Chapter One Hundred Four: Library: An Unquiet History

I forget now where I first read about Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles, but as soon as I read the title I knew I had to read this book.  It was the perfect choice to fill my post-Harry Potter void--Harry Potter is such a hard act to follow that I wanted something completely different, so non-fiction seemed like the way to go, especially a book about libraries, which I love almost as much as I love that series.

But enough about Harry Potter--here's why I really enjoyed Library: An Unquiet History: it made me think about not only the history of libraries but also the reasons for their existence.  I somehow had never really stopped to wonder why people or governments have bothered to create private or public libraries.  It just seems so obvious to me that libraries are an excellent idea that I never thought more deeply about the reasons for their existence.  Of course, no one can really answer definitively why anything exists, as the reasons are often complex and interconnected, but Battles does interweave some of the more salient reasons for the creation of various libraries as he traces their history.  (Some of these reasons include: concentrating power in the hands of a ruling class, trying to enlighten the uneducated masses by allowing them access to appropriate literature, and wanting to create a cultural or religious repository to preserve traditions.)  Battles also discusses the related reasons why various people and groups have destroyed libraries--I did not realize just how many libraries have been destroyed during the 20th century, and I can only hope the 21st century will see a decrease in that sort of behavior.

Library: An Unquiet History also prompted me to think about books as objects.  While I have thought a little about this before reading this work, Library really brought the dominance of the codex (i.e. a book that is printed on paper and bound into a cover) to the forefront.  But of course books do not have to be codices--they could equally well take the form of papyrus scrolls, clay tablets with cuneiform writing, or digital documents, to name a few.  It was interesting to stop and really visualize what a library full of scrolls or tablets would look like, never mind what it would be like to sit with a clay tablet in my lap and read from that instead.  I certainly prefer the physicality of the codex to an e-book, which is not really a tangible object and which also requires a non-human interface (a computer, a smartphone, an e-reader, etc.,) to be accessed, while a codex is directly accessible to the reader with no third parties required.  While I always knew I prefer paper books to e-books, Library really inspired and helped me think about why that is the case.  I was particularly moved when Battles mentioned stories of people during various 20th-century wars who, when faced with a choice between freezing and using their books for fuel, sometimes chose to be cold rather than burn their books.

I know this post has been longer than usual, but this little book really gave me a lot to consider.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves books or libraries--and even if you're not convinced you'd find it interesting, I'd encourage you to give it a try as it raises some really interesting ideas.

Chapter One Hundred Three: Harry Potter

So I was seized once more with a bout of the Harry Potter bug, which, like mononucleosis, never leaves your system once you've contracted it and can flare up at really any time.  So I've spent the last month re-reading these delightful books.  If you haven't read them, read them.  If you have read them, read them again.  They have humor, they have deep feeling, they have action and adventure and drama and magic--what more can I ask for, really?  (I can ask to live in Harry Potter's world, I suppose, but I don't think that will happen any time soon.)  Every time I finish re-reading the series, I'm struck anew with a feeling of emptiness that it's over, and I know that sooner or later, I'll have to return to them to get my fix.  And I notice new details every time!  Small details, usually, which is all the more impressive to me, that Rowling works so many little details in across so many pages.  Anyway, I am quite literally a fanatic when it comes to these books, and I highly recommend that everyone read them.

Chapter One Hundred Two: Howl's Moving Castle

On a whim, wanting something fun and light and fantastical, I decided to re-read Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.  It was exactly what I wanted it to be--an engaging, enjoyable fantasy--and this time around I was even able to follow the events at the end of the novel while I was reading it.  (On previous reads, I've found the end a bit complex, and this complexity was even spurred a class-wide discussion just to figure out what actually happened when we read this novel for an intro to children's lit course I took in college.)  But this time around it all seemed very clear and I had a jolly time reading it.  If you've only seen the Miyazaki film version, it is very, very different from the original novel, so you should definitely read the book, too.  (The film is fine in its own way...)  Anyway, if you want a fun, fast fantasy, Howl's Moving Castle is a great choice.

Chapter One Hundred One: Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading

So as you know if you're reading this blog, I'm a sucker for books, and as you know if you know me at all, I'm never to be found without a book, and I'd usually rather be reading than doing whatever else it is I'm doing.  So every now and again, I like to read memoirs by other bibliophiles, as a reminder that I'm not the only inveterate and incurable bookworm.  A few months ago, I read and deeply enjoyed Joe Queenan's One for the Books, and I think I enjoyed reading Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan even more.  I have a bit more in common with her taste in books, and she's a bit less judgmental than Queenan is.  As someone in the process of applying to grad school (for library science and children's literature, obviously) it was also deeply interesting (and a little horrifying) to read about her experiences as an English grad student.  I also like that she discusses the dangerous aspects of books and reading--physical dangers, such as books falling off of shelves onto your head or toes, and less tangible dangers, such as the potential for books to change your life or worldview in ways you hadn't imagined.  I think this book would be a bit dull for someone who doesn't love reading, but I really enjoyed reading her experiences of life as an avid reader.

