Number 11 is The White Queen by Phillipa Gregory. I've never read any of Gregory's other books, such as the best selling The Other Boelyn Girl. For some reason, I don't find the Tudors all that interesting. Or rather, I don't find the Tudor males all that interesting as I do find Elizabeth I quite fascinating. ANYWAY, so the reason I did pick this book up is because it deals with the Wars of the Roses, which is a point of English history I've long been interested in, probably since I first read the line uttered by Susan in Prince Caspian "Oh dear, this is more confusing than the Wars of the Roses".

So anyway, yes, I picked this up and dived in. The White Queen herself is the wife of the Yorkist king, Edward IV. Edward spies the lovely, widowed Elizabeth Woodville while riding through her family's lands, and they both instantly fall for one another. They marry in secret, and this marriage is not popular amongst Edward's advisors and family. The Woodville's previously supported the Lancastrian claim to the throne, but of course switch allegiances once they are connected to the Yorks.

It's a good look at the use of much of the feminie power struggle in the Wars of the Roses. Elizabeth positions her family and children into places of power to secure the York hold on the throne. The problem is that there is almost as much infighting in the York family as there is against the Lancastrians. And the main figure behind the Lancastrian claim to put the ailing Henry VI back on his throne is through his indomitable wife, Margaret d'Anjou. Another of the central characters is Elizabeth's French, wise-woman mother, who has a bit of magic to her.

It's a fun book, a nice love story and a different look at the Wars of the Roses. It seems to be fairly historically accurate while infusing the characters with enough personality to keep it interesting.

I may go on to pick up the next book in the series, which, I know doesn't really end well for the Yorks...

Book number 10. 10!! I've finally reached double digits this year!... sigh. Took me long enough.

ANYWAY... Book number 10 is A Gentleman's Game by Greg Rucka. Now, I'm more familiar with Rucka as a comic book writer. Mainly from his run on Batman, and then his relaunch of Checkmate. His Batman stuff I though was... ok, but I really enjoyed Checkmate. But the reason I read this book is that I have read his entire run of his self-created series, Queen and Country. I read Queen and Country because it is basically a comic-book form of the old British series, the Sandbaggers, which was something I'm very glad my husband made me watch.

So anyway, A Gentleman's Game revolves around the same cast and crew as Queen and Country, main character Tara Chase is Minder One, head of the elite covert ops team sent in to do the dirtiest of dirty work Britian can come up with. And after an attack on the London Underground by Muslim extremists, Tara is dispatched to Yemen to kill a Saudi Arabian religious leader, who presumably is ultimately behind the attacks. Tara fufills her task, but the collateral damage she is also forced to assassinate is somewhat politically sensitive, and because of this, Tara finds herself persona non grata and persued by her own government.


I have to give it to Rucka, his pacing is extremely good and his action scenes are well done. I had wondered if the lack of pictures would hinder his words, but he gets his words across to create lovely pictures themselves. The characters are a wee bit cliche (or maybe I just think so because I have seen the Sandbaggers), with your tough-as-nails, more dangerous than any bloke, Tara Chase and the gruff but extremely professional D-Ops, Crocker and the rest of the usual suspects. One of the main characters is an ex-British national who has converted to Islam and we see the terrorist POV from him, which I did find very interesting, but I also felt his story line was tied up too quickly.

Overall, I did enjoy this book. However, I think that I would prefer him to tell more Queen and Country stories in their original, comic book format. That way I can picture the characters as they're drawn, and not as those from the Sandbaggers, which is what, for some reason, I was doing.

Book 9 is The Torontonians by Phyllis Brett Young.

Ok, the first thing I must mention here is that I am a born and bred Torontonian. I am (on my mother's side) a 5th generation Torontonian. I love this city. I know it has it's problems (as do most large cities), but overall, I am happy and proud to call Toronto my home and my hometown. So you can see why I would pick up a book called The Torontonians.

Published in 1960, this is actually quite the feminist book of suburban housewife ennui and desperation. This is interesting because it really came before a lot of the big feminist manifestos of the 60s. And yet, here it is, a sort of Revolutionary Road set in Toronto and the surrounding (make believe) suburb of Rowanwood. (which I *think* is a Richmond Hill stand in?)

