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The sequel to Dealing with Dragons, this story starts with Mendenbar, the young king of the Enchanted Forest, out for a walk when he discovers a patch of forest that seems to have been burned, and all the magic sucked out of it.  A little investigation and a consult with Morwen shows that someone is trying to frame the dragons for this destruction, and perhaps provoke war between the dragons and the Enchanted Forest, so Mendenbar sets off to meet with King Kazul (although he's a little dismayed to hear the dragon has a princess, as he prefers to avoid silly, hero/husband-hunting girls).  When he arrives, he meets Cimorene (not at all what he expected from a princess), who is just about to head out to try to find Kazul, who seems to have gone missing.  Since it seems to involve his kingdom as well, Mendenbar joins her.  Along the way, they sup with giants, ride on a broken-down magic carpet (decorated in pink with teddy bears!), meet Rumpelstiltskin's descendant Herman, as well as a scholar-magician named Telemain, before they face the nefarious wizards and, of course, fall in love.

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Cimorene is a princess who gets bored with all the proper things she is supposed to learn (etiquette, sewing, and the like), and keeps finding more interesting things to do-- like fencing lessons, learning magic, or even how to cook-- but her more interesting lessons are always halted as soon as her parents find out. Despairing over what to do with her, they decide to marry her off to a prince in a neighboring kingdom. When Cimorene figures this out, she decides to run away-- and with a helpful tip from a talking frog, she finds some dragons and volunteers to be a dragon's princess-- which is quite "proper," since it happens to princesses all the time, and much more interesting for Cimorene.

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Charmain is volunteered by her aunt Sempronia to watch her great-uncle William's house while he is away for health reasons. William is a magician, and both he and Sempronia assume that Charmain has basic knowledge of magical things-- but she doesn't, because her mother doesn't think it is nice or proper to learn such things. Charmain is excited about it only because she thinks it will give her more uninterrupted time to read books. The house is a magical one-- it seems to have only two rooms, but if you go through the door to the kitchen and turn just as you go through, you find yourself in a long hallway with the study and several bedrooms, and a window that lets out onto a meadow-- and that is just one of the simpler of the "many ways" of this house. Charmain finds herself adopted by a dog named Waif, and becomes friends with Peter, who has come to be an apprentice to her uncle; Peter is a bumbling magician, but has much more practical knowledge than Charmain herself, who doesn't know how to do laundry or dishes.

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The first story arc of Fathom is utterly compelling. Aspen Matthews is a marine biologist who has always been drawn to the ocean-- she was an orphan who returned to land with an ocean liner that had been thought lost, and she doesn't remember beyond that, but she surfs, was an Olympic swimmer, and when she is invited to a deep sea research station, she is drawn into a bigger story of a war being instigated by a group of beings who live in the ocean, with involvement of Air Force pilots testing amphibious planes, and along the way Aspen discovers more about her own heritage and how powerful she is.

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Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann meet up with a Russian agent who is trying to get somewhere in the Midwest U.S., because the three astronauts who have been on the Space Station since the plague hit are going to try to land-- and two of them are men. Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann go to a “hot suite” and try to make arrangements to protect the men (so the plague doesn’t kill them as soon as they land), but the Israeli military force that’s been tracking Yorick gets in the way-- kidnaps Yorick, attempts to take out the landing capsule, possibly contributing to its explosive landing.

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Does a good job of summarizing what happened in Vol.1 (all the males on earth died except Yorick and his pet chimp Ampersand), and reminding us what a male-dominated world we still live in, as most of the business owners, pilots, construction workers, etc. are now gone. Yorick, Agent 355, and Dr. Mann are working their way across the country to get to Dr. Mann’s laboratory and backup copies of the notes and data destroyed when her east coast lab was burned down. After a little incident on their train, they end up in a small town that seems Edenic in comparison to the rest of the places they have seen on their way through the country-- they have electricity, food, and seem to be taking care of themselves quite well, and even deal rather well with the news of Yorick’s existence (as compared to the other extreme reactions he’s seen before). Meanwhile, Yorick is being hunted-- by some Israeli troops, and by the extreme Daughters of the Amazon, now accompanied by his sister Hero, who seems to have been brainwashed by the care and attention of the leader who protects and feeds her and all the other women.

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After finishing reading Howl's Moving Castle, I wanted to re-read Castle in the Air. It is an unusual sequel, because the characters we know from the first book are in disguise (by magic of course, in this case not their own) when we first meet them in this story, and even that is not right away. We actually follow a day-dreaming carpet merchant named Abdullah, whose fairy-tale daydreams start coming true after he buys a magic carpet-- he meets a beautiful princess, he ends up wandering in the desert and runs into the villainous bandit he dreamed up, and ends up on a quest to rescue the princess he loves. Of course, his daydreams literally are coming true because a djinn has overheard them and is playing a bigger game.

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The delightful story of Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer. In a magic, fairy-tale land where seven-league boots actually exist (although they are demonstrated to be difficult to control when your balance is very good), Sophie doesn’t ever bother to seek out her fortune because she knows as the oldest of three sisters, she is destined to fail first and worst. Her sisters aren’t afraid to seek out what they want (even to the extent of deceiving their mother to trade places), but Sophie stays where she is. Only when she is cursed into old age does she venture out, and her “disguise” as an old woman gives her a new kind of freedom-- she isn’t afraid, she’s more willing to speak out and do what she wants, even to the extent of forcing herself into the castle of the wizard Howl as his housekeeper. Howl is selfish, vain, slapdash, and heartless (literally, in a way, because of his contract with Calcifer that Sophie is supposed to be trying to figure out and break), and yet he is also sweet, quite thoughtful at times, and tenderhearted. Of course, it is Sophie’s qualities as an older sister that make her capable of dealing with Howl-- when he has a tantrum of green slime, she and Michael push him to the bathroom and dump him in the tub, and Sophie mops up the slime that is everywhere.

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As an infant, Sabriel nearly-- or, to be more accurate, briefly-- died. But her father, Abhorsen, stepped across the boundary between Life and Death, and brought her back. Abhorsen is a necromancer unlike any I have ever read about-- instead of summoning the dead, he binds the dead that haunt the living, and he assists-- or forces-- them to cross the final gate. Now a young woman and nearly finished with her schooling in Ancelstierre, Sabriel learns that something has happened to her father-- he is either bound somewhere in Death, or perhaps actually dead. So, she crosses back into the Old Kingdom, where she discovers that Abhorsen is not a name but a title, and that she has inherited it. A powerful, Greater Dead creature and its minions are stirring, and she must outrace them to find her father and save the kingdom.

