting -- both the idea of a quest to become the executioner, and the connection to Huck Finn.

Vine Review:
This book was certainly an interesting journey. I picked it because I was curious about Darren Shan, since I have heard much about the Cirque du Freak books but have never read them, and because the description said it was inspired by The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- and since I'm a high school English teacher, I have taught that book to my classes, and it is one of my all-time favorites among the classics.

But it arrived while I was deep in another book, and so by the time I got started reading this one, I had forgotten it was connected to Huck Finn. That turned out to be a good thing, because it helped me to enjoy the beginning: the main character, Jebel Rum, is a young boy who desperately wants to follow in his father's footsteps, but unfortunately he has two older brothers who are much more likely to do so -- and since their father holds the honored place of Executioner for their city, only one of the three can take his place when he retires. The father shames Jebel, leaving him out when speaking in public about which of his sons will take his place as Executioner, so Jebel decides he will take on an impossible quest in the hopes of eliminating the shame of his father's dismissal.

The quest is an interesting idea, and Shan has built a very interesting world, full of disparate groups and varied philosophies and worldviews and ways of living: there are the slavers, the slaves, the Spartan warrior race; there are the people who live deep in a swamp and worship the alligators who surround them, and another race that do the same with vampire bats. There are peaceful people and violent people, religious people and earthy people. Jebel Rum is fairly annoying at first, but he is supposed to be. I didn't think as much of the other main character, Tel Hasani, but he isn't too bad.

The problem came around the middle of the book: first of all, it is too long. Jebel gets sidetracked from his quest and held up by circumstance, which is fine, but the sidetracks take almost as long as the quest itself, and not all of them are interesting. With all of the detail that Shan puts into the various groups that Jebel meets, it feels like the book meanders too much. The second problem was that I happened to remember the connection to Huck Finn. Once I remembered it, I couldn't help but compare the two -- and of course, since I love the original, this book just didn't measure up. I didn't like the way Shan re-created some of my favorite characters and scenes from Huck Finn (The Duke and King were a mistake, especially the names - this is not a political satire, and so they didn't fit at all); I particularly didn't like that he changed the most important elements of the plot, only keeping the idea of a long journey with a young boy and the older slave who takes care of him and misses his family back home. It's not that this book is bad, it's just that any book is going to pale in comparison to a classic that I happen to love.

But then I got to the end, and it was fantastic: there was a great twist, a really great twist, and the message was sound and well-done, since we got to watch Jebel's entire experience along the way. I really loved the way the book played out.

So in the end, the story may drag some in the middle, but the imagination that went into it, and the excellent ending, make it worthwhile. But don't get this book if you loved Huckleberry Finn and you can't forget about the comparison: because this is a good book, but Darren Shan is no Mark Twain.

Irritation, Depression, and one REALLY good book in between. Guess which one.

39. (13) Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer 5/26

Pick:
I like the idea of the criminal mastermind at age twelve. I love the name, I like the covers, I'm up for a young adult fantasy series. And I need something lighter and a bit more cheerful after that gorefest. I'm also of the mind that this will be better written than that. Then again, so are the ingredients on the cereal box.

Thoughts:
It wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I liked the fairy characters quite a lot, though LEPRecon is a bit too far into the silly realm. I prefer the JK Rowling version of institutions -- paralleling the real world, but not trying to re-define it. But I liked their goals, and their system -- especially the underground and the shuttle flights and the motorized strap-on wings; I liked the techno-whiz centaur and the determined Captain Holly and the grizzled blustery captain and the ladder-climbing suck-up who fails so spectacularly.

Unfortunately, I didn't like Artemis Fowl. I didn't like Butler, and I detested his little sister Juliet. Perhaps I wasn't meant to like him; he is an evil mastermind, after all, and there is a certain amount of redemption at the end with his final wish. But he's a money-grubbing scumbag who uses his badass bodyguard to accomplish his goals, rather than his own brilliance. Sure, he was clever enough to find The Book (a sort of instruction manual for fairies) and use it to hatch his masterplan, but Butler is the one who captures the fairy and protects the compound from the rescue attempt. With a little help, he's the reason Artemis survives the troll. So Butler should have been the hero -- and I would have liked him more, except I didn't care for his blind loyalty to the annoying kid, nor his understandable-but-still-annoying loyalty to his idiot sister.

So how well does this bode for the second book and the rest of the series? Well, I have The Arctic Incident already, so I'll read it and see if Artemis gets more likeable or if the fairies play as big and as fun a role in that one. And if it's a no on both of those, I'll move on to a different YA fantasy series with a better hero.


40. (Toni's Shelf) Bloodfever by Karen Marie Moning 5/29

Pick:
For some reason, after reading a book with a pretty annoying hero, I decided to read another book with a fairly annoying hero. I prefer Mac to Artemis, though, and these books are more adult and thus more stirring. I like that.

Thoughts:
The series is improving; I like the villain work in this one, both the ominous Reaper shadow and the final reveal behind it, and the exploration of the sidhe-seer network. I dug the horror elements, the invasion of the shades and the half-eaten fae that Mac keeps finding. I like what Mac is forced to do, and very happy with the final result of that choice. I like V'Lane and his character growth in this one; the all-powerful sex god crap can get annoying, but he was much more interesting in this one.