Chapter One Hundred: Lincoln's Dreams

All of the books by Connie Willis that I own somewhere on the cover or front page describe her as "the author of Lincoln's Dreams," so when I saw Lincoln's Dreams while browsing through the public library one day, I figured I'd check it out.  Let me just say that it is a very weird story.  I finished reading it a week or so ago, and I still am not sure what I think of it, which is sort of unusual for me.  It definitely kept my interest while I was reading it--I had no idea what was going to happen next.  And as for the end, I was satisfied with it, even though it is a bit vague and fairly tragic.  It was a fascinating read, exploring the possible meaning of dreams and set against the backdrop of Civil War history, not a topic I normally find interesting but which worked well with this story.  Don't read it if you're looking for a happy story, though.

Chapter Ninety-Nine: D.A.

D.A. is a weird, nutty little novella by Connie Willis, one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors.  I had never come across it before, and I was a little skeptical--the cover is pretty awful--but the story gets off to a quick start, so that pulled me right in.  This story takes place in a future U.S. where space travel is a bit more prominent than at the current time.  There's this very prestigious space-cadet training program that almost all high school seniors apply to, even though there are very few open spots, and somehow the main character of the novella, Theodora, ends up winning an appointment to the program, even though she did not apply and has no interest in going, unlike the rest of her peers.  Still, before she can stop it, she is hustled up to the space station where she scrambles to find out how and why she was appointed and how she can get out of the program as soon as possible without jeopardizing her chances of getting into college.  This story will take only an hour or so to read, and it's a fun, funny, and clever little tale.

Chapter Ninety-Eight: Jasmine Nights

Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson is a fun, mostly light story that follows a young woman from Wales who joins ENSA during WWII as a singer and ends up singing and spying for the British army in Egypt and Turkey.  There is also, of course, a romantic plot line, with her intense involvement with Dom Benson, a handsome young fighter pilot.  Between the romance, the singing, and the spying, this book is full of period adventure, drama, and love, and it makes for a captivating and fun read.  If you're looking for lighter historical fiction with a spunky and fairly realistic female protagonist, I'd highly recommend Jasmine Nights.

Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Midnight Queen

The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter is the first (and currently only) book in a new fantasy series set in an alternate, regency-era Britain where Roman culture and religion dominate and where magic is a fact of life.  Although the characters in this novel are rather stereotypical--the shy but extremely talented young lady, the gawky but kind young man, the mysterious older fairy godmother-type woman, the inept but well-connected villainous professor--the plot was original enough to hold my interest and keep me guessing.  The Austen-esque style the book is written in is also fun to read and helps set the book in the British tradition, even though it isn't by a British author, while also poking gentle fun at it.  If you like fantasy, this is a fun book to read.

Chapter Ninety-Six: Fat Cat at Large

Okay, so I'll be the first to admit that Fat Cat at Large by Janet Cantrell is not great fiction, nor is the writing anything other than mediocre.  But I still had a really fun time reading this mystery novel!  It was a light read, as light and fluffy as the orange cat on its cover, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The characters are interesting, if not particularly deeply-drawn, and the settings--Minneapolis, more generally, and a small dessert-bar store, more specifically--are fun and off the beaten path.  Also, every now and then there is a lone paragraph or two told from the point of view of the cat.  These paragraphs serve no purpose in terms of furthering the plot, as far as I can tell, but they're amusing.  And we get so many human perspectives--why not get the cat's view?  (Even if that cat's view is only the product of a human's imagination.)  Also, there are recipes for homemade cat treats and dessert bars at the end of the book.  So if you're looking for a book with a cat on the cover or for quick mystery where you'll probably figure out who done it before the protagonist does, this is the book for you.

Chapter Ninety-Five: The Glass Palace

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh is a sweeping, epic saga of the lives of various members of three generations of an Indian-Burmese family living in India, Burma, and Malaya from the late 1800s through the present day.  It is not an arduous read, although the book is quite long.  The only part that I felt lagged slightly was the end, which feels a bit drawn-out.  While I appreciate that Ghosh wanted to tie up the loose ends for all of his characters, it started to feel a bit exhaustive to get so many details about so many people without much of a narrative to coordinate those details.  Nonetheless, this is a really interesting novel that had the added benefit of teaching me something about Burma and its recent history--say from the end of the 1800s through the present day, and especially during WWII--a subject I know very little about.  If you enjoy sweeping historical family sagas with large casts of characters and lots of details, this is the book for you.

Chapter Ninety-Four: Assholes, A Theory

The title of this philosophical non-fiction work by Aaron James is not a joke: this is sincerely a book that presents a philosophical theory of assholes--what they are and why non-assholes find them so disturbing and offensive.  I'll say that among the very limited number of philosophical works I've read, this is, hands down, the most interesting and engaging and pertinent to daily life.  James puts forward a compelling and understandable definition of assholes basically as people who systematically assign special privileges to themselves out of an entrenched sense of entitlement that allows them to ignore any attempts by others to convince them of their wrongness.  James also provides extensive examples of different types of assholes using various public figures as his models.  He also provides some tips on asshole management, since it is unfortunately impossible to avoid all assholes in daily life.  These tips are not advice on how to change assholes--as he defines them, they are incorrigible, after all--but on how to prevent them from ruining your day with their assholery.  Most interesting to me, however, was his theory of asshole capitalism and its greater societal effects and implications, which he puts forward toward the end of this book.  Whether you agree with any of his propositions or not, Assholes, A Theory is a thought-provoking read.