I liked this book a lot mainly because of the setting. It's interesting to read of a Toronto that's similar, but not exactly like the one I'm familiar with. Neihbourhoods such as the Annex and Forest Hill make appearances, and it speaks of the interesting divide of above the hill and below the hill (Toronto has a part of the Niagara Escarpement crawling through it, making a fairly significant climb uphill between St.Clair and Eglington avenues), with the well off spreading above the hill. I found that interesting because the philisophical division of Toronto is not so much north and south, but rather it is East and West, with Yonge St as the dividing line. Native Torontonians are usually from the East End or the West End and cross over with only great difficulty (I am a West Ender).

Anyway, the book itself deals with one Karen Whitney, Toronto born and raised, well-educated, upper middle-class background, house-wife, empty-nester, who is, as we met her contemplating suicide. She is so tired of her empty existence in Rowanwood, which boils down to finishing and decorating her home, throwing parties she has no desire to throw (and attending such things as well), and having to deal with the secrets and numbing lives of her neighbours. She is sick of it all, and unable to articulate why she is not happy with her life, but she's not.

We see Karen's life in flashbacks, juxtaposed with her life now. She still has many of the same friends, and sometimes they are part of the problem with her life. The one thing I did really like about this book was that her husband, Rick, is not part of the problem. He is supportive and loving and not sleeping with his secretary, and that almost seems like a nice change, especially compared with the boorish, stupid, neglectful, cheating men that make up many of the neighbours. Rick isn't sure what to do about Karen's problems, but he's also wise enough to know that she has them and that she has to find a solution herself.

Basically, the solution seems to be to move the hell out of the suburbs and back to Toronto. I could've told you that ;)

Number 8 for 2010 is Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. This book is basically a book about the power of creation, both on an individual and cultural level. Set in post WWII England, the main character, Steven Huxley returns to England on news of his father's death. Upon return to his family home, he learns of his father's obsession with the neighbouring Ryhope Wood has now become his brother's obsession as well.

What Huxley the elder discovered, was that every folkhero and legend who had ever been known in English history has an archetype, or mythago as Huxley called them, residing in the woods, whose very existence was tied, not to belief in the legend, but simply to the imagination of the surrounding minds. While some of the mythagos are of popular characters, like Robin Hood or King Arthur, many more of the mythagos encountered by the elder Huxley and then later Steven and his brother Christian, were forgotten except within the confines of Ryhope Wood.

Of course, the obsession gets out of hand when Christian disappears into the woods, looking for his lost, mythago love, Guiwenneth. She being the same mythago their father fell in love with, and who would later also claim Steven's heart. But the thing with Guiwenneth is, is she the same mythago each time, or a little bit different each time depending on whose mythago she is?

Christian's return for Guiwenneth (who has fallen in love with Steven and is basically living with him), is sudden and violent. It also forces Steven to journey deep into the wood in search of her and for revenge on Christian. But once in the wood and dealing with the wood's mythago inhabitants, Steven realizes that he, his brother and his father have become part of the woods' mythos themselves. Does this mean mythagos can create mythagos themselves? Or are Christian and Steven simply made part of the mythos due to their involvement with it? Considering that the wood itself was continuing to grow up to the house and even in the house, it would almost seem like the wood was consuming them or forcing them to join the myth.

It is an interesting book for sure, and I'm definitely interested in reading the sequels to it.

Number 7 this year is, Dead in Dallas another of the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. I guess I'm liking these because they are a nice, quick, popcorn read, and I haven't had too many of those this year.

This book builds on Sookie's world. She and vampire Bill Compton are still dating (although they hit a few snags in their relationship here and there) and must journey to Dallas to do a favour for a nest of vampires when she is 'loaned' out by powerful vampire Eric.

An enjoyable read overall. Harris builds on her world nicely, as we see the impact the outing of vampires has made, from anti-vampire religious fanatics to new businesses set up to cater to the vampires. It all makes sense and doesn't seem outlandish.

Harris also introduces more supernatural beings to her world. She seems to be saying that when one supernatural bunch comes out of the closet, more are soon to follow.

The only thing I didn't like about this book, was if the murder that happens at the beginning crosses over into the tv show True Blood, I'm going to be really upset.