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For some reason, I was unaware of the fact that there were so many Buffy comic books before the new Season 8 run. This is the first book in an omnibus series that collects them all in chronological order. This one starts with "All's Fair", a story about Dru and Spike on a rampage at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, which I didn't particularly enjoy, but then it gets more Buffy-centric. "The Origin" is a comic-book adaptation of Joss Whedon's original screenplay for the Buffy movie; the stories after that cover the time between the movie and the TV series, while Buffy was on her own without a Watcher. She and Pike take a trip to Las Vegas to hunt down vampires in "Viva Las Buffy!". In "Dawn & Hoopy the Bear" we get a story of Dawn's experience while Buffy has run off and their parents are on their way to divorce; a teddy bear ensorceled with a djinn meant for the slayer is mistakenly delivered to Dawn, but her distracted mother just thinks Dawn has a wild imagination when she takes about the bear coming alive. Then, in "Slayer, Interrrupted" we get the story of Buffy's stay in the mental hospital, which is referred to in the TV series. Interspersed with these, we also get some interesting parts of Giles' path to becoming Buffy's Watcher.

I had a little bit of trouble getting into this book because I didn't enjoy the first story; I know some people really love Spike and Dru, but a whole story with them killing and destroying just isn't my thing. In this story and in some of the others, I felt like there might be references to characters or events in the TV series, but I'm not familiar enough with them to catch it-- and not sure I care enough to go to the trouble of looking it up. Angel shows up in the Las Vegas story, and I wondered about the time lines of that, but again, I guess I'm not familiar enough with all the details of his back story to know how this fits in.

As Scott Allie points out in his brief introduction, these stories include Dawn-- which is an interesting choice. Like him, I'm glad that we got the story of "Dawn and Hoopy the Bear"; but other things make me wonder a bit about how things would have worked without Dawn being there. For instance, Dawn is the one who reads Buffy's diary (because she misses her), and that is how Buffy ends up getting sent to a mental institute.

Artwork for comic books based on TV shows and movies can be a little strained sometimes-- either they are too creepily like the actors or they aren't quite recognizable. In this case, I found the artwork to be quite good, and it certainly never distracted me from the story being told.

I enjoyed this enough that I'd be interested to read the other Buffy Omnibus collections, although I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that there are 7 volumes.

Title:	Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 1
Author:
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Young Adult, Graphic Novel, Horror
Series:	Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Number of pages:	296

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Bryson is an author who is knowledgeable and entertaining at the same time – a combination not to be taken for granted! As stated in the title this book gives a general overview of the history of the world, scientifically speaking, and includes glimpses into a wide variety of subjects – chemistry, physics, geography, lots of -ologies, but in a way that they are comprehensible. Bryson talked with a large number of specialists, visited them, learned from them, asked lots of questions. And we get his summaries.

One of the best parts of the book is the stories about various characters. Many of them incredibly strange. Brilliant – but strange. One Oxford professor that I remember reading about was extremely absent-minded. Upon returning home one evening, his wife told him to go upstairs and change for their dinner party that evening. He got undressed, but then couldn't remember what he was doing, so he changed into pajamas and got into bed. His wife was duly exasperated when she found him shortly thereafter. Or the chemist who insisted on tasting all of his experiments, something which clearly aided his death in arriving sooner. Or the fact that if a meteor were to actually hit earth, it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye until one second before it hit earth, and the impact could easily damage a whole continent and most likely throw the whole ecosystem wildly off-kilter. In the process of reading this book, two facts became more clear to me:

1) we often take for granted things for which the margin of error (or possibility) is actually incredibly narrow.

2) there must indeed be a Creator!

Title:	A Short History of Nearly Everything
Author:	Bill Bryson
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Nonfiction
Number of pages:	478
Notes:	from c. knapp

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This story is set in India which means that as one reads, bits of culture are picked up along the way. In a quiet and delightful way. A number of stories are woven together into one novel, with themes running through each of them, and deep connections. Kanai is a well-to-do Indian going to visit his aunt, to read a story that his uncle wrote and left to him years ago. Piya was born to Indian parents but grew up in America, and is back in India to study dolphins. Fokir is a man who catches crabs for a living and knows the islands and rivers and tides in the Bay of Bengal as well as his own home.

As always, nothing is quite as clear as it seems. People meet each other and their initial reactions are rarely correct. Especially in this setting, where there are so many factors that are unseen. Each of the characters in this book is searching for something .. meaning, a place to call home, worth, accomplishment, a better life, love. In various ways, with varying amounts of success. Fokir is a simple man who is viewed as inferior by many, but Piya sees him as someone who is knowledgeable, and could be a boon for her research. This is a beautiful example of someone who sees differently. So often we get caught up in matching things to the standards of the world, but Piya refuses to play into that and is willing to see value in anyone around her. Her example, while not perfect, is a reminder to me to be careful of who and how I see those around me.

Title:	The Hungry Tide
Author:	Amitav Ghosh
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	329
Notes:	from Karen K.Y.

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This delightful, entertaining book is written in the style of Chinese stories, and set in an ancient China filled with magic, monsters, and gods. The story is narrated by Yu Lu, known as Number Ten Ox, from the village of Ku-Fu as he goes to find help to save the children of the village who have been accidentally poisoned. He goes to Peking to find a sage who will help, but they all turn their noses up at his bag of copper coins-- until he stumbles upon an alley where the ancient, drunken Li Kao is slumbering-- a sage who always introduces himself with the fact that he has "a slight flaw in his character." As it turns out, Li Kao may be the only man who would have been capable of helping Number Ten Ox and his village, because their quest for the great root of power which may cure the children leads them all over the country, facing powerful humans, labyrinths, and terrible monsters, until they eventually realize their quest overlaps with the story of minor deity, the princess of birds, who was unwittingly betrayed by her handmaidens and lost divine protection and access to heaven.

The tone of this book is perfectly suited to the setting of the story and the characters. Every time Li Kao introduces himself, he mentions that slight flaw in his character. More than once, the two adventurers face near-certain death, and before they dive in they decide what they will request the Yama Kings to let them be reborn as-- for Li Kao, a sloth, and for Number Ten Ox, a cloud. As they gather and lose other members of their parties, this becomes a recurring refrain as they invite their friends to join them in declaring what they will ask to come back as just before they face deadly danger together.

At first, this story seems to be just a wandering tale of strange encounters, but eventually Li Kao puts together the pieces of the story, and it seems that every little detail is a piece of the puzzle-- even the story of the village of Ku Fu and the section of wall that doesn't connect to any of the rest of the Great Wall because the general building it had a dream where he met the August Personage of Jade who adjusted his maps. All the strange characters they meet along the way seem to have a part to play or some key piece of information that allows Li Kao eventually to put the entire puzzle together-- Miser Shen, who later falls in love with Lotus Cloud and wants to be reborn as a tree named "Old Generosity"; the scholar Henpecked Ho and his daughter Fainting Maid, who always falls two steps back and six to the left; the Ancestress and the fearsome Duke of Ch'in, and even the greedy villagers Ma the Grub and Pawnbroker Fang.

The magnificent ending is completely satisfyint and beautiful, and none of the pieces of the story seemed forced when I finally discovered the whole story of what Li Kao and Number Ten Ox's quest was really about, and who was guiding things all along with an unseen hand.

