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This series of Ultimate X-Men introduces the Hellfire club-- the money behind Xavier's institute, but of course they are funding Xavier for their own dark purposes. This brings in a beginning to Jean Grey's dark Phoenix story, but doesn't take it too far. We also meet Kitty Pryde and Magneto's followers discover that hs is not dead as they had supposed, and work to find and recover him.

I enjoyed meeting Kitty Pryde-- can you imagine being a teenager and not in control of her phase-shifting powers? The writers & artists do a good job of portraying this (she randomly shifts and falls through her apartment floor into the sewers, or another time she accidentally shifts through a moving car). You also get a sense of Beast's loneliness and alienation from the others-- he is the leak about Magneto because he is chatting online with someone who he thinks is a supermodel mutant (of course the other person is nothing of the sort). I was also interested to learn more about the Hellfire Club, since Joss Whedon hinted at them in the end of the last volume of his Astonishing X-Men, and I had no idea who they were.

The artwork in this volume is uneven. Partway through, the style shifts drastically-- and I really did not like the second style. It seemed much more cartoonish, sometimes veering towards what seemed almost like anime (which I usually like-- here it seemed out of place, or poorly done, or something). The worst part of it was that the main characters weren't always recognizable (because they were drawn so differently & inconsistently), which made it more difficult to follow the stories.

Title:	Ultimate X-Men: Hellfire & Brimstone (Volume 4)
Author:	Mark Millar
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Series:	Ultimate X-Men
Number of pages:	144

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With an “handful of tossed-off words,” 17-year-old Ian contributes, directly or indirectly, to the deaths of his older brother and sister-in-law. His aging parents are left with three orphaned children. Ian goes away half-heartedly to his first semester of college with feelings of guilt and a longing to lead a pure life. One evening, when he steps into a storefront church, The Church of the Second Chance, he is challenged to atone for his guilt by dropping out of college to raise the children. This novel chronicles Ian's steady but rueful resolve over the following 25 years.

The author treats the joys and especially the sorrows of Ian's family with tender reverence. We see the characters wistfully ponder the quirks and virtues of each person who dies in the novel, even the family dog. This sense of sacredness seems to seep into every aspect of the characters' lives, so that every activity takes on special meaning. Some of the most moving parts of the book describe mundane events that trigger unanticipated reflections. I found it interesting that of Ian's faith is not elucidated. His niece describes him as “unusually Christian.” He prays to God as one who is active in the world and admires Jesus as a kind of wise mentor. He is the only believer in his home, and while the rest of the family politely tries to ignore his faith, they cling to him as the one who sustains their family life. Without his trust in God, it is doubtful he could have fulfilled that role. Another intriguing theme is the family's belief that their lives are absolutely wonderful, an optimism maintained predominantly by Ian's mother. Over the years, though she sees her family's lives eroded by sorrow and tedium, she keeps up her hopeful front, something that Ian realizes requires real bravery. Anne Tyler's writing is marvelous. I can't emphasize that enough. And though there is plenty of sadness in the book, there is also plenty of witty humor, fondness, and even redemption.

Title:	Saint Maybe
Author:	Anne Tyler
Date published:	1991
Genre:	Novel
Number of pages:	337
Notes:	repeat read

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Xavier takes the X-Men on a world tour to promote his new book on the x-factor mutant phenomenon and how humans don't need to be so afraid of mutants or treat them differently. The last two issues are a standalone Gambit story which was fun (but strangely, it doesn't seem to tie into the rest of the story at all).

The book promotion tour starts out fairly normally-- the X-Men are enjoying travelling, and they even still have assignments (as part of their education) to go out and do something good in the city where they currently are (an interesting idea). But, of course, things go wrong-- we find out that Xavier was once married and has a son with a powerful, dangerous power: his abilities burn up bodies too quickly, so he hops to new bodies when he needs to (killing many in the process). Xavier and the X-Men face off against Proteus (who is seeking revenge against the father who abandoned him), and many lives are lost to Proteus' reality-bending powers.

I continue to enjoy the artwork & engaging stories.

Title:	Ultimate X-Men: World Tour (Volume 3)
Author:	Mark Millar
Date published:	2002
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Series:	Ultimate X-Men
Number of pages:	192

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Another magical book from McKillip-- this time, a collection of her short stories. I was pretty excited to see a new book from McKillip when I first discovered this book; I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I finally got a copy from the library and found out it was a collection of short stories. I think sometimes I don't enjoy short stories as well because there is no continuing engagement with the book: each section you have to start over again with new characters and places, and often in a book like this I enjoy some stories more than others, and usually find a few to dislike. That was not the case here-- they are self-contained, but still delightful.

