Grass (Sheri S Tepper)

My most vivid memory of this book, read a month or so ago, is a description of the plague that made me want to throw up. Tepper is certainly a skilled writer in evoking violence and rather horrible things, and I think this book is actually one of her better efforts. Some of her books are quite insightful and fascinating pieces of science fiction, and others are far more trashy, with villians who have no redeeming qualities.

Grass is set on another planet, the only one in the universe where plague has not struck, and the other planets would like to know why. There is a great sense of menace in this story - not only the creeping hideousness of the plague, but a great many other horrors. It's not a story to curl up and read in a comforting armchair, but one to read tensely, leant over its pages, gritting your teeth at the more vivid descriptions. While the scientific conclusion (as to lack of plague) at the end is a bit pat, this is a fun read for fans of Tepper and sci-fi in geneal.

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer)

I read good reviews of Twilight on several blogs, but was put off by the fact that it was a teen love story involving a vampire - not really my type of thing. However, I found an audio book of it in the library, and thought I'd give it a listen. I hated the voice of the narrator at first, but got used to it (I think you could get used to anything after listening to it for about 12 hours), and despite my initial irritation with it, really loved the story I was hearing.

Twilight is a super-romantic over the top love story between a teenage girl and one of her classmates, who's a vampire. Naturally, their relationship abounds in tension, mostly because Bella smells so very edible to Edward. I like Meyer's vampires - they're original and attractive creatures - and although some parts of this Romeo & Juliet-like romance made me roll my eyes a little, I still really enjoyed it, and was very involved with the characters. I think if I'd read this while I was a teenager I would have become quite obsessed with it - it's just my sort of thing. Can't wait to read New Moon, the sequel.

The Gilded Chamber (Rebecca Kohn)

The Gilded Chamber is a re-telling of the biblical story of Esther, a young Jewish girl who is brought into the harem of King Xerxes, eventually marries him, and is able to prevent him making an order for the execution of the Jewish people. It's full of lush descriptions of life in the harem - beauty treatments, endless banquets of food and wine, and gorgeous costumes. However, it's not really the sort of book you read for strong characters - while Kohn paints some gorgeous visual scenery, Esther and Xerxes move through it rather blankly. Fun, but fairly forgettable.

The Castlemaine Murders (Kerry Greenwood)

I listened to The Castlemaine Murders as an audiobook, and while it took me a little while to get used to the very English narrator (Phryne didn't really sound as I expected her to sound), it didn't detract from my enjoyment of yet another light hearted mystery from Greenwood. As usual, the mystery was not terribly mysterious, but Phryne was deliciously fabulous, and I love all the scenes in her household. When will I be rich enough to have a butler to mix me drinks?

Incantation (Alice Hoffman)

Incantation is another one of Alice Hoffman's books for young adults. Incantation is a fairly short book, telling the story of Estrella, who lives with her family in Spain in the 1500s. Estrella discovers that her family belong to a rather different church to her friend Catalina - they light candles on Friday nights, keep pigs as pets, and have special names for each other to use in the privacy of their home. When their secret is revealed, it has terrible consequences for the family.

Incantation is surprisingly graphic in its violence, and I was rather depressed by the time I closed the final cover. However, it's very well written, and I imagine a reasonably accurate portrayal of the persecution of Jews in Spain at the time - a gripping story.

End in Tears (Ruth Rendell)

End in Tears is Ruth Rendell's latest Inspector Wexford novel, and while I found the plot rather contrived, Rendell's skill with characterisation still makes this book very readable indeed. A teenage mother is found murdered, and shortly afterwards one of her friends disappears. Wexford spends the novel seeking the link between thes two girls, and dealing with his own family problems as his wife is furious with their daughter for deciding to have another child. As usual, it is the character of Wexford that carries the story - his frustration with the world he finds himself in, and his determination to find the answers.

Drowning Ruth (Christina Schwarz)

Drowning Ruth is billed as a psychological thriller, but I wasn't particularly enthralled by it. The story of Amanda, who takes care of her sister's child Ruth, after her sister drowns, with the help of Ruth's father, Carl. Amanda was present the night of her sister's death, and we gradually discover the truth of what happened that night as the story progresses. I finished the story, but found it rather dull - a very forgettable book.

One Good Turn (Kate Atkinson)

I was really looking forward reading to One Good Turn. I've enjoyed all of Kate Atkinson's other books, to varying degrees, and I loved Case Histories, which shares characters with One Good Turn. However, unfortunately I wasn't too enthralled.

I found One Good Turn to be enormously complicated. So many characters, so many plots (which all tied together in so many ways) - and I realise that's Atkinson's trademark, in a way. But I just wasn't able to keep track of it this time, or at least not in a way that kept me involved with the characters. I'll definitely re-read One Good Turn sometime in the future, and hope that I enjoy it more the second time.

The Basic Eight (Daniel Handler)

I've read The Basic Eight before, and remember really enjoying it. This time around, this satire of American teenagers, pop culture and high school didn't grab me as much, I think because I was reading it with the end twist in mind.

Basic plot outline - Flan and her seven friends (the titular basic eight) deal with their complex love lives, high school classes and creepy biology teachers. Flan, the narrator, makes it clear that the whole narrative is leading up to the tragedy that occurred on Halloween and its a very effective - creepy, engaging, and all that. Great the first time, not so fabulous for a re-read.

Pomegranate Soup (Marsha Mehran)

I read Pomegranate Soup on a plane, and this very mediocre attempt at magical realism was not improved by such uncomfortable surroundings. I don't think I can blame the plane, though - I would have disliked Pomegranate Soup wherever I read it.

I picked up Pomegranate Soup because of the cover, and took it home from the library because of the blurb. Three Iranian sisters move to a small Irish town and start up a cafe - it seemed a pleasantly light and quirky read to take on holiday.

Unfortunately, as Books Give Wings pointed out, Marsha Mehran has copied the plot of Joanne Harris' Chocolat almost exactly. Strangers come to a small town, are greeted with fear and suspicion, and win over townspeople with their magical cooking skills. Unfortunately, Mehran doesn't write nearly as well as Harris, and Pomegranate Soup suffers from her heavy-handed writing, scattering unnecessary metaphors and symbolism all over the place. The sisters are greeted with competely over-the-top hatred and fear by some - the main villian of the piece, Thomas McGuire, is laughable in his constant state of rage. Pieces of "magic" pop into the plot, but because Mehran hasn't drawn the reader into another world, they are ridiculously out of place. I found myself laughing at a scene I think was supposed to be a transformational and triumphant conclusion to the novel. A very disappointing read.

Charmed Life (Diana Wynne Jones)

I enjoyed The Pinhoe Egg so much I immediately wanted to reread some of my favourite books by Diana Wynne Jones, one of which is Charmed Life.

Cat and his sister Gwendolyn, a talented witch, are orphaned in a terrible boating accident, and go to live at Chrestomanci Castle. Gwendolyn quickly becomes enemies with Chrestomanci's two children, and perhaps Chrestomanci himself, while Cat drifts along in her wake.

I am very fond of the character of Cat, who evolves wonderfully from a meek shy boy to someone willing to grasp his independence and his own power by the end of the book. Gwendolyn is deliciously nasty, and Chrestomanci, in his first appearance in Jones' books, is an elegantly eccentric figure who drifts around the castle in a variety of brightly coloured silk dressing gowns. While there are a few questions left unanswered in this book, and a few elements that perhaps weren't thought through quite thoroughly enough, Charmed Life is really excellent YA fantasy.