Title:	Bridge of Birds
Author:	Barry Hughart
Date published:	1984
Genre:	Fantasy, Fairy Tale
Number of pages:	248
Notes:	loaned to me by Catey

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This book is composed of 4 complete books: A Carribean Mystery, A Pocket Full of Rye, The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side, and They Do it with Mirrors. In each, Miss Marple makes her gentle, unassuming appearance and quietly solves the murders. She is such an enjoyable character, and so often underestimated. She is from a village called Mary St. Mead, and often as she meets new people she compares them with those she has known before in her 'quiet' village, and finds someone with whom they share characteristics. This usually gives her extra insight and reminders as to what humans are really capable of doing. Because she is an elderly woman, those who don't know her try to be careful of her sensibilities, but she understands better than they do how humans are complex and sometimes evil beings.

As always, with good murder mysteries, there are all sorts of false clues and important clues that are understated or ignored. Miss Marple sometimes asks questions which don't seem to make much sense, but are actually vital. In one of these cases, the final clue which convinces Miss Marple of what actually happened is one short conversation between the victim and another character. Everyone that overheard it remembers a different answer that was given, but the correct answer reveals both the murderer and the motive! A reminder of what it means to be attentive. So often we hear without actually listening, and we see without actually observing. Well-written enough that I'd read these again .. after enough time so that the details become foggy!

Title:	Miss Marple Omnibus, Volume 2
Author:	Agatha Christie
Date published:	1997 (individual books published between 1952 and 1964)
Genre:	Mystery
Number of pages:	654
Notes:	from Amy

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I was pleasantly surprised with how readable and interesting this book was. It starts off almost more like a memoir, as Geller tells some of her story and how she came to her view of how dogs should be trained. She has a great story of trying to use foreign toilet facilities in a strange land, and then compares this to dogs, who she says don't know what we want them to do and don't know how to ask us. She also describes her observation of wolves, who teach pups how to behave by playing games. Geller is apparently a dog coach to the stars, and at times it feels like she is name dropping, but she tells plenty of other stories about non-celebrity dogs and families when it suits the purpose of what she is trying to communicate. Geller claims that most of what passes for dog training these days is actually abusive, and she has some horror stories of dogs with broken feet and crippled legs that bear witness to this.

The training ideas are easy to follow along with and Geller generally provides reasons why you should do things a certain way. I found new ideas and insights that were helpful to me with my dog, who is mostly pretty well trained (and some thoughts about why he has trouble with a couple of commands he doesn't always do so well). The idea of different levels of treats to help reward different kinds of behavior is helpful, and even the notion that dogs need structure but also like a surprise now and then. I found Geller's opinion on training dogs to heel interesting and sort of emblematic of the rest of her thinking-- she says it goes back to a time when dogs were soldiers, and had to be on the opposite side of where the rifle was carried, but that dogs aren't soldiers anymore and we don't need to treat them like they are.

Geller is clearly very passionate about her work and dogs, as evidenced by the organizations and campaigns she describes in the back of the book: Stop Puppy Mills, Another Chance for Love, and Pets for Life.

Title:	The Loved Dog
Author:	Tamar Geller with Andrea Cagan
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Nonfiction, Dog Training
Number of pages:	227
Notes:	gift from Ardis

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This may be the best nonfiction book I've ever read. Maybe that's not saying much, since I don't read all that much nonfiction, but I found it engrossing and well-written. The well-known book that's been turned into a movie and a TV series follows the season of High School football for the Permian panthers in Odessa, Texas; but along the way, Bissinger not only brings the town and the people to life, he also gives fascinating insights to racism, classism, politics, the oil bust and boom, the history and culture of Odessa and neighboring rivals, as well as the fanatical, near-religious devotion to football.

Every now and then I found myself wondering about the narrator-- not because he is present or noticeable in the text, but precisely because he is so invisible and yet manages to capture so many details and moments in a way that seems so clear and insightful; even though it's never mentioned, I imagine the author doing his careful, meticulous research, following along all season long with the team, the coaches, the players and their families to capture so many of these crucial moments in the season, and to hear and understand their stories.

There are so many fascinating insights here that are just a part of the fabric of the story that Bissinger tells. For instance, desegregation of the schools in Odessa was delayed quite a bit, in part because no one wanted to mess up the football programs; and when they finally did desegregate, the district lines were gerrymandered so that Permian would get a greater share of the black athletes. When the star running back is severely injured, he becomes a nobody, and they don't even try to coach him back, they just replace him with somebody else; when he no longer gets the preferential treatment of a football player, he can't keep up with his classwork because he never was really taught.

The story of the many oil millionaires in nearby Midland Lee gives a personal glimpse into the oil industry, and the way that government policies had a tremendous impact on people's lives, and the striking difficulty of getting oil from Texas as compared to the Middle East. Men who happened to be in the right place at the right time were suddenly rich because of luck and politics, but because they thought it was their own business skill they all spent and invested like crazy, until suddenly the oil prices crashed and all these oil-millionaires went broke.

This edition of the book includes a look at where the players were ten years later, and it is fascinating, but mostly quite sad. For a school year or two, these young men were treated like heroes and gods, they could do no wrong and were allowed to get away with pretty much anything-- but as soon as they lost in the semi-finals and the season was over, that was gone and they were replaced by the next group of kids who had worked and dreamed of playing for Permian since they were children. Even the few who were able to play college football talk about how nothing was ever quite like playing for Permian.

Title:	Friday Night Lights
Author:	H. G. Bissinger
Date published:	1990
Genre:	Nonfiction
Number of pages:	367
Notes:	borrowed from Sapphire

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In this follow-up to Bloodring and Seraphs, Thorn once again finds herself battling the powers of Darkness. Even though she just helped the Seraphs defeat the Fallen Seraph Forcas, and freed the cherub Mistress Amethyst and her Seraph mate, they also barely contained a major darkness-- a dragon imprisoned under the Trine. In addition, a new mage has come to town-- supposedly to teach Thorn all the training she missed when she was forced to leave Enclave at such a young age, but he is arrogant and unpleasant, and she can tell there is something he is hiding from her.

For some reason, this book didn't seem quite as exciting or enthralling ad the first two; in some ways, it feels like a rehash of the things that have happened before. Once again, demon spawn attack the town, and they are organized, not just a mindless swarm. Thorn and her friends manage to fight them off with heavy casualties, and as before Thorn agonizes over whether or not to summon the Seraphs to help them fight, since that may cost the lives of the townsfolk. Thorn is also agonizing over her irresistible attraction to the Kylen, Thadd, and still won't make any decision about Eli's continued interest in her-- even though he reveals some interesting things about human-mage interactions and the joy or fear that can result. Thorn also continues to agonize (notice a pattern?) over her ex-step-daughter Ciana, who continues to do powerful things with the Seraph pin she wad given for protection-- who, apparently, is no longer quite human, along with her uncle Rupert, although we're never told exactly what they've become.