There are many wonderful stories here, so I'll try to limit myself to a few of my favorites.

In the title story, "The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath," two young people meet up with the ice dragon who keeps the cold of a unique arctic-like mining community-- and in the process of "harrowing" the dragon, or driving it away from the people, end up changing their home forever.

"A Matter of Music" is a wonderful story that, like McKillip's Song for the Basilisk, draws on the power of music-- in this case, a young female bard's music has the strength to reunite a prince with his estranged wife and to begin the difficult task of restoring a relationship between two warring peoples.

In "The Fellowship of the Dragon" several women go on a quest at the behest of their Queen & friend-- they cross over into the kind of place "where anything can happen," and one by one they are separated. When the last one (the narrator) finally comes to the Queen's bard she was sent to rescue, she discovers she gets along with the dragon better, so the two of them go off to try to find and recover her friends.

"Lady of the Skulls" is strange and almost fable-like; a kind of morality tale about relationships and true value. Several men come to a tower in the middle of the desert filled with untold wealth and tended by one woman. If they can correctly choose the one thing that is most valuable in the tower, then all of it will be theirs; but if not, they must die (and many have tried and failed, hence the skulls). Only one young man among the group has the keen insight to discern the true value the tower holds.

"The Lion and the Lark" is a wonderful fairy tale that starts out like Beauty & the Beast, but goes much further. "Ash, Wood, Fire" tells of young girl who works as a fire tender in a medieval kitchen. In "Transmutations," a young woman works for a philosopher in order to transform her poetry into something golden-- but when she sees the perfection and stillness to which transmutation aspires, she decides she prefers the noisy, imperfect, everyday world. "Star-Crossed" is a wonderful story about "what came after" Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet (the story is so familiar, and we're so used to watching it all unfold that we forget-- all those who knew the true story died), as a city watchman struggles to uncover the reasons for the many bloody bodies in Juliet's tomb. Similarly, "Toad" takes on the fairy tale of the Princess & the toad, told from the toad's perspective-- but the story hints at something else: how fairy tales and stories can change your life, fascinate you and make you grow up suddenly when you weren't expecting it.

There are many more-- a few in more contemporary settings, most in the fantastic worlds like most of McKillip's books. Overall, these stories are well worth anyone's time.

Title:	Harrowing the Dragon
Author:	Patricia McKillip
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Fantasy, Short Stories
Number of pages:	310

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This story is one that I'm sure was a major event when it was first published; the arc follows the story through issues of several different comic books series, and the cover of our copy bills it as the "best-selling graphic novel of all time." A nameless monster, dubbed Doomsday, breaks its way out of some hillside prison and begins a senseless rampage of destruction. Several members of the Justice League try to stop Doomsday, and several of them are incapacitated-- but they have little effect on the monster. Eventually Superman joins the fray, and he discovers that Doomsday is bigger and stronger than him, at least as quick, and seemingly impossible to hurt or slow down. But Superman knows how many lives are at stake, and he refuses to give in.

This book was fairly interesting to read, but nowhere near the quality that I've become accustomed to in the comic books I've been reading lately. The artwork seemed quite old and out-of-date; the only really noticeable high point was the end, which uses all full-page images to convey a sense of importance and grandeur to the conclusion. And I found that story itself really rather disappointing; Superman deserves better than this! Some nameless, meaningless monster is all it takes to kill Superman? I always thought Superman was pretty indestructible-- sure, he works himself to the point of exhaustion trying to stop this guy, but it's hard to believe that could actually kill him. The many wounds and scrapes on his body seem a little hard to believe, too-- he really shouldn't be hurt that much by an explosion or being buried in wreckage, and if the protuding bones on Doomsday are hard enough to hurt Supes then what are they made out of? It also seemed like Superman had none of his usual ingenuity or cleverness-- force doesn't work against this monster, but he can't seem to come up with any other plan or tack (except for one brief attempt to fly him up into space). But I suppose the authors couldn't give him too much room for ingenuity or else he might actually beat the monster, and then where would their story be?