The Pinhoe Egg (Diana Wynne Jones)

While I adored Diana Wynne Jones when I was a teenager, I haven't been a big fan of her books published while I was an adult. Mixed Magics, a collection of four short stories, was OK, and Conrad's Fate was about the same. I was rather disappointed with The Merlin Conspiracy, which I didn't enjoy at all.

So I was pleasantly surprised with Jones' latest novel, The Pinhoe Egg. This may be because it has appearances by some of my most favourite characters of Jones' - Chrestomanci (the government appointed auditor of magic in Jones' world), his wife Millie, and everyone at Chrestomanci Castle. The Pinhoe Egg is the story of the Pinhoe family, a family of witches living secretly in a village near Chrestomanci Castle and concealing their misuse of magic.

I always fall in love with Jones' characters - her awkward, well meaning heroes, the adults who hide evil under a bland exterior, and the humour that winds its way through all of her stories, not detracting from the tragedies that may occur but making them more poignant. A really fabulous YA author, and I think The Pinhoe Egg is a return to some of her best form.

The Breakdown Lane (Jacquelyn Mitchard)

I quite enjoy Jacquelyn Mitchard's family dramas, and I thought The Breakdown Lane was good - traversing illness, parenting and infidelities, it does so without being cloying or overly cliched.

Julieanne's husband Leo goes off to find himself, and is uncontactable when she is diagnosed with MS. Her children sneak off on a road trip to bring their father home, but he arrives with more baggage than they bargained for. The novel is narrated alternately by Julieanne and her teenage son Gabe, which works fairly well - we get both perspectives of betrayal, and can see both occasionally overreacting. And yes, sometimes people in this novel are just too perfect, and everything turns out with a tinge of happily ever after. But it was a very enjoyable tale despite that.

Going Postal (Terry Pratchett)

I've never listened to any of Pratchett's books on audio before, and wasn't sure how his brand of satire (complete with many footnotes) would work when read aloud. Thankfully, it works really well - even the footnotes make their way into the text nicely - and Pratchett's familiar characters really came alive for me in this. I've never felt a particular attachment to Going Postal (yes, it's a book I've read twice before, but I think Pratchett is worth at least several re-reads), but it really worked for me this time. Moist regularly made me giggle out loud, and I loved his very weird romance with the chain-smoking advocate for golems, Adora Belle Dearheart. The next Discworld novel that Pratchett is working on, Making Money, is also going to star Moist - can't wait.

Rebel Angels (Libba Bray)

I listened to Rebel Angels as an audio book, but not really by choice. For some unfathomable reason, my library has A Great and Terrible Beauty as a book, but they only have Rebel Angels, its sequel, as an audio book. So I didn't really have any choice, because I enjoyed Terrible Beauty a lot, and wanted to read more of the story.

I really enjoyed listening to this recording actually - the narrator had a terribly British accent, of course, and the Victorian school girls who populate these books saying all their "W" words with "H"s - so they say things like "hwhat" and "hwhere".

Rebel Angels almost has two main plots side-by-side - there are Gemma's continuing adventures within the Realms, and her search for the Temple in order to bind the magic. Then there is her life in the real world - her father who is addicted to opium and grieving her mother's death, and Simon Middleton, the wealthy young man who is courting Gemma. She is rather torn between wanting to be a normal girl, and being determined to fulfill her responsibilities in restoring order to the Realms. She's a really fabulous teenage character - she darts between feeling jealousy, anguish, remorse, grief, with sparks of a great nobility of character which I expect we will see in Gemma as an adult (if Libba Bray keeps writing about her).

I thought, occasionally, that Gemma and friends almost seemed a little too obtuse about the clues and signs that were spread before them throughout the book. I became a little tired of them being in incredible danger because of their own mistakes. But they are teenagers, after all, and they do manage to resolve things very well.

I think Libba Bray does a really wonderful job at combining the seemingly very different genres of fantasy, historical fiction, and teenage adventure into one story - I can't wait for the third book to be published. I'll just have to wait and see what format the library acquires it in this time.

Angel of Ruin (Kim Wilkins)

I have mixed feelings about Kim Wilkins' books, but I usually pick them up if I see them in the library. She writes a good YA series about a teenage psychic, and while I've enjoyed one or two of her novels for adults, others didn't grab me at all.

Angel of Ruin (also published as Fallen Angel) is a little confusing. It seems to begin as a story-within-a-story type of thing, but the part I initially thought was the main story is merely a bookend to the tale that takes up the majority of the book. John Milton's daughters call upon a guardian angel, and an angel appears - but is he their guardian? Perhaps, Deborah Milton thinks, he doesn't mean them any good at all.

I enjoyed the character of the angel, and the idea that some otherworldly being was whispering in Milton's ear while he dictated Paradise Lost to his daughters, who act as his scribes. I think the story descends into not entirely convincing melodrama towards the end, to an extent, but I was still relatively enthralled with it - as much as I become enthralled with gothic fantasy/drama, anyway. It's an easy read, and if you're into gothic-style fiction, it's probably just your cup of tea.

The Constant Princess (Philippa Gregory)

I like Philippa Gregory's historical novels, especially this loose series of hers which has been revolving around Henry VIII and the powerful families of that time. The Constant Princess is the story of Katherine of Aragon, and we begin by meeting Catalina, Infanta of Spain, when she is a child, watching her parents fight battles and secure their kingdom.

I think Catalina's descriptions of her parents' court are the most beguiling and beautifully written parts of The Constant Princess - I longed to spend my days reclining in a scented bathhouse, and strolling through gardens wearing thin silk robes. Gregory imagines her in love with her first husband, Arthur, and this is a pleasurable little romance. Unfortunately, I think the story finishes a little abruptly - we do not see the birth of Mary, or Katherine's decline in power. I would have liked to see how Gregory portrayed these times in Katherine's life.

The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova)

I read a lot about The Historian on various book blogs, but was a bit unsure about it. I saw it described as the Da Vinci Code with vampires, which didn't really seem like my sort of thing, but I ended up giving it a try.

I can see why it's a little Da Vinci Code-ish - lots of history, lots of information, often narrated to you by various characters. People chasing each other around Europe frantically researching things in libraries. Kostova's characters, however, are much more like people than Brown's info-dumping mechanisms, and her writing is vastly superior. It's a tremendously exciting book - I was quite enthralled in their chase, despite the occasionally clumsy mechanism of letters telling much of the story.

Unfortunately, Kostova's characters suffer a little from the sheer scale of this book - a teenage girl, who is perhaps intended to be the "main" character, simply reads her father's letters to us, and barely becomes a person in her own right. I think that it's very difficult to combine the two though - if you're going to have a novel on an enormous scale and essentially educate your readers about a lot of Eastern European history, it's almost imposssible to create nuanced realistic characters at the same time. Regardless, The Historian is a very enjoyable read, but it's definitely an adventure story rather than a character study.

The Art of Detection (Laurie R King)

I obviously wasn't paying a great deal of attention when I picked this book up at the library, because I was expecting another installment in King's series of Sherlock Holmes novels. The Art of Detection is more properly described as a Kate Martinelli novel - another one of King's serial characters, a San Francisco detective - although it involves the discovery of an unpublished Conan Doyle story narrated by Sherlock Holmes, thereby loosely linking King's two popular mystery series.