Chapter Ninety-Three: Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good

This is Jan Karon's latest installment in the Mitford/Father Tim series, and I enjoyed it just as much as I've enjoyed the rest of her books about the little town of Mitford and its very realistic cast of characters, which focus on Father Tim, an affable Episcopalian rector who suffers problems and experiences joys like the rest of us.  It's so lovely in a nice long series like this--this is the eleventh novel about Mitford and Father Tim--to get extended character development across so many stories.  As soon as I started reading this installment, I felt like I was back in a place and with people that I know and love well.  Reading this book was like reuniting with old, dear friends: a lovely experience.

Chapter Ninety-Two: The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars is John Green's latest best-seller, and since I really enjoy Green's work I'm a bit surprised that it took me so long after its publication to read it.  I was a bit apprehensive because I knew it would be a tear-jerker, and because I just wasn't in the mood, somehow, to read a book about teenagers with cancer.  But once I finally picked up this book, I couldn't put it down.  Green is a master of including levity in dealing with heavy subjects; I was chuckling from page one, even as I knew things couldn't end well.  And they don't, though I won't say how, in case you haven't read the book.  But in the meantime, there are plenty of really touching, heartwarming moments that are never sappy or saccharin or unrealistic about the reality of the situation, which is that these teens are living with cancer every day.  And the cancer does nasty things to them, like make it hard to breathe or take away their sight.  Green is pretty descriptive about the physical challenges and consequences of living with cancer--it's not a cutesy, romanticized version of living with cancer, as far as I can tell, although I've never had cancer myself, so I could be wrong.  This book sucked me in and grabbed me--I loved that it had a strong, female protagonist--and I recommend it for anyone looking for a quick, absorbing read.

Chapter Ninety-One: Kindred

I read Kindred by Octavia Butler on a friend's recommendation, and I'll admit I was a bit hesitant about it at first because it looked pretty weird, even by my standards.  While this book is labeled science fiction because it involves involuntary time-travel, it really feels much more like a work of historical fiction--and it is gripping.  It tells the story of Dana, datedly described on the back cover of the edition I read as "a modern black woman"living with her new husband in California in 1976.  She suddenly finds herself being pulled back in time to a plantation in Maryland owned by the father of one of her ancestors--a white ancestor.  She is called back in time several times to save her ancestor's life, and each time her stay at the plantation lasts longer and the threats to her survival increase.  Butler does not skimp in her portrayal of the horrors of slavery in America.  While I have read other books set on slave-era plantations and studied slavery in school, this novel really succeeded in making real and visceral what it might actually have been like to be enslaved on a plantation in the United States.  This book is pretty intense.  And as intense as it was to read, I was still left with the truth that living it would have been immeasurably more intense, indescribably so.  The time travel part is strange, and I would have liked to see more development of the relationship between Dana and her husband both before and after she gets called back in time--sometimes bringing her husband with her, but even with these minor complaints, I was generally hooked by this book.  I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a visceral representation of what it may have been like to be enslaved in America.

Chapter Ninety: The Green Knowe Chronicles

I re-read the first five Green Knowe Chronicles this summer, and I read the sixth book in this series by L.M. Boston for the first time ever.  Although the books were all originally published between 1954 and 1976, somehow when I first heard of these books only the first five had been re-issued by the publisher. Anyway, I've read them all now, I'm happy to say, and thoroughly enjoyed them. They are gentle, rather slow stories centered around Green Knowe, which is an ancient manor house in the English countryside, and its various past and present inhabitants. The only unpleasant aspect of the series is that there are often references to people of color that seem dated, or even offensive to current sensibilities.  While they don't seem to be meant to be hurtful if one bears in mind the time the novel was written, they're still unfortunate. Still, overall, these stories highlight the importance of family and--and it's not necessarily the families characters are born with, but the ones they create.  Many of the stories focus on Tolly, a young boy who finds more of a family in his great-grandmother, who owns Green Knowe and whom he spends school vacations with, than in his father and step-mother, who are off in colonial Burma.  The two welcome a young Burmese refugee into their home for a while, and he becomes part of the family, too--as does a gorilla who has escaped from a zoo.  And one of the home's former inhabitants--still present in spirit--forms a deep connection with a black companion whom her father purchased out of slavery in the Caribbean to aid her since she is blind.  These connections, as well as the ones formed across history between the home's present occupants and its past occupants, who often show up as ghosts, make these stories rather touching.  And the pastoral idyll of the setting is not unpleasant, either.  If you're looking for a gentle, old-fashioned story about the importance of family and the magical presence of history, these are the stories for you.

