I know this is one of those books that people really really love.  People in the lit blogosphere, characters in books, a lot of people real and fictional.  Sadly, I am not among them.  I really had to drag my way through this book.  the best character in the book is introduced in the most horrifying way!  Marian, the half sister of the perfect and lovely Laura Fairlie.  It's only Laura's love for Marian that keeps the poor girl from being homeless and destitute.  Oh, but I'm getting ahead of myself, here.

I guess this is considered an epistolary novel, although it's not so much letters as legal witness statements and journal entries.  The narrative goes through a variety of characters, so you see the story play out through the eyes of whoever is in the thick of the action at the time.  Was this book revolutionary at the time it was written?  It didn't hold any surprises for me and I found nothing to like about it. I was so disappointed.  Other than Marian, who is pretty great, none of the characters really had me rooting for them. I didn't find the suspenseful parts very suspenseful and I didn't' think the payoff of the big reveal made any of it worthwhile.  I may just be griping about a perfectly good book, but when they don't work for me, they really don't work for me. 

My own presuppositions probably ruined this book for me.  I was so excited to read it after I'd heard or read it mentioned so glowingly.  By making much of the narrative be what seemed like part of the police file, or more like part of court proceedings on the incident (which shouldn't have existed in this matter as per the narrative itself), it was awfully dry.  Only when William Hartright tells his part of the story, what with him being all lovesick and passionate, oh, and Marian's tortured diary entries, do you get any feeling at all.  You've got some nasty noblemen and rotten family members who throw some wrenches in the works and depending on their stake in the matter the wrenches just gum up the works or are pretty mercenary and malicious. The whole woman in white/Laura Fairlie mystery, which should have been a big deal, considering the title of the novel and all, wound up just being a MacGuffin. 

So, all in all, I'm glad I've put this book behind me.  My newest Daily Lit is The Count Of Monte Cristo, and I'm hoping it lives up to the hype.

Colfer is the author of the Artemis Fowl series, but this book is definitely a departure from the Artemis books. Airman is darker and bleaker than any of Artemis' adventures. Conor Broekman lives in the Saltee Islands at the beginning of the islands renaissance.  His father is leader of the king's guard and his best friend is the princess.  He is also a friend of the king and treated very warmly by him. One day Conor witnesses the king's murder by the Marshall Bonvilian and is framed for the murder.  Conor is imprisoned and forced to work in the Saltee diamond mines. 

Conor has always dreamed of flying and spent much of his childhood making kites and gliders in an effort to understand flight. Once imprisoned, he keeps sane by planning his escape and inventing a way to fly.  He draws his plans on the walls of his cave/cell.  He's smart enough to make his imprisonment work for him.  He manages to work the system and make friends with the right people.

After Conor's escape he has to find a way to remove the diamonds he's hidden on the island. There are eight bags of diamonds and Conor can only remove one at a time. The only way to get back onto the island is to fly and he certainly doesn't want to be recaptured.  Conor sets up his lab and begins to build his flying machine.  He has big plans to save his name, his family and see Bonvilian brought to justice.

This was not an easy book to read. As I said before it's dark and grim.  Conor is just a kid and becomes the pawn of a hardened criminal looking for ultimate power. He's no match for all the tools in Bonvilian's arsenal.  He's a boy imprisoned in a savage and cruel environment.  If you can get through the first half, the second is worth it. Conor Broekhart is a fascinating character, smart and strong and brave.  The fulfillment of his dreams makes the first have of the book survivable.  But, this is not for the faint of heart.  I spent as much time horrified by what I was reading and wanting to throw it aside as I did rooting for Conor when things finally started to go his way.

This book is based on the premise that letters and journals of Jane Austen and her family are found in an attic.   Piecing them together, along with what's known about Austen and many of the questions that remain unanswered about her life and her writing James tells a fascinating story.  What if Jane Austen fell in love? What if she had her own Mr. Darcy? What if she really did know about love and passion? 