For the annoying parts? I am heartily sick of Mac's pathetic wish for a stupid life, being all girly and tan and marrying a nice Southern hunk and squeezing out a litter of rednecks. I don't mind the sorrow over lost innocence, but her innocent paradise sounds really freaking annoying to me, which I don't like. Jericho gets on my nerves, as he is supposed to, because he isn't forthcoming enough with information I want. Of course there should be mysteries, and of course there should be a Yoda who knows every secret and refuses to reveal them except in the fullness of time; my books will have the same things. But I hate that he is in every chapter, on every page, standing around all smug and knowing and not saying crap. Makes me want to reach in and shake him. Which isn't at all bad for an author to get that reaction out of me, though it can be a little tough to read books while I'm dreaming of doing violence to a main character. And I don't like Mac's sister, nor Mac's sorrow over said sister, much like I don't like Mac's fantasy life. And my biggest problem, of course, is her name. Thank god Barrons calls her "Ms. Lane;" that's a name I like. I'm not looking forward to when their increasing intimacy leads him to call her MacKayla. I'm hoping she finds out what her birth name was, and decides to drop that travesty of a first name.

But I like the books, I like the writing, I love the world. I like the bad guy, too, and how incapable Mac is of dealing with this stuff -- and the reason why she has Barrons as an ally, and what an interesting ally he makes, in terms of dealing with the supernatural. So definitely going to keep reading them, and pretend her name is actually, hmmm, how about Michelle? I like Michelle.


41. (NTY) Changes by Jim Butcher 6/1

Pick:
New Butcher! Woot!

Thoughts:
So now everything has changed, as the name implies. We're moving into Endgame, which is outstanding (Though sad, as the end of the series is therefore looming.). I wish this book could have shown us something about little Maggie herself, and I REALLY wish it hadn't ended the way it did. But I can't wait for the next book. Oh: and when Sanya hears about Harry becoming the Winter Knight and, err, coupling with Mab in order to seal the deal, his comment -- the deadpan, "So. Mab. You hit that." -- was one of the funniest things I've ever read in this series, and that's saying something.


42. (14) The Road by Cormac McCarthy 6/2

Pick:
I saw it on a list of post-apocalyptic must-reads; actually, I somehow remembered it as being about zombies. It's been on the shelf for a while.

Thoughts:
And for the Most Depressing Books Ever Written Award, our winner is: The Road! Congratulations, Cormac -- though sadly, our judges killed themselves before they could get your name engraved on the award, so we'll have to give it to you blank. I'm sure your own sorrow, which by now must be petrified to a stone-like obduracy and sharpened like a straight razor stropped on your leathery angst, will serve as the implement for carving your name on this thing. Or you could just splash some of your lifeblood onto it, since that seems to be what you used for ink; as you prefer.

I've read a fair number of post-apocalyptic books; it's a pretty standard staple of science fiction. One of my favorite all-time sci-fi books is post-apocalyptic; Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer. And that one's pretty frigging bleak: people try to hoard, then fight over what's hoarded, and then just fight out of desperation, and then, of course, turn cannibal. But in Lucifer's Hammer, there is some hope; the cannibals are actually defeated by that hope in the end. Well, hope and mustard gas -- it really is pretty bleak. The Road picks up the story about ten years after that, when things have gone past hopeless to desperate to simply vile. The message of the book, if there is one, is: give up. Do it sooner rather than later, and save yourself a lot of misery.

So if anyone has The Road on their To Be Read list, I advise you to do what Mr. McCarthy proposes: give up. Do it before you read the book, instead of after, and save yourself a lot of misery.


43. (Vine) Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance by Alexander Zaitchik

Pick:
I had to grab this one; after reading Common Sense from the Beckster himself, and watching Jon Stewart's parody of Glenn, I have something of a fascination with this particular talking head. So I wanted to know what I could find out about him. I trust that this review will garner me some negative votes, so I'm going to try to be less insulting of the idiot than I would be otherwise in order to minimize Tea Party backlash. And I am so disappointed that my friend is a fan of this schmuck.


Thoughts:
If you are a fan of Glenn Beck: before you start frowning, then snarling, then clicking the "Unhelpful" button and pounding the keys as you compose a new blog, think about how Mr. Beck himself would view this book (and this review, which is of course far too small a venue to gather any notice from Mr. Beck). He would love it. He would be glad for the attention that books like this bring to himself and his causes, and he would simply smile and shrug over the criticism; he would point out that there is no desire to tear down anyone unless he makes himself a target. Unless he is becoming a threat. Glenn Beck himself has said that he is a threat to the establishment in this country, and so this book should be seen as a compliment.

This book is not a compliment, however. It may garner some of the attention that Glenn Beck thrives on, but it is anything but a compliment. It is well-researched, meticulous in its citations and evidence, and thoroughly reasonable in its conclusions, if not always in its tone. This author sees Beck as an enemy, and his descriptions of Beck echo that stance: Zaitchik is insulting, derogatory, and dismissive at every turn, and his bile grows more bitter as the book follows Beck's rise to power and prominence.

On the other hand, he's also correct. Beck is a self-serving, infantile, overly sentimental egotist who seeks power and glory and will let nothing stand in his way -- not truth, not reason, not the best interests of his fellow man. Zaitchik draws an early parallel between Beck and another master showman: P.T. Barnum, perhaps the greatest huckster who ever lived, and certainly the founder of infotainment as it is practiced (and perhaps perfected by Beck) in America today. It's a good parallel, but there is one difference: Barnum, so far as I know, only sought personal wealth and fame; Beck wants power. If he remained nothing but a showman, I would have no problem with the man -- but he is trying to change my country, not simply because he thinks he's on the right path, but also (primarily) in the name of self-aggrandizement. And therefore is he very dangerous.

