So incredibly creepy and gross and horrible and UNPUTDOWNABLE. Do not read this at home, alone, at night, in the dark, in a creeky house. I warned you.
Really horrible and icky and TOTALLY ENTRANCING.
If you like Hannibal Lector-type stuff, well, this kept me entertained even moreso than those. Freaky!!!
Another collection of his “what I read vs. what I bought” essays for The Believer (yes, the very essays I refer to every month when I show you my lists! albeit without commentary).
I always find these fun (see here for one I read last year). I also find they are dangerous because I always wind up adding to my “something I should read” someday lists, which are dangerous things for a person with my shall we call them “spending propensities” when she walks by a million bookstores every day. Dangerous!
Just a little reminder to myself to go pick up “Skellig” by David Almond, apparently voted the third greatest children’s book of the last seventy years. Here’s what Hornby had to say: “I can tell you that it’s one of the best novels published in the last decade, and I’d never heard of it. Have you?”
This book was just outright fantastic. FANTASTIC!!! Highly recommended.
An epistolary novel (sigh. I have such a weakness for those!) relating the story of young writer who finds herself corresponding with a group of Guernsey natives, learning of their experiences during the German occupation. Charming, poignant, moving. It’s romantic and sad and just really really lovely.
Best book I’ve read this year, hands down (and although I read it in January, I still think that now in March when I’m finally telling you about it).
More vampire fantasy. Takes place in modern day NYC so you know I’m lovin that. I would say it’s better written than the Meyer books. Also a female main character. Not quite as emotional. And more “good guys”; girl is not as much of a loner. But still feels very true to “teendom”.
If you like reading vampire fantasy type stuff, I can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t want to read this(these).
Although there’s one twist that I’m pretty sure is a lie; i.e., the characters all believe it, but I definitely don’t. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out as the trilogy continues.
My Favorite Ten Books of 2008 Were:
(in chronological order of my reading, with links to my Snip reviews)
And if you’d like to hear more ruminations on things I read last year, you can check out the full year-end wrap-up post over here.
I could have asked him what was wrong, pointed out the obvious, but why do that? That might lead to an open, frank discussion about our future, and who wants that with a man you’re about to marry?
–Clare O’Donohue “The Lover’s Knot.
Or with any man, really.
A sweet little story by the author of the amazing His Dark Materials series (for which my love knows no bounds).
It doesn’t have the deep mythology those do, but it has a pretty sharp social message nonetheless.
It’s possible you remember me going to my parents’ house for Christmas 2005 and re-reading all my mom’s Cherry Ames books, ’50s novels about a girl who becomes a nurse and inadvertently solves little mysteries. (See the end of the 2005 reading list or the beginning of 2006 or search for Cherry Ames on this page.)
And then I got back to Chicago and went a little crazy on eBay buying up copies for myself. And then I found that the women who wrote Cherry Ames also wrote books about a flight attendant named Vicki Barr.
I don’t find them quite as enthralling as the Cherry Ames series (I say this one book in), but it could be because when I read Cherry Ames I am enthralled with all this childhood nostalgia and that’s just not present reading the Vicki books for the first time. But they’re still fun. Full of totally non-PC sexist garbage that can either make you mad (eh, why bother) or make you laugh (that’s my response), they’re almost pedantic. Were they written to be pseudo instructional books for girls on possible careers? Be a Nurse (in Ames’ case) / Flight Attendant (Barr) and Solve Mysteries! YAY! 🙂 Ha!
Gifted to me by Ginger.
A lot of people in these stories have reached their limit and the story concentrates on them at their last efforts, their last decisive actions. The woman in Sinking House, Zoltan in The Human Fly, Anthony in King Bee. More based in reality (or “our” reality) than say the Greenman stories I read earlier in the month, but that just makes the unexpected even more jolting when it happens.
Really good, I’ll definitely be seeking out more T.C. Boyle.