I'm not sure if the linking together really worked. The short story is narrated out within the pages of this book, and I became quite distracted with it, which reduced my interest in the resolution of the "real" mystery that Kate was trying to solve. There were almost too many threads to this - Kate's family life, characters from previous Kate novels, the murder (or is it a murder?) that Kate's trying to solve, and then the story-within-a-story. At times, I thought it moved rather slowly.

However, King's skill draws everything together at the end - a satisfactorily tense resolution to Kate's case - and the murdered character whose life is revealed slowly through the book is quite fascinating. It's not one of King's best books - I'm really more a fan of her Sherlock novels - but still an enjoyable read, if you persevere through the occasional slow patches.

Tree of Hands (Ruth Rendell)

I enjoy Ruth Rendell's work a lot, but I do tend to read her books for relaxation, rather than because I'm utterly absorbed in the story. No, I take that back - I become very absorbed in her books, but they don't tend to stay with me - when they finish, they drop out of my mind, which is why I consider them light reading, despite their regularly depressing content.

Tree of Hands is the story of Benet, her son James, and her mother Mopsa, and another family, Carol, Barry and Carol's three children, some of whom are in care. Mopsa, who has always been somewhat mentally disturbed, is the connection who brings these families together in an unexpected way. Events tumble onward through the novel, bring disaster after disaster to its characters - even Benet's gradual reawakening is shadowed by the reader's foreboding of eventual disaster.

Rendell is known for delving into the darker parts of the human psyche, and she does it immensely well - you sympathise with her most unsympathetic characters because you recognise parts of yourself in their desperate greed and meanness. I imagine if you're a fan of psychological thrillers, then Tree of Hands will linger in your thoughts longer than it did in mine - it is an excellent book, afterall.

The Full Cupboard of Life (Alexander McCall Smith)

The Full Cupboard of Life is another lovely book in McCall Smith's series about private detective Precious Ramotswe. While these stories are technically mysteries, these really take a back seat to McCall Smith's beautifully simply writing, Botswana and Precious herself.

I found myself smiling often while reading this book - it evokes a sense of sweet contentment, and the ending is really beautiful. I loved it - I must read more of these, as I don't think I've read them all.

Murder in the Dark (Kerry Greenwood)

Ah, the latest Phryne Fisher mystery - the perfect book to read, snuggled down on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate. Murder in the Dark has all the familiar elements of Greenwood's Phryne Fisher books - beautiful descriptions of costumes, an enjoyable mystery, and the delightful Phryne being gorgeous. Lovely. Such a fun book.

Broken (Kelley Armstrong)

I quite enjoy Armstrong's series of fantasy/horror books, set in a world where witches, vampires and werewolves live undercover among humans. Broken is a book set in the werewolf family we've met before. I really like Elena and the pack of werewolves, and Elena's pregnancy storyline runs concurrently with a little problem of a time hole and Jack the Ripper. I wasn't heavily involved with what was probably intended to be the main storyline, involving a rogue wizard, but I really enjoyed Elena's storyline - I love her relationship with Clay. A fun read.

The Bitch in the House (ed. Cathi Hanauer)

The Bitch in the House is an anthology of essays about marriage, housework, raising kids and family, from many different perspectives. As always with these sorts of compilations, I really enjoyed some of the essays, but others fell rather flat. The piece written by the woman with the open marriage was really fascinating, as were several others about women negotiating within their marriages and relationships. I wouldn't buy it, because it's not something I'd re-read, but it was very enjoyable collection.

The Oracle's Queen (Lynn Flewelling)

I've been waiting for this book, the conclusion of the Tamir Trilogy for ages. Flewelling is an excellent fantasy author, and this final book doesn't disappoint (thought I wish there were going to be more.)

Tamir, now revealed to everyone in her true form, claims the crown and begins the difficult task of learning how to rule. I think Flewelling does a great job writing a young woman dealing not only with a completely changed body, but the usual emotional turmoil that we all deal with during our teenage years.

The conflict between Tamir and her cousin, Korin (whose holed up at one end of the country with his own army) is done really well, as is the beautifully realistic relationship between Tamir and her squire, Ki. A wonderful story - I can't wait until Flewelling's next book.)

New X-Men: Riot at Xavier's and Assault on Weapon Plus

Riot at Xavier's and Assault on Weapon Plus are volumes four and five of Grant Morrison's New X-Men.

I really loved Riot at Xavier's. The Stepford Cuckoos are so cool, and Emma Frost is both fabulously cool and very human (in her own delightful way). I wished that there was some more about... well, I'll just say the babies, so as not to spoil the plot for anyone. And the whole mutant gang thing is a really cool plot.

Assault on Weapon Plus is quite different (although it still has the same deft dialogue which I really enjoy). Cyclops, Wolverine and Fantomex go searching for the clues to the latter two's past. It's shorter than Riot, and less full of touching moments - it also leaves us on a pretty intense cliffhanger. Next volume please!

Serenity: Those Left Behind (Joss Whedon)

I think this is the first in what will presumably be a series of Serenity comics. It's nicely drawn, with a kind of matte colour pencil look, which I really liked. Interspered in the story are portraits of each of the characters.

While I really love the Serenity/Firefly universe and the series and movie, I found the language, which seems quite natural in the TV series, rather forced when I'm reading it. The occasional Mandarin phrase (which is written in Chinese characters) is difficult to imagine, so instead of their voices flowing through my head, they stop and start. The slang, also, seems rather out of place.

It wasn't all terrible though - a decent story, and I really liked how it was drawn. The dialogue just didn't really click with me.

Magic Lessons (Justine Larbalestier)

This YA fantasy novel is a sequel to Magic or Madness, which I read earlier in the year. Magic Lessons continues the stories of Reason, Tom and Jay-Tee, as is more fast paced than Magic or Madness, I think. There are a few quiet moments, when Reason talks about her childhood, for example, but mostly we charge frenetically through the story as a strange creature attacks the door between New York and Sydney, trying to get through to the other side. What is it and what does it want? These are the questions that Reason and her friends try to answer.

I felt a little lost at points within this book, trying to figure out what was happening, who to trust, and who the hell the good guys were - but this is how we're supposed to feel, I think. The characters are equally lost, and there are a couple of great instances of 'good' characters doing terrible things that they regret. Larbalestier's characters are very human - sometimes they make terribly bad decisions - and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

I was a bit stunned by the ending - I probably should have seen it coming, but was shortsighted in that regard. I was confused by what these developments mean for Reason, and everyone else - confused in a good "come on, what happens next?" way, that is - and am consequently greatly looking forward to the third and final novel in the series.

Black Powder War (Naomi Novik)

I raced through Black Powder War almost too fast - I was so excited to have it in my hands and so eager to find out what Temeraire and Lawrence did next. I had to remind myself to slow down. (When will the fourth book be released? Can it be twenty times as long, please?)

Basic plot - Temeraire and Lawrence receive orders and make their way from China to Turkey to retrieve dragon eggs purchased by Britain. They then detour to Prussia and take part in battles there against Napoleon's army.

I think this is the darkest of the three volumes so far - there are a couple of devastating battles, and Temeraire and Lawrence constantly encounter setbacks. Novik brings to life a terrible war and a sense of impending doom very well, I thought. Right at the end, they receive terrible news from England, which didn't really sink in until I closed the book and thought, "Oh my GOD. Where the hell is she going to take all this in the fourth book?" Terribly frustrating having to wait.