I'm sure this will sound strange, but I put this book in a category with Christopher Moore's Lamb.  I'd like this to be Jane Austen's story. This is the way I want to think of her life.  Since no one knows for sure, why can't this be the version of her life that I believe in?  Lamb tells a fictionalized story of Jesus during those 20 or 30 years that are left out in the bible.  I want this to be what Jesus was like.  And, in the same vein, I'd like to think that Jane Austen met a man and fell in love and let her experiences color her work. 

Here is a combination of fact, fiction, conjecture, all leading to a really enjoyable story.  I didn't know what to expect from this one and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Plum Lucky is another "between the numbers" holiday book featuring Stephanie Plum.  Although I love her ongoing struggle with love and the men in her life, I'm just as happy to read these books where Joe and Ranger are mostly absent and play no part in the plot.  They can never be replaced, of course, but that doesn't mean that I can't be distracted by Diesel, the otherworldly mystery man who recruits Stephanie to help him with some of his trickier cases.

This time out Grandma Mazur has found a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, in the form of a duffel bag filled with money. The money was liberated from a well known local mobster who wants it back.  The money, along with a retired racehorse were stolen by Snuggy O'Connor, former jockey and current con man, who believes himself to be a leprechaun and able to speak to horses.  Diesel enlists Stephanie's help to hunt down Snuggy.  Even Diesel with his strange "powers" may not be fully up to the task when Grandma Mazur is in the center of the chaos.  Stephanie chases Grandma to Atlantic City and so does everyone else.   Then the chase is on to see who winds up safe and sound, who gets the money and just what is the deal with Snuggy and the horse?

These books can be gobbled up in one sitting, are filled with silliness and adventure and make for a great way to spend an evening.  I'm a sucker for a Stephanie Plum story.  Now, I just need to wait to see what comes next.

This was a combination of two things I like very much, Daily Lit and Jane Austen.  This was a reread for me.  Despite that I have beautiful copies of all of Austen's works, I rarely take the time to reread books, even when I really want to.  Dailylit.com provides me the opportunity to reread many of the classics without cutting into my normal reading time.  I get a snippet emailed each day.  I generally try to read a chapter at a time and I can usually find the time to squeeze a bit in each day.  It's wonderful that this is one story that I love as much on film as on the page. 

This is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.  The two grown sisters in the Dashwood family. Their father passed away, leaving them, along with their mother (Mr. Dashwood's second wife) and their younger sister Margaret to find living arrangements they can afford with their small inheritance.  Mr. Dashwood's property is entailed to his son, John.  John, in the movie is slightly more likable than the one in the book.  Austen's idea of John was that he was just as shallow and self-centered as his wife, Fannie. 

The Dashwood women find a home on the estate of Mrs. Dashwood's cousin, Sir John.  Once established in their new surroundings, Elinor and Marianne leave the delightful company of Edward Ferrars, but manage to make the acquaintance of one of the nicest and kindest characters in literature, Colonel Brandon, and, of course, the handsome, charming, morally bankrupt Willoughby. 

I can't do this book justice by discussing it here. All of Austen's work is delightful.  I enjoy every page, every time.   The characters are lovely, the stories so sweet.  It seems strange that such chaste romance can hold up so well today.  I'm imaginative enough to think what I'd like to happen after I turn the last page.  I'm a sucker for good people and certainly for a happy ending.  Austen gives us both, in spades.

This is a sequel to Tithe and was another really great tale by Holly Black.  Kaye sets out to make things right.  She is a changeling, a disguised faerie that replaces a real child in the real world.  Kaye had no idea who, or even what she was until it turned out that she was a sacrifice to end a faerie war.  She discovered the world of faerie, understood who she was and what it meant and she fell in love with the equivalent of a faerie prince, Roiben.

Now, Roiben's coronation is approaching. There is still some discord among the faerie factions and danger is ever present.  At the coronation, Kaye is tricked into believing that she should publicly declare her love for Roiben. When he responds by sending her on a seemingly impossible quest, to find a faerie who can lie, she's not sure if she's being rejected, but she's determined to end up victorious.  Despite the drama, trauma and turmoil of Tithe, Black finds a way to help her characters heal, or maybe repair and move on with their lives. 

I enjoyed this book.  I think that Black has a flair for the material. She writes modern faerie, a completely unorthodox concept, and she does it so well.   I'd be interested in reading more about modern faerie and it's colorful inhabitants.