Title:	The Death of Superman
Author:	Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, Louise Simonson, Roger Stern, Jon Bogdanove, Tom Grummett, Jackson Guice, Brett Breeding, Rick Burchett, Doug Hazelwood, Dennis Janke, and Denis Rodier
Date published:	1993
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Number of pages:	168

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Enjoyed this fun young adult book, although probably won't read it again. Some simple concepts with easy to understand characters and illogical plot twists. But -- pretty funny with very distinct characters. Horatio, a millionare meets Mousey, an actress. They fall in love and decide to move to the country. They build their own house and basically stay there, going out as little as possible. They have a son, named Alexander, a butler Bentley, and his wife Flossie. Together they learn many things as they homeschool Sandy. Their main interaction with the outside world comes in the form of horatio's two brothers - Bart and Bernie, who desperately want to get their hands on his fortune. which leads to some dangerous and intriguing escapades.

Turns out that Sandy has to take over as four of their family (one hen included) are incapacitated due to the two brothers. The nurse who comes to take care of them, named Sunny, has a fitting disposition (like her name) and brings some color to the story -- since she knows only the outside world. They end up moving into the 'hospital' next door that is for mentally ill individuals. Turns out they aren't really ill, but were made to believe so about themselves by selfish family members. They figure out why it is in such bad disrepair and make more money and everything turns out happily in the end, as expected.

Sunny comes with a suitcase full of books about whales. She has decided that it's important to keep learning throughout life, so she plans to study a new subject every few months. Like that idea! There are many things that I'd love to study. And it seems managable to take a few months to study one as time is available. Not sure if I will actually do this, but like the idea of it very much.

Title:	Love Among the Walnuts
Author:	Jean Ferris
Date published:	1998
Genre:	Young Adult
Number of pages:	216
Notes:	Recommended by Colleen

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This site has been live for about a year now, and I recognized recently that I hadn't ever posted anything about it, or how it started. I finally decided it was time to post some kind of explanation, however long overdue.

Sapphire and I have been readers and book-lovers for a long time, and we enjoy sharing those written worlds we enter; like the quote from Katherine Mansfield (one of the randomized quotes in the header), the pleasure of reading is increased by sharing books with others who also love them. For a few years now, Sapphire has been keeping track of what she reads and making little notes about them; not only that, but she takes book recommendations from people she meets, as a way to make connections, and she actually writes those recommendations down and reads them. For a while now, I have wanted to do something similar, but I didn't want to start it until it could be "perfect"-- some database driven website that allowed me to search or list the data in any of a number of different views, and automatically total page numbers; something very powerful and extensible and completely impractical for me to create or host at that time. I recognized that it wasn't something I could implement, so I never pursued it. Sapphire's example made me realize that I could at least keep track of what I read, if nothing else (since something is better than nothing); when I read more about Blogger later on and discovered the many creative "blogger hacks" that clever users have figured out, I thought it might be a fun tool that could easily accomplish many of the things I had wanted to keep track of my reading. I shared my idea with Sapphire, and eventually she agreed to contribute to the site with me. (For those who are interested, these are some of the hacks I'm currently using: expandable post summaries; delicious tags; randomized quotes in the header, listing the titles of all posts on a page, along with some hacks of my own-- like using a blogger post for special shared content, like the page totals & favorite book lists on the main page.)

Since then, I have posted everything I've read (and was able to back-post the books I had read earlier that year, since I'd kept track of them and even written about some in my personal journal). Sapphire doesn't post everything she reads, but she posts things she finds particularly interesting or wants to write about (or has time for), and she does update her page and book total numbers.

Our posts are not organized by when we write them, but rather by when we finish the books. When del.icio.us added their "linkroll" feature, I added that to our front-page navigation as a way to make recently posted books visible, whether they were read recently or a while back. This organization also makes it challenging to distinguish between non book posts, like this one (which is one reason I haven't gotten around to writing it yet). Sometimes I feel constrained by the limits of Blogger, but then I remind myself that I have something much better than anything I would have otherwise. This site has become a way for Sapphire & I to share what we read with each other and with other people who care about us and are interested in what we read-- and also with complete strangers who are interested in the books we read, although they know nothing of us.

If you like the site or the books we read, or if you have books to recommend, please leave us a comment and let us know!

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It's a bad sign when you're 100 pages into a book and feel that it hasn't grabbed a hold of you yet. It is probably an even worse sign when you are fifty pages from the end of the book and still waiting for some piece of information or connection that will make sense of what you've been reading. I experienced both of these sensations as I made my way through the confusing, disorienting world of The Difference Engine. The book is set in an alternate London of the 1800s, a world where Babbage completed his "difference engine" and stared a pneumatic cog-driven computer revolution much earlier than in our history. However, the book never really explains this and only vaguely hints at it near the end of the book; and the true history of Babbage's work is not so familiar to most people as, for instance, Christopher Columbus. Fortunately for me, the blurb on the back cover of the book tells this vital information that made the book slightly less confusing.