Eventually, there's another big drawn out battle. Thorn gets some new champards pledging to fight alongside her, and they do their best in a battle against all the odds. Thorn eventually comes face to face with the dragon-- and rather than a hideous beast, a "Big Bad Ugly," it is an angel of light, a fallen seraph, who tries to get her to join him. Thorn slips into the river of time again, and continues the fight there, resisting the power and seduction of the dragon Azazel. Eventually, after a lot of death and destruction and loss, the dragon is defeated.

The ending seemed particularly unsatisfying. There is some indication that one of the seraphs has been playing Thorn, manipulating her to accomplish his own ends-- but no explanation or more details. Similarly, we don't get any more answers (or even that many more hints or suggestions) about the true nature of the seraphs and cherubs, or what the mages are and why they came into existence. The book just ends with Thorn and her remaining champards recovering from battle, Thorn still not sure where things are going next or how she will sort our her relationships to them all. I almost thought Hunter was setting up yet another sequel with this open-ended conclusion, but I don't think that is the case either.

Title:	Host
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	340

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This book picks up a few weeks after Bloodring ends, with Thorn now exposed-- and licensed by the Archseraph-- as a Mage. Even though she basically saved the town, most of the people don't know it, and at least half the town is afraid of her, eventually calling her to trial in front of the town council. From her fight underground in the last book, she knows there is at least one seraph imprisoned under the Trine, and maybe a cherub, although Thorn seems to think she imagined that part; and a Darkness has some of her blood, which it is using to try to seduce and control her. Thorn keeps trying to contact Lolo, the mage who sent her into hiding, but instead her scrying keeps turning to truth spells, and she is having visions of her childhood when she was taken prisoner by a Fallen seraph, and also sees a vision of Lolo as a young woman. As you might expect, eventually Thorn has to do battle with the Darkness under the Trine again, and this time not only does she survive (despite almost dying a couple of times), she discovers that she is an "omega mage"-- whatever that is.

The plans set into motion by a Darkness in the last book take a big step forward. A Darkness under the Trine has captured a seraph and a mage (or perhaps corrupted some mages and turned them rogue), and is using these captives to birth an army of powerful, dark soldiers. They've also used the blood of Lucas, Thorn's ex-husband who was previously kidnapped and then rescued, in these demon spawn-- because Lucas is descended from the Mole Man, a hero generations ago who gave his life and blood to chain a great dragon under the Trine, and the Seraphs have sworn to protect the progeny of the Mole Man. This Dark army is bolder than ever, even coming so far as to come against Mineral City itself in a coordinated, planned attack, which is rare for the wild, uncontrolled dark creatures.

As before, Thorn gets pulled into a battle and goes under the Trine in an attempt to free the Seraphs and Cherub who are trapped. She almost dies more than once, she barely escapes being bound to the Fallen seraph Forcas, and she also finds herself joining with the seraphs to fight in the river of time, a spiritual or other-dimensional realm that the seraphs are surprised she can enter-- although it turns out they need the help of the one they call "little mage."

Among the many other things going on in the book, Thorn is contacted by members of the EIH, or Earth Invasion Heretics, who think that the Seraphs aren't actually angels from the book of Revelation, but some alien race come to conquer Earth. Parts of the story are told from the seraphs and cherub imprisoned under the Trine, and while the descriptions of these beings and their conversations together seems to fit with them actually being angelic creatures, there is just enough leeway that after finishing the book I started to wonder about this.

Fast-paced and enjoyable, this book was hard to put down-- although the ending is a little unsatisfying, as it is obviously setting things up for another sequel.

Title:	Seraphs
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	356

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Thorn St. Croix is a stone mage who draws her power from the leftover energy of creation, and she lives in a Post-Apocalyptic world unlike any I have ever read about or seen in a movie before. About a hundred years ago, seraphim came and rained down plagues and destruction, just like in the book of Revelation; but the Most High God never showed himself, so the people that are left don't know which religion is "right", and the seraphim don't concern themselves too much with humans, unless they start rioting and destroying each other; and to counter the angels, there are also demons and devil spawn that come out at night. In a world of "neomages" and Kylen, human and seraph cross breeds, Thorn must hide her identity and suppress her skin (which glows) in order to pretend to be human. Twice she sees a bloodring around the moon, a bad omen, and then strange things start happening, and it all seems to be centered on the nearby mountain, where a powerful Dark creature is taking hostages and working on some kind of evil plan.

Thorn lives somewhere in the Appalachian mountains, in a small town called Mineral City. She was raised in a mage Enclave in New Orleans, but when she came into her powers as a teenager, she began to hear all the thoughts of all the other mages, and it was driving her crazy-- so she was sent away for her protection, with amulets to protect her and make her look human.

Thorn's ex-husband is kidnapped, her step-daughter has been seeing a Daywalker, and eventually Thorn gets drawn into a huge fight with the darkness under the Trine, summoning seraphs to help in the fight. It all makes for a pretty fun, exciting read.

I don't think it's ever explained where the mages came from, just that they were "unforeseen." But, for some reason, they don't have souls. And the presence of seraphs or kylen makes a mage go into an irresistable heat. But Thorn works her magic through stones, drawing on the energies of creation, and she uses scripture verses as words of power when she fights.

I picked this book up because I had previously bought the second in the series when I saw it in a discount bin and thought it looked interesting (not realizing it was a sequel). I think the cover for this edition is pretty bad: it's not very appealing, and it's annoyingly inaccurate. Thorn is red-haired, and makes use of knives and swords (demon spawn are hard to kill and guns aren't much use), but she never dresses in tight black leather. She either wears layers of leggings and sweaters to hide all her stone amulets and wrist knive sheathes and for warmth (there's a mini-ice age going on), or she wears her black mage "dobok" for battle.

Title:	Bloodring
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	319

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This is the first time I can remember reading a book with a soundtrack playing along in my head. The musical is wonderful, so as I got to distinct events, the music was in my head. Quite interesting. Jean Valjean goes to prison as a young man for trying to steal a loaf of bread for his sister and her numerous children. He stays longer because of escape attempts, and when he finally gets out nobody will receive him because of his criminal's passport. A bishop takes him in for a meal and a night's sleep, but Valjean steals something valuable, is caught, and taken back to the bishop who says he forgot the silver. He 'buys his soul' for God, and after that Jean Valjean is a changed man who seeks to care for those around him, live honestly and make up for past evil.

Over and over, Valjean is shown to be a man who is strong beyond reason. He gets under a horse cart which has trapped a man and lifts it up by himself. He climbs a high wall by pushing himself up the corner where it meets another wall. He saved men in the quarries by various acts of strength. He saves Marius' life by carrying him through horrible conditions in the sewer for a great distance. And yet .. more than his physical strength .. the reader sees his character. This is, of course, shown most strongly in his care of Cosette, the daughter of Fantine, who he rescues and raises as his own with great affection and care. A man who was consistently treated as less than human in the quarries returns grace and mercy. Humanly speaking, that is not possible. This man exemplifies what a transformed life can be .. a second chance, used to the fullest, for the good of all those around him. Javert is another very intrigue character. He is a policeman and very just. For him all things fall easily into categories. One of which is that all criminals are evil and cannot be good. Throughout Jean Valjean's life, Javert continues to search for him to send him back to prison. When Valjean does something extraordinary, Javert can no longer fit him into the 'evil' box .. and something inside Javert crumbles. Valjean is the criminal turned benefactor, and Javert is the upright man who can no longer comprehend the world. What striking juxtaposition. A book worth reading again!