The book lost coherence near the end for me, as it turned from Beck's personal career to a sketchy analysis of the rise of Beck's 9/12 Tea Party movement. I think the current nature of the Tea Party movement, and the simple fact that whatever his intentions may have been, the Tea Party is no longer Glenn Beck's baby (if it ever was), prevented Zaitchik from gaining as solid a grasp on the subject as he had on Beck. But the majority of the book, the careful delineation and analysis of Glenn Beck's rise from zany morning DJ on Top 40 stations, to the media mogul he is today, was fascinating. This is a study in what it takes to build one of those meteoric rises that so define modern public figures -- though this particular meteoric rise is fueled by lies and ignorance, by hate and fear, by appealing to the lowest common denominator and every selfish, self-righteous taint on the collective American consciousness. I thought the book was great, and would recommend it, though of course, Beck fans risk being upset by the author's disapprobation. It still might be interesting, however, to read about why Beck acts the way he does on camera, why he cries, why he professes simplicity and ignorance, and why he talks about America the way he does. Maybe it would be worthwhile to take a look behind the mask. It was for me.

Corn, Dresden, and BWAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

35 (NTY) The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan 5/13

Pick:
I loaned this out to a friend, Tonya Arnold, who was both inspired and appalled by it, just like Toni was; I think both of them had to stop partway through the book and read something else, just to keep from having to give up food forever from the sheer horror and despondency. Once Tonya gave it back, it went on the short list until I got to it.

Story:
My response to this was what it usually is when I read about how the corporate-industrial complex has ruined our world: rage. This led to a really nice blog about how much I now hate corn, where most of my reviewing was already done.

Other than make me want to go through the offices of Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland dealing out solar plexus jabs, the first part of this book made me want to be a farmer. I shrugged it off and decided to write, instead, which was the right choice -- but honestly? I may want to be a farmer someday. I loved reading about Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia (Which is also prominently featured in the movie "Food, Inc.," though the book, of course, gives more information.), and his system of intensive management of livestock. The problem for me would still be in the slaughtering -- and the knowledge base, I suppose, since Salatin is a third-generation farmer, and I'm third-generation bourgeois -- but I still love the idea. I love the idea of making real food, of understanding where food should come from and what it should do for you, and fighting against the ravages of the agribusiness corporations. I would love to do that, if I could. And I, unlike those organic bastards, wouldn't sell out when General Mills came knocking. As hard as Pollan worked to make that Cascadian Farms guy seem like a logical man doing the logical thing, he still strikes me as a money-grubbing sell out. Sure, go be that if you want -- but recognize that you're betraying the values you ostensibly started with.

I loved reading the final chapters in this, about hunting and gathering; I didn't know any of what Pollan said about mushrooming, and even though I'm not terribly fond of mushrooms, he made me want to go hunt for them and eat them. Sort of. I am at least fond of the idea. More interestingly, Michael Pollan is the first and only person who has ever made hunting make sense to me. That actually might be the most interesting thing I take away from this book: while I will still and always criticize sport hunting and trophy hunting, hunting for food actually seems like a reasonable thing to do, now. I get it. It just took someone who could honestly describe the entire experience better than my students can, and Pollan did that. It was interesting.

Great book. Everyone should read. Oh, and read about how much I hate corn, too.


36. (Re-read) Small Favor by Jim Butcher 5/15

Pick:
I can't go on without reading Harry Dresden! I can't! Must . . . finish . . . series!

Story:
In the two years since I last read this book, I managed to forget all but the smallest details, so this was nice -- it was an almost-fresh reading. As always, I love the Denarians; the two big showdowns in this book are incredible, especially given that Harry is genuinely outclassed in them -- and in essence, loses one of them. I like the tension between Harry and his friends, who are forced to doubt Harry at more than one point; I like the way we see Mab's manipulation working throughout, from the shadows and barely visible (and not always done in a way that makes any sense to any sane person, which I also liked), and I absolutely loved the Gruffs. Especially the last one, and the way Harry resolves it.

Great book.


37. (12) Turn Coat by Jim Butcher 5/18

Pick:
I loved reading Dresden so much, I went straight into the next one -- which was new, at least for me! Woohoo! I CAUGHT UP!

Story:
To be honest, I didn't like this one quite as much. I didn't like the premise; not because it was poorly thought out or didn't work or anything, but because it put Morgan into Harry's world. Since Jim Butcher is the kind of writer he is, he couldn't let himself write Morgan as anything other than a cantankerous, prejudiced, hard-boiled leather-assed bastard, and it was very annoying to keep reading that in the middle of my happy Harry time. I mean, when Harry goes home to his apartment, I want to read about Mister and Mouse, and get ready to laugh at Bob's cracks. Instead, every time Harry comes home I got -- Morgan. Being Morgan. Though the repeated almost-fights broken up by Mouse were pretty damn funny.