Chapter Eighty-Nine: William Shakespeare's Star Wars

What fun fun fun fun books!  William Shakespeare's Star Wars (three volumes--Verily, a New Hope, The Empire Striketh Back, and The Jedi Doth Return) by Ian Doescher are astoundingly well-written.  As the titles imply, these books are the story of Star Wars told in the style of Shakespeare's plays, and Doescher does a great job both at staying faithful to Lucas's movies and at reproducing Shakespeare's style without mocking Shakespeare.  If you love Star Wars, you should definitely read these plays--it won't take long--and if you have been living under a rock and haven't seen Star Wars, you should see the movies (A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Return of the Jedi) and then read Doescher's Shakespearean version because it is a bucketful of fun!  If reading the line "Thou art a feisty little droid" (The Jedi Doth Return Act I, Scene 2, line 135) doesn't qualify as fun, what does?

Chapter Eighty-Eight: In Cold Blood

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood is undeniably a classic of 20th-century American writing, but it is not a book I ever thought I'd read.  However, when lent a copy by one of my closest friends, I figured I'd at least try it out.  And of course, I was hooked within the first few chapters.  This is non-fiction that feels like fiction, probably the most detailed and artistic journalism I've had the pleasure of reading.  Capote slowly sets the scene, supplying sumptuous details to set you up for the events to follow, and then takes you along on the perpetrators' wild ride, literally, as you follow them across North America and get to know them all too well.  Even though I knew basically what was going to happen before I read the book, Capote managed to keep my interest and pique my curiosity, not so much about the what but more about the why and how and when of the events.  By the end, I felt as if I had almost been an observer of the events he describes.  Even if you don't think this book would be up your alley, I'd suggest you check it out.

Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Swan Gondola

The setting--Omaha, Nebraska, the World's Fair, 1898--is almost as fascinating as the characters in this novel by Timothy Schaffert.  The Swan Gondola follows the story of "Ferret" Skerritt, an orphaned thief-turned-ventriloquist who falls in love with a young actress, Cecily, after meeting her once, briefly, and determines that he will find her at the World's Fair and win her love.  While the plot follows a pretty classic boy-meets-girl-then-loses-girl story arc, Ferret's uniqueness and the appeal of the setting help differentiate this novel from the herd and make it a bit more interesting.  There are a few Wizard of Oz nods, too, which are a bit corny but fun nonetheless.  Billy Wakefield is an average villain with a steampunkish silver hand, easy to dislike; supporting characters August and Rosie are your typical eccentric sidekicks; Mrs. Margaret adds a creepy carnie to the cast; the Sisters Egan are classic spinsters; oddly, Cecily, ostensibly the center of Ferret's attention, is a bit of a non-character, defined more by Ferret's feelings about her than by her own personality.  This is a slow, lazy kind of book, ideal for reading on a lazy summer day.

Chapter Eighty-Six: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (Essays, Etc.)

Who else but David Sedaris would publish such a strangely titled book of "essays, etc."? (The collection is comprised of "essays, etc." ccording to the cover--the etc. turns out to be monologues that he cheekily suggests high school students preform in forensics, a type of debate...)  It's not quite clear how diabetes comes into it--other than the fact that some of Sedaris's essays discuss various health issues (including periodontal surgery and colonoscopies), though diabetes is not among them as far as I recall.  But the owls... let's just say there's a story involving taxidermy.  Anyway, these essays and monologues are hilarious, replete with Sedaris's bizarre sense of humor and unusual way of looking at everyday events.  If you want a book that will have you laughing out loud (and if you're not squeamish), then I highly recommend this collection.

Chapter Eighty-Five: Crow Like Thunder

Crow Like Thunder is the sequel to Sparrow in the Keep (reviewed in Chapter Fifty-Two of this blog) by Jean Hudson.  The writing feels a bit more polished than in Sparrow, and the plot trots right along with plenty of fun-to-read drama.  Additionally, this novel is split into two parts, the second of which takes place fifteen years after the first, so there is plenty of character development as the babies in part one gain more importance as teenagers in part two.  It's interesting to see how they have begun to mature and I'm looking forward to reading the third and final book in this trilogy once it's published, hopefully later this year.  If you want a fun, light read, check these books out.

Chapter Eighty-Four: The Silkworm

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling) is the sequel to The Cuckoo's Calling and was just recently released.  Let's just say that I wanted to read it so badly that I actually shelled out to buy it in hardcover (rather than being number 10 billion on a library's waitlist) even though I am currently between jobs.  This book was definitely worth the money spent on it!  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  The Silkworm is another captivating detective novel with plenty of human interest and further development of the main characters (Detective Cormoran Strike and his assistant, Robin Ellacott) from The Cuckoo's Calling.  It is a very fun summer read and I recommend it to anyone who wants to read an interesting story well-told.