Title:	Les Miserables (abridged)
Author:	Victor Hugo
Date published:	1961
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	321
Notes:	repeat reading

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Watching Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" this spring made me think of Neuromancer and want to read it again, because what happens in the Dollhouse made me think of Molly and what little we are told of her history: how she worked at what the characters call a "meat palace" (like a doll but with a "cut out chip" and "software for whatever a customer wants to pay for"), to make money for all her enhancement surgery (blades under her nails, inset lenses over her eyes, enhanced reflexes, etc)-- but she starts remembering. Of course, that is just one small bit (half of a page) of what is a fascinating ride full of strange, fascinating, dark characters. Reading this book the second time, it was nice to have some idea where the narrative is heading; when you read it the first time, you're just as disoriented as Case, Molly, and the other characters are-- you don't know who has hired them or what job they are supposed to pull or why, and as the hints start coming it still takes a long time to find out who or what Wintermute might be.

This book creates a fascinating, dark world where human bodies are what everyone is upgrading, modifying, and accessorizing. Case is a "cowboy" who jacks into the matrix to hack in and pull jobs or heists; Molly is a razor-girl, a fighter. They're both hired by Armitage, who in turn has been hired and manipulated by an AI named Wintermute. In this high-tech world run by multinational corporations, there are strict limits on what AI software is allowed, and there are Turing police to enforce them. After gathering other recruits and the tools for the run (including a ROM construct of a dead cowboy Case used to know, the Dixie Flatline), Case and Molly head up to Freeside, the space satellite owned by the ancient and inbred Tessier-Ashpool clan-- who also happen to own Wintermute.

The end result of all the plotting and maneuvering is strangely beautiful and a little bit mysterious. The mother of the Tessier-Ashpool clan was a visionary, and saw that all the surgeries that could extend your life and going in and out of cryogenic suspension wasn't real immortality, and even though she was murdered by her brutal husband (he disagreed with her philosophy), she still managed to set up two very different AIs: Wintermute, adaptable and decision-making, manipulating events and people; and Neuromancer, who we only meet briefly near the end, who understands people and personality in a way that Wintermute cannot. And in the process, this dead woman plant the seeds for a new phase of evolution, or maybe something even grander.

There's lots of interesting things here (also plenty of violence and sexuality, dark, broken people doing disturbing things). It is strange to read it now and wonder how many words Gibson coined, and to notice the analogies that might not make sense to someone now because of how technology has changed-- like the sky "the color of television, tuned to a dead channel", which we know is static and grey, not the bright blue of "no signal" that is more common now. It's also pretty obvious what a huge debt "The Matrix" owes to this book-- not just the flipping and jacking in to the matrix, or the "simstim" that lets Case virtually ride along with Molly and feel everything she feels (including excruciating pain when she gets injured), but even the Rastafarian Zionite Maelcum and his tugboat spacecraft that ferries Case and the rest, and helps in the end-- to save "Steppin Razor", as he calls Molly, but not to get in the way of Babylon destroying itself.

Great, fascinating book, well-written-- much here to think about, but the language is also well-crafted (the imagery when Case is hacking through some particularly bad ICE is pretty cool). I'm glad I read it again, I think I understand it a little better now; makes me want to read more Gibson, which I'm not sure was the case the last time I read it.

Title:	Neuromancer
Author:	William Gibson
Date published:	1984
Genre:	Cyberpunk, Science Fiction
Number of pages:	271
Notes:	second reading

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The things you can learn from fairy tales! For instance, in reading these stories I discovered:

• Poor but beautiful peasant maidens who wish to marry well should get themselves cursed by an evil witch, and then they are bound to end up married to a king or a prince (although there may be some discomfort along the way)
• Young kings shouldn't go hunting or wandering in forests, as they are bound to run across a witch and bad things will happen to them as a result
• If a gnome, an animal, or a saint talks to you in the woods, it is best to be kind and generous to them
• Naive, fearless simpletons will either end up rich, married to princesses and heirs to kingdoms; or they will trade away their wealth for something worthless
• Saints and miracles intermix freely with magic
• Things are more likely to end well for you if you are the youngest sibling of three

It was a lot of fun to read these stories. Some were mostly-familiar versions of well-known tales, others were unfamiliar stories with echoes of the more familiar fairy tales, and others were just strange. In some cases, reading the stories again gave me a new perspective on them. For instance, there is the story of the old fisherman who catches a fish, and when the fish tells him that he is an ensorceled prince, the old fisherman releases him and goes on his way. But his wife wants something, and there begins a succession of ever greater houses and palaces and positions of power until the wife finally wants to be like God, and the old fisherman and his wife end up in their hovel again. I had always thought this meant they had met the limits of the powerful prince-fish's patience, but re-reading it this time I saw an alternate interpretation-- perhaps the fish actually gave them what they had asked for; it's just that they-- and we-- understand so little of what it means to live like God.

I borrowed this book from Abiel a few years ago (actually swapped it for one of mine), and she moved away before we managed to trade books back! I enjoyed reading the stories over several months, just a few stories at a time so I could take them in slowly.

Title:	The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimmm, Volume I
Author:	Jack Zipes (translator)
Date published:	1987
Genre:	Fairy Tale
Number of pages:	416
Notes:	loan from Abiel; read over many months

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This is the first time in a long time that I've picked up a play to read just for fun, but I saw this book on the shelf and it just called to me. Stoppard's writing is witty and brilliant and entertaining and moving. This play juxtaposes people in two different time period but in the same location-- in an English estate in the early 1800s, where renovations are being done to update the place to the latest fashions, and in the present day, where scholars are doing research on the historical materials from the earlier time periods. Hannah is studying the renovation of the gardens as a microcosm of the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism; Bernard is convinced there is a connection to Byron; and Valentine Coverley is hoping to use the centuries of grouse hunting logs as a dataset for his mathematical research. One of the most fascinating characters is Thomasina Coverley, a young girl who is a mathematical genius and intuits the second law of thermodnyamics long before anyone else (she sees that Newton's equations run the same forwards and backwards, but that a heat engine does not), and who sees that mathematical formulas can describe nature, like an apple leaf-- but she wants to learn to dance, to know what love is.