I did like the Council intrigues (I knew who the villain was! Go me!) and I absolutely loved Demonreach and how Harry deals with that. I also really liked Binder, since it gave us a good view of how much damage a minor talent could do if he was also a hard-ass mercenary. Which gave me a push toward one of my ideas for a character in the upcoming Dresden Files RPG (Which will be a librarian, with a specialty in fae lore, who has one magical trick -- I haven't decided what yet. Knowledge will be my power.). The ending of this book, though, was just sad. The good guys win, yet still everything in Harry's life pretty much goes bad. I'm hoping the next book can redeem some of this. I really hope that. I'll be reading it soon.


38. (Got it from school. Seriously.) Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell 5/21

Pick:
Well, I've been reading so many good books, that I felt it was time for a bad one. Actually, one of my Honors students did his book presentation project on this thing last semester, and hearing about the climactic fight made me burst out laughing; it was one of the nicest moments of hilarity I've had at school all year. After he finished his presentation, he sat down and then held the book up and said, "Does anybody want this? Seriously. I'm done with it." So I took it, and told him I'd read it. It has sat on my shelf at school for the last five months; finally that same kid asked me if I'd read it yet, and I had to say no. But when he asked, I was almost finished with Dresden . . .

Story:
Somebody's been reading Bukowski.

To be honest, I haven't read very much of that master barfly's work, but I think I've read enough to describe his hero: a physically imposing, yet almost completely aloof, giant who makes a hobby of being surly. He comes, of course, from a thoroughly soul-destroying background, yet he has known enough kindness, enough love, to retain some small inner core of real compassion. While he is a dispassionately violent brute, who is constantly and intensely intoxicated, he is also a genius; this serves to add contempt for his fellow men to his already anti-social personality. He is profane and visceral, and he is surrounded by scum and filth: everybody he knows is a liar and a fool, and they are all out to manipulate and use and hurt others, including our hero -- who is generally too cynical and intelligent and savage to let them, but that inner core of goodness gives him a vulnerable spot which gets struck again and again.

If this doesn't sound familiar, you haven't read Bukowski (And I would recommend doing what I did: read one of his novels. He was a brilliant writer. But follow it up with the happiest book you can find, because good grief, is that world ever depressing.). Nor, apparently, have you read Josh Bazell's Beat the Reaper, because Pietro Brnwa is exactly what I described. Down to being Polish, just like Henry Chinaski, the main character in Charles Bukowski's books. Except Josh Bazell isn't anywhere near the writer that Bukowski was. This means that Pietro's savagery, while it makes sense, isn't sympathetic like Chinaski's; his profanity and obscenity are just off-putting, and the world of lowlifes that surround him doesn't seem realistic and therefore both eye-opening and depressing -- it just seems ridiculous.

Beat the Reaper is about an orphan who is taken in by a mafia family, and he becomes a hired gun for his surrogate father. Until, as they say, the poop hits the propellor and he leaves the mafia behind, entering the witness protection program (I'm really not spoiling much -- this is all revealed within the first few chapters; then the entire story is told in a series of flashbacks.) and becoming -- wait for it -- a doctor. That's right, a brutal and heartless killer, who manages to slaughter four gun-toting gangsters while he is tied to a chair, becomes the only doctor who isn't entirely corrupt, incompetent and self-involved in the New York hospital where he does his residency. Until someone shows up who remembers him (Maybe he shouldn't have stayed in New York after entering witness protection?), and then he has to make a decision: run or fight?

It's a silly premise, made worse by a thoroughly ridiculous character, and almost entirely killed by the fact that the inevitable betrayal -- because in Bukowski's/Bazell's world, trust always leads to betrayal -- is absurd. It makes no sense. The proposed explanation doesn't work, and isn't really given the weight to make it acceptable with some suspension of disbelief. It's just silly.

However: I did read the entire book. I did this partly because I had been told about the last fight scene (Based on what is, without a doubt, the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard of -- and I read Chuck Norris jokes) and I wanted to read it for myself, but also because Bazell, who is actually a doctor, has a ton of interesting tidbits to say about hospitals and doctors and medicine. He puts them into footnotes throughout the book, which is annoying (Because Bazell also isn't David Foster Wallace), and I refuse to believe some of them (though maybe I'm naive), but they did help enormously in making the book readable. The medical trivia, and the absurdity, were the best parts of this.

My best advice to the curious is this: read the book's first line. If you are interested in a book that starts with that, go for it; if you roll your eyes, put this down and go get Ham on Rye.

Angels, Demons, Aliens, Zombies -- and America.

30. (10) The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson 4/21

Pick:
I think this one was an LBS book (Library Book Sale) that just looked interesting. "An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town." Funny, biting non-fiction? I'm in.

Thoughts:
I did like it quite a lot; it wasn't often laugh-out-loud funny (What the kids these days call "lol"), but Bryson has a great eye and a truly scathing wit. If I had any trouble with it, it was that it was a bit out of date for me; the America that Bryson is looking to recapture was not one that I ever knew, either chronologically or geographically. I was an East Coaster growing up in the 70's and 80's; he was a Midwesterner growing up in the 50's and 60's. But I like the way he sees America: as a wonderful place that has basically been horribly fucked up by the people, who are generally ignorant, shallow, short-sighted goobers. On the other hand: some of those idiots are incredibly nice people, and there are people who aren't idiots, who care about their country and their town and their community, and who do a wonderful job, as long as they can survive the slow encroachment of the idiots.