Number 6 is Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner. This is a sequel of sorts to her much earlier novel, Swordspoint, which I read and enjoyed. The only thing about it is that I can't remember a darned thing about it. So when I noticed that PotS wasn't a total sequel but just shared a few characters, well that made it easier to decide to pick up. And true to what it said, I didn't need to remember any of the back story from Swordspoint, and any back story I needed was supplied to me.

The story is about Katherine Talbert, the niece of the Mad Duke Tremontaine (Alec Campion from Swordspoint). The Duke takes her from her home (there had been a family feud going) and decides that she will be trained to be a swordsman, which is something women didn't do. So Katherine is plunged into the strange, decadent world of her uncle, a world she doesn't come to embrace, but she certainly comes to appreciate some of the eccentricities.

The novel moved briskly enough to keep my interest, and is pretty much a character study, especially in the person of the Mad Duke. Alec's madness is of the clear-eyed sort that calls into question all of our basic assumptions. In our terms, he is as neurotic as it's possible to be and still function, but he is also cagey, brilliant, and ruthless, and we're never quite sure where the one leaves off and the other starts. He is also an idealist and a humanitarian, and his clear-eyed vision on the follies of privilege is the starting point for much of the satire in the novel.

Katherine herself is a pretty good against-the-type heroine. She is brave (right from the beginning actually, in leaving her family to do her duty for them) and she becomes a good swordsman enough so to win fights against men and to champion her friend Artemisia who was wronged by her fiancee Lord Ferris. Katherine's naievty amidst all the shenanigans of the Mad Duke's world could be trite, but ends up actually working as it is a nice counterpoint, but it also doesn't make her prudish. She is disturbed by some things, but intreigued by others and I liked that, it seems a more natural reaction. And once the Mad Duke actually does start taking an interest in her and they talk, the book becomes even more enjoyable.

I liked this enough to go dig out my copy of Swordspoint and re-read it.

There are a lot of authors out there that I love, but I can safely say that of them all, Guy Gavriel Kay is my absolute favourite. So, whenever he has a new book out, I am absurdly happy. I must rush out and get the new book as soon as I can, and then I want my life to basically cease it's usual pace so that all I have to do is sit down and read the new book and get lost in whatever world Kay has created for me this time. So, new book was acquired last Friday, and I finished it today. Number 5 of the year is Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay.

To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect when I heard this was a book set in a thinly disguised Tang Dynasty-8th Century -type China. I'm not overly fascinated by the Far East, so I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this one or not. I should've known better and trusted in Kay unquestioningly like I usually do.

Under Heaven is gripping and epic and just an utter pleasure to read. He painstakingly builds the lands of Kitai (China) and it's neighbours, and he weaves court and political intreigue just as well as George R. R. Martin does. The main character, Tai, goes off to honour the memory of his recently deceased father by journeying to a remote battlefield and laying to rest the remains of hundreds of soldiers who died there. He does this for two years, and towards the end of it, he is given a great, and extravegant gift by the princess of Tagur (as Tai was also burying their dead, as it was Kitai and Tagur who fought at this place) that changes his life forever. Tai is a good character, resourceful, witty, a little lost about his place in the world, and just... competent , as many of Kay's characters tend to be. His life becomes a grand adventure, and it definitely puts one in the mind of the old proverb; "may you live in interesting times", as that is exactly what Tai is living in and has become intricately intwined in.

I cannot go into all the details about this book, as it has so many plot threads and characters and what have you, which is pretty standard for a Kay novel. His prose is elegant and descriptive, also as usual. It's a big book, but well thought out. It never comes crashing down under it's own weight, and I didn't even really see the ramifications of some characters actions until it was too late. And that's a good thing, for there are surprises, but they make sense.

The ending is, for the most part, a happy one for Tai, which is a good thing, considering Kay doesn't always allow his characters for a most happy ending. But this time there is one, and it is deserved, for which I'm glad.

I mean heck, I still haven't totally forgiven him for Diarmuid ;)

They're coming a bit quicker now since I put down the huge book and picked up some fun stuff. Number 4 this year is Fool by one of my very favourite authors, Christopher Moore. When I spied this book at a bookstore in Buffalo (there for a lovely day trip to the Albright Knox Art Gallery), I knew I had to have. Christopher Moore doing a retelling of King Lear? I am there. And he did not disappoint.

Moore's books are often hilariously bawdy, and in this one, he gets completely carried away. There's lots of shagging and snogging (this is England afterall), but of course, most of it is in the darker context of the tragedy that is King Lear. It's a very well done juxatposition, managing to make a comedy out of one of Shakespeare's biggest tragedies.