The layering of time and place here is brilliant; the landscape is being crafted by man, and then redesigned into the latest ideal of what is stylish or "picturesque." The contemporary and historic scenes are layered on top of each other, sharing the same room and even the same, overlapping props. As the play progresses, the papers and books and various objects get piled on top of each other, the layers of all the historical details and records that are left behind, the "trivia" that scholars dig into to try to find something of significance, to make a story of. Reading the play, it's a little hard to keep track of who all is in the room at the same time, when the two timelines start to overlap more (with even conversations overlapping), but the one time I saw the play performed this worked just brilliantly.

It's also fun to watch the scholars trying to make sense of the pieces they have left, the way they interpret things and try to make sense of it-- this is particulary entertaining because the audience has seen the history they are researching. Bernard says at one point, "There is a platonic letter which confirms everything-- lost but ineradicable, like radio voices rippling through the universe for all eternity." In this case, we find out later in the play that there actually was a letter, exactly like he described.

I love the way that Stoppard's stage notes and descriptions of scenes and characters are suggestive, but not exact or demanding-- it may be done this way or that. There is an overlapping character, Augustus/Gus Coverly in both time periods, who is apparently meant to be played by the same actor, and at one point he appears (in period costume, for a party), but the audience isn't supposed to know which Augustus it is until we see who responds to him.

Some favorite lines...

Thomasina: If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.

Hannah: A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion. The history if the garden says it all, beautifully. There's an engraving of Sidley Park in 1730 that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the age of reason. By 1760 everything had gone ... the whole sublime geometry was ploughed under by Capability Brown. ... And then Richard Noakes came in to bring God up to date.

Valentine: There was someone, forget his name, 1820s, who pointed out that from Newton's laws you could predict everything to come - I mean, you'd need a computer as big as the universe but the formula would exist.
Chloe: But it doesn't work, does it?
Valentine: No. It turns out the maths is different.
Chloe: No, it's all because of sex. ... That's what I think. The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean, it's trying to be, but the only wrong thing is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan.
Valentine: Ah. The attraction that Newton left out.

Thomasina: Well! Just as I said! Newton's machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely hidden in this gentleman's observation. ... The action of bodies in heat.

Valentine: She didn't have the maths, not remotely. She saw what things meant, way ahead, like seeing a picture. ... That you can't run the film backwards. Heat was the first thing which didn't work that way. Not like Newton. A film of a pendulum, or a ball falling through the air-- backwards, it looks the same. ... But with heat-- friction-- a ball breaking a window-- ... It won't work backwards. ... She saw why. You can put back the bits of glass but you can't collect up the heat of the smash. It's gone.

Title:	Arcadia
Author:	Tom Stoppard
Date published:	1993
Genre:	Drama
Number of pages:	97
Notes:	repeat reading

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A fascinating compendium of a variety of case studies and stories relating music and the brain--

• perfect pitch and why we don't all have it (and how some people associate tones with colors)
• musical hallucinations (losing hearing & hallucinating songs from years before)
• "amusia" - an inability to perceive one of the many components of music, the absence of which makes it impossible to appreciate music (there are so many things going on when we listen to music that we tend to just take for granted! rhythm, timbre, pitch, harmony)
• musical savantism
• people with severe amnesia or aphasia where music can be a tool to recover some of that lost function
• even brain damage that frees up musical creativity

The stories are fascinating and interesting for what they say about the complexity of music, as well as the brain and what it means to be human. I was a little disappointed that Sacks didn't make a stronger argument or concluding summary at the end about what all of these stories and details means, what it all adds up to; he basically concludes that all human cultures have some form of music and that some relation to music is intrinsically part of being human. Perhaps this was cut from the audiobook, but it seems unlikely they would cut something as crucial as that, which would tie things together a bit more, and try to make sense of the whole picture.

In any case, there are any number of fascinating stories here, and listening to them reminded me how we all have those "touches of madness," little bits or traits of these much stranger and more extreme cases that we start to notice in ourselves after reading or hearing about them. For instance, it never occurred to me that we have "auditory imagery," and that some people have much better musical imaginations than others-- to the point that some people can look at a musical score and hear the whole orchestra in their head. Another familiar experience is the auditory "afterimage", or the "earworm," the song that gets stuck in your head. Or the notion that there is latent musical ability in many of us, but it is inhibited because so much of our brain is taken up with sight and visual processing.

The fact that our culture is so saturated with music and noise all the time, and that so many of us pipe it directly into our ears makes me wonder what we are doing to ourselves, what long-term effects there will be, on our brains and our hearing and our sensitivity to music.

Listened to the audiobook.

Title:	Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Author:	Oliver Sacks
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Nonfiction / Science
Number of pages:	400
Notes:	listened to audiobook

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This book picks up pretty much where The Eyre Affair left off. It's still funny and entertaining, but I found it less engaging than the first book-- I think because it is a bit more fragmented and has too much going on. Thursday is being forced into doing PR for Spec-Ops because of her popularity after the events of the last book, but she isn't allowed to say anything that will make the Goliath corporation, the government, or Spec-Ops look bad, or that will offend the Bronte foundation-- which pretty much covers all the interesting parts of the story. In the meantime, someone is trying to kill her with coincidence, her husband Landen has been eradicated by the chronoguard and Goliath to force her to retrieve Jack Schitt (one of the villains from the last book) from the copy of Poe's The Raven that he was trapped in, and Thursday had been recruited to work for Jurisfiction (the enforcement group within books) and apprenticed to Miss Havisham (of Dicken's Great Expectations) to learn how to travel between books. Oh, and her father has warned her that in a few days everything is going to turn to pink goo and the world is going to end.

Lots (too many) of fascinating bits. There's a whole sub-subplot about neanderthal liberation-- they were resequenced from DNA, a bit like Thursday's pet dodo, but there is no place where they really fit into human society. This only comes into the story in a few places, and we learn a bit about how expressive their faces are, and their art perception-- but it doesn't go any further.

Another delightful detail is the "footnoterphone" which the Jurisfiction people use to communicate with each other-- Thursday keeps hearing voices that no one else hears, and they are presented to the reader as footnotes, which is humorous and a bit mind-bending. Thursday is also on trial within the world of Jurisfiction for changing the ending of Jane Eyre-- her lawyer contacts her via footnoterphone, and eventually the trial is held in the world of Kafka's The Trial, and Thursday makes use of her familiarity with Kafka to come through the bizarre, nonsensical trial just fine.

The repeated bouts of strange and deadly coincidences that keep happening to Thursday give Fforde the chance for some entertaining wordplay (e.g., a sequence of ordinary names that all sound like different ways to say goodbye). Thursday's uncle Mycroft theorizes that when a greater number of coincidences are happening, there is a local area of decreased entropy. As protection, he gives her an "entroposcope"-- a jar with rice and lentils mixed together, and when she shakes it and they start swirling or separating out, she's in danger. Sounds fun and plausible, and simple enough that I could build my own (not that I expect to be any danger of overpowering coincidences).

Entertaining and delightful characters, humor, wordplay-- but a little disappointing as a novel.

