Black Plumes, by Margery Allingham

Well, I mean, let's be real. After that whirlwind romance with The Night Circus (which I just very reluctantly took back to the library), no other suitor was going to compare at all. So it might be that. But I really did not like Black Plumes.

No, no, it's not that I didn't like it, it's that I didn't like it, and in fact really it's that I was and am completely apathetic toward it. I read the book, I learned whodunnit, and I was like, "Oh. Okay. That's cool, I guess."

Maybe I've been spoiled by the other "Golden Age Girls"? Sayers, Christie, and Marsh (or really just all the authors of the period that I've read) have given me some crazy death or other that seems impossible or is really weird or has, like, twelve people who could have done it. The murder in this novel just sort of happens and then someone comes to investigate and then everyone suspects everyone else and then at the end it was some other guy who was never suspected, which, I guess I should have called that?

And there was this sub-plot-line with a pretend engagement that I actually didn't like because it was just kind of annoying, and I didn't care about either of the parties or any of the parties in the whole book and I couldn't even tell you what the inspector's name is or anything about him besides that he doesn't say "just" or "joke" but rather "chust" and "choke" because apparently that's what they say wherever he's from and man that accent as done by this narrator was very distracting. So maybe it's an audiobook problem?

I don't know. I have really nothing else to say about this book, and that makes me kind of sad. Should I give Allingham another chance? Is this actually her worst book and I chust made a terrible decision? Please say it's so!

Recommendation: I just... I don't know.

Rating: 4/10
(RIP Challenge, Vintage Mystery Challenge)

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

I don't want to talk about this book. I want to snuggle with it. Snuggle snuggle snugg—ow, those are some pointy edges! Okay, book, you can just stay over there a minute.

Okay, so, this book. I heard some folks bein' real excited about it earlier this year, and I was like, magicians? Circuses? Secret plots OF DOOM? I am so in. And so I put a hold on it at the library, some ridiculous amount of time in advance. And then in the intervening weeks this book seemed to get ALL the publicity, showing up on lots of blogs and in newspapers and on NPR, and everyone was like OMG THIS BOOK IS TEH AWESOMEST and I was like, ohlord. Because I've read those books before, and I have not liked them.

But as you can tell, this book I liked a ton, possibly because all those things that drew me into the story, and that made me worry that they would not be as good as everyone was shouting about, were really not that important. Yes, there are magicians. There is a mysterious contest so hush-hush that even the competitors have no idea what the contest is or how to win it. There is intrigue and subterfuge. But what I cared about was the circus.

The circus is this nearly completely black-and-white affair, with dozens of little tents with your usual circus fare and a few tents with really magical things — a magician disguised as an illusionist, a labyrinth, a wishing tree, a landscape made entirely of ice but still realistically aroma-ed. And what makes the circus truly special is that the author makes sure you know exactly what everything looks like and smells like and feels like and all those other sensory things. About a bonfire:

"As you walk closer, you can see that it sits in a wide black iron cauldron, balanced on a number of clawed feet. Where the rim of a cauldron would be, it breaks into long strips of curling iron, as though it has been melted and pulled apart like taffy. The curling iron continues up until it curls back into itself, weaving in and out amongst the other curls, giving it the cage-like effect. The flames are visible in the gaps between and rising slightly above. They are obscured only at the bottom, so it is impossible to tell what is burning, if it is wood or coal or something else entirely."

Morgenstern intersperses short sensory passages like that throughout the novel, but she writes all of her scenes in a similarly opulent way. At first I was a bit put off by this seemingly over-verbose writing, and in a few places it sort of gets away from Morgenstern, but in general she makes it work fantastically and it is absolutely my favorite aspect of the book. I really want to get my hands on the audiobook so that this writing and Jim Dale's voice can make beautiful babies in my brain.

Ahem.

If you're more of a story person, I'm not sure you'll be as enamored with the book; the plot is fairly simple, starts off quite slow, and ends abruptly AND with a not-declared-as-such-but-it-totally-is-and-can't-deny-it epilogue, but though I found myself saying more than once "If this goes one step farther I'm calling shenanigans," the book managed never to take that step, at least by my measurements.

I wrote on Twitter the other night that "I've read through the last page of The Night Circus, but I'm certainly not finished with it..." and that holds true today. I spent more than a week reading this book not because I didn't have time to devour it in one sitting but because I didn't want to. I wanted to savor that writing and put off leaving the circus as long as possible. And I'm not kidding about the audiobook. My library doesn't have it yet but when they do, you'll be seeing another post about The Night Circus right here.

Recommendation: If you like shiny pretty things or magic or clown-less circuses, you'll probably be happy here.

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge, A to Z Challenge)

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Third

Well, I am pleased to report that we do not have a repeat last week's intense befuddlement and annoyance. These stories are certainly not any more cut and dried, because that would be no fun, but at least I feel more internal sense-making and also some intrigue. I like to be intrigued.

Here's where we stand:

"Going Wodwo"
I liked this the least of this week's stories, probably because it's one of those poem things and I'm still working on being a poetry person. It may happen, someday, but it hasn't happened yet. But anyway, this twenty-line poem describes a person, well, "going wodwo," or becoming, as the intro says, "a wild man of the woods." I don't quite follow the path of the story of the poem, nor does it have the delightful cadence of "The Fairy Reel", but I will give the poem props for imagery. The first stanza reeled me in — "Shedding my shirt, my book, my coat, my life / Leaving them, empty husks and fallen leaves / Going in search of food and for a spring / Of sweet water" — and even though I don't really get it, I really like the phrase "My skin will be / my face now." Well, if by "like" I mean "am sort of really creeped out by." Which I do.