Part of the reason I found it difficult to engage with this book is that it jumps around from character to character. There are three main characters, and the book focuses on them in succession (in unequal portions)-- but the connections between them are really rather tenuous. The one connection that is supposed to be the most significant is the set of computer punch cards-- the "modus" developed by the Lady Ada, or perhaps by Mick Radley-- but the authors never fully convey the significance or power of these cards in any way that makes sense of the other characters willing to kill to get the cards.

An interesting book in some ways, but not one I am likely to recommend or to pick up again. Sections of the book are compelling enough, if you are willing to suspend disbelief or authorial-enforced ignorance, but the book as a whole never quite comes together. Another strange device that never made sense-- at the beginning or end of some of the chapter sections (which are labeled as "iterations"), the authors describe some photo or physical artifact-- as if we were examining the evidence from these historical events at some future time. But it isn't done consistently enough to be effective, and it never ties in to anything, so it remains insignificant and odd. There is also an extended encounter with a prostitute that I found unnecessary.

Title:	The Difference Engine
Author:	William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Date published:	1991
Genre:	Science Fiction / Alternate History
Number of pages:	429
Notes:	recommended long ago by Jeff M.

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This is the second book I've read by Kidd, and enjoyed both of them. So much truth. Jessie grew up on Egret Island and her mother is still there. Her mother does something insane, and she goes back to live with her mother for a while and try to help her become healthier. But, she hasn't been back to this island off the coast of New England for many years. She's married to Hugh and they have a daughter named Dee. Going back to her roots is both good and bad, as so often the case. She begins to discover that she is her own person and not just who others want her to be.

There are three women who are bound together. Nelle, Kat, and Hepzibah. Three women with strong character and an ability to love each other in spite of their large differences. Hepzibah loves the Gullah culture, which is the culture of slaves who came to live on the island after slavery. (Sort of true. Not this particular island because it doesn't exist, but islands in similar places that really did and do exist.) Their culture and myths and beliefs got mixed in with some of the traditions of the islanders. Kat loves to have her own opinion, keep her own hours, say the unexpected, and push peoples' boundaries. Nelle has turned to religion to keep her sane, helping to keep meals for the monks at the nearby abbey. As a result of a horrible thing that happened many years ago tries to leave behind everything that reminds her of it. Together they hold one another up, challenging, loving, accepting, understanding one another. so refreshing. As humans we are made to be in deep, lasting relationships. Not just marriage, but also friendships that give us true glimpses of what it means to be known and loved.

Jessie's mother, Nelle, has started to do crazy things. Which it turns out are her way of trying to relieve the guilt of something that happened twenty some years ago. This guilt is not just her own, but also happens to belong to others who know the secret. (Spoiler coming!) All her life, Jessie believed that her father died on a boat because of a spark from the pipe she had given him as a present. On this trip to the island, she was looking in the drawer of sacred things (broken rosaries and crosses, the newspaper clipping of her father's death, etc.) and at the back she found the pipe. Didn't know what to make of that. But the climax comes when Kat decides that they need to speak the truth. That Nelle will only be set free when the truth is finally revealed. Her father chose to die instead of slowly losing all memory as his father had done, and a number of people were involved to make it a sacrament of sorts. The boat accident was a cover up. Jessie is hurt and surprised and anguished to find out about this thing that happened so long ago, but at the same time she is relieved to finally know the truth. It was already in her bones. Somehow truth imprints itself on our bones and bodies and when we find it there is a sense it has already belonged. This is such a Biblical concept -- that the truth will set us free. To live what we know is real life, in the strength and freedom only God can give to us.

Brother Thomas, previously known as Whit, plays a major role as well. He is a catalyst. He is more than that, but that is a piece of what he does in the book. He is a monk who came to the abbey to find God. To take a breath and see what it was like to live outside of the cares of the world. His devotion, passion, commitment to God and the abbey are characteristics which draw Jessie to him. There are other things like lust and proximity, but the single-hearted commitment is something she does not have in herself. By having an affair with him, she damages his commitments (which is bad), but it somehow helps both of them to choose to live life fully again. I do not believe that sin is ever good. Sure, God can use evil for His own purposes -- but that does not mean it was good in the first place to choose poorly. Seems like this book could be taken that way -- that the affair was good because the end was good. But the end does not justify the means -- even when the end seems right.

Title:	The Mermaid Chair
Author:	Sue Monk Kidd
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	332

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