The tale is told (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead style), by King Lear's fool, Pocket. The Fool in Shakespeare's play doesn't even get a name, but here, he gets a name, a background and one hell of a personality. Pocket is completely immersed in the polictical machinations of Lear's horrid daughters (Cordelia excepted of course) and in fact, it is him that causes much of the action to start and finish. Well, he's partly goaded on and aided by Macbeth's Three Witches (seems those girls get around... like most of the other women in this book. heh)

I started trying to remember where and how Moore deviates from the play, but as the man himself said "that way lies madness" (oh, and Moore quoted that too), so I stopped, because it is indeed pretty impossible. So I just let go and enjoyed the ride for what it was, a journey into the bawdy, hilarious, tragedy laced world of Shakespeare but filtered through the wonderfully wicked mind of Christopher Moore.

Nearly the end of March and I'm only on book three. I've had to put aside the other book I'm currently reading because it's very large and very involved and takes awhile to get through. I've really been reading 'scholarly' books so far this year, and while being very interesting and enriching, is also slowing my book consumption down to a crawl. So I went to the library and decided I needed something... quick. And upon spying the first of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels, I knew I had a winner.

What really spurred my wanting to read Dead Until Dark was a recent viewing of the first episode of True Blood, the tv series based on the books. I enjoyed the show for the most part and so decided that checking out the book was worthwhile.

I enjoyed the book, I like Harris' world. The supernatural lies very uneasily with the 'real' world as vampires have only recently admitted their existence and 'come out of the coffin'. A Japanese company has created a bottled, synthetic blood substitute that allows the vampires proper sustinance without having to feed on humans. For of course, killing of humans is unlawful, but likewise, quickly enacted laws have also rendered it illegal to kill (or do other bodily harm) to vampires.

Sookie Stackhouse, our heroine, is a waitress, a charming, well mannered, slightly naive (even though one wonders how she could be under the circumstance) southern belle. She also happens to be telepathic. It's a nice addition of Harris', where, if there are vampires, well then why shouldn't there be telepathic waitresses?

One day, an honest to goodness vampire walks into the bar Sookie works at, and she is immediately smitten. But entering the vampiric world is dangerous and exciting, and Sookie isn't entirely sure she's ready to do so, despite her attraction to the 150 year old Bill.

A string of murders in Sookie's town seem to point to those nearest and dearest to Sookie, either her vampire boyfriend, or her man-whore of a brother. And then Sookie herself becomes a target, further turning her already strange world even stranger.

The characters are all quite likeable (Harris' use of Bubba especially was quite funny) and it is a rich world for sure, enough so that I'd definitely consider picking up some more of the books and continuing with Sookie's adventures.*

*Also, Anna Paquin has done such a fine job as Sookie in True Blood that it was quite easy for me to hear her voice and see her mannerisms as I was reading the book.

Ugh. I'm only finished two books now. Book number 2 for the year is Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer. Yes, that Germaine Greer. Anyway, this book is exactly what it sounds like, it is a 'biography' of Shakespeare's wife, the much vilified Ann Hathaway. But the thing is, and this is the crux of Greer's entire book, it WHY is it popular in scholarly works about Shakespeare, to vilify his wife so? This ill-treatment of a woman who perhaps didn't deserve to be branded so is based pretty much on only three things; that Shakespeare didn't move his family to London when he was there, that we don't know how often he journeyed home to Stratford during his years in London and, finally (and supposedly the most damning evidence), he left Ann his second-best bed in his will.

There is little actual documented evidence left over about Shakespeare, and really even less about Ann. But over the years, it has been fairly widely 'accepted' that Shakespeare and Ann did not have a happy marriage, that she basically trapped him (she was older than he and she was pregnant when they married) and he resented her for this in all their years together, so basically abandoned his wife and children for his career in London.

But Greer does her best to offer plausible arguments to refute this. She painstakingly sifts through records of common lives of contemporaries of Shakespeares’, and she contends that back then there was nothing unusual in a baby’s being born six months after a marriage. She also demonstrates that an unmarried woman in her mid-20s would not have been considered exceptional or desperate. Ann Hathaway, Greer argues, was likely to be literate, and given the relative standing of their families in Warwickshire, she may very well have been considered a more desirable match than her husband. So there all you Ann haters. Greer also puts forth the idea that Shakespeare may not have supported his family financially, and so makes Ann very capable of many domestic tasks that would allow her to be financially independent, which was also not a stretch for the time, according to documents left from the era.