"Bitter Grounds"
There is a lot going on in this story. The main plot, I suppose, is that there's a fellow who up and runs away from his life, stops running temporarily to help out a random guy who subsequently completely disappears, then sort of decides to be this guy for a while. As you do. But there's so much interesting stuff to think about as this plot moves along — the disappeared guy leaves behind an abandoned, totalled car that our narrator minutes previously had seen as intact if broken down. Disappeared Guy was an academic writing about zombies. Our narrator, while pretending to be DG, makes a new friend who also disappears, and some other new friends who may or may not exist. Like last week's "Closing Time", this story has an ending that I don't quite understand, but this time I felt like the confusing ending at least fit with the story, instead of being completely jarring. Or possibly I am more forgiving when there are potential zombies involved.

"Other People"
As soon as I heard Gaiman say, in his fantastic voice, "'Other People,'" I said to myself, "Hell is?" And I was SO RIGHT. I love it when that happens. There are no "other people" in this story, but there is Hell, and it is very hellish. There's a guy, and he wanders into Hell, and he meets a demon who proceeds to beat the crap out of him with 211 different instruments of OW. And then, for good measure, the demon forces the guy to admit to himself every bad thing he's ever done or said or thought or probably thought about thinking, over and over and over again. And from what I can tell, that is a LOT of bad things. Interestingly, I missed the important point of the story while ears-reading because I apparently had the attention span of a goldfish that day, but as soon as I started eyes-reading it yesterday I decided that this story was fantastic. This week's favorite!

"Keepsakes and Treasures"
Oh, goodness, I am turning into one of those Parents Television Council people, aren't I? I was all for the story when I thought it was going to be violence and sloppy eating, but then it took a turn toward the sex intercourse and I was like, "Oh, that's gross." I mean, I still read the story, but I really wanted more gruesome killing. Please don't tell me what that means about me. Ahem. Anyway. Here's an example of a story where I don't know any of the background (Gaiman notes in the intro that this story is based on characters from a comic that I've never heard of), but the story was just fine anyway. To spoil everything, there's an unnamed dude who works for this guy called Mr. Alice, and Unnamed Dude spends a lot of time and effort and Alice's money to procure for Alice the most beautiful boy in the world for the sex intercourse and then after not very long the beautiful boy gets the flu and dies. And so this is really just a very rated-R way of telling a very universal truth, and even though I was like, "ew, cooties," the way that Gaiman wrote the heck out of this story really sold it to me. There's the setup of our unnamed narrator being a bit of a serial killer (sidenote: I did a small but very literal spit take at the dissonance between these consecutive sentences: "She was a looker, my mum. I didn't know which one of the four was my dad, so I killed all of them." FANTASTIC), and so also really completely disaffected by all the bad and/or weird stuff Alice has him hired to do, and there's one scene that Gaiman wrote where I read it and I was like, "That's weird, a little bit," and then a couple pages later Gaiman writes this other little scene where I'm like, "Ew," and then I remember that first scene and I'm like, "Okay, now I need to go take a shower, euucchh." In a good way? I don't know.

I'm not quite hooked on Fragile Things again, but I am feeling much much better about its chances for being awesome. How about you guys?

Eight further reasons to lock up my library card

I mean, there are WAY more than eight reasons. My husband just gives me a Look every time I bring a new library book home now, because he's bored of admonishing me. But whatever.

Here are eight more books that I have collected from the library solely because I saw them while cataloging, in roughly chronological retrieval order. Again, I have failed to read any so far, but that's not the point, right? The point is pretty books!



1. These Children Who Come at You With Knives, by Jim Knipfel. Nuts! I'm only one book in, and already there's an exception. Technically, it doesn't count because I didn't catalog this book, but I'm counting it because I only heard about from cataloging anther Knipfel book I don't recall anything about. I was wondering if that other book would get a genre label, so I looked up the author, and then I saw this title and I was like, "OoooOOOOoooh." Short stories? Retold fairy tales? I was intrigued. And then it promised me "a magical snowman wrestling with the horror of being alive," and I was like take THAT, evil snowmen, and put a hold on it. I should be reading it for RIP, so maybe you'll hear about it soon?

2. Mice, by Gordon Reece. This could probably go for RIP, too! This one has fog and a lone tree on the cover, combined in a deliciously creepy way, and the jacket copy promises more creepy: "At first, they [the main characters] flourish in their cottage haven, drinking hot chocolate and listening to Brahms by the fire. But on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Shelley wakes to hear a creak on the stairs. Someone is in the house...." Augh! Someone in the house! Interruption of BRAHMS! It is meant to be both scary and funny, so I'm intrigued.

3. The Edinburgh Dead, by Brian Ruckley. I might be sensing a theme here. Whatever. The back cover offers grisly medical experiments on corpses, and also more "sinister" forces, but it's really the tagline on the cover that got me here: "There is a law against murder. But there are no laws for the dead." What does that even mean? I must find out! Also, it's got an 1820s setting and is allegedly gothic. They've got me!

4. The Postmortal, by Drew Magary. I almost set this book aside because it has a bit of a trying-too-hard cover and a blurb from the Shit My Dad Says guy that includes a reference to facial urination. Riiiiiight, moving on? But then I read the book's description, which basically describes the most recent season of Torchwood without all the parts I hated — the world figures out how to stop aging, although death is still allowed, and it leads to all sorts of weird stuff like religious cults and government euthanasia. Please, tell me more.