Valerie is an unhappy girl who leaves home and heads into New York City.  There she befriends a group of kids living in an unused subway tunnel.  Lolli, Luis and Dave have been on their own and taking care of each other for some time.  It doesn't help that they have a horrible love triangle, filled completely with unrequited love.  Val helps to break some of that up for them, but the kids have had a pretty rough time of it.  They've seen a side of the city that most people very rarely see, if ever.  It's not just the seedy underbelly of a thriving metropolis, but another world entirely which overlaps in some sections of the city.

Exiles from Faerie are living in Central Park and the supplies they need are not readily available.  There is one person who the faerie people are dependent upon, a troll named Ravus.  Val winds up exposed to this world by making deliveries to the faerie people scattered around the city.  One of the supplies is something the Lolli refers to as Nevermore, a drug with magical and addictive qualities.  Val experiments with the drug and when looking for some answers she meets Ravus.  To save the lives of her new friends she makes a deal with the troll.  That changes her entire life.

I think I preferred this to the rest of Black's faerie novels.  I like Val and I like the commitment and the loyalty she shows for Ravus.  I also like that there is some intersection with the rest of Black's faerie characters.  I'm definitely on board for Black's next book.  Most stories of this kind take place in totally unplaceable time periods, which is generally a selling feature for this kind of tale.  But, here I am finding that a faerie tale which is clearly contemporary is just as fascinating and, in fact, is so compelling and interesting that I want to believe it could be true, not just pretend it could have been true centuries ago.

This was another of the numerous review copies that I have to make my way through.  Mr. Wallace would probably approve of the fact that I read a nice portion of this book while traveling on a train and even used a train ticket as a bookmark.  Not intentionally, but it worked out like that and I did note the coincidence.  Wallace has a real flare for words and this was the first of the books offered to me by this media company that wasn't filled with typos and glaring errors. I attribute this to the author and I must add, well done. 

Once again, there is the glaring evidence of no editing.  What Wallace wrote was more like two books, plenty of the material he included, didn't seem like it really belonged here.  The actual story that he intended to tell, he told well and was plenty for the book.  All the extra stuff would make an interesting book of his reflections, or essays on his thoughts about things. It was obvious that he put a great deal of thought into his essays and they were interesting to read, but too many of them felt like they were out of place in this book.  They were cumbersome and detracted from the story of the trip.

This book wasn't perfect, but I really only have little nitpicky problems with it, odd lingo and in need of some editing, but his story was fascinating and he tells it really well.  His narrative voice reminded me a lot of some of my uncles and it made it easy to catch onto his jokes.  He didn't shy away from when he was crabby and not behaving well, he told his tale showing all the good and not quite so good in him.  It took courage and he obviously had a lot of support and help from his family, which showed throughout the book.

This was the book that completely threw off my plan to alternate between review copies and library/personal books.  I was off to a good start, sort of. Then this book ruined everything for me.  I really did try to go in with an open mind, and I think I did have one, too.  Honestly, the concept of the book itself, taking into account the author and his intended arguments shouldn't have really been so hard to swallow. Then I started to read the book.

The concept is that young people start out liberal but become conservative as they age.  He claims a saying or commonly held opinion that if you are young and not liberal, you have no heart and if you are older and not conservative, you have no brain.  I find this offensive on a number of levels.  I can be expected to be bias, I would imagine, because I make no excuses for my very strong political opinions.  I also like to consider myself to be a fairly impartial thinker. I try to look at everyone's side of the story and understand other viewpoints whether or not I agree with them.  But, this was the most frustrating book I've ever read.

For one, it is a glorified term paper.  Are there no more editors?  My goodness, this guy needed one.  He goes on and on telling the reader how he is not qualified to make these arguments.  Then he proves it.  After every paragraph I wanted to throw the book.  I wound up with many adjunct college professors who spent the first class session explaining that they couldn't teach, and the rest of the semester proving it.  That's how I felt about this book.  Lipsman claims that this is the way it is, then explains that he is the only person like this in all of his assorted groups.  So, he lives a life where his concept is untrue, but he still is compelled to try to prove it. All the while contradicting himself as he back pedals.  It really was unnerving and annoying.