Chapter Eighty-Three: Reality Is Broken

So the full title of this non-fiction book by game developer Jane McGonigal is Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World.  This is another book that my grandmother purchased for me, and I would not have picked it up on my own, probably.  But it turned out to be absolutely fascinating!  I highly recommend it, whether you play lots of games or whether, like me, you rarely play games.  McGonigal starts by defining what a game actually is; she focuses on computer and video games but makes it clear that more traditional games such as board games, card games, or sports.  Then she explores why people like games so much, claiming that it isn't just about escapism: often games challenge us and reward us in ways that real life is not structured to.  Then she looks at how we can modify aspects of real life to be more gameful to increase engagement with the everyday world and to solve most any problem you can think up.  I'm not going to give any more detailed a summary than that, but I highly recommend you read this book if you want an interesting, thought-provoking, and highly-readable non-fiction book.

Chapter Eighty-Two: Kill Shakespeare

So Kill Shakespeare is actually a serial graphic novel that has been collected into so far three volumes, which my grandmother was kind enough to purchase for me.  She was interested in reading some graphic novels and then she found these and was interested, and that's how I got my hands on them.  I should say that I'm biased because I am not a big fan of graphic novels as a genre: I find the images distracting from the story, in general.  I simply prefer to read in print.  There have been graphic novels that I really enjoyed... Persepolis, actually, is the only one that comes to mind, though Maus was pretty good, too.  But I digress.  Kill Shakespeare is set in this really weird sort of world that encompasses many settings from Shakespeare's plays and where all of his characters are inhabitants.  Some of them view Shakespeare as a god, others as an evil figure who must be killed.  Hamlet finds himself drawn into this battle, ending up on the pro-Shakespeare side along with Juliet and Othello, as well as some others; his main enemies are King Richard and Lady MacBeth.  There are some funny Shakespeare jokes that you'll get if you've seen or read the plays they refer to, but the plot is quite violent at times--more violent than I would prefer.  There is also a lot of misuse of thee, thou, thy, thine, and ye, and this drives me crazy.  I don't know if it's supposed to be funny, if it's poking fun at old English, or if it's just sloppy editing.  The plot is reasonably interesting, but I don't see myself reading any future volumes.

Chapter Eighty-One: The Time in Between

What a great novel!!!  The Time in Between by María Dueñas, translated from the Spanish by Daniel Hahn, is an epic (609 pages) tale of one woman's journey from being the only child of a single mother in Madrid to becoming a dressmaker for the rich and famous, first for society women in the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco in the late 1930s and then, with the onset of World War Two, for the wives of Nazis and supporters of Franco in Madrid.  Protagonist Sira Quiroga also becomes involved with espionage during the war, finding totally new aspects of herself both as a dressmaker and as a spy.  This novel is rife with love, loss, intrigue, and drama, and also with smaller, daily concerns that make it really believable.  I became truly engrossed with Sira's world, the various characters populating it, and the lushly described settings.  If you want an excellently told story that will keep you interested, I definitely recommend The Time in Between, which I will certainly be re-reading at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Chapter Eighty: The View from Saturday

The View from Saturday is a Newbery Medal winning (in 1997) novel by E.L. Konigsburg.  I know I've read it once before, probably twelve or thirteen years ago, but I didn't remember much about it except that I thought it was pretty darn cool that other time I read it and that I really wanted to be like the kids in it.  Then I happened across a copy, so I figured I'd give it another go.  While The View from Saturday is not quite as cool as I remember it being, I still enjoyed reading it.  Structurally, it's an odd story, alternating between the present (always narrated by Mrs. Olinski, a paraplegic 6th grade teacher and the book's adult-protagonist) and a moment in the (recent) past of each of the four child-protagonists (Noah, Nadia, Ethan, and Julian), narrated by each child in turn.  It's really not clear at the beginning how these snippets of various pasts are pertinent to the present (the state championships of the academic bowl in New York state), but it all does come together by the novel's end.  We don't get to find out as much about Mrs. Olinski as I might like to know, though.  Still, the messages of the book (help each other, be kind to each other, be who you are) are always ones that need to be heard.  It's a cute, quick read.

Chapter Seventy-Nine: The Cuckoo's Calling

So The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling [rhymes with bowling]) is a mystery/detective novel.  I don't read a lot in this genre, and really I only decided to read this at all because Rowling wrote it, but I was hooked after only a few pages and it wouldn't have mattered who wrote it because this book is good.  It follows detective Cormoran Strike (what a great name!) as he attempts to find out once and for all whether a supermodel's fall from her apartment was suicide or murder.  Meanwhile, he is struggling to put his own life in order, which allows him to be a multi-dimensional character: he's not just a detective on the case--he's got rather pressing personal issues he's working on as well.  His secretary (who secretly wants to be a detective) is a fun character, too.  She's a little bit less fleshed out (although we do get some glimpses of her life outside the office, which is great), and I look forward to learning a bit more about her in the sequel The Silkworm, which is not yet published and which I am eagerly awaiting!  Whether or not you typically read mystery novels, if you like a good, engaging story that will keep you in doubt until the end (I had several suspicions, some of which turned out to be correct), then I heartily recommend this book.

Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Inflationary Universe

Ever since I took an intro to cosmology course (that's the study of the cosmos, not to be confused with cosmetology, which is a course an aspiring beautician would enroll in), I've developed a real fascination with this subject, and moreover I gained enough background knowledge to actually understand something about it!  So I was excited to delve into Alan Guth's The Inflationary Universe.  Guth, a leading cosmologist at MIT, came up with the original version of the inflationary theory, which describes, basically, what happened in the very early universe (times when the universe was less than a second old) before the big bang described in the standard big bang theory, which, as Guth likes to point out, doesn't say what banged, or why, or how.  I won't get into any more science here--that's for you to read about, if you're interested.  As for the book itself, it took me ten days to read, and it was definitely worth the time it took.  The prose itself is friendly to lay readers, and there are many really useful diagrams to help you along, too.  Mathematical or overly technical language is kept to a minimum.  Nonetheless, the content itself is pretty heavy stuff, so even with the clear prose, I just had to think a lot about what was being said.  That was great!  Reading this book really worked my brain in ways that I haven't worked it enough since graduating from college.  So if you're interested in cosmology (or particle physics) and want a bit of a mental workout, I'd definitely recommend The Inflationary Universe.

Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Book of Madness and Cures

This novel by Regina O'Melveny is a fun little historical fiction jaunt across Renaissance Europe.  The story follows the fictitious Dr. Gabriella Mondini, the only female physician in Venice at the turn of the 17th century.  She has learned the medical arts from her father, a renowned doctor in Venice, who years earlier departed on a trip through Europe to study other schools of medicine and perhaps to gain inspiration for the encyclopedia of maladies he was compiling.  As his letters have slowly stopped appearing, Gabriella has decided to set off across Europe in search of her father, and this story follows her journey.  I enjoyed reading it, though I don't know if I'd read it again.

Chapter Seventy-Six: The Island of Lost Maps

So looking at the behind-the-scenes of my blog now, I see that I haven't updated since May!  It's not that I wasn't reading in June, but I was busy with lots of other things.  Now that I have a bit more time, look for several posts!

So, The Island of Lost Maps by journalist Miles Harvey.  This wasn't the most thrilling non-fiction book I've ever read, but it was reasonably interesting, enough so to keep me reading it at least.  It divagates a good bit from the topic of  map thief Gilbert Bland, which in the beginning seems like it will be the main focus of the book.  However, these divagations--usually focusing on other aspects of the rare maps world in America--are not unrelated to the story of Bland's cartographic crime spree and are interesting in their own right.  I'd recommend it if you're really into maps, or ever have been.

Chapter Seventy-Five: Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories

This collection of short stories and a novella by Garth Nix is a delight to read.  The novella, "Across the Wall," is an extension of one of the characters from the Old Kingdom trilogy, and is enjoyable for that reason and in its own right.  The rest of the short stories are not related to the Old Kingdom trilogy, and they are also very enjoyable.  Some grow from traditional tales--there is a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, there are two stories that build on Arthurian legends--and all include some sort of fantasy element.  If you enjoy Nix's novels or you enjoy short stories of the fantasy persuasion, I highly recommend this collection.

Chapter Seventy-Four: Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen (Old Kingdom Trilogy)

So these are classic young adult books by Garth Nix, and I don't know how I'd never read them before now.  Crazy!  I'm so glad I finally read them after many suggestions from friends.  These are probably the darkest fantasy books that I've read, at least in the YA genre--but maybe in general.  The magic in this trilogy focuses on necromancy: evil necromancers Dead creatures use the reanimated Dead and their own wicked powers to wreak havoc.  (Dead is always capitalized in the books, so I follow that tradition here.)  The Abhorsen is a person invested with the power to work against necromancers and Dead entities.  So basically these books chronicle various epic battles of good versus evil as the Abhorsen and companions and allies work to restore safety to the world when it is threatened by evil Dead forces.  This may sound corny, but Nix pulls the whole thing off very well; it is definitely not corny, and definitely creepy, especially if you actually stop to really visualize an army of dead and decomposing bodies shambling toward you.  So these books are pretty dark while also remaining reasonably optimistic.  The title characters of Sabriel and Lirael are great female protagonists: strong, likable, and dynamic.  The plot and settings are definitely unique.  If, like me, you somehow haven't read these books and if you're a fan of YA fantasy, you definitely need to read them.

Chapter Seventy-Three: Fire Watch

This is a collection of Connie Willis's short stories, most of which precede her novels.  The stories here are much more disturbing than the novels by her that I've read; indeed, most of the stories were just a bit too disquieting for my taste, though they definitely held my interest.  My favorite stories from the collection are the titular "Fire Watch," which is an early idea of her time-traveling premise, "And They Came from Miles Around," which is sort of mystical and ambiguous, and "Blued Moon," which is cute and clever and punny.  Most are hard-core sci-fi or fantasy, so I wouldn't recommend this book if you're not into those genres and if you don't have a taste for the strange and disturbing.