Bill Bryson grew up in Iowa, the son of a sportswriter who took his family on annual driving tours of the country every summer. Bryson grew up and followed his father into journalism, though not into life in the American Midwest: Bryson lived for almost twenty years. And then he decided to come back and see if he could rediscover the country his father had shown him in his childhood, by taking the family car -- a Chevette, god help him -- and touring around the US. He is looking, he says, for the perfect small town, the one that politicians and local-color writers like Garrison Keillor are always going on about. Bryson calls his Amalgam, as he expects that he will only be able to find a piece of it here, a piece of it there.

He tours through 38 of the 50 states, over the course of two months in 1989. He stops at battlefields, at national monuments and state parks, at small museums and shopping malls. He gets lost in the Ozarks, looking for the Melungeon people. He is horrified inside a K-Mart (Only because Wal-Mart had not yet metastasized across the country) by the people there, while he is simultaneously tempted by the bargains -- this guy, by the way, is more than a little cheap. He sneaks into Colonial Williamsburg and sees a once-in-a-lifetime geyser erupt in Yellowstone. And finally, he comes on home to Iowa -- though it's interesting to note that one of his best experiences, in terms of nice people and beautiful, unspoiled countryside, is in New Hampshire -- which is where the author settled with his family after this book's publication. He never finds his Amalgam, but he finds a lot of nice things, mixed in with all the horror.

It's a smarmy book, it is at time a supercilious book, it is a slightly sappy nostalgic book. But it's a very good book.


31. (Vine) Can't Teach an Old Demon New Tricks by Cara Lockwood 4/27

Pick:
A woman has a half-demon child because she didn't know her husband was possessed? Angels and demons are now hunting down her recently-vanished demonic husband? Sounds good to me.

Thoughts:
I thought this was a very fun book. I probably missed some of the enjoyment because I hadn't read the first one; it seems, from comments made about several of the characters, that the first book deals with a similar theme, and the main players in it reappear in this, but are no longer the protagonists -- there are several characters who know about the existence of angels and demons, and their presence on Earth and how humans must deal with them, but the main character, Rachel Farnsworth, is a total innocent when the story begins.

There's a decent romance, though it is a little hard to swallow; the male lead is Sam, a fallen Wrath angel turned demonic bounty hunter. His character's main concept is a loner, an independent who refuses to knuckle under to anyone else's attempts to tell him what to do; he is cold and distant and hard-boiled because of it. And of course, that kind of man always ends up falling in love with the woman with a heart of gold and a tongue of razor-sharp steel, who can break through his tough exterior and make his gooey insides melt, in books like this, and Sam is no exception -- but I didn't feel like enough of the story dealt with making that happen. It just sort of -- happened. There are reasons given, but it didn't feel like enough, to me.

I loved the parts dealing with the fallen angels and demons; I liked the two watcher angels and the ancient Babylonian goddess, and the half-demon toddler was great. I was a little annoyed by the bad guys, but I did like the big surprise concerning the identities of a few of them, and their unexpected intentions. The ending was excellent, both for the adventure story and the romance. Overall a nice book.

32. (New This Year) Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton 4/29

Pick:
I have so many new books to read, so much on the shelf; I just wanted something from my top picks group (the ones I prefer reading, rather than the ones I'm merely interested in) that would be a quick read. So that was Flirt. (By the way: we had this one because Toni and I are both enormous fans of the series, so this was Toni's birthday present. One of them. Or maybe it was the Bookiversary present -- I forget. )

Thoughts:
It wasn't bad, though I thought it focused on the wrong thing. It would have been okay for the story to really hone in on the concept that inspired Hamilton to write it, which was the flirting scene in the restaurant; it would have been better for her to focus on the stuff she actually does well, which would be the zombie parts. I loved the idea of the two clients who demanded Anita's services, why they wanted their loved ones raised and why she wouldn't do it; I liked the end result of that fairly well.

But since the book went from the zombie story, to the flirting scene, back to the zombie story, the flirting scene felt added in, a complete distraction, and it took some of the focus off of where it should have been. And then Hamilton's author's note, when she told the same goddamned flirting story two more times, in almost identical language -- first narrating what actually happened, and then including the webcomics her friend drew based on the story (Which recapitulated the story for the third time for me, again without changing hardly a word), not only made the zombie stuff seem like the part that was off-topic, but it made the original concept story boring. A flustered waiter and a hot friend are just not that riveting, Ms. Hamilton. Sorry.

I'm waiting on the actual novel.


33. (Vine) Boom! by Mark Haddon 5/1

Pick:
I loved A Curious Incident . . . and this was a children's book by the same guy. About the teacher's lounge and alien languages and mischievous kids. I'm in.

Story:
When you were a kid, did you ever wonder what really goes on in the teacher's lounge? I did. So I became a teacher, and I found out: nothing.

Nothing that you need to know about, that is. Nothing that I can tell you and still allow you to roam around free, with both your memory and your tongue.

But I've said too much.

Mark Haddon's novel "Boom!" covers this same vital question, and unfortunately for Mr. Haddon -- an excellent author with a fantastic imagination, the kind of person who can dream up things that are so close to real life that they seem most genuine, yet are different enough to open our eyes and minds and show us the wonder that hides behind our perceptions and assumptions (witness his most famous and brilliant novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time) -- he knows what he's talking about. His two heroes, the schoolboys Jim and Charlie, decide to plant a hidden microphone in their teachers' lounge, in order to find out whether the rumor of Jim's impending expulsion is true or not. They hear more than they ever bargained for. They hear what we teachers really say when there is nobody else around.