5. Salvage the Bones, by Jesmyn Ward. Confession: even though I was intrigued by this book from the moment I saw it, when I found out that it was going to get an "African American" sticker, I got the image of all those terrible-looking romance novels that plague that section and I very nearly put this book right out of my mind. But then I was like, "ALISON. BAD." So here it is! Salvage the Bones is, according to the dust jacket, a book about a poor family in Mississippi threatened by an approaching hurricane and also dealing with a crap father, teen pregnancy, a lack of food, and a new litter of pit bulls. The book spans only twelve days, so I'm anticipating a very suspenseful read.

6. Death of the Mantis, by Michael Stanley. It's a murder mystery. That's all I really know. But the writers (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) are out of Johannesburg, so this is totally going to count for the Global Reading Challenge, and that (along with, you know, MURDER) is good enough for me!

7. Paper Covers Rock, by Jenny Hubbard. Huh. The back cover of this book doesn't really tell me anything about why I put a hold on this book... but if I recall correctly the answer is twofold: a) boarding school, and b) mysteriously dead person. I am so easy to please. Also, the guy on the cover is wearing a knitted tie. I have no idea why.

8. My Beautiful Genome, by Lone Frank. Look! A book with no death in it! It's not even fiction! WHAT. This is a book all about genomics and designer babies and what your genes can really say about you, and I kind of adore Gattaca and if there's no reference to it I'll be quite sad. Also, Mary Roach says (of her own free will, I presume) that it's "sharp and funny." So that's a bonus point right there.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Here's a true story for you: The Hobbit is the first book I ever lied about reading, way back when I was but a young Alison looking to score some Summer Reading Club points. My parents totally did not believe my lies, but they allowed said lies to stand anyway, leading to DECADES of shame and regret. Well, not really. Most of the time I forget it even happened. But I've never lied about a Summer Reading Club book since! (Summer reading in general, yes, totally.)

But now I have read it, and I can speak with authority on the subjects of Misplaced Heroism and Wizards That Are Not Very Nice. Seriously, I had no idea Gandalf was such a jerk! Blah blah blah, grand adventures, blah, self-confidence, blah, endless treasure, whatever. No means no, Gandalf!

I know I'm not the last person to read this book, so here's the plot: jerky wizard recruits homebody hobbit to go help some dwarves steal all the treasures from a talking dragon. Said gang wanders toward dragon and gets swept up in some side-quests along the way; a ring is tricked away from a creeper. The gang finally gets to the dragon and fails at stealing all the treasures until someone kills the dragon for them. There is fighting. Eventually, Homebody Hobbit returns home with a handful of treasure, which doesn't last long for an amusing reason.

So. It's a Quest Novel. I'm not always a big fan of these, and I'd have to say this one is all right, I guess. The scrapes they get into are interesting, especially when they ignore directions and go wandering in the woods, and of course I was intrigued by the Gollum aspect of things having seen the LOTR movies (I'll get around to the books someday, maybe). I was a little concerned by the GI-Joe-like refusal to let anyone die, but then everyone started dying and I was like, hey, hold on, this is going a little overboard. But it's really not a quest until someone dies, right?

Of course, the best part was that the audiobook cover had the same picture that graces my engagement puzzle (read: the puzzle my then-boyfriend and I were putting together when I completely ignored his proposal [accidentally, I swear!]), so when things got boring I could just think back on adorable times. I may be a huge sap.

The second-best part was that ears-reading the book meant that the narrator SANG to me, which was absolutely fantastic because a) I always want to know how songs in books go and b) Rob Inglis is probably a way better singer than those dwarves and goblins and whatnot. If he could have sung the whole book to me, that would have been just fine.

And even though I wasn't a huge fan of the book, I liked it enough that I am very interested in seeing the movie — I was going to watch it eventually if only for Martin Freeman, but now I might actually pay to see it, which is just ridiculous. There had better be singing!

Recommendation: You probably already know if you want to read it, but if you're on the fence you should think about how much you like quests, goblins, and riddles.

Rating: 7/10
(TBR Challenge)

Thinner, by Richard Bachman

I'm always a little confused by authors who use pseudonyms but are also like, "I am totally this person," so people will read their books. Like I've cataloged a few books that are authored by NORA ROBERTS (writing as J.D. Robb) or... someone whose name I forget where her author bio is like "This Person is the pseudonym of That Other Person." Why are we bothering with the pseudonym, then?

All this is to say that I didn't actually realize this was a Richard Bachman book until well after I started listening, because everything I looked at was all STEPHEN EFFING KING all the time. It is also to say that when people know they are reading a Stephen King book it is a little weird to hear the narrator talking about how it's like he's in a Stephen King book, but according to my friend Cory this is not an unusual thing to happen in a King novel. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Aaaaanyway the novel. I had actually thought this was a short story, because the plot — a heavy guy gets cursed to become thinner, which is cool until all of a sudden he can barely eat enough to survive — did not seem like a story that could be sustained over 10 hours(!). And indeed, there were a few parts where I was like, "Okay I get it let's move it along now?"

But on the whole the story was delightfully horror-ful. It starts with a guy, Billy, who's like, "That creepy gypsy guy was creepy. Why did he say 'THINNER' at me?" And then he's all losing weight, and you find out that the creepy gypsy guy said that because Billy ran over the gypsy's daughter who ran out into the street and so he was found not guilty of manslaughter or whatever except that then it turns out that maybe he wasn't quite so not guilty after all? And maybe the gypsy isn't only targeting him? But Billy is a lawyer, so he's gonna fight back, even if he has to drive all the way up to Maine (you knew Maine was in here somewhere, didn't you?) to find these gypsies and bitch at them. Because that's really what it boils down to.