Chapter Seventy-Two: To Say Nothing of the Dog

This is one of the most fun books I've read in a while!  Connie Willis returns to her time-travel premise from Doomsday Book, though with a mostly different cast of characters--head of time travel, Mr. Dunworthy, remains constant, of course.  To Say Nothing of the Dog is much more lighthearted than Doomsday Book, although there is a save-the-universe-from-destruction element to the story.  This is a hilarious Victorian romp, with ample references and inspirations from Jerome K. Jerome's funny classic, Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog).  There is romance, drama, and plenty of ridiculous Victorian customs and oddities (aspidistras and penwipers abound, for example).  The main characters--Victorian and time-travelers alike--are believable, likable, and interesting, and I found myself really caring about their fate.  This is a great story, and I highly recommend it!

Chapter Seventy-One: Doomsday Book

What a book!  This is, I believe, the first of Connie Willis's books that operate on the premise of a future (mid-21st century) in which time travel has been invented, a future in which Oxford University sends historians back in time to research events first-hand.  Anyway, in this adventure, a historian travels back to the 14th century and ends up (spoiler) in the middle of the Plague; meanwhile, a mysterious virus (not the Plague, I promise) is wreaking havoc on Oxford in the book's present (2054). This sort of medical kind of drama may sound corny, but I think Willis pulls it off really well in this novel--I was certainly kept frantically turning the pages to see what would happen next.  I'm not quite sure how, but Willis really makes me care about these characters, which also contributed to my avid interest in the story.  Moreover, she's able to add in humorous bits, which I always appreciate.  Part sci-fi, part historical fiction, part drama, this book is well worth reading if you enjoy any of these genres.

Chapter Seventy: The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip

This very short book, written by George Saunders and illustrated by Lane Smith, is one of the oddest and most amusing stories I've read recently.  Saunders's prose, and particularly his dialogue, reads more contemporary, spoken English, and for me a good portion of the tale's humor arises from how realistic the writing is--even though the premise of the story is absurd, the dialogue and language generally are so realistic that I felt as though these things had really happened, or at least that they could.  Saunders has a way of using this realism to wryly convey some home truths about human nature; in this way he reminds me a bit of Lemony Snicket in A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Smith's illustrations are delightful and fit the text really well, matching it in realistic absurdity.  This is a very quick and amusing read, and ultimately its message is more uplifting than it is depressing, so I heartily recommend it.

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Amerika

I read this story by Franz Kafka  on a recommendation from a friend, and I mostly enjoyed it.  I had only ever read Kafka's Metamorphosis, and that only because it was required reading for my college, but I liked Amerika better than I thought I would.  I for some reason was expecting it to be dry and humorless, which was really judging it before I even got to it.  In fact, there are quite a few scenes that can be described as ridiculous, if not always humorous.  I enjoyed these scenes the most.  There are also a few scenes when the protagonist, an immigrant named Karl, is really just putting his foot in it due to his lack of understanding of American culture or simply due to his own innocence--some of these were almost painful for me to read.  I found this novel a little disorienting--in particular because I couldn't quite decide on when it was set; it could've been any time from the 1880s to the 1920s as far as I could tell--and I suppose some of the disorientation was intentional, as Karl himself is often disoriented, whether or not he realizes it.  This was an interesting book, though I'm not sure I'd read it again.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Alone! Alone! Lives of Some Outsider Women

I spotted this book in the independent bookstore in Amherst, MA, while I was visiting town for a wedding, and I couldn't resist picking it up and taking a peek.  I was, of course, hooked as soon as I did.  This is a somewhat odd collection, as it brings together various book reviews by Rosemary Dinnage; rather than being a (non-fiction) book about loner females, this book is a book of book reviews of books about women.  (Got it?)  Anyway, the reviews (more like essays, really) are tied together because each of them is focusing on a book (usually a biography, but not always) about a woman who for whatever reason was somewhat of a loner, or at least an oddity.  Many of the women featured in these reviews are not women I'd ever heard of, but I still found the reviews to be interesting, and I would even consider reading some of the books Dinnage reviews in this collection, which is itself rather strange in its composition.  I found it a bit dry and depressing at times, but it held my interest enough to read it through to the end; I would recommend it to someone really interested in reading about books about unusual ladies.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: His Dark Materials

What a fantastic trilogy!  Words (my words, anyway) can't really begin to explain how excellent these books are.  (These books are: The Golden Compass, (published as Northern Lights in England), The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.  Their author is Philip Pullman.)  His Dark Materials is based (loosely) on John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, on which I may or may not have taken a college course solely because I wanted to become more familiar with the inspiration for Pullman's trilogy...  Anyway, Pullman's trilogy is at least as epic as Milton's poem--to modern readers, perhaps it is even more epic, being written in modern English and in prose.  It follows the tale of two children, one from a world like ours but different, and one from our world, as they struggle with... well, they struggle with all sorts of things, really, and you should read the series to find out what challenges they face!  And there are all sorts of fascinating creatures--human and otherwise--that our heros encounter along the way, some who are helpful and some who are bent on destroying them utterly.  No, that is not an exaggeration: indeed, Pullman is a master at creating very high stakes within these stories.  Reading them, I, at least, feel as though the fate of the worlds really does hang upon the outcome of the events he's relating.  Since I've already told you their titles, and how excellent they are, and vainly attempted to tell you a bit about their plot, all that remains for me is to exhort you to go out and read them if you haven't yet, and to go out and re-read them if you've already read them!