The results are terrifying, fascinating, and of course, utterly hilarious. The characters are picture perfect, three-dimensional and real without being overly complex. The story tells not only of a thrilling and intergalactic adventure, but also of a family that comes close to falling apart but manages to hold on and rediscover what is truly important. It makes the book not only fun to read, but good to read. Anyone who wants to read this book will be able to follow it, and anyone who reads this book will enjoy it.

And then you had better forget all about it, if you know what's good for you.

Gridzbi Spudvetch!

34. (11) Curse of the Blue Tattoo by L.A. Meyer 5/4

Pick:
I wanted something rollicking and fun, and I wanted to see if this second book held up with the first.

Thoughts:
Hell, it was even better! As much as I enjoyed the story of Mary "Bloody Jack" Faber finding her way from the rough streets of London at the turn of the 19th Century to life in His Majesty's Royal Navy, I liked this story even better. In this one, Jacky, having been discovered masquerading as a boy and thus removed from the HMS Dolphin, has been enrolled (largely against her will) in the Lawson Peabody School for Young Girls in Boston. She quickly finds that while life as a proper young lady in Boston is much less physically strenuous than life in an orphan gang or life on a ship of the line, it is no less dangerous. She is still surrounded by enemies -- though she finds friends, as well, just as close as those she had on ship -- and she must still maintain a masquerade. This one gives her much more trouble, however. On board the Dolphin, she simply had to pretend to be a boy; here she must pretend to have an entirely different personality and upbringing, and priorities and morals that run completely counter to those she actually has. This is a life that her previous lives have most definitely not prepared her for.

Fortunately for Jacky, and for those of us who love her and wish her only the best, her talent and intelligence, her kindness and sense of justice and fairplay, and her intelligence and toughness and love of adventure carry her through most of her trials -- and into several of the worst ones. She goes from proper young student -- and almost universally disdained and treated cruelly by the meanest set of snippety little bitches I personally have ever read about -- to jailed strumpet in danger of a flogging, to chambermaid to the very girls who treated her so poorly before. Then she becomes a singing sensation, once again a proper young lady, for a few brief spans she is again a boy -- and she ends up both saving the day and coming within inches of death. It was amazing how many adventures she had, and also how well written they all were.

That was the coolest part of the book for me. As much as I loved reading about Jacky -- and I did, all the way up to the ending, which is quite sad (though it set up the next book and got me all excited about reading that one, too) -- the best part of this was how well the author managed to recapture so many disparate elements of early American life. I mean, Jacky goes everywhere and does everything in these books; this one is absolutely the story of a young girl who doesn't fit in to an upperclass environment, but who also makes her mark on high society; whereas the last one was a nautical yarn about life on a ship, with a secret. Totally different, yet both equally good. Very impressive -- and these are highly recommended.

Parrots, Hamsters, Ifrit-dogs, and Vampires, Oh My!

Oh: and bad graphic novels about Templars.

25. (Vine) Solomon's Thieves by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham and Alex Puvilland (4/3)

Pick:
I was going through the Vine newsletter, not seeing anything that was terribly exciting but determined to look at all of my options; I had already picked the parrot book when I saw this little graphic novel, and I thought, "Hey, how long could it take me to read a comic book?" So here's one more to pad out my reviewer's resume.

Thoughts:
I'm a fan of graphic novels from way back; I'm also a fan of medieval tales, of knights and rogues, loyalty and chivalry, betrayal and dastardly deeds. But I'm not a fan of this book.

The story isn't bad, though there is a confusing jump right at the beginning when you change narrators without warning; I kept wondering how the hero of the book could have been in the Templar battle at Acre in 1291 when it clearly said that he had joined the Templars in 1295; turns out it was some other Templar at Acre for the first few pages. But overall, it's a fairly intriguing tale; it is the story of the downfall of the Order of Solomon's Temple, the Templars, in the infamous purge on Friday the 13th which has been written about in several other novels and movies, as the author mentions in his afterword. This one has a nice spin on the story, as it focuses on a group of knights who aren't the most chivalrous or upstanding: rather they are the knights who sometimes try to sneak out of the Temple to drink, gamble, and find women, though they do try to sneak back in in time for the Crusade.

Unfortunately, the short length of the book and the timeline the author chose doesn't offer very much time for these uncouth knights to get into trouble, which is really too bad, as it means we don't get to enjoy their defining characteristic. They sneak out once, but by the time they stumble home (their night out having been disrupted by a romantic side story that will presumably be wrapped up in later issues, since it was left badly hanging in this one), the Templars have been arrested en masse by the French king, jealous of their power and wealth and determined to defy the all-powerful Catholic church.

The story has a nice bit of hidden treasure and valuable secrets, and ominous bad guys chasing fugitive Templars; there are fights, of course, and a chase scene involving a carriage and several Royal Guards on horseback. There is quite a lot of torture, though not as graphically depicted as I've seen it in some other books -- say, The Watchmen, for one. And the historical details are often quite interesting, particularly the attempt to capture what it meant to an ordinary man to call himself a Templar.