Of course, all this is pure speculation on Greer's part. She does her best to back it up by using all available documents she can find and read from the times, and sometimes this proof does get hard to slog through. The vast cast of characters Greer introduces from Stratford (and other places) gets to be difficult to keep track of, and sometimes, the detail is so overwhelming that I found myself forgetting what it was Greer was trying to use these anecdotes in defense of.

But overall, Greer paints a picture of a woman who is extremely capable, loyal and intelligent. Greer's Ann is much more interesting than anyone has ever given her credit for being in the past, and I found myself hoping that Ann was closer to Greer's thesis, because otherwise, it makes all of Shakespeare's beautiful writings on love seem a little more empty.*

*I've never bought into the idea that some of Shakespeare's sonnets were written to a man, given the way homosexuality was condemned in Elizabethan England. For Shakespeare to have written such blatant offerings to a man would have been incredibly ill-advised. Greer does touch on this in her book as well, and I found myself thinking her explanations made much more sense. Oh, and I also hated the movie Shakespeare in Love. Pure bunk.

And the first book of 2010 is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. This is the book that won Canada Reads in 2009. It tells the tale of
Aminata Diallo, an 11-year-old child, is taken from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea and cross the Atlantic where she is sold as a slave in South Carolina. Her life is torn asunder and becomes a matter of survival, but she is bright and a trained mid-wife, and these skills serve her well. Years later, she finds freedom, serving the British in the American Revolutionary War and having her name entered in the historic "Book of Negroes." This book, an actual historical document, is an archive of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the United States in order to resettle in Nova Scotia.

It's a tough book to read. Deservedly so though. The sheer amount of suffering and horror the slaves who were stolen from Africa went through is tough to imagine. Actually, I admit, I don't want to imagine it, but Hill spells it out in stark terms, you can't look away from what he's describing. it's hard to read about the filth and the sickness and the degredation and the rape and the children that Aminata had taken away from her. But that would've been par for the course, and even though this is a fictionalized account of a slave's life, you know it's not really fiction at all.

But there is a strange amount of hope in this book. As I said, Aminata is clever, she learns to read and this helps her raise her station in life, even though society makes it very difficult for her to do so.

The ending could be considered a little trite, but upon considering all the hardships and horror Aminata had to face during her life, it was nice there was a happy ending.

This book goes well with Bury the Chains, the account of the abolishionist movement in England that Aminata eventually gets herself mixed up in. They are both books that need to be read.

Here we are, January 1, 2010, so time to sum up another year's worth of reading. Despite thinking that I wasn't going to be able to read much once the baby arrived in July, it seems the opposite happened and I was able to read more books than I did last year. I'm still nowhere near the elusive 50 books in a year mark, but I did manage 33 all told, and I'm pretty happy with that number. Living very near a library has helped as I've been able to just grab things I've thought looked interesting in the past, but not enough that I'd spend the money on them. I've forgotten how much I like libraries.

So what did I read? The list is as follows:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maughm
Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Sound of No Hands Clapping by Toby Young
The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susannah Clarke
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Mad Kestrel by Misty Massey
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
The Book of Mordred by Vivian Vende Velde
Firethorn by Sarah Micklen
The Nanny Diaries by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin
Twilight by Stephanie Meyers
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen
Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor
The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret Macmillian
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
Peter and Max by Bill Willingham
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by Harold Bloom

Looking back on this, I didn't read anywhere near as much new fantasy as I usually do, with really only a few counting towards that (Thief of Time, Mad Kestrel, Peter and Max, The Book of Mordred and Firethorn). However, one of them, Firethorn, was undoubtedly the worst book I read this year, with a boring plot and thoroughly unlikeable main characters.

I read a lot more 'popular' works than I usually do, such bestsellers as The Time Traveller's Wife, The Lovely Bones and yes, Twilight. Twilight was the worst written book of the year, it is such drivel that I can scarce understand why it is so popular.