I know this is totally a classic, but somehow I haven't read Pyle's version of the King Arthur saga.  King Arthur and Camelot is one of my most favorite subjects. I have an enormous copy of Mallory's definitive work, the one all the others I've read have been culled from, but it is so intimidating that it remains on the shelf unread.  Partially, it's the same problem I have with War and Peace, the book is so big that it can't really travel with me, it's meant to move from my nightstand to my lap and back again each night.  This makes things a little difficult since I like to read on the move, so to speak.  I spend most lunch hours with a book in my hand and I can't be dragging some 20 pound, 1000 plus page books around in my purse  or tote.  I would probably have excellent upper body strength if I did, though.  I miss that.  I did gymnastics for 12 years, so I never had a problem with the women and upper body strength issue.  My brother claims that I am freakishly strong, which I am determined to think of as a compliment, despite the work that requires, but I certainly do not have the strength I did as a gymnast.  Oh, but I've gotten miles away from the subject at hand again, haven't I?

I watch and read pretty much anything about King Arthur.  One of my all-time favorite books is The Once And Future King  by T.H. White.  I've read Steinbeck's thoughts on Arthur as well as Meg Cabot's, Mary Stewart's, etc.  I've watched Disney's The Sword in the Stone, where Wart reminds me a little of my college boyfriend, who was, I assure you, much older. I can't even begin to rattle off the list of movie names that I've seen with even a passing resemblance to the story and characters that I adore.  

Pyle's version, like all of them, differs slightly from its peers.  It has far less magic and far more fighting than I anticipated and, the language seemed a little silly and archaic at times, considering that it wasn't written all that long ago.  This is a true classic, though.  If you want to dip a toe into King Arthur and his world, this is a great place to start.  I think I got a better understanding of Morgan La Fay here.  She's one of the more variable characters in the books.  She's often treated as villain and, occasionally as victim.  It's interesting to see how she is portrayed by the various authors. 

A 21st century woman goes to bed depressed after nursing her broken heart and wakes up to find herself living  in Jane Austen's lifetime.  So, this isn't great literature by any stretch of the imagination.  It was however, an enjoyable little diversion.  Courtney Stone's love of all things Austen, combined with her modern day savvy make for a very interesting story.

Courtney must pretend to be the 19th century girl that she is definitely not.  She uses her knowledge of the time period, which comes strictly from Ms. Austen's works to pretend to fit in.  She gives the reader a glimpse into the time period and creates a story that any fan of Austen's works can read and feel like you know how it would be if this sort of thing were remotely possible.

Courtney finds a way to get into plenty of trouble while she puts together the pieces of her life and decides what she really wants to do when she gets back to it.  But, up until then she has to learn to negotiate the time she's in and that means she has to act the part, lest she wind up locked up, and she has to keep from ruining the life of the body she's living in.  It's no easy feat.

This is book two in the Gallagher Girls series. The Gallagher Girls are adolescent spy girls in training at an exclusive private school. As far as the community is concerned it's a snooty private girls' boarding school, but these girls are far more than meets the eye.  Once again, Cammie Morgan, spy in training and daughter of the head master  is our protagonist.  She's still smarting over the nice boy she met and fell for in I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You.

It's a new school year and the school is going through some big changes. The girls start out being put into competition with their boy counterparts. Then, the boys come to the Gallagher school and throw a wrench into all the works.  Of course, one of the new boys is a problem.  He's very smart, very attractive and possibly the enemy.

Cammie and the gang are smart and interesting. I like that the books are a really fun adventure for a girl to follow along vicariously.  It think the rest of the girls get short shrift, though.  There are more Gallagher girls and plenty of stories possible for Cammie's pals.

I saw the movie with The Handsome Honey (now the ex-handsome honey) and his son Lil' A.  I had read the first two books prior, but certainly didn't know what to expect.  It turned out that the reason we had to see the movie was because Lil' A couldn't figure out how to win the video game and hoped he'd get some good hints from the movie.  The kids in the movie were very cute and I could see them as Mallory, Jared and Simon. 