Birds of Prey: Sensei & Student (Gail Simone)

I'm really getting into Birds of Prey - I loved Sensei & Student . I'm not sure what it is about it - maybe the fantastic women characters? I haven't read any other comics where the women are centre stage, and these women characters are so well drawn (I mean in a character development sense, but I really enjoyed the artwork in this volume as well. Although I admit that as a beginner comic reader, I don't think I really pay as much attention to the artwork as other readers do. I'm sure that skill comes with time.)

I enjoyed the tension in this volume - Black Canary is forced to team up with Lady Shiva, an assassin, and there's also tension between the three 'Birds', as Huntress finds herself clashing with the other two. I found the ending, especially where Huntress is concerned, just a little sappy, but I'm sure it won't stay that way for long. Can't wait for the next volume.

Dreamhunter (Elizabeth Knox)

I picked up this YA novel while browsing in the library - the cover with the woman languidly reclining appealed to me, and so did the brief synopsis - a world where dreams are performed for the masses, who pay for the privilege. Dreamhunters travel into The Place, where they catch dreams - some are healing, some soothing, some erotic, some dangerous - and perform them for different audiences. It reminded me a little of Roald Dahl's The BFG, although I discovered that the dreamhunting in this novel is quite different.

Dreamhunter is actually an excellent YA fantasy novel, and I'm glad I discovered it. The story is wonderfully original - I loved the Victorian-style society, the world of The Place, and the mysteries set out for our heroines, Laura and Rose, to discover. The political and societal ramifications of dreamhunting are convincingly and intriguingly explored, without too much of a heavy hand. When Laura's father disappears, and Laura seems to make some rather irrational decisions, the story gets quite tense.

Dreamhunter is first in a "duet" and the story ends frustratingly, right in the middle it seems. I do wish they'd put out one big volume - now I have to wait until the second is published. It's an excellent story though, very exciting, and I'm eager to read the second book.

Silver's Bane (Anne Kelleher)

I got this out of the library because I'd read the book before it, Silver's Edge, and was impressed - it seemed like a decent Celtic-style fantasy without too many of the usual cliches, and decent writing for a change.

Perhaps there was too big a gap between reading Silver's Edge and Silver's Bane. I was confused, at first, as to who all these characters were and what the hell they were doing, particularly the faery characters. I got the hang of it again after a while, but was never as enthralled with this book as I recall being with Silver's Edge. There were conspiracies and love affairs and I just didn't care very much about any of it.

I think, when the third book of the series is published, I might wait a while and then re-read all three one after the other - they are decent fantasies, and I might enjoy them more if I could remember who people were. Definitely don't start Silver's Bane without having read Edge. You won't understand a thing.

Bookshop wanderings

I went to wander in the bookshop in my lunch break, and ended up buying myself a treat - Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, one of my favourite novels of all time.  I read it first last year, but won't link to my review of it, because it was incoherent and didn't do a truly amazing novel justice.

I went through various sections of the shop with pen and paper in hand, as is my habit, noting down anything that looked interesting so that I could see if the library has it.  Bookshops are much more fun to browse in than the library.  I am a bookseller's nightmare.

Kerry Greenwood has a new Phryne Fisher book out, Murder in the Dark, which I will get hold of when the library acquires it.  Seeing a glossy display of Neal Stephenson novels on the shelf reminded me how much I enjoyed reading Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age, although both novels confused me to some extent.  I've decided, after reading some blurbs, that the next book of his I'd like to read is Quicksilver - as the beginning of his Baroque Cycle, it seems like a good choice.

The cover of Douglas Kennedy's The Pursuit of Happiness has a positive quote from Kate Atkinson on the cover, which immediately makes me pick it up.  It doesn't really seem like the sort of book that would attract me, but I'm curious - Atkinson's quote might just convince me to give it a go.

And speaking of Kate Atkinson, I'm enormously excited about reading her latest, One Good Turn.  It seems that Be-Zen has her hands on it already - I'm waiting in a line at the library. 

I picked up Justina Robson's Keeping it Real because of the oh-so-funky cover - I can't quite decide if it's the sort of sci-fi I'd enjoy, or if it's the way-cool techno sci-fi littered with futuristic slang that drives me insane.  Some of her other books have got good reviews, and the library stocks her, so I might give it a go.

I remember seeing Labyrinth by Kate Mosse on a few bloggers' reading lists a while ago.  It looks like a fun read, but I don't think I'll be particularly seeking it out, unless I go through a dry patch.  It looks a little too adventurey for me.

Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian is also a book I've seen around a few blogs, and it's definitely one I want to read in the future.  Dracula, mysteries,  suspense -  sounds fun.

Margaret Drabble has a new book out, The Sea Lady.  I love Drabble's books - well-written, wonderful characters and relationships - I'll definitely be reading this one.

Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous (Joss Whedon)

I read Dangerous a while ago, but for some reason forgot to mention it here. I really enjoyed it - Professor X is portrayed really creepily, I thought, with his own ideas about what constitutes ethical behaviour. The Danger Room comes to life in a storyline that's both an action/adventure, and an exercise in understanding the characters more deeply, and their relationships with each other. Good stuff.

As I can recall, it ends on a bit of a cliffhanger/reveal with Emma Frost. I certainly won't know what's going on for a while, because the library doesn't have the next volume in this series yet. Bah.

Castle Waiting (Linda Medley)

If I had plenty of money to spare, I'd probably buy this graphic novel just because it's so prettily presented. However, not being able to roll around in piles of banknotes of an evening, I got a copy of Castle Waiting from the library, which is how I get hold of most of the books I read.

As one reviewer on Amazon says, this is a wandery story. Very wandery. It's a series of loosely interconnected stories that leap off on tangents, and don't really come to a satisfactory conclusion at the end. There's lots of characters I want to know more about - perhaps there will be a sequel.

Castle Waiting is beautifully drawn - it's a delight to read. There's a lot of humour and personality in its stories, and it's a well designed book - it's a pleasure to rest it in your hands, and turn its pages. I really loved the order of bearded nuns - I laughed a lot throughout that story. A very fun, enjoyable story, easy to pick up and read in spare moments - very good fun, overall.

Throne of Jade (Naomi Novik)

Just like the book that came before it, Throne of Jade made me sigh, and smile, and wish I had a dragon of my very own. Thankfully, it did not make me cry, much to Prince Valiant's relief. He didn't know he was signing up for a fiance who cried over fictional dragons.

In my defence (I always have something to say in my defence), Naomi Novik's characters - and yes, the dragons are very definite characters of their own - practically tap-dance their way into your brain, they're so real. I think, if anything, I enjoyed Throne of Jade more than Temeraire. We need no introduction into the world of dragons, or the air corps - we can relax and enjoy the many characters and political intrigues that litter Throne of Jade.

In this novel (and I realised when reading an interview with Novik that it's not just a trilogy, but a never-ending series! Well, a very lengthy one, anyway. Joy, happiness, etc), Laurence and Temeraire make their way to China, after a lengthy voyage, where they discover that dragons there lead very different lives to those in Britain. Temeraire meets his mother, and Laurence tries to deal with various plots to entice Temeraire away from him.

I thought Novik's writing really improved in this book - there were no moments of clunkiness, and I didn't feel that I was reading a YA novel, as I occasionally did while reading Temeraire. It's a smoother, cleaner production. I will be reading Black Powder War as soon as I can get my hands on it, and then will be psychically urging Novik to write faster, please, because there are some of us who need a Temeraire fix quite regularly. (There's a short story on the Temeraire website, for those who need more.)