Another trend of mine this year seemed to be industry tell all books, reading the likes of Toby Young's two 'memoirs', Anthony Bourdain's chef-tell-all and The Nanny Diaries.

My favourite book this year? I have to go back to the beginning and go with The Thirteenth Tale. An astounding piece of work that feels like a throwback to old Gothic-style ghost stories, as well as being a love letter to reading. I've been resoundingly recommending it.

So there we have it, my 2009 in books. I've already started my first book for 2010 and maybe this will be the year that I finally break 50 books. But as I'm going to be working hard on finally finishing writing a book of my own, well... maybe not.

And I was doing so well... then I ran into my last book of the year... Number 33 of this year is Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by my favourite literary critic, Harold Bloom. As with all Bloom books, I had to think hard while reading this one, which is basically where he looks at Jesus and Yahweh as characters in the bible, and at their inconsistent portrayals throughout. It was very interesting, but since I don't have a very biblical background (in that I've never read the darn thing all the way through or anything), much of it was over my head and difficult to get through. The parts where Bloom compared Jesus to Hamlet though, those I understood.

I did take a bible course in university, as I thought it would be helpful for my English degree. And it was, it certaintly made some of the more well-used allegories easier to recognize, but we only looked at some of the bible, mainly the Old Testament, not much of the New, so the parts of the book dealing with Jesus were pretty much a mystery to me. Which I actually think was part of Bloom's point; because Jesus' personality (such as it is) is so different in the various gospels, we definitely don't get much of a sense of who he was. And Bloom finds this very fascinating especially given the predominance Jesus plays in American religion, where much of it is centered on 'knowing' Jesus and how he 'knows' them. Bloom thinks that is rather preposterous.

He also points out that Yahweh somehow morphed into the Christian's "Father" of the Holy Trinity, but do not seem to be the same God. Yahweh, Bloom posits, is not love, yet the Father is supposed to be love. Also, the Father seems to have been stripped of any personality or humanity, but when you read the older stuff, Yahweh is full of both.

It's a very interesting, but difficult read, but I do find purely literary approaches to the bible rather interesting.

Number 32 this year is Peter and Max by Bill Willingham. Willingham writes one of my very, very favourite comic books, Fables. It is a comic about fairy tale characters and their like living among the 'mundies' in the real world, after they'd been driven out of their worlds by the Adversary, a conqeror who took over all their worlds and enslaved them. Anyway, Peter and Max is a Fables novel and it concerns the lives of two brothers, Peter Piper and his older brother Max, the infamous Pied Piper of Hamlin.

I thought it a logical idea of Willingham's to max the two characters brothers (one of those logical thoughts that I never would have thought of myself :) ) and he wastes no time in making the relationship between the two brothers go very, very wrong when Peter inherits the magical flute Frost from their father. Max is convinced it should've gone to him, and his envy over this basically drives the boy mad. Things go from bad to worse for the Piper family when the Adversary attacks and they're all separated.

Willingham writes evil very well, and Max is definitely a character who goes down that route and he becomes increasingly power hungry and more and more dangerous. The narrative goes back and forth between modern times and when Peter and Max were children. It's a good narrative overall, and it's nice to see how the Pipers fit in with the rest of the Fable community.

I think my only critcism with this book is how it resolved. It made complete and utter sense (Willingham is very good at making clever resolves, but they almost seem too easy in a way) but yes, just seemed a tad too easy.

But still, overall this was a very worthy entry in the Fables universe.

I keep meaning to go back and flesh out my last post, but I'm trying to write some other stuff and get reading done, plus you know, baby, so yeah, I've not been able to do that, and I think this post is going to be just as brief for awhile.

Number 31 is Too Much Happiness by the Canadian queen of the short story, Alice Munro. I think the title is a bit of a misnomer, because there is never, ever too much happiness in Alice Munro stories. They are overwhelmingly kinda... not really depressing, but definitely uncomfortable. There is something always off kilter about her stories, which is probably why I like them so much.

Knocked off a few more; number 28 is Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley and number 29 is In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F.Cantor and number 30 is The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret Macmillian.

Number 27 is Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. Time was I used to read everything Pratchett put out, but the sheer number of books he manages to write actually made that a daunting task, so I slowed down in my Pratchett consumption. Also, I discovered I liked some of his groups of characters more than others. My favourites are the Watch, and my second favourite is Death and his family. Thief of Time concerns Death and his granddaughter Susan.