In The Seeing Stone the kids find Mr. Spiderwick's hidden study and they meet Thimbletack, who teaches them a lot about Spiderwick's work and what the kids are in for.  The boys have possession of Spiderwick's book explaining how everything works in the supernatural world surrounding his house.  The problem is that this book is extremely valuable to whoever has it.  It was thought lost with its author, but now that it's been made common knowledge that the book has a new owner, it's an all out war to get the book and destroy the Grace children in the process.

It's hard to give a detailed description of the book, considering that they are such slim little tales.  I'm currently waiting for book three to come in for me at the library.  I'm going to wait to see how it will all work out.

This book is subtitled The Further Further Confessions of Georgia Nicholson.  It picks up with diary entries just as the last book ended.  Georgia Nicholson is sort of a adolescent Bridget Jones.  She's a totally self-absorbed teenaged girl. She's boy crazy and slightly insane.   I don't think these are the the best books I've ever read, but they certainly are enjoyable.  I think the best part of the books is the little sister who totally cracks me up.

Georgia has finally made Robbie the sex god her official boyfriend, but she keeps finding herself attracted to Dave the Laugh and mostly they wind up attached at the lips.  She's got a lot of thinking to do, and luckily, it's all about herself, her strong suit.

Christopher Moore is some kind of nutty genius.  He does a great job of beginning to fill the void left by Douglas Adams. Somehow, no matter how strange the premise seems to be, it keeps getting more and more bizarre, pulling you in.  Once he's got you hooked, he drags you along on the craziest thrill ride unimaginable.

Tucker Case is a screw up.  He's a pilot whose last hope for employment is working for Mary Jean Cosmetics.  When he manages to screw things up for Mary Jean, a formidable woman, he goes on the run, accepting a piloting job for a shady company.  Not only does he not know what he's getting himself in for, he is such a bumbler that he stumbles into an organ theft ring on a tiny Micronesian island.

Tucker is put up on one side of the island, living a secluded but luxurious life.  He doesn't realize that he's a glorified prisoner and a pawn in the sick game of the titular love nun and her surgeon husband.  They hope that the money is enough to keep him from asking too many questions.  His being such a screw up is a point in his favor.  On the other side of the island live peaceful and happy natives who have the misfortune of being the organ pool for the ring. 

Once Tucker meets the natives and discovers the plan, he decides to get his act together and try to stop them.  It's about this time that the story goes from incredible to thrill ride.  Only Moore can come up with this tale.

This book takes place in the 1800s in the Northern Territories in Canada.  Mrs. Ross stumbles onto a murder scene.  The local trader, a frenchman named Laurent Jammet has been brutally killed in his cabin.  Mrs. Ross goes for help, but doesn't realize until after the investigation gets rolling that the most likely suspect is her missing son.   When trackers are called in, Mrs. Ross knows that she has to go with them and find her son.

This book was on the longlist for the Orange Prize, and I think that's why I read it.  It was nothing that I would have expected.  There is a lot going on. Mrs. Ross's history is tragic and didn't really improve when she agreed to marry Mr. Ross and live in the middle of nowhere.  Her son, Francis has quite the backstory too.  In fact, all the characters in this book have these huge dramatic backstories and find themselves in the Northern Territories, living these, generally, quiet and uneventful lives.  Then the murder of the Jammet takes these people all out of their deep freeze and brings all of their pasts back to haunt them.  Mental institutions, long standing sexual identity crises, the inability to find missing girls, the list goes on.

I can't even begin to describe this book.  It earned its place on the Orange list.  It defies description, but will certainly keep you turning the pages to see how it all plays out for all of these poor, tortured souls.