Title:	Lost in a Good Book
Author:	Jasper Fforde
Date published:	2002
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Thursday Next
Number of pages:	399

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Read this in a few months. All in Romanian! 40 days .. most less than 10 pages .. ending with a one sentence truth and question. Warren contends that we are here with 5 purposes in life .. worship, fellowship, discipleship, service and evangelism. Written by an American, challenging particular ways of thinking in America, it does a good job. Americans (as well as others) are trained culturally to seek pleasure, to seek the simple way out, to care for self first. But God did not create us to do such things! He created us for Himself, and has plans for our lives that can have long-term effects, not just make us happy today.

Warren writes in a style that is a bit inflammatory, making bold statements in order to provoke questions and thinking. Not everything that he writes is perfectly true (although, honestly, there are few authors or people who speak only truth), but overall many good points are made. Warren encourages the reader to be well-balanced, not simply to choose one thing and do it well. We are made to do each of the 5 things mentioned above, and while one or two will be much more natural, the Church is called to participate in all of them.

Title:	Viata Condusa de Scopuri (The Purpose Driven Life)
Author:	Rick Warren
Date published:	2002
Genre:	Spiritual
Number of pages:	332
Notes:	repeat reading

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In college, I was told that this is a book that is generally understood better as one matures and ages. That is true for me. I still don't get it all, but I understood more of it this time! Orual is the oldest of three daughters of a king in a small land. She is not beautiful, and is not treated well by those around her, but nor does she treat them well. Their father provides them with a Greek tutor who becomes like a father to them, caring for them and teaching them in a way that is very different than the beliefs of their people. There are variety of themes that run throughout the book .. religion vs. reason .. faith vs. knowledge .. and love of self vs. love of other. The youngest daughter, Psyche, is given as a sacrifice to the gods to save the people, and Orual finds herself in a fight with the gods over this .. and fights until the end of her life.

Lewis repeatedly and variously asks questions about love. What is love? Is love that is selfish really love? As humans how much can we love? Can humans understand divine love? What does love demands of others? These are almost all asked through story and not simply words. They (and Lewis' answers) are seen in the lives of characters, for either good or ill. Orual tells her own story, and of course she tells it as she sees it, through her own eyes. The reader confronts his own selfishness, the way that emotions and actions which are not really love are treated and conveyed as love. Human love is so far from divine love .. and we have no way to make it perfect or right. At the end Orual confronts the gods and is left speechless. As it should be. Except for the gracious gift that God makes to give us one to speak for us, we have no defense. A book worth reading and re-reading, giving its truth space to work its way down into one's soul.

Title:	Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
Author:	C. S. Lewis
Date published:	1956
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	313
Notes:	Repeat reading

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This book was recommended to me once when I attempted to describe Connie Willis' delightful To Say Nothing of the Dog-- another literary, time-travelling, mystery, genre-bending book (which both sapphire and I have read and love). It's taken me a while to get a hold of a copy to read, but it was just as entertaining as promised. Thursday Next, a veteran of the interminable Crimean war and survivor of the disastrous charge of the light armored brigade, now works in the Literary division of SpecOps, in an alternate history version of England where people seem obsessed with art and literature-- so many people have had their names changed to that of famous writers that they have to be registered and numbered to keep them straight, and there are rallies and mobs on the street about clashes between different periods and views of art. In the midst of this, a seemingly unstoppable villain named Acheron Hades has stolen an original Dickens manuscript and kidnapped Thursday's eccentric inventor uncle and aunt; as an act of terrorism and to demonstrate his power, Hades removes and kills a minor character from Dicken's Martin Chuzzlewit (and since it is the original, all copies of the book are affected), and when he isn't taken seriously enough, he steals the original manuscript of Bronte's Jane Eyre and Jane suddenly goes missing from her own book.

Thursday lives in a delightfully strange version of England. She has a pet dodo named Pickwick (cloned extinct animals were all the rage for pets), her father is a rogue chronoguard (another division of SpecOps) who can stop time and apparently time-travel at will. He drops in on his daughter every now and then and stops time and everyone around them so he can talk to her, and among other things, he apparently also works to fight the French revisionists who are literally rewriting English history. In one particularly delightful visit, he stops by to show Thursday a new, nutritious fruit that comes in its own "hermetically sealed biodegradable packaging" and mentions his plan to go back three thousand years-- after he leaves, Thursday realizes she has just learned about the invention of the banana, named after the woman who engineered it. There are also recurring arguments throughout the book about the real author of Shakespeare's plays, a mystery which Thursday's father resolves in a rather unexpected way.

In Thursday's world, there is also some permeability between the real world and books of fiction. As a child, Thursday once actually entered Jane Eyre and met Mr. Rochester when visiting the Bronte house, and once Acheron starts on his devious plan, she learns that there are other cases where characters have wandered out of the books they belonged in. It's mentioned more than once in the book that people generally found the ending to Jane Eyre unsatisfying and wondered why Jane didn't end up with Mr. Rochester but instead goes off with her missionary cousins. As soon as I read this, I figured that Thursday was somehow going to change this-- in the process of saving Jane from her villainous kidnapper, she would also end up changing the ending to the one that we, in our world, are familiar with. Of course she does, but how she gets there-- and the response from all of Bronte's readers-- makes for an entertaining and satisfying ride.

Thursday is a strong female character, and part of her eventual success against Acheron is a result of the way she sticks to her guns and helps other people out. When she starts working in Swindon, she meets Spike, the one-man SpecOps-17 team who handles werewolves and vampires. When a call for help comes across the wire that all the other SpecOps agents have gotten used to ignoring, Thursday goes to his aid. And one little memento from that encounter turns out to be instrumental later on.

There's also a bit of a love story, and in the end Thursday gets some help via Mr. Rochester and a couple of other grateful characters from Jane Eyre, who help set things right with her former fiance and end this book the way comedies traditionally ended-- with a wedding.

Title:	The Eyre Affair
Author:	Jasper Fforde
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Alternate History / Fantasy
Series:	Thursday Next
Number of pages:	374
Notes:	recommended by Tavishi and others

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A story of a young woman who chose to follow God to Eastern Europe, almost immediately after Communism fell. She moved to Romania for a year with 3 other teammates, living, studying, and evangelizing among college students. Because things were so unsettled, life was indeed very interesting. But God showed up in some astounding and beautiful ways. During that first year, she felt God asking her to stay longer, so she stayed another 4 years. After that, she spent another 5 years living in Hungary and traveling around a number of countries throughout Eastern Europe. because the countries in this part of the world had been so closed, when Communism fell, the hunger for God and truth was immense. Hearing the story of someone who was part of God's answer to that hunger and search is encouraging and refreshing.

Because I currently live in Romania, I understand some of what she speaks about .. the culture, the language, the history. Things have changed dramatically in the almost 20 years since Communism fell, so my time here has been less dramatic and exciting than hers was. And I think I'm glad for that! God is still working here .. perhaps a bit less dramatically, but still powerfully and wisely. I am glad for those who have gone before among these people and this culture, planting seeds and watering them. God's Kingdom is always a work in progress, and it's a joy to take part in any of it!