So there are good and bad things about this one. But there is one fatal flaw in this graphic novel: not in the novel part, but in the graphic. This book has some of the worst character art I've ever seen. The backgrounds are generally good and sometimes stellar, but the characters are poorly rendered, badly proportioned, and in some cases, indistinguishable from one another -- I completely missed one important moment the first time through simply because I genuinely didn't recognize the character; I had to flip back and forth several times to figure out who it was before I understood what was going on. It made it much harder to enjoy the interesting parts of the story, so unless you are a big Templar fanatic, I'd give this one a miss.


26. (Vine) Winging It: A Memoir of Caring for a Vengeful Parrot Who's Determined to Kill Me by Jenny Gardiner (4/6)

Pick:
I liked the idea of a book about a vicious parrot, which the author cared for. Reminded me of Toni and her Romeo.

Thoughts:
As I suppose anyone would, I wanted this author's experiences to resemble my own: I, too, owned a vengeful parrot who was determined to kill me, at least by proxy through my wife, whose parrot it was. So I was disappointed when Jenny Gardiner's memoir of her life with Graycie the African Gray did not really come close to our time with a Blue Crown Conure with a nasty disposition. But despite that, this was, I thought, a nice book overall.

Gardiner starts out by making some good and valid points about the dangers and complications inherent in buying parrots, particularly when her family adopted Graycie twenty years ago: at the time, and to a lesser but still serious extent now, many of the parrots on the market are captured from the wild and smuggled into the US. This is not only illegal, of course, but it is harmful to the environment -- the birds are often captured through the simple expedient of cutting down the tree where the young birds are in the nest, and then picking up the stunned chicks out of the wreckage -- and extremely damaging to the birds, which, of course, makes them, shall we say, problematic pets. Since parrots are highly intelligent, curious, and possessed of some pretty dangerous weaponry, in beak and claws, and since they can live for decades -- some even longer than the humans who "own" them -- having a psychologically scarred wild animal for a problematic pet is really not a good thing.

Fortunately for Gardiner, Graycie isn't nearly that bad. Oh, she has her troubles -- she is not affectionate as some parrots can be; she is aggressive and attacks Gardiner constantly; for the first few years of their life together, Graycie plucks out her own feathers and chews herself bloody, a fairly common parrot problem. But once the family learns to work around Graycie's habits and moods and needs, they get along fairly well; Graycie is as clever and entertaining, and sweet and affectionate at times, as all parrots can be, even when they do have nasty temperaments. Gardiner shows some nice humor when she relates the more amusing stories of her life with a parrot.

The problem I had with this book (and my wife, who lived with her parrot Romeo for fifteen years more than I did, had an even larger issue with this) is that the title is somewhat deceptive. Graycie is not actually a vengeful parrot, and she does not want to kill her owner; she's just a parrot with some bad pet-habits that are completely understandable considering Graycie's origins and the mistakes the Gardiners made when they first got Graycie -- particularly putting the parrot into a windowless, isolated room in the basement, when intelligent birds need lots of visual stimulation, natural light and air and scenery, and lots of company and interaction. The worst source of friction is actually Gardiner's expectations: she seems resentful throughout when Graycie doesn't live up to her ideals of life with a parrot. Graycie is not a performing wonder, amusing the family and their guests with her myriad of tricks; she does talk and whistle and sing and make noise often, but not always amusingly and not on cue. But then, no parrots really do that, other than the ones trained to perform: parrots are pets, living creatures with wants and needs and dislikes, not wind-up toys. Graycie is not affectionate, being more willing to snap at Gardiner than to sit on her shoulder and gently coo, or perhaps squawk "Polly want a cracker!" And Graycie, like all pets, creates a large mess; since parrots are caged animals, a lot more of that mess needs to be cleaned up by hand; you never really appreciate how nice it is that dogs can be housetrained until you care for an animal that can't go outside to relieve itself. Gardiner does learn to appreciate Graycie for what she offers as a pet, but only after a whole lot of what seemed to me somewhat whiny complaining about Graycie's downside.

Perhaps more to the point, the book is only somewhat about Graycie: it is really a memoir of the growth of Gardiner's family, including the story of her marriage, the birth and raising of her three children, their adoption of dogs over the years, and their various homes over two decades. The parrot is a part of that, as she is part of the family; but not the largest part. The book is, honestly, more about the children than about the parrot. For all that, it is well-written and interesting, but if you are looking for a book written by someone who had the same experience that you had with a misanthropic parrot, this isn't really it.



27. (9) New Tricks by John Levitt 4/11

Pick:
The first one was pretty good, as I recall -- though I don't remember very much about the story. I remember liking the main character and his dog, and the idea that his best skill magically was his jazz-inspired ability to improvise. Plus it's on the shelf and I need to read those.

Thoughts:
This one was pretty good too, and fortunately I didn't need to remember the first one to follow this story; I remembered the characters, Victor and Eli and Campbell, along with Mason and Lou the Ifrit, and that was good enough. I still really enjoyed the musical parts and the magical parts, and I think Lou is a great character; the problem with this book was that it was far too predictable. It's about a practitioner (a magic-user) who is attacking other practitioners, apparently with the intention of possessing them; there is an obvious suspect, a black magician named Byron, but it is readily obvious that he didn't really do it. The reader is guided to suspect another character almost from the beginning, and in the process of being guided to that character, I picked up on the twist ending from about 100 pages in. Perhaps that was my own natural genius, but since I didn't know the guy was dead in The Sixth Sense until after my wife explained it to me, I don't think it was me.