And really, the driving up I-95 bit could have just been completely excised from the story, because I really do understand that gypsies are creepy, and also why is it that everyone is like "Man, I haven't seen a gypsy in like 25 years" and then at the EXACT SAME TIME like "Oh, gypsies. You know how they roll." Do you? Are you sure?

But the whole cursing aspect is interesting, and Billy's visits to the other afflicted-types are quite creepy, and the ending is the only possible ending I would have accepted for Billy so it's fine that it's pretty well telegraphed. Also, I knew I liked Joe Mantegna, the audiobook narrator, from his work on the teevee, but seriously that man can read a book. He did some fantastic voice work to the point where I was sometimes like, "Isn't Joe Mantegna reading this book? Who is this guy? That is Joe Mantegna? Are you sure?" I think he should probably read every Stephen King book, because he can make with the spooky and terrifying. Maybe he should do a version of The Turn of the Screw! How much would it cost to commission that?

Recommendation: On the whole, I enjoyed my ten hours with Stephen and Joe. Especially Joe. And while I think the novel should be much much shorter, I do still think it's worth a read if you're in the mood for some gruesome.

Rating: 8.5/10 (bonus points for Joe!)
(RIP Challenge, What's in a Name Challenge)

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the Second

Whaaaaaaaaat is going on here? After a stunning round of stories last week, I am feeling utterly lost this week. I mean, I listened to all of these stories at least twice and read them once, and I still don't get 75 percent of them. That's not good!

On the plus side, they're still read by Neil Gaiman and he can still read me the phone book if he wants.

"The Hidden Chamber"
According to the introduction, this is supposed to be a Bluebeard story. And Bluebeard is a... pirate? Let me go check Wikipedia. That is not a pirate. I am totally thinking of Blackbeard, aren't I? Things are starting to make so much more sense. Let me read this entry a bit more. ... Okay, I'm back, and this is actually pretty okay. Let me change my previous statement to 50 percent. Soooooo this is a sort of poem thing (which doesn't quite come across in the audio because it's free verse) about this fella Bluebeard who, as I just learned, is traditionally a guy what likes to kill his wives. But in Gaiman's version, he's all, no, no, don't worry about the ghosts, and I totally don't have one room in my house you're not allowed into I don't know what you're talking about, and also I'm so misunderstood. He's reformed, you see, but not in the way you might think, and the poem takes a turn toward the creeptastic at the end. I may need to take out a preemptive restraining order on anyone with a blue beard.

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire"
Well, okay, maybe 25 percent, because I think I get this story, I just don't like it. It opens with the a "chapter" that goes, "Somewhere in the night, someone was writing." Excellent start! Then it moves over to what is being written, which also doesn't quite come across in the audio and it took me a second listen to figure out exactly how that worked. And what is being written is a sort of send-up of every horror/ghost/creepy story ever written, with an allusion to The Turn of the Screw and probably many other things that I can't quite pin down. And it's predictably bad, and then we go back to the writer, and the writer is all "I am failing at writing this slice-of-life Great American Novel where "American" equals "weird alternate universe where life is creepy all the time and those nice young men etc." And so at first I am like, "Oh I see how this is a satire of creepy stories," but then I am like, "Oh I see what you did there and I am not quite in." Because the author is complaining about how his writing is just a send-up of the "classics" and not a view into daily tedium or whatever, except that Gaiman also writes the Auteur's actual life as a send-up of the "classics" and so I think he's doing a great job. And then, when the Auteur (spoiler!) decides to write "fantasy" instead, he's just sending up a different genre so I don't think he has improved anything. Okay, maybe 37.5 percent?

"The Flints of Memory Lane"
I get this one! And I kind of like it! But I can't write as much about it because it's so short! Anyway, this is just a quick telling of an anecdote from Gaiman's life where he may or may not have seen a real live ghost faffing about in front of his family's house. This of course doesn't do justice to Gaiman's writing, which conveys the creepiness of seeing a strange woman hanging around under a sodium lamplight, all oddly colored and also silent and also capable of disappearing while your back is turned. I've never had quite such a vivid experience, but I'm sure it would scare the pants off of me.

"Closing Time"
I absolutely do not get this story and I need someone to explain it to me. Please. From what I have gathered, this is a story wherein Our Narrator is swapping ghost stories with a group of friends. Check. Then he tells one wherein he meets a group of boys and the boys dare Our Narrator to knock on a playhouse door and then Our Narrator dares them to go into the playhouse, whose door opens and closes by itself, and the boys are never seen again and that's creepy. And then after the story is told, it turns out that one of the listeners is one of the story's boys and he's all, "our dad was kind of a weirdo and my one brother killed himself and I just got out of the loony bin." And I just... I don't get it. I don't understand how this latter bit goes with the narrator's story, and I don't understand how all these tangents the narrator goes on have anything to do with anything and... yeah. I got nothing. Help?

I am so not excited for reading the next four stories, because I fear they will be as baffling as most of these, but I have a feeling that as soon as I start the next one I'll be hooked again. What do you guys think?

Overture to Death, by Ngaio Marsh

Ngaio Marsh and I are totally BFFs, even if she doesn't know it, largely because a bunch of her books are on OverDrive and so it is SO EASY to listen to them! After Death of a Fool, I was like, give me more! And so I found this little number, which promised music and therefore I was in.

There's not really music. Unfortunately. But there is a FANTASTIC murder device, which is a gun attached by pulleys to the soft pedal of a piano, such that when our murderee sets down to play some Rachmaninoff, she shoots herself in the face. WHAT.