January

1. T is for Trespass  by Sue Grafton
2. Pride and Prejudice  by Jane Austen
3. Animal Farm by George Orwell
4. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
5. The Confessions of Max Tivoli  by Andrew Sean Greer
6. Little Women  by Louisa M. Alcott
7. Great Joy  by Kate DiCamillo
8. Imagined London  by Anna  Quindlen
9. Cat's Cradle  by Kurt Vonnegut
10. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging  by Louise Rennison
11. On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God  by Louise Rennison
12. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas  by John Boyne
13. The Little Princess  by Frances Hodgson Burnett
14. Tithe  by Holly Black
15. Coraline  by Neil Gaiman
16. Thanksgiving  by Janet Evanovich
17. My Antonia by Willa Cather
18. Shiloh  by Phylis Reynolds Naylor

February

19.   Dating is Murder by Harley Jane Kozak
20.   13 Little Blue Envelopes  by Maureen Johnson
21.   Everything is Illuminated  by Jonathan Safran Foer
22.   The Stranger by Albert Camus
23.   Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures  by Vincent Lam
24.  Faeries of Dreamdark:  Blackbringer  by Laini Taylor
25.  The Story of King Arthur and His Knights  by Howard Pyle
26.  Plum Lucky  by Janet Evanovich
27.  The Tenderness of Wolves  by Stef Penney
28.  Island of the Sequined Love Nun  by Christopher Moore
29.  Knocked Out by My Nunga Nungas  by Louise Rennison
30.  The Field Guide (Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1) by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
31.  Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy  by Ally Carter
32.  Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict  by Laurie Viera Rigler
33.  Good Liar  by Laura Caldwell
34.  Sense and Sensibility  by Jane Austen
35.  Valiant by Holly Black
36.  Forgive Me  by Amanda Eyre Ward
37.  Ironside by Holly Black
38.  Liberal Hearts and Conservative Brains by Ron Lipsman
39.  The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen  by Syrie James
40.  Airman by Eoin Colfer

March

41.  Killrod  by Bill Ison
42.  The Woman in White  by Wilkie Collins
43.  No Place Like Home  by Cecilia Ahern
44.  Fun House  by Alison Bechdel
45.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian  by Sherman Alexie
46.  Dancing in My Nuddy Pants  by Louise Rennison
47.  Away Laughing on a Fast Camel  by Louise Rennison
48.  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
49.  Tree of Smoke  by Denis Johnson
50.  The Seeing Stone (Spiderwick Book 2)by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi
51.  Remainder  by Tom McCarthy
52.  Then We Came to the End  by Joshua Ferris

April

53.  Savage Detectives  by Roberto Bolano
54.  The Shadow Catcher  by Marianne Wiggins
55.  You Don't Love Me Yet  by Jonathan Lethem
56.  An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England  by Brock Clarke
57.  Run  by Ann Patchett
58.  The Ersatz Elevator  by Lemony Snicket
59.  What The Dead Know  by Laura Lippman
60.  Anne of Green Gables  by Lucy Maud Montgomery
61.  The Vile Village  by Lemony Snicket

May

62.  Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse  by Robert Rankin
63.  Phantom Prey  by John Sandford
64.  Tin Lizard Tales  by Schuyler T. Wallace
65.  Persuasion  by Jane Austen
66.  The Hostile Hospital  by Lemony Snicket
67.  Legend of Sleepy Hollow  by Washington Irving
68.  Mister Pip by Lloyde Jones
69.  Madame Bovary  by Gustave Flaubert
70.  the Diving Bell and the Butterfly  by Jean Dominique Bauby
71.  The Carnivorous Carnival  by Lemony Snicket

I have a week before June is over, so I'll post those stats then.  Now, you can all look forward to my scintillating thoughts on all of these titles.

This, like the other "between the numbers" books has Stephanie Plum involved in a holiday caper.  Missing is the sexual tension of her Ranger vs. Joe Morelli love life. In fact, they barely appear in any of the books. Taking the place of her usual men is the otherworldly and mysterious Diesel.  I get a kick out of these books. It makes sense to leave Morelli and Ranger for the regular series, and Diesel is colorful enough to not have to duke it out with the other men in Stephanie's life.

With equal parts humor and adventure, Evanovich gives her fans a  chance to reconnect with our favorite heroine.  This time Diesel needs Stephanie's help to catch a con man who thinks he's a leprechaun. Is he?  That's for you to decide.  The story involves stolen mob money and a stolen race horse, and a trip to Atlantic City to recapture a runaway Grandma Mazur.