Forest Mage (Robin Hobb)

I love Robin Hobb's books, and after thoroughly enjoying Shaman's Crossing was looking forward to the second book in the series, Forest Mage. Unfortunately, although I liked the book, I was also disappointed in it.

Mostly my problem is with the main character, Nevare. He is filled with self-hatred and despair throughout this book - he hasn't lived up to his destiny as a soldier son, he feels he has betrayed his people and country, he feels damaged by the effects of magic on him. He is, at times, difficult to sympathise with - he is convinced that what would make him happy would be to go back to the Acadamy, study to be a soldier, fulfill all the expectations his family and society have for him. We see in this book, if we haven't done so before, that Nevare's family and society are filled with problems, and perhaps their expectations for him are not the best thing for him - but no matter how much this point is pushed throughout the book, Nevare refuses to accept it, which is very frustrating. There should be dichotomies and struggles within every character, of course, but I think Nevare should have come to terms with his struggle some time ago - it makes the plot drag miserably.

The world Hobb has created in this Soldier Son Trilogy is fascinating, as usual, and what kept me reading this book was my desire to learn more about it, and about Nevare's destiny. Nevare is just so frustrating though - I felt perhaps Spink and Epiny's story would have been a more interesting focal point for this book, simply because they both have very definite personalities and Nevare is much more blank. To be fair, I think he did improve as a main character towards the end of this book - he actually made a decision (glory be!) and did something. Then, of course, the story ends, and we have to wait until the release of the third volume to see it continue.

I'm probably being a little harsh on this book - if it weren't for the previous books of Hobb's that I've read and loved, I'd be much more positive - but I've seen what she can do with amazing main characters, and it's a pity that I don't see Nevare as one of those. Overall, an enthralling world, with some frustrating aspects in both the character and plot departments, and I look forward to seeing where Hobb takes it in the third volume.

Mystique: Unnatural (Sean McKeever)

Different artists for this Mystique volume, as there seem to be for all of them - why wouldn't you keep it consistent? Once again, the covers are all soft porn, which I'm beginning to hate.

Anyway, Mystique is once again boobier and thinner, and therefore less convincing as a kick-ass spy. But she's still suitably conflicted about her motives and so on, and there's a good intrigue going on as well, which is fun. Apparently the next volume reveals some things (finally), so I'm looking forward to reading that one.

New X-Men: Imperial and New Worlds (Grant Morrison)

These X-Men volumes were interesting - a vastly more complicated look at the X-Men than I've had before, what with aliens and heaps of characters I'd never heard of. I think for that reason I found these slower to get into than I have other series, but I enjoyed them enough to persevere. I can follow the stories, even if I'm a little confused half the time.

My Latest Grievance (Elinor Lipman)

I got My Latest Grievance from the library after reading about it on someone's blog, I think. Elinor Lipman is a wonderful storyteller, and I'm surprised that I haven't picked up anything of hers before. If I was to compare her to someone, it would be to Anne Tyler, I suppose - she tells deceptively simply stories, but ones that absorb you.

My Latest Grievance is the story of Frederica, who has lived all her life on a college campus with her parents, who are professors there. The unexpected apperance of her father's first wife gives Frederica a chance to exercise a bit of teenage rebellion, and ends up throwing the college into upheaval.

I really liked Frederica, who is a wonderful teenage character, and her overly concerned parents who psychoanalyse her at every turn. The college campus is a very well realised insular little world. My Latest Grievance is not a book I'll passionately re-read in the future, but, like Tyler's books, it is a very well-crafted story, and a pleasure to read.

The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)

I expected to love The Year of Magical Thinking, because I'd read so many glowing reports of it. I had never heard of Joan Didion prior to reading about this book, but she's obviously a very well known author - perhaps if I'd known more about her style, I would have had a better idea of how much I would have enjoyed Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking is a memoir of a year after Didion's husband dies of a heart attack while they are sitting down to dinner together, after having visited their gravely ill daughter in hospital. It is an account of grief. Magical Thinking is quite spare, in both its style and length. We are drawn deeply into Didion's emotions during this time, and while this is certainly affecting, it is hard to relate to them. We don't get to know her husband, and I certainly found it hard to grieve for him.

I suppose that wasn't the point of the book - it is a very personal study of grief, rather than an effort to have us grieve along with the author. But the affect of this left me rather cold - despite Didion's skill as a writer, I didn't become involved in Magical Thinking, and don't think I'll be seeking out any more of her work. Her style isn't for me.

Book Meme

I was tagged by both Token Woman and Miss Eagle to complete this meme on books:-

1. One book that changed your life:
Despite being brought up as an environmentalist, I don't think I fully realised my own environmental principles until I read Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer.  I first read this wonderful book as a teenager, I think, and remain enormously fond of it.  I re-read it often, and recommend to people almost as soon as I meet them.  It will always remain on my list of absolute favourite books.  Deanna and Lusa (a biologist and entemologist) are two of my most beloved characters, and I love the idea of connection that Kingsolver weaves through her narrative.  "Everything alive is connected to every other by fine, invisible threads. Things you don't see can help you plenty, and things you try to control will often rear back and bite you, and that's the moral of the story."

2. One book you have read more than once:
I have no idea how I'm supposed to answer this question.  I re-read books all the time, probably cycling through my collection every three years or so.  In fact, probably every book that I'm fond of, I've re-read at least once.  Nope, there's no way I can come up with a succint answer to this one.

3. One book you would want on a desert island:
An omnibus edition of some sort, I would think!  Perhaps a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories?  Or an Agatha Christie or PD James collection?  Or my Learning Italian book, which I haven't looked at in far too long.  Or some classic that I've been avoiding reading because I think it'll take too much effort.  Perhaps Anna Karenina or War and Peace .  I tried to read War and Peace once, actually, but gave up when I couldn't keep track of the characters.

4. One book that made you laugh:
Michael Bond's Paddington books never fail to make me giggle hysterically.   Terry Pratchett generally makes me laugh out loud, as does Gerald Durrell, but especially My Family and Other Animals, probably my favourite of his books.   I remember reading it out loud to Mum when I was a teenager, and being speechless with laughter over some passages.

5. One book that made you cry:
Most recently, it was Naomi Novik's Temeraire (also published as His Majesty's Dragon).  I was sitting next to Prince Valiant at the time, who was peacefully watching cricket on TV, and was understandably a little alarmed when I burst into loud sobs and cried out, "He died!  I can't believe he died!"  (Hopefully that's not too much of a plot spoiler.)  I think the true mark of a sad book is one that makes you cry when re-reading it - for me, that's been April Fool's Day by Bryce Courtenay, The Lions of al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay - in fact, pretty much every book Gavriel Kay's ever written.  It's very unusual for me to finish one of his books and not have collapsed into floods of tears at least once.

6. One book you wish you had written:
Any book!  No, not really.  Um.  I find it difficult to imagine myself writing any book that I read, because they are so very definitely their own author's creation.  I'd love to have written one of Barbara Kingsolver's books, though.  Or Ursula Le Guin's. 

7. One book you wish had never been written:
Well, I don't think any book shouldn't have been written - but there's a few books that I probably shouldn't read.  Books that make me feel physically sick, for instance - while I enjoy a good cry, I don't enjoy feeling ill.  Stephen Baxter's Silverhair almost made me throw up at one rather gruesome point, which puts me off reading any Baxter in the near future.