I am loving Marsh's ability to murder people.

And then the story is even better — it's established in the lead-up to the murder that this woman, called Miss Campanula, and her BFF/arch-enemy Miss Prentice, are not well-liked by anyone. And it is Miss Prentice who is meant to play the overture at the play that night, except that she has been injured and while she really really means to play, no one will let her and Miss Campanula takes her place at the last minute. So, first question: who was meant to be killed that night?

There are red herrings and seeming red herrings all over the place, and pretty much everyone is like, "I wouldn't mind if both of them were dead, except I don't really mean that, or do I," and "everyone" is SO MANY PEOPLE and I suspected all of them at one point or another but only one person did it and it's sort of interesting who and how that happened.

I'm learning Marsh's tricks, so I'm not quite as awed by her mystery-weaving abilities this go-round, but trust me, she's got them.

Recommendation: If you like a whodunnit, you're gonna like this.

Rating: 8/10
(Vintage Mystery Challenge, RIP Challenge)

BBAW — Readers

Today's topic:

"Book bloggers blog because we love reading. Has book blogging changed the way you read? Have you discovered books you never would have apart from book blogging? How has book blogging affected your book acquisition habits? Have you made new connections with other readers because of book blogging? Choose any one of these topics and share your thoughts today!"

Blogging has definitely changed the way that I read. Most of the books I read before blogging are remembered in my mind as "That was good" or "That was bad" or maybe I remember one scene and that's it. But you can't get by on a blog saying, "Book. Good. Next." That would be the most boring thing ever.

So now I pay a lot more attention to why I think a book is good or bad. Is it the writing? The characters? The plot? If there's one scene that sticks out at me, how does it relate to the rest of the book? Is this book something I do or would understand better after reading another book?

And even though I've read more than three hundred books in the last three years, I can remember them well enough to recommend them to people now! Or if the book was that middling that I don't remember it, I have a place to turn to to jog my memory, and these posts usually do the trick.

Death Note Vol. 8, by Tsugumi Ohba

Nrrrrrrt.

That's about the only sound I was capable of making after this book EXPLODED MY BRAIN. If you've read any of my other Death Note reviews, you're going to be like, "Yeah, yeah, I get it with the brain explosion, get a new phrase, lady." But I can't. Because my brain has exploded. Again.

Okay, so. Light's sister has been kidnapped, and the kidnappers, led by a chocolate-loving mini-L want the notebook in trade. Light comes up with a plan to not do that last part, but the kidnappers are way wily-er and they temporarily hijack a plane and take Light's dad out to the desert where they're keeping his daughter underground in some crazy revolving door trap and there's no choice but to give up the notebook and now the kidnappers are like, sweet, and go killing all the people they don't like.

But of course there's still another notebook, and a person who can see people's names to write them down in it, and so Misa is still useful and Light still hangs out with her, even if her sexy underpants do absolutely nothing for him. Poor Misa.

AND Light is working with the American special ops team headed by the other mini-L, who at first acts like he's never heard of the first mini-L and then is like, "Oh, no, I totes know him. And must defeat him."

Oh, also, there's a third Shinigami who apparently owns one of these notebooks? I don't remember this from the previous books but I remember so little that I will go ahead and believe it, and he totally messes everything up.

And then a bunch of people die, and then Light contemplates killing, like, everyone else, including Misa. Because that's what you do to the people who love you, right?

This is all very confusing, I'm sure, because the book is super confusing, and there are still like five books to go and I might suffer a mental breakdown before I finish them. But I still want to finish them. There is something very wrong with me.

Recommendation: Probably you should NEVER read this series, because you're just going to get sucked in and your brain is going to explode and you're going to think it's a good idea to keep reading them. But still, you should read them.

Rating: 7/10
(RIP Challenge)

BBAW — Blogger Interviews

The interviews are always my favorite part of BBAW, because I get to have a new BBBFF (book blogging best friend forever, obvs)! And I am really quite enamored with mine this year. Andrea, The Little Red Reviewer, writes about books that I would probably never give the time of day if I met them in the library, but after reading her take a few have ended up on my "to be borrowed" list! She's sneaky like that.

Here's what she has to say about herself, and if you go check out her blog you can maybe find out some interesting things about me!

1) Your blog is "mostly science fiction and fantasy." What is it that draws you to those genres more than others?
I was raised on Science fiction. When I was a kid my Dad and I had a standing date to see every Star Trek movie in the theaters together. my first crush was on Han Solo. I read Dune in high school, and the rest is history. Only in the last few years have I gotten into fantasy. What draws me to those genres? I love Scifi that happens in the future. I love how different authors play the "what if" game. I love that in scifi and fantasy anything is possible. Scifi and fantasy are safe places to experiment with anything safe, and anything dangerous. it's the ultimate escapism!

2) What does a book of any genre need to have for you to be interested in it?
hmmm. . . swear words? as much as I love my favorite four letter words, compelling characters and snarky humor is a big plus in any book.

3) Where do you get the books that you read?
Most of them are purchased used or come from the library. I've been buying a lot of stuff new lately, and it's killing my bank account! I do have a few contacts at a few publishers, so occasionally I beg for an advanced reading copy. Sometimes they even send it!

4) Which book, if it were just you and that book on a desert island, would you rather pitch into the ocean than read?
this is actually a really hard question!! I'm looking at my bookshelves, looking for a book I don't like, and even my old college textbooks I don't want to pitch into the ocean! I'm sure there's a really dry and boring history book around someplace. . . .