I personify the adage "love is blind" when it comes to these books.  I read, but can't even begin to compare Evanovich's other books and series to the Stephanie Plum numbers books.  No matter what criticism I see about them, I adore each of them.  I own the entire series in hard back and they sit unashamedly on my shelves along with my classics and literary gems.  There is no other series of books that can transport me around my home state while laughing my fool head off. These are the books that as soon as I close the cover at the end, I have an incredible urge to just start right back at the beginning.  So, obviously, I am not the person to give you any sort of literary criticism. I find no fault with these books.  I keep coming back for more.   

I received this book in a mixed bag of YA titles from an editor and I left it on the bookshelf forever.  Not all of the books I get are very good, and the title of this book did nothing for me.  Then, I read a review on someone else's blog (I can't for the life of me remember which one, sorry) that it was pretty good.  And, so I picked it up. Whoever it was, was right. This book is pretty good. 

Magpie Windwitch is a faerie.  Unlike the rest of the faeries, she doesn't stay in her little community. She has traveled the world with her parents and a group of crow performers.  She has seen things and learned of things that most of the faeries haven't.  Her family's job is to capture devils and inprison them in bottles after humans unwittingly release them.  Rumor has it that a devil, the blackbringer has been released into the world and his object is to destroy everything.

Magpie and her crow friends return to her old home and there she begins her quest to stop the blackbringer from completing his task. She reunites with old friends and makes some new ones as she battles her way to victory.

I know there are tons of fantasy books coming out all the time, but this is one that stands out from the pack.  The way that Holly Black has put a modern spin on Faerie, Laini Taylor has made Faerie her own. Hers is a timeless land, hidden in plain sight right under our feet.  I don't know if this is the first in a series, the title seems like it would be, but it should be.  I'd like to find out what happens next for Magpie, daughter of faeries and granddaughter of the wind.

I can't believe I didn't read this until after that clown George W. Bush did.  Or that, knowing that it's honored in a song by The Cure (and I make no apologies for my musical taste!), it still took me so long to get to it.  Actually, the reason I didn't read this book sooner is that I own it.  I always read borrowed books first and I always have a lot of borrowed books, from friends and mostly, from the library.  I bought this book and therefore it sat on my bookshelf all forlorn that I was never getting around to reading it.  It's such a slim little volume, I should have taken the time to read it ages ago.  I loved The Plague.

The Stranger is the story of a man, who tells his own story so matter of factly that he is easily misunderstood by the people who judge him.  He is a Frenchman living in Algiers. He has a girlfriend and an okay job and a mother in a nursing home.  Already he has people who judge him because of the nursing home situation.  He couldn't care for the mother and so they arranged for her to go where she would be properly cared for, even if people thought he was callous for doing it.  She was happy there, but he didn't go very often and that was another point against him.  He's so dry and affectless that he easily comes off as being cold and distant and unfeeling. 

Somehow he manages to get himself into untenable situations and without eliciting any sympathy, he will always come off as the villain.  I can not do this work justice.  It's cold and stiff and lacking in compassion, but these aren't criticisms, they are what makes this story unique and compelling.  The main character's dissociation from society and his unemotional ways are more powerful today even than when the book was written. It's a treatise on 20th century society, but it says even more about life today in a lot of ways.  Our cybercivilization and the distance between people that grows exponentially. These fringe people are becoming more the norm.  The stranger may have just been ahead of his time.

I have to confess that I was not able to finish this book.  It is not the norm that I don't work from beginning to end.  I even finish books that I want to shred into a million pieces, throw against the wall, hurl off of cliffs, etc.  Even worse, I have to confess that I did watch the movie and then just couldn't bring myself to make it through the book.  I absolutely adored Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I just assumed I would love this, too. 

This is the story of a man named Jonathan Safran Foer who goes on a quest to find the family of the woman who saved his grandfather's life during World War II.  It's told in fits and starts with the narrative by the most bizarre man who ever could be imagined.  I can't begin to explain the story or the book.  Actually, this is one of those books that the story is wonderful, but the telling of it is so unusual that some of the audience gets lost. 

The idea of going back to your family's motherland and tracing your history and the people who made an impact on that history is pretty amazing.  The main character looks just like his grandfather at that age, so he goes with a photo that could be him and hunts for the woman, or even possibly her grandchildren that made him possible. He wants to hear her story and bring her the photo and learn about his people.  That's a pretty noble cause.  I just had so little tolerance for the narration by Alex, a Ukranian tour guide with a very limited command of the English language. 