8. One book you are currently reading:
I'm devouring Robin Hobb's latest, Forest Mage, which is enjoyable, but not her best, unfortunately.  I'm also reading PD James' Cover Her Face, because I decided I wanted to read all her Dalgliesh books, finishing off Castle Waiting by Linda Medley, and am about to start Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade, because it just appeared on hold for me at the library.

9. One book you have been meaning to read:
After visiting Port Arthur, and realising how much Australian history I've forgotten, I want to read some books about women convicts.  I've read Damned Whores and God's Police before, which is one of the classics, so I thought I'd try The Floating Brothel by Sian Rees and then perhaps Depraved and Disorderly by Joy Damousi.  I'd also like to read Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, because while not specifically about women it's one of the classic works about convict Australia and includes a bit about Port Arthur.

10. Now tag five people:
Only if you feel like doing it... but I'd like to hear your answers - Oanh, Be-Zen, Cat, Diana, Barbara, and anyone else who'd like to join in.

The Family Tree (Sheri S Tepper)

The Family Tree has some of the elements you expect from Tepper - a woman married to a cold, controlling man, strange things happening in the world around her, a mystery to unravel. Thankfully, this novel doesn't have some of the more graphic violence against women that pops up in Tepper's work The elements of this mystery become so enormously large and complicated - in fact, a little too enormously complicated, perhaps? I don't know - I don't become as involved in this novel as I do in some of Tepper's other work, for some reason, although I find some aspects of the story lovely, and very aesthetically pleasing.

Wolverine: The Brotherhood (Greg Rucka)

I picked up this Wolverine comic because it was written by Greg Rucka, whom I've discovered I like. It was interesting seeing Wolverine outside the X-Men circle.

In The Brotherhood, Wolverine goes on a mission seeking justice for a young murdered woman, and kills plenty of people along the way. Which is basically why you read a Wolverine comic, I guess - to see plenty of panels of Wolverine going psycho with his claws. Rucka writes Wolverine with a lot of humanity as well, I think, while retaining that very taciturn thing. I like it a lot, but will probably read other things before continuing with the series.

Asterix the Gladiator (Goscinny & Uderzo)

In the third volume of the series, the Romans capture Cacofonix, the unbearably awful Gaulish bard, as a present for Caeser. Cacofonix is to be put in the circus to be eaten by lions, and so Asterix and Obelix come to the rescue, infiltrating the circus as gladiators. This is a very jolly volume - I love the way our two heroes completely subvert the games, and Caeser's enraged red face looking down at them.

Birds of Prey: Of Like Minds (Gail Simone)

I really enjoyed reading a comic about women superheroes - it's also the first comic I've read written by a woman, so that was exciting. Of Like Minds was a great jumping in point to this series; the characters' histories are subtly revealed, and it seems like the beginning of an interesting story arc.

I really liked the fact that Huntress, Black Canary and Oracle seemed like real people. I really enjoy reading Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman, but she's very much the perfect woman; everything with her is on a grand scale, and sometimes there's little to relate to. The Birds of Prey - now, they're relatable, and it was enormously fun reading a comic with superheroes that seemed like normal women. I'll be reading my way through all the volumes of this that the library owns.

Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals (Greg Rucka)

Bitter Rivals was excellent, and a great follow-up to Down to Earth. Wonder Woman is under fire from several fronts, notably Veronica Cale, who's working with Dr Psycho to discredit her. There's lots of deceit, double-crossing, and Wonder Woman is a very down-to-earth and realistic woman, fighting to maintain her integrity. The storyline is built up delicately, and tension rises slowly - a really excellent and thoroughly enjoyable comic.

Mystique: Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy (Brian K Vaughan)

The more I read about comics, the more I realise I don't know. Reviews comment on the story, the art and the colouring - I'd assumed that the art and the colour were the one thing, but it seems not.

I enjoyed Tinker, Tailor, Mutant, Spy more than I did the first Mystique volume. There were a couple of really clunky lines that made me wince ("Argh, my face is melting off!"), but overall the story was good, the dialogue was snappy, Mystique is a nicely complex character, and I loved the final frame of this volume. I also really liked the way she was drawn in this one - yeah, she's still got big boobs, but she's also very muscular, big biceps, and so on. She looks strong, as she should. Tinker, Tailor has a different artist to Drop Dead Gorgeous, so perhaps that's why I liked it better.

I think it's kind of hard to do tense storylines with Mystique as the main character, because the shape-changing thing enables her to get out of almost any situation with ease, which tends to spoil the tension a little. The virus storyline in Tinker, Tailor is done well though, and Mystique does actually get hurt, although not for long.

I find it really weird in these collections how they insert the covers of each individual comic when they begin. The covers are inevitably pin-up style stuff, and it's strange to move from Mystique in the middle of a fight to her reclining on a bed in tight black leather. Her face looks very different in the cover drawings, which bothered me - if you're going to do pin-up covers, can't you at least make it look like the character? Also, what's with the little skull on her hairline?

Overall though, despite the odd irritating moment, this was very enjoyable story - I'm looking forward to reading Unnatural, the next in the series.

Digging to America (Anne Tyler)

I like Anne Tyler's books. I think of them in the same category as Joanna Trollope and Mary Wesley - comfortable, quirky characters, stories that weave their way through a family's life. They're the sort of books I read when I want to feel cozy and contented. I don't spend days thinking about them after I've read them, but they burrow their way into my mind, and I find myself recalling scenes from them months later.

Digging to America is Tyler's latest, focussing on two children from Korea and the sometimes complex relationship between their two adoptive familes. Actually, the relationship between the families is the focus rather than the children themselves - we barely know the children by the book's end, but we know their parents and grandparents very intimately. That's what I love about these books - the drama all happens in the complex threads of people's relationships with each other, and I think that's enormously difficult to do. I admire writers who can entertain me with a story which might seem mundane if you were presented with a precis, but comes alive when you read it.

I don't think I'm explaining myself terribly well. If you like Tyler, I'm sure you'll enjoy Digging to America. If you've never read her before, I'd probably pick one of her novels to begin with; my favourite of her books so far has been Saint Maybe.

Prep (Curtis Sittenfield)

This is the second boarding school related book I've read this week - the first was the delightfully creepy A Great and Terrible Beauty, which is completely different to the neurotic, modern American world of Prep.

At first, I really empathised with Prep's heroine, the awkward, angsty outsider, Lee. She's a scholarship student at Ault, a boarding school filled with wealthy kids, and I think Sittenfield captures those neurotic, self-obsessed teenager years perfectly. I found, however, that my fondness for Lee waned as the novel progressed - while she travels through her years at school, she never seems to be touched by them, or changed by them. She stays, deliberately, on the periphery, and near the end does something which moves her even further away from many of her schoolmates. I found this frustrating; a character who, while she does learn and grow, does so after the story which we are being told.

Prep doesn't have a particular plot, as such. Characters drift in and out of the main narrative thread. Lee's obsession with popular basketballer Cross is a reoccuring theme, but mostly we walk through her school years with her, watching her classmates (Lee is always watching other people, which I relate to). Ault had become a very real place for me by the time I finished Prep, but it's not a place I'd particularly like to visit, and Lee isn't a character I'd really like to see again either. Despite this, Prep is a very enjoyable read, and very skilled as well - Sittenfield writes well, and as I said earlier, she does a great job of capturing those self-conscious teenage years.

Mystique: Drop Dead Gorgeous (Brian K Vaughan)

The title probably gives away the fact that Mystique: Drop Dead Gorgeous contains a lot of skimpily dressed Mystique with enormous breasts. In fact, the shape of her breasts in some scenes was so ridiculous as to be rather annoying.