5) What is your favorite post that you have written?
not really scifi or fantasy, I really liked the review I wrote of Catherynne Valente's "Deathless". She specializes in fairy tale/mythology retellings, and Deathless is sort of something like that. It's an incredible book written by an incredible woman. And i was kinda snarky on the title of the post, which is always fun. (http://littleredreviewer.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/does-your-husband-kno/)
Can I cheat and tell my 2nd favorite post too? It's my super spoilery guesses on where Patrick Rothfuss is going next with his Kingkiller Chronicles series starring Kvothe, who is also sort of deathless. (wow, I think I just realized i've got a weakness for handsome men who refuse to die?) Rothfuss is another incredible writer whose debut novel "The Name of the Wind" single handedly turned me into a fantasy fan. (http://littleredreviewer.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/kingkiller-chronicles-predictions-what-a-woman-wants/)

BBAW — Community

My third Book Blogger Appreciation Week (or BBAW, for shorts)! This year's theme is community, and so the first topic:

"While the awards are a fun part of BBAW, they can never accurately represent the depth and breadth of diversity in the book blogging community. Today you are encouraged to highlight a couple of bloggers that have made book blogging a unique experience for you. They can be your mentors, a blogger that encouraged you to try a different kind of book, opened your eyes to a new issue, made you laugh when you needed it, or left the first comment you ever got on your blog. Stay positive and give back to the people who make the community work for you!"

I follow what I consider to be a LOT of book blogs, so it really is the whole community of bloggers that have introduced me to new books, kept me up to date on the scandals of the bookish community, and made me giggle a little on the inside or the outside.

And of course, I love all of the people who comment on my posts, even you non-bloggers! Every time I get an e-mail about a new comment, I'm like, "Ooooh shiny!" and off I go to read it.

But since this is Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I'm going to give a tip of the hat to a couple wonderful book bloggers who leave me some of the wonderful comments that make me so happy in my heart.

Stephanie at Reviews by Lola
Stephanie is from my home state of Ohio, which makes her awesome right off the bat! She also shares with me a foolproof method of spending time with the hubbers — sharing a couch while one reads and the other plays video games! I'll let you figure out who does what, there. :) I love Stephanie's blog because I am always sure to find books I have absolutely never heard of before but am suddenly very interested in.

Steph, one half of Steph and Tony Investigate!
I love the name of Steph's blog! I get this picture of Sherlock Holmes in his apocryphal deerstalker cap wielding a magnifying glass while he reads an incredibly varied assortment of books. I never know what I'm going to see when this blog pops up in my Google Reader. Steph hates epilogues, but doesn't have a favorite element, so we can't quite be best friends yet!

Cari, who is a Walking Identity Crisis
Okay, I'm cheating here a bit because Cari's not really a book blogger, but hey, here's a book review she did! It totally counts! Cari writes about writing and librarianing and bassooning and a myriad of other things, and even when I have no idea what she's talking about I learn something from her posts.

And, for a bonus, I also tip my hat to Mary, Amy, Laura, and Deborah, who are my sunshine on cloudy days and are also fantastic readers and recommenders, even if they don't blog!

Fragile Things Read-Along, Part the First

Dudes. I have discovered an awesome secret. Neil Gaiman is not only a fantastic author, but a fantastic narrator as well! And I have proved this scientifically by using BOTH my ears and my eyes to read this book. That's right. I'm doing the homework twice! I'm Hermione Granger! Anyway, this started off as an accident, of the "Oh crap I'm not going to have time to read four stories by Sunday because it's already Thursday but hey my library right here has the audiobook I can yoink after work and listen to during work tomorrow [a day passes] hey these are pretty fantastic stories but I think I need to read that 'Fairy Reel' one because it went by kind of quickly oh hey while I'm here I think I'll read the others again too" variety.... That's never happened to you? Right. Anyway. I think I'm going to keep on with the dual reading because these stories are quite short and I can.

So. Yes. Here are the four splendid things I read in the last couple days:

Introduction
It's a good thing I went back and eyes-read the introduction, because it did not translate well to audio. Gaiman goes through the book and tells the story, long or short, behind each of the stories in the collection. Some are just like, "I was commissioned to write this for another project that you can go buy if you want because it has awesome authors in it," others are like, "I wrote this and no one liked it and then I wrote it again and it was better," and one includes a short story of its own that seemed to come out of nowhere on the audio and makes much more sense in print. It has served to make me very excited about some of the stories I'll be reading in the weeks to come.

"A Study in Emerald"
It's been about four years since I read A Study in Scarlet, and about that many months since I watched "A Study in Pink" (sidenote: omg I cannot wait for series two!), so I can't tell you exactly how these three stories diverge, but I can tell you that they are similar enough, and particularly "Emerald" and Scarlet are similar enough, to fool you a little bit. Which Gaiman does, with, I imagine, an evil laugh. "Emerald" is the same story you know, with the meeting of our two protagonists, and Lestrade needing a bit of help with his German, but then, as is mentioned in the introduction, it takes a bit of a Lovecraftian turn. And while I'm sure I'm missing a lot of nuances, not knowing The Lovecraft, I still found myself very intrigued with this sort of alternate universe Holmes story.

"The Fairy Reel"
The introduction's description of this: "Not much of a poem, really, but enormous fun to read aloud." Gaiman is being a little modest, here, as I found this a fantastic poem when I eyes-read it about three times in a row, but he is also telling the truth that it is so much prettier when you just ignore the words and let the rhythm and the sound of Gaiman's voice wash over you. After just listening to it, I was like, "Husband! Sit still and listen to this poem!" It is much meant for sharing.