So, there you have it. My thoughts on Everything is Illuminated.  I'm sorry that I couldn't slog my way through it.  I think I would rather reread Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  But, that's just me.

I really enjoyed this book.  It's got adventure and romance and a little bit of mystery. It was really very sweet.  It's one of those books with a fairly outlandish concept, but executed so well, a little along the lines of Markus Zusak's I Am the Messenger, but just a little.

Ginny's favorite aunt has always been flighty and exciting and living on the edge.  She's the black sheep of the family. When she goes missing, no one is very surprised.  Ginny's mom is so unlike her sister and yet and she just never understood how Peg could live her life the way she did.  I think what I like most about Ginny is that she wound up with traits of her mother and her aunt and it made her equally able to understand and get along with both.  My mom and my aunt were nowhere near as disparate as Ginny's, but the two were always very different, not to mention that my mom was 9 years older than her sister, who, in turn is 10 years older than me. She's always been as much big sister as aunt to me.  I loved that despite their differences, I wound up temperamentally smack dab in between the two.  They were kind enough to claim that I got the best of both of them with none of their faults, but I'm pretty sure we all knew that was not the case. I got some of the best of both of them and possibly all of their faults.

Ginny doesn't find out that her aunt is dead until well after a funeral would have been held. She is hurt and angry that she got shut out of her aunt's life, especially when Aunt Peg had so little left for her to be a part of.  Then, Ginny gets some mail.  In it is  $1,000 and a letter from Aunt Peg with instructions to buy a plane ticket to New York.  The instructions lead her to the Chinese restaurant under Aunt Peg's old apartment in New York.  The proprietress gives Ginny the other 12 blue envelopes.  She is to open them one at a time. Before she can open envelope 3, for example, she must fly to England and go to a specific address. 

This experience causes Ginny to truly experience the loss of her aunt, which is absolutely heartbreaking, but definitely needed to happen. She also meets a lot of wonderful people and has the adventure of a lifetime.  I can't imagine anyone being able to really do this, but that's part of the wonder and charm of this book.  To read about Ginny's adventure is to live vicariously through her and Johnson's writing certainly made it all feel very real and possible.

Henceforth, you can find me at Faustisbookquest.blog-city.com.  Mark your bookmarks appropriately!   And, I promise I will get some fresh content up her soon. I'm on my 63rd book this year and about 50 books behind on my posts.  I must get caught up and soon.

Wollstonecraft "Wollie" Shelley (great name, huh?) is a greeting card artist and reality television star, trying to pay the rent.  She's had a disastrous dating history and has been roped into this reality dating series, Biological Clock by friends.  A friend who is seen often on the set, Annika, disappears and Wollie feels the need to try and figure out what happened to her.

Along the way she encounters plenty of shady characters, makes some new friends and discovers one man who wants her to mind her own business, who is very handsome and always seems to be around.

I didn't read the first of these books, but I don't think that I missed anything by being ill-prepared going into it.   Wollie is a great character. She's smart, she's funny, she's Amazon woman tall.  There were comparisons to Stephanie Plum on the back cover, but she's not comparable to Stephanie Plum. She did remind me a lot of Kinsey Milhone, though. Different, but just as good.  Wollie has relationships with people like Grafton's Milhone.

This was a pretty fun escape book.  It definitely is below the Evanovich and Grafton books in my estimation, but not by much!

Marty Preston of West Virginia finds an abused beagle and decides to save him.  His family is too poor to consider a dog, but Marty makes a shelter on his own and feeds the dog half of the meals prepared for him.  The dog belongs to a pretty nasty neighbor and he suspects that Marty has stolen him.  Now Marty has to find a way to protect the dog without anyone knowing that he's got it.

This family was just so poor, but sweet.  Marty is a little boy with an enormous heart and for the entire length of the book I was really rooting for little Marty and Shiloh.  Not only does this story have a lot of heart, it's also got a little bit of a David and Goliath feel. Marty manages to earn the respect of the bully, deservedly so.