However, this comic is a pretty cool espionage style thing, with Mystique working undercover for Charles Xavier, despite the fact that neither of them trust each other. While it's not ground-breaking stuff (and I enjoyed the Joss Whedon penned series more than this), it's enjoyable enough, and I'm going to be reading the rest of this series. Or whatever the correct term is when it comes to comic books - not series, I think. Story arc? Volumes? Whichever it is, I'll be checking them out.

More Asterix comics

I'm continuing to read them in order. So, next up is Asterix and the Golden Sickle. This one starts out with Getafix breaking his golden sickle (which he uses to collect mistletoe) right before a druid's conference. Disaster! So Asterix and Obelix travel to Lutetia (present-day Paris, according to Wikipedia) to buy another one from Obelix's cousin, Metallurgix. There's some sickle-trafficking and shady business going on, but all comes well in the end, naturally. I enjoyed this one, although I still think they improve as the series goes on.

Asterix and the Goths is the third book in the series. Getafix heads to his druid's conference, accompanied by Asterix and Obelix for protection. They don't do a very good job, as Getafix is kidnapped by Goths planning to use his magic for their own means. Asterix and Obelix infiltrating the Gothic camp is extremely funny, as is the way in which Getafix plots to get them out of there. My favourite character in this is the poor prison guard who gets more and more furious the more times Obelix breaks down the door of the prison to ask for something. I think this has been my favourite of the first three volumes.

Asterix the Gaul (Goscinny & Uderzo)

I wrote here about my love for Asterix comics, and have decided since then to read my way back through all the books in order.

Asterix the Gaul is a masterpiece brimming with underlying layers that delve to the core of humanity itself...

OK, it's a comic about Gauls who drink a potion that gives them superhuman strength which they use to bash up Romans, and then they have a big feast at the end. But it's enormously funny and clever and brimming with puns and silly jokes. I remember Asterix the Gaul as being one of the weaker Asterix stories, given that it's the first one, but it does everything you want it to do - it sets up the idea of the one Gaulish village holding out against the Romans, introduces all the characters, and you get to see Asterix and Getafix laughing themselves silly after dosing some Romans with a hair-growing potion. Good stuff.

A Great and Terrible Beauty (Libba Bray)

Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty is a wonderfully lush Gothic/horror/fantasy tale set in a Victorian girl's boarding school. A boarding school! Naturally, I enjoyed it enormously.

Gemma is sent to school in England after her mother's mysterious death in India. She tries to find her feet in the hierarchical boarding school society, and at the same time is warned by a young man to ward off strange visions that have been plaguing her. There is a wonderfully creepy sense of menace that grows as the story progresses, and I became enormously fond of Gemma's friends, three somewhat unprepossessing girls whom she leads into danger, and temptation.

Enormously fun, and there's a sequel, which the library has not acquired yet. I'll definitely be reading anything else of Libba Bray's that I can get my hands on. Oh, wait, this was her first novel. Damn.

From Where You Dream (Robert Olen Butler)

I really didn't like From Where You Dream . This book on writing seems to be taken verbatim from lectures given by the author (which makes the style a little irritating to read), and the methods it mandates, such as writing in a trance-like state, didn't grab me at all. He doesn't touch on speculative fiction as a genre, which annoys me, and he doesn't seem to require writers to research either. It's all this dreamlike subconscious thing. Bleh.

Superhero Comics

I've recently become interested in the world of comics (beyond Sandman, my only real exposure to this medium), partly due to my discovery of a whole pile of excellent feminist blogs that focus on science fiction and comic fandoms. So last week I plunged into a variety of comics, including Wonder Woman, X-Men and Teen Titans.

Firstly, Wonder Woman: Down to Earth . This is a recent Wonder Woman comic by Greg Rucka, and given that the Booklist review on Amazon describes it as an "inventive attempt to make [Wonder Woman]... relevant to current readers", I imagine that it has departed somewhat from previous storylines. Wonder Woman is an ambassador from Themyscria, which seems to be a planet populated by Amazons. She spreads a message of peace and tolerance and in Down to Earth comes up against a group of people who claim she is destroying "family values". Sound familiar? I really enjoyed this, and it's very suitable for a reader who has no knowledge of the characters or their history. I had a couple of "um, what?" moments, like the appearance of Silver Swan, but overall, it was a very fun read, and I really loved the art.

I went on to read Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia , which was a shorter, self-contained story, and much darker than Down to Earth. The cover has Wonder Woman's booted foot on Batman's head, which looks very cool. (I must say that prior to this comics reading, I had no idea that superheroes had so much to do with each other. They all live in the same cities and everything. I had previously thought that they were all self contained stories.) In The Hiketeia, Wonder Woman is bound to protect a young woman who is accused of murder. It's a very touching story, and I really enjoyed it because Wonder Woman seemed much more human. I could see the difficulties she had. Again, I loved the artwork - the aforementioned stomping on Batman's head scene is especially fabulous.

After Wonder Woman (and I'm definitely going to explore the rest of Greg Rucka's stories with her), I grabbed Emma Frost: Higher Learning from the library. It's an X-Men offshoot, although given that my only contact with the X-Men universe is through the movies, I'd never actually heard of Emma Frost (and this slim book only covers part of her school years, so I'm not entirely sure about the full extent of her powers.) Higher Learning was OK. The story was a bit melodramatic, Emma's crush on her school teacher was offputting (she can hear him thinking things like, "she looks so sexy", which was disturbing), and I hated the way she was drawn - even when she's devastated about something, she looks vulnerable and gorgeous, all lips and eyes. Gah.

Still in the X-verse, I grabbed Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men - Gifted , which I loved. I had high hopes for it, given that I'm a big fan of Whedon's storytelling, and wasn't disappointed. All the characters were great, I loved the banter (even mid-battle) and I even enjoyed Emma Frost's character, despite thinking that I'd hate her after reading Higher Learning. The artwork was excellent - I loved it (and wondered how much it had been influenced by the movie characters, especially Wolverine.) Gifted has the Cure storyline which was used (in part) in the recent X-Men movie, and it does it with much more depth and style than the movie. It ends with some tantilising teasers for the next volume, which I can't wait to read.

I'm not quite sure why I picked up something called Teen Titans: The Future is Now , because it doesn't really seem like my thing at all. It wasn't half-bad, but I don't think picking up something that's Volume 4 in a series is a great idea - I found all the characters a bit hard to keep track of, and there were too many references to past events for me to really get into the storyline.

Runaways: True Believers is also Volume 4 in a series, but from the description on the back it seemed like an easier point to break into a storyline. It was fairly easy to get a handle on what had happened before, and everyone's relationships to each other, and it was a fun, tight story.

I think out of all of these, Astonishing X-Men and Wonder Woman were the ones I enjoyed most, and I'll definitely be getting more volumes of these.

Forbidden (Judy Waite)

I'm half-hearted about Forbidden (which I picked up from the YA section of the library purely due to the cover and the "I grew up in a cult" blurb). On one hand, I'm enormously attracted to fiction that examines cults (one of the best I've ever read is Red Shoes by Carmel Bird). On the other hand, Forbidden suffered from several things, including over-capitalisation (stuff like "She know that she should feel Ecstatic, but instead she was overtaken by Grief. She would have to undergo Punishment." Not a direct quote from the book, by the way).