I did really like the world created in this book and the first one; these remind me very much of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files, though these do pale a bit in comparison to those. I especially enjoyed the larger world hinted at in this one, and the slow unraveling of the mysterious origin of Ifrits like Lou the "dog." And even though I knew it was coming, the final confrontation was excellent. So I will look for the next one, and hope that it's a little more surprising.



28. (Non: Bought it for Le Title.) The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney 4/12

Pick:
I saw this at Fred Meyer; had to pick it up, of course. It's about a hamster named Humphrey. That was good, but the clincher? He's the class hamster for Room 26. Which would be my classroom number at school. It's kismet!

Thoughts:
This book is very cute, though obviously a little too young for me to really get into. Humphrey is brought to Room 26 by a long-term sub -- it's a fifth grade class or so -- who treats him as a pet; but when the original teacher comes back, Humphrey seems to be in trouble: she doesn't want him there, considers him a rodent, won't take him home at night or over the weekends. But the kids in Room 26 step up and take over Humphrey's care over the weekends, and it turns out to be a good thing when he is left in the classroom overnight, as he makes friends with Aldo Amato, the night janitor at the school. In fact, Humphrey makes friends with everybody, and in the process, he teaches them all important life lessons -- like how to overcome shyness, and the importance of turning off your TV sometimes, and how to get your children to listen to you, and never to give up hope. Like I said, very cute, but a little young. I might grab another one, but all in all, I much prefer Bunnicula.


29. (Still re-reading!) White Knight by Jim Butcher 4/16

Pick:
Must . . . Finish . . . Series!

Thoughts:
This was great, because I didn't remember the story very much at all. I certainly didn't remember who the bad guys were, or exactly how everything would play out -- though I did remember the final denouement, and also the big reveal about Thomas's new job and his manner of feeding himself. But the majority of the book was a nice surprise, and as enjoyable as all Butcher books are. Now I really want to get on to the new one. Pardon me: new ones. Sigh.

Dragons!

24. (Vine) Dragon Haven: Book Two of the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb 4/3

Pick:
Well, I read the first one for Vine; why would I pass up the sequel and conclusion?

Story:
The first thing you should know is that the story doesn't end here.

This book, the sequel to "Dragon Keeper" and the conclusion of the Rain Wilds Chronicles, is not the end of the story. Things remain unresolved on the last page, and some of the most interesting possible story lines remain open; I can only hope that Robin Hobb will see fit to continue the tale in subsequent works.

Because this one's a beaut.

The first book (DEFINITELY required reading; this is more of a single story in two volumes than it is separate novels in a sequence.) tells several parallel stories: the story of Alise Fincarron and her marriage of convenience (and perhaps love) to the dashing and wealthy Hest Finbok, the best evidence in these books that despite Robin Hobb's brilliance as a storyteller and creator of genuine, full-color and deep-hearted characters, she has trouble thinking up good names; the story of Thymara, child of the Rain Wilds whose deformities (claws instead of fingers and scales instead of skin, in some places) should have led to her being exposed and abandoned at birth; the story of Leftrin, captain of the livebarge Tarman, oldest and perhaps wisest of the Liveships; and, of course, the story of the newborn dragons, the transformed remnants of Maulkin's tangle from the Liveship series. All of these people (and dragons, who are not, as this book points out, either people or animals, but something else entirely) have serious troubles in their lives, and some don't even realize how serious those troubles are. They come together when the Traders' Council of Trehaug, the ruling body of the Rain Wilds, sends the dragons, for whom they cannot properly care, up the Rain Wild River to find the lost (and perhaps vanished) city of Kelsingra, where the Elderlings of old once made a home for the dragons they loved and served and perhaps even worshipped.

They don't make it to Kelsingra in the first book, and for nine-tenths of this book, the party is still traveling up the Rain Wild River. They do reach a destination at the end, or at least an end of their journeying; I won't say more to avoid spoiling the ending, which is quite nice, despite leaving room for much more story.

In this book, most (but not all) of the interpersonal frictions are resolved. Secrets are finally revealed, some voluntarily and some not; arguments are brought from a long, slow simmer to a raging boil (most of them involving either Thymara, or her dragon Sintara, or both --fitting for the two most defensive, combative, and snarling-stubborn queens of the group), and all of the dragons, and the people, begin to find either their true potential -- or the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

The book is long, but never slow; some of the characters bog down slightly as they try to work through painful and difficult issues, which quite naturally takes time, and might seem repetitive in the hands of a less capable writer. But Hobb is her usual brilliant self, showing sides and nuances and depths to all of her characters that some people never see in real life, let alone in fiction. There is some action, some blood (How could there not be, when there are more than a dozen proud, and hungry, dragons in the mix?), some disasters and some triumphs. Not everything came to the conclusion I would have liked to see, but then, isn't that always the case?

What is also always the case is: I loved it, as I have loved all of Robin Hobb's books, and I would recommend these two highly to all fantasy fans. These are, in my opinion, the best dragons since Smaug. As a brief note to those who have not read Robin Hobb's other works, you should know that nearly all of her fantasy is set in this same world, revolving around the same geopolitical structure and sometimes the same world-changing events --such as the rebirth of dragons, begun in the Liveship series and continued here. Therefore, reading all of her books is necessary to get the real depth; however, these two novels, "Dragon Keeper" and "Dragon Haven," can stand alone and would be a good place to start, if you can stand missing some background details that will be filled in later.