Chapter Sixty-Six: A Wrinkle in Time (and its sequels)

So I had been thinking about re-reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle and its sequels for a while now, and finally I could resist no longer.  This may even start off a whole slew of re-reading fantastic classics!  For those of you who don't know, the books now labeled as the Time Quintet are: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time.  A Wrinkle in Time is probably the best known of these books, although I find them all really enjoyable. Some are stranger than others as L'Engle explores the very strange nature of time, with the present or even the future often affecting the past.  These novels focus on the Murry family, a delightful crew of people who are practical and grounded while retaining an openness to the unexplained and downright strange.  The Murrys are delightful characters, and at least to me, they seem very real; I can easily imagine knowing them outside the bounds of fiction.  I also love the traditional New England setting of these books; as a New Englander, they just seem so homey and comfortable.  I'm really not sure how to describe the books themselves, except to say that the stories they tell remind me of all of the beautiful aspects of life and of the importance of love.  These are fantasy and children's classics, and if you haven't read them or haven't read them recently and are open to fantastical tales, I highly recommend them.

Chapter Sixty-Five: The Fastest Hound Dog in the State of Maine

This is a very short, rather odd little book by John Gould, an author I'd never heard of before, who spent most of his life as a journalist and author in Maine.  I encountered this slim tome while reshelving books as a volunteer at a local public library, and I started to read it--and almost before I knew what had happened, I'd finished the whole story!  According to the foreword by Gould, this story is merely his attempt to write down a traditional Maine story he'd heard told many times.  It definitely has a very folk-tale feel to it, although I can't quite say what makes it feel so folksy.  Anyway, if you want a little slice of a Maine tradition, you could take a look at The Fastest Hound Dog in the State of Maine.

Chapter Sixty-Four: Mockingbird

So while I was reshelving books in the middle school library, I chanced across Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine.  The cover intrigued me, so I read the back of the book... then the first few pages... the first few chapters... and the whole book!  The narrator-protagonist is Caitlin, a ten-year-old girl with Asperger's Syndrome who is grieving the death of her older brother and is also trying just to deal with day to day life at school.  She is a really fascinating narrator; it was mostly because of her narration that I couldn't put this book down as I read about her attempts to find closure and to make new friends.  For those of you who are interested, this book is a National Book Award winner.  This is a very quick read,  and it is a really heartwarming story.  It was all I could do to keep myself from sobbing (from happiness) while I read the end at the gym.

Chapter Sixty-Three: Gone Girl

So I asked on Facebook for book recommendations, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was one of them.  I devoured this long crime novel/mystery/thriller in a few days because I was really drawn in by the plot, and the writing was good, even though I found both main characters highly dislikable.  The plot definitely kept me guessing right until the end of the book, although I was pretty infuriated by the end.  Not to give too much away to those who haven't read it, but I wanted revenge and I didn't get it....  Alas.  If you like realistic crime drama type novels, this is probably a good one to read, although I can't say for sure since I read so little of this genre.

Chapter Sixty-Two: Nursery Crimes Series

So after reading the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, I decided to try his Nursery Crimes series, which currently consists of two books: The Big Over Easy and The Fourth Bear.  They feature Jack Spratt and Mary Mary, who are minor characters in the third Thursday Next book, The Well of Lost Plots.  Overall, these books aren't quite as fun or well-written as Thursday Next, but I still enjoyed them.  They're a bit more obviously parodies, the first playing off of "Humpty-Dumpty" and the second off of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."  They are also parodies of mystery/crime novels in general, which I might appreciate more if I read more of those types of books.  Still, the characters and plots are interesting, so these books are worth reading if you're looking for more books by Fforde or if you're looking for clever, light-hearted mysteries. 

Chapter Sixty-One: Thursday Next Series

So my entertainment for the long long month of March has been reading the Thursday Next series, by Welsh author Jasper Fforde.  This is a really fun and wacky series of adventure/police novels set in an alternate version of England starting in 1984 and spanning almost through the present and starring Literary Detective Thursday Next, a spunky and engaging heroine.  These books are really a hoot, and they're also totally absurd and ridiculous.  I think this is what makes them so much fun, but if you don't have a taste for the bizarre, I might not recommend them.  They are full of fun literary references, which a bibliophile like me particularly appreciates, but even if you haven't read most of the books referenced (and I certainly haven't) you can still follow the plot with ease and enjoyment.


Here's a full list of titles in the series:
The Eyre Affair
Lost in a Good Book
The Well of Lost Plots
Something Rotten
First Among Sequels
One of Our Thursdays Is Missing
The Woman Who Died a Lot

*The series is not yet complete, but these are all the books published to date.

Chapter Sixty: My Family and Other Animals

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is basically a memoir of the five years in the early 20th century that he and his family lived on Corfu.  Narrated by his 10-15-year old self, he recounts his own exploits on the island--mostly involving local flora and fauna--and his mother's and older siblings' adventures and misadventures.  Plot is a little thin--descriptions of the natural life of