I was disappointed by the ending - without giving too much away, Elinor has been sexually abused, and is rescued from the cult, where her rescuers tell her she's wonderful, and give her lots of different coloured clothing and unfamiliar jeans. I found it rather strange - I would expect people to speak to her about more important issues than, "You're out of the cult, yay! Here's some clothes." Then again, we're seeing these people through a very confused teenager's eyes, which may explain it. But it just sat wrongly with me.

So yeah - mediocre YA cult fiction, basically. A fun way to spend an hour, if you have a free one.

Novel Without a Name (Duong Thu Huong)

I'm ashamed to say that it has been months and months since I finished this book (a book club read), and that it has faded sufficiently from my memory to prevent me doing justice to it with a review. I enjoyed it very much, although it was an intense read. And now I will link to Oanh's thoughts on it, and thereby avoid having to actual write anything else.

The River Midnight (Lilian Nattel)

The River Midnight is a wonderfully seductive book, set in a Polish shtetl named Blaszka. For about a year, we follow the lives of the men and women within the village, their interlinked histories, and their relationships with the midwife Misha, who is the common thread among many of the stories.

The River Midnight has a faintly magic realist thread - there's a mysterious Traveller who meddles in the lives of the villagers - but the appeal of this novel for me was how strongly it evoked a small Jewish village in Russian-occupied Poland, and the intricate details of everyday life. I felt immersed in this novel, and by the end was immensely fond of many of the characters therein. I knew them intimately, what they thought about in bed at night lying next to their wives, what they thought of when they prayed.

To be honest, my general fascination with Jewish culture (Almonds and Raisins by Maisie Mosco, a Jewish family saga, and Leon Uris's Exodus were two books I passionately adored as a teenager) probably influenced my enjoyment of this book, but not so much that I would hesitate recommending it to others.

Vengeance of Dragons; Courage of Falcons (Holly Lisle)

After reading Diplomacy of Wolves, I polished off the remaining two novels in the series very quickly - I guess I was more into the story than I thought.

Vengeance of Dragons picks up at Diplomacy's cliffhanger ending, and we follow Kait, her companions and the Mirror of Souls back to Calimekka. Kait and Ry dance around their attraction to each other, but in a very genuine way. There's plenty of plot, and the storyline jumps around various characters throughout the book, but it's not overly confusing. Tightly plotted, lots of action and adventure - a very enjoyable read, despite another cliffhanger ending.

Courage of Falcons is the last book in the Secret Texts series, and again, it immediately picks up the story. (I should mention that both Vengeance and Courage have rather lengthy summaries of the previous books, but I don't think that would be enough to compensate if you hadn't read the previous books in the trilogy. They're definitely not the sort of books you can plunge into without a knowledge of the backstory.) I'm incapable of going very far into the plot without spoiling moments from the previous two books, but suffice to say that the adventure continues, and as per the previous books, it's immensely enjoyable fun, without being life changing or (unfortunately) sticking around in my head too long.

Runaway (Alice Munro)

Our next book club book is an author (Alice Munro) rather than a book as such, as Runaway was my choice for this month. There has been some interesting blog discussion of Alice Munro in recent months - 50 Books wrote about Runaway here, and Munro more generally here. Diablevert also writes about Runaway here.

I really enjoyed Runaway - I hadn't read any short stories for a long time, and I'd forgotten how fabulously convenient they are to pick up and put down, and read several stories over your lunch hour. And Munro is an amazing author, who creates characters who claw at your heart within a few pages of meeting them. I don't think anyone should go through life without reading some Alice Munro.

Hopefully, book club will help me clamber to some other dizzying intellectual heights in analysing this collection ("Well, you know, I just thought it was like, really real, you know?") but I'll leave it here for now. Incredible collection of short stories - go read some Munro now, for the sake of your health.

Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett)

The first time I read Monstrous Regiment (yes, this is a re-read), I was a little disappointed with it. I gulped it down with my usual new-Pratchett haste, which does occasionally end in disappointment as I simply don't spend enough time with the book. Which doesn't really matter, as I always end up re-reading (and re-reading) them at some point.

Anyway, I was hoping for another City Guard book, and didn't really get into Monstrous Regiment the first time around. The second time around I enjoyed it much more, although I still find that I love the earlier Discworld books more so than the later ones. Monstrous Regiment might be a good place to start if you've never read a Discworld book before (although if I was Queen of All the World I'd order people to begin their Pratchett appreciation on novels earlier in the series) - and if you've read Discworld novels before, you know exactly what you're in for.

Wifework (Susan Maushart)

Wifework is a very interesting study of the work women do within marriages, both physical and emotional. Maushart seems to claim that it is the institution of marriage in which this work occurs - I would argue that it happens in defacto relationships as well. I don't believe the act of marriage creates drastic changes with a relationship, although Maushart seems to disagree.

Interestingly enough, I found Kidding Ourselves, which I read a few months ago, a more useful and relevant book than Wifework, despite the fact that Kidding Ourselves was written several years before Wifework was.

Wifework does bring up some interesting points, but I've heard them all before in other places. Maushart is also very negative about marriage as a whole - the Publishers Weekly review quotes her saying, "marriage entails a sort of base level of unhappiness that couples need to learn to anticipate and accept." I don't really believe that, and if it's true, would rather find out for myself than enter into marriage with Maushart's grim outlook. So, interesting book, but I think Kidding Ourselves approaches similar material in a superior way.

Living the Good Life (Linda Cockburn)

This diary-style book, interspersed with recipes and snippets of information, is about a family who try to live for 6 months on their suburban block of land without spending any money. They grow their own food, barter their goats milk, cheese and eggs for staples that they can't grow themselves, and do so relatively successfully for 6 months.

Living the Good Life didn't particularly grab me - mostly, I think, because I've read similar books by Jackie French, and vastly prefer Jackie's writing style (and outlook on life as well). However, if you're interested in self-sufficient (or 'self reliant', the phrase that Cockburn prefers) living, and the environmental impact of the average Australian's lifestyle, then you might find this interesting. And if you enjoy it, you'll probably love Jackie French's books as well. Linda Cockburn's family are now living in Tasmania building their own house and plan to write another book on that. I doubt that I'll be reading it - I'm fascinated by gardening stories, but building houses puts me to sleep.

Diplomacy of Wolves (Holly Lisle)

It took me a little while to get into Diplomacy of Wolves - from the first page, we're plunged into a very complex world, full of political machinations, and I was so busy figuring all that out that I didn't feel that I was connecting to the characters. However, as the story moved along, I became much more intimately involved. Diplomacy ends on a complete cliffhanger, so I'm definitely going to be reading its sequel.

I felt that Diplomacy was a less mature work than Talyn, which is the first book I've read of Lisle's - this didn't prevent me enjoying it, but I think she's definitely grown as a writer since these books. Diplomacy revolves around Kait, a young diplomat with secrets, who goes on a search for the ancient Mirror of Souls. She is guided by the spirit of an ancestor, who may not be what she seems, and a young magician. As I mention above, it took me a little while to warm to Kait, but it did happen. I think my enjoyment of Diplomacy was affected by the fact that I was reading Temeraire at the same time. Temeraire was a book that reached into my chest and ripped part of my heart out. Diplomacy didn't affect me in nearly the same way - it was simply a very enjoyable read - and I think it suffered a little in my mental comparison. However, despite that, it was a great fantasy read, and I'm definitely going to be finishing the series - I just can't see myself weeping over their pages.