Title:	We Wait You: Waiting on God in Eastern Europe
Author:	Taryn Hutchison
Date published:	2008
Genre:	Autobiography
Number of pages:	219
Notes:	Given by my parents

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A young boy is growing up in an Arab family in Palestine, with a father full of pride and anger toward the Jews who will not give them their land. This young boy is very good at surviving, although he doesn't always keep his pride. Because he does well on a test at school, he is given the opportunity to attend a Jewish boarding school and receive excellent training. He doesn't want to go, but his father won't let him back out. So he goes to the Jewish school, but to survive he ends up working to blend in. He can fade into either culture, and does so throughout his life. But .. as with anyone who lives in two cultures .. the question then becomes if he belongs in either one.

Kashua gives a wonderful picture of Arabic life. Narrative-style .. not by explaining or show and tell .. but simply by putting the reader in the room with events as they happen. Enough is explained to understand something very 'other' from what I know, but not so much that one is ever bored. The stories are told vignette style, with pieces and chunks missing. But everything flows together beautifully. I remember Larq talking about how fantasy or science fiction works when authors have so crafted the respective world or culture that slang and expectations about how life works. These rules or expectations are taken for granted, in a way. Which is true of Kashua's writing as well. Things which he has experienced, growing up in similar places to the main character, make some things 'commonplace' for him that I have never experienced in my life. The reader is given a gift in this glimpse into daily life. Not just important events or big stories .. but family relationships, village etiquette, violence, religious rituals .. this book is worth savoring, both for the writing style and the cultural learning to be gained simply by reading a story.

Title:	Dancing Arabs
Author:	Sayed Kashua
Date published:	2002
Genre:	Fiction, Cultural
Number of pages:	227
Notes:	Given by Jude

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An entertaining, if all too brief, escapade with the crew of Serenity. Presumably set sometime during the days of "Firefly," when all the characters we know and love are on board, this story finds the crew pulling off a heist and being the first guinea pigs to come up against a new, sophisticated, automatic anti-theft/crime-prevention device. They do manage to outwit it, and when they go to sell what's left of it, the cache they are sent to retrieve as payment ends up being far more money than they ever expected. So, interspersed with the rest of the story, as they are being chased down by the makers of the anti-crime machine and Mal or Zoe is being tracked down as a "dust devil" terrorist after the war ended, we also get to see the various dreams of how the different crew members would like to spend their share of the money-- sometimes serious, sometimes joking just to get a reaction, and sometimes downright strange..

The artwork is generally gorgeous but I found it a little uneven, because there were a few points where I wasn't quite sure for a moment or two who a particular character was supposed to be-- usually it was a matter of context or not enough detail, and I eventually figured it out from the story or dialogue-- but it made me realize [again] how much you lose, when you go from actors who all give life to their characters with their voice and bearing, in addition to the way they look.

The "dream" sections when the various characters are telling what they'd want to do with the money are all pretty entertaining, and it seems like it probably gave the artists some more interesting things to portray than they might otherwise get to draw in the serenity-verse. River's fantasy, particularly, is quite strange-- but what makes it fit perfectly is Zoe's wry response (I can just hear her saying it) that now her idea is taken.

The other interesting detail is that somehow, by the end of the story, the money has somehow been stolen. The only one who catches on is Inara-- she notices that Mal never shared what he wanted to do with the money, and guesses that having his crew leave him is the last thing he wants. It's well-written and subtle, but quite clear and insightful into Mal, at the same time.

Title:	Serenity: Better Days
Author:	Joss Whedon; art by Brett Mathews, Will Conrad, and Adam Hughes
Date published:	2008
Genre:	Science Fiction / Graphic Novel
Series:	Firefly/Serenity-verse
Number of pages:	80

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Perhaps the best of all of Mary Stewart's many suspenseful romance novels. Linda Martin has been living in England for the last 10 years, ever since she was orphaned. She returns to France (where she was born and spent her childhood years before her parents died) to take a job as a governess caring for the nine year old Comte de Valmy, Philippe. Her employers are Philippe's aunt and uncle: the beautiful but cold and distant Heloise, and the virile, forceful Leon-- a handsome, powerful man who was crippled in an accident years before, and since then has devoted his great, wheelchair-bound energies to running the Valmy estate. Because Linda is so set on getting back to France and away from her dismal life in England, shes conceals from her employers that she is half French and speaks the language quite well, and she tells herself it was just a silly impulse; but when things start to go wrong around her young charge, the situation begins to seems more sinister, and she wonders if her instincts were right.

There are lots of literary allusions throughout the text, and even the title is a reference to a line of poetry (where a young woman is being seduced by riches and luxury, but is hurrying "to the devil"). The allusions that are woven into the text don't seem as out of place as they might, though, because they are a part of the main character and narrator. At one point, Linda reflects to herself,

"I was sharply grateful to Daddy for making poetry a habit with me. ... Daddy had been right. Poetry was awfully good material to think with."

This is part of what makes the novel work so well: Linda and Leon are both aware of the similarity of their situation to that of Jane Eyre, and Leon suggests to others that he is a fallen angel, Milton's devil.

Soon, Linda meets and then falls in love with Leon's son, Raoul. Like his father, he is dark and handsome and powerful, and can turn on his immense charm at will. The relationship between Linda and Raoul (and people's perceptions of it, the servant's gossip) plays perfectly into the plot of the book, and become part of the plots against Philippe. The most difficult thing for Linda is that, she doesn't know if she can trust the man she loves. She still loves him, and if it were only her, she would take the chance, but when she tries to look at events and the evidence she has heard objectively, she sees that it could be read either way, and she dare not risk a child's life on the impulse of her own love. How she deals with this struggle and the outcome of her decisions is believable and touching.

It occurred to me after finishing the book that all the main characters are orphans, to some extent. Linda and Philippe are obviously so: their parents are dead, and they have to be cared for by people who don't care about them (or maybe even hate them and wish them harm). But Raoul is also a kind of orphan-- his English mother died long ago, and his crazy, hurtful, megalomaniac father may be worse than no father at all.

I don't think I noticed it before, but the chapters of the book are grouped and labeled as coaches, starting with the first and working up to the ninth. As far as I can tell, each of these sections actually does have a significant "coach" or car ride: Linda's taxi ride in Paris to see the old apartment where she had lived with her parent, the silent ride from Paris out to the country and Valmy, the fateful first meeting with Raoul on the mist-covered bridge, the outing with Raoul, the nerve-wracking car chase in the dark, Linda's final meeting with Raoul on the same bridge in a scene that echoes their first encounter perfectly. This structure perfectly plays out the title and its reference to a young woman being hurried to the devil.

This is my mother's favorite of all Mary Stewart's romance novels (maybe of any of her novels); I think it is probably the first one I ever read.

Title:	Nine Coaches Waiting
Author:	Mary Stewart
Date published:	1958
Genre:	Mystery/Romance
Number of pages:	342
Notes:	repeat reading; gift from Jane

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