"October in the Chair"
So, first, October is my favorite month of the year for many reasons, probably firstly because it's my birthday month! So I can tell you that Gaiman got it wrong — October is a lady, not a gent. But I will forgive this mistake, because the story that October tells is creepy and wonderful. It's the predecessor to The Graveyard Book, which I need to re-read, and you can see the bits and pieces Gaiman takes from it, but it is also a perfectly strong story on its own of a boy who runs away and decides that anything is better than going back home. Which, on the one hand, I'm like, "That's terrible! Go home!" and on the other I'm like, "Dooooo it." So, conflicted. Also, Gaiman's voices for the other months, especially June, are hilarious and not quite inflected in the print. Another point for ears-reading!

I am so excited for reading the rest of these stories, especially now that I have them on audio. I may have to ration myself to a story a day, though, lest I get so excited I finish it all in one go!

The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

I have never been a Henry James fan. I quickly learned to Cliffs-notes the heck out of any James I ever had to read for school rather than read any more page-long sentences than absolutely necessary. The man loves his commas. But for whatever reason (shortness, probably!), I decided to actually read this novella when it was on my freshman comp syllabus, and I remember quite enjoying it! So I figured, when I found it on audio, that it would be a delightfully spooky start to this year's RIP Challenge.

Well. Eh. I mean, yes, compared to all other Henry James I've "read," this was fantastic. But I think that memory of awesomeness set the bar a liiiiiittle high on this listen!

The story is structurally excellent. It starts with a group of people sitting around some old inn or other chatting about spooky things, and this mysterious guy is like, "Dudes, I have the spookiest story." And everyone else is like, "Do tell." And MG is like, "Well, I mean, I don't want to paraphrase, so let me send away for someone to mail me the well-worn manuscript I keep locked away in my house, it'll be here in a couple days." And everyone else is like, "'Kay."

And so the manuscript gets there, and then we're in the story proper, which is of a governess who goes off to the country to take care of a couple kids, one of whom has recently been expelled from school for some unknown reason. While she's there, she sees a creepy dude and then later a creepy lady, and she quickly ascertains/decides that these are the ghosts of some dead former employees of the estate. She also ascertains/decides that the kiddos can see these ghosts, too, and that a) the kids are keeping the ghosts a secret and b) the ghosts are influencing the kids in some creepy way. There's a lot of skulking about and people appearing and disappearing and, spoiler?, that line between ascertaining and deciding becomes important in the end.

It's a creepy little story on paper, but this audio version suffers from the same problem I had with The Eyre Affair — namely that the narrator seems to be more "reading words off a page" than "telling a ghost story." I wanted and expected hushed voices and proper ghost story pacing, and I did not get those things.

And those things would have helped a lot with the things I had forgotten about the novella, which is that it is slow as all get out at the beginning, and then ends very abruptly, and the motivations of the characters are confusing or nonexistent. As a ghost story of indeterminate origin and unreliable narrator, I can forgive these problems, but if I have to listen to it as a strict retelling of some old manuscript, I'm gonna get a little antsy about them.

I think next time I find myself remembering this story fondly, I'll grab a print copy and read it at two in the morning during a thunderstorm. Can't get better ambiance than that!

Recommendation: I can't recommend the audiobook, but I think the story is good for someone who wants a bit of a literary ghost story.

Rating: 7/10
(RIP Challenge)

Street Gang, by Michael Davis

Street Gang is a fine example of what my friend Mary would, I think, call a worthwhile audiobook — one where ears-reading is an improvement over eyes-reading. (Examples: Bossypants, things read by Michael York.)

I tried to eyes-read this book when it first came out, but got bored real quick-like and sent it back home to the library. But then I saw it on, what else, OverDrive, and I figured I'd give it another shot. I'd never heard of the narrator, Caroll Spinney, but I quickly discovered that he just so happens to be the voice of both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. He sounds a little Big-Bird-y in his speaking voice, and it was this wonderful cadence that helped me get through the book. Extra bonus: after the book proper is done, there's an extra hour of interview between Davis and Spinney that is, if not exciting, very interesting to listen to.

The book proper, though... eh. It purports to be the complete history of Sesame Street, but it feels more like a hodge-podge of histories — there's quite a bit about childrens's television programs prior to Sesame Street, like Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Doody, some background on the various actors eventually cast on Sesame Street, and of course rather a lot about Jim Henson, to the point where the book starts with his funeral. And all these little vignettes are just sort of tossed around in the book, so I had a bit of trouble reorienting myself with each new chapter. And I get that that's probably the point, that this sort of mixed-up narrative is reminiscent of an episode of Sesame Street, but it was hard for me to hold on to the thread most of the time.

But! For interesting conversational tidbits about children's television? This book fits the bill quite nicely. I learned how Sesame Street got its name (basically: they couldn't come up with anything better), how much intense educational and market research went into the making of even the very first episode, and how Barney almost ruined Sesame Street, if you need another reason to dislike large purple dinosaurs. And I got to hear Caroll Spinney as Big Bird and Oscar, and doing a passable Ernie and Kermit as well! I do think my tiny cousin's impression of Ernie's laugh is much better, though. I might be biased. :)

Recommendation: Definitely worth a read or listen if you've ever spent way too much time watching PBS in the afternoons.

Rating: 7/10

The Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

After finishing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was super-interesting in a "So that's how the story is meant to go!" way, I figured it couldn't hurt to try out a completely unknown-to-me Oz story. It didn't hurt, certainly, but it was... weird.

Which, I mean, it's weird in the same ways that the first book is weird, because that's how Baum rolls, except that this time I wasn't prepared for the specific weird-ities and so was like, what?