Honestly, I didn't like this one as much, I didn't find it as... funny as I usually find his books. Discworld's version of Death is usually amusing, but he didn't have an awful lot to do in this book, other than to send his granddaughter Susan to look into the matter of time being stopped and the world ending, and then try and convince the other three, er, rather four, retired Horsemen of the Apocalypse to ride out with him.

I think I didn't like this one as much because there was too much chronobabble, as an impossible clock is built, time is collected and delved out by a group of enigmatic monks, and Time has a son, twice, who is both destroyer and savior. Something about it all just didn't work for me as much as it usually does in Pratchett's books.

Number 26 is Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen. I've previously only read Striptease by Hiaasen (and it is a much better book than movie, even with Burt Reynolds hilarious turn), which I enjoyed, so I decided to give another of his books a shot.

Sick Puppy tells the story of Twilly Spree, an independently wealthy eco-terrorist who one day spots political lobbyist Palmer Stoat chucking litter out of his Range Rover, and so decides to teach him a lesson. Stoat, however, isn't the type to get a lesson, he lives in his own world of wealth and political fixes and fixed big-game hunts. After Twilly abducts Stoat's dog and wife, the fun really begins.

It is a darkly funny novel, and even though what Twilly does is highly illegal for the most part, you definitely cheer for him over the slimy politicos who want to turn a pristine Florida island into yet another condo development with a golf course. Twilly is an angry young man, but with the means and smarts to make things happen. He 'abducts' Stoat's dog, Boodle (renamed McGuinn by Twilly), an affable black Labrador retriever, in order to get Stoat to stop the development on the island. Hiaasen's use of the dog is hilarious, he's obviously owned a Lab before and therefore understands that breed's mindset.

The climax of the story occurs at one of the faux-big game hunts that Stoat embarks on, where he basically 'hunts' poor old animals procured specifically by the owners of the game preserve. Stoat and his toady friends are there to hunt a rhinocerous, but the tables are wonderfully turned and it is a stangely happy ending.

Number 25 this year is The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. It seems to me that, after having read two of her novels, that Sebold excels at writing what should be gawd-awful depressing stuff, and yet somehow makes it not depressing.

The Almost Moon starts off with a rather shocking act; the main character, Helen Knightley, kills her elderly, dementia ridden mother. You quickly find out that Helen not only views this as a mercy killing for her mother, but also one for herself, as her relationship with her mother has been, shall we say, contentious.

The novel then slowly unfolds, almost like a murder mystery, Helen's family past as she works through what to do in the present. She has killed her mother, she knows the police will figure it out, and she has to decide what to do. Helen's family history is not easy, her contentious relationship with her mother stems from her mother's mental illness and leads to a very deep love/hate relationship.

The book is a fascinating look at a very damaged family. Sebold doesn't make you feel sorry for Helen though; she's much too unloveable for that (and not because she killed her infirm mother), but you do end up understanding why the way Helen is and why she relates (or doesn't relate) to the world around her.

A good, quick read overall.

Yup, I went and did it; number 24 of this year is Twilight by Stephanie Meyers. A good friend of mine had warned me not to read it, that it really wasn't very good, but as with most publishing 'phenomenons', my curiosity got the better of me and so, when finally seeing it at the library, I borrowed it.

No, it's not very good. It starts off fine, a nice teenaged, fish out of water type tale, but it kinda... devolved from there. The character of Edward is so very insufferable and condesending towards the main character it made me wonder why the hell she likes him so much, other than he's really good looking. Oh and a vampire. A nearly 100 year old vampire, masquerading as a high school student, and so I realized this is probably the most creepy May/December romance ever. Dude, a 17 year old girl is the best you can do? Ick...

And this 17 year old girl, Bella, wow is she passive. She's so awkward and not good at anything except being motherly to her parents, and so once again it's like, why does he like her? Because she's pretty and she smells good. Ok yeah... Most of the novel is about how Edward has to rescue her over and over again. He's more like her bodyguard than anything else. It would've been nice had she been able to rescue herself at some point, but no. Although, she does recognize this and so of course, wants to be turned into a vampire. I'm sure that'll happen in some other book.

I guess that's it, this all felt terribly shallow to me. And juvenille. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised really. As far as angsty vampires go, Edward's got nothing on Lestat.