So there's a kid called Tip, and he tries to pull a prank on his guardian, Mombi, except that the prank totally backfires and now Tip is running away to the Emerald City with a formerly-inanimate pumpkin-head scarecrow-thing called Jack. Along they way, Tip meets a girl called Jinjur who is set to overthrow the Scarecrow as bigwig of the Emerald City because, of course, all of those shiny emeralds and whatnot would be much better served as necklaces and other shiny things for Jinjur's girl army. Of course. So, Tip finds the Scarecrow and they all go running off but even though the Scarecrow is all about abdicating, Jinjur still apparently wants them dead, so she recruits Mombi to pull some hocus-pocus and trap the group. And then some appropriately Baum-weird stuff happens and it turns out that there's someone else who's meant to be leading Oz...

It's all very strange, but also very delightful, and Anna Fields is absolutely perfect in narrating this series. There's not much else to say, really! I am sad that I don't have quick access to the next few books, but considering all I've got on my plate for the near future, I think that's all right!

Recommendation: For those days when you just need something that makes you smile at its ridiculousness.

Rating: 8/10

The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

I'm just going to start with this — I don't think I understood this book. I don't think anyone in my book club (for which I read this book) understood this book. I made this discovery at the book club meeting, during which we found some discussion questions including (to paraphrase) "How did Didion use humor in this book?" and "What parts of this book were exhilarating?"

We couldn't come up with humor. We couldn't come up with exhilaration. We came up with introspection, detachment, plodding...

Which is not to say that I disliked this book. I didn't like it, perhaps, but I found it very intriguing, which is more than I can say for some of my fellow readers!

The Year of Magical Thinking is Didion's memoir about the death of her husband, which happens suddenly if not unexpectedly at the dinner table, and how she makes it through the first year after his death. This is not easy after forty years of marriage and the rocky previous year in their relationship, and it is especially difficult because Didion's daughter is, from five days before the death to the end of Didion's narration, in and out of the hospital herself with mystery ailments that don't bode well for her.

I did not find it an exhilarating book; in fact, Didion seems to go out of her way to make everything very rational and straightforward, even the things that aren't naturally so, and provide a sort of road map to life as a widow. She speaks of being called a "cool customer" by her social worker, of saving her husband's shoes just in case he comes back, of dealing with the panic that is set off by the most innocuous of memories. I haven't lost a spouse of forty years, but I have lost some loved ones in my time, and I can see a lot of Didion's reactions in my own, if scaled down.

I can only think that I would have understood and appreciated it better if I actually knew who Didion was outside of the scope of this book, and knew the context of her life in which to place all of these events. I felt absolutely lost when Didion would mention friends or locations that meant nothing to me, or when she referenced previous novels by her or her husband. I knew there must be a connection to be made, but I had no idea what it was or how to make it.

So on the whole, I found this book fairly depressing and a bit under-explained in places (and over-explained in others), but I did find it an interesting read for the simple honesty of it all.

Recommendation: I really don't know who this was written for. I'm going to say that if you know Didion or have gone through similar troubles, you might be interested. But I'm not sure.

Rating: 5/10
(A to Z Challenge)

RIP Challenge VI

What the heck? Where did the time go? Wasn't I just doing my very first challenge ever, RIP III, like, ten minutes ago? My goodness!

So, I'm feeling old. Let's replace that with feeling spooked! The rules are the same as ever:

"The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

The emphasis is never on the word challenge, instead it is about coming together as a community and embracing the autumnal mood, whether the weather is cooperative where you live or not."

Listen to that Carl. What a hippie! I think what he means is that this challenge is about reading ALL THE BOOKS.

In that spirit, I will be going balls-out this year, because I can. I'm hopping on board with Peril the First, which involves reading four books. Four! I could (not) do that in my sleep (because I would be sleeping). I'm also going to watch some more Hitchcock for Peril on the Screen, and try to do reviews again like I did last year. New to me this year will be Peril of the Short Story, for which I will nom some Poe because it has been waaaay too long, and that will cross over with Peril of the Group Read, for which I will be reading along with many others through Fragile Things (a set of Gaiman short stories) and The Lantern.

What? Don't look at me like that.

Anyway, here's what I'm looking forward to imbibing this year; as always, if you want to recommend any awesome items (or things that you want me to read so you don't have to), leave such recommendations in the comments!

Giant pile o' books (* means things I added to the pile during the challenge):
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier (Someday I will actually read this.)
A Fine and Private Place, by Peter S. Beagle
Raising Stony Mayhall, by Daryl Gregory
The Edinburgh Dead, by Brian Ruckey
The Postmortal, by Drew Magary
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson (on audio) (Review)
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James (on audio) (Review)
Overture to Death, by Ngaio Marsh (on audio) (Review)
The Lantern, by Deborah Lawrenson (readalong — Part 1.Part 2.Part 3.Summary)
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (for my book club)
*Death Note Vol. 8, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
*Thinner, by Richard Bachman (Review)
*The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern (Review)
*Black Plumes, by Margery Allingham (Review)
*The Unwritten Vol. 1, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Review)
*The Unwritten Vol. 2, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Review)
*The Unwritten Vol. 3, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Review)

Medium-sized pile of short stories:
All things Poe
Zombies vs. Unicorns, ed. Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (already started)
These Children Who Come at You With Knives, by Jim Knipfel
Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman (readalong — Part 1.Part 2.Part 3.Part 4.Part 5.Part 6.Part 7.Part 8, Summary)
Full Dark, No Stars, by Stephen King (also for my book club) (Review)

Tiny pile of movies:
Um, Hitchcock?
*North by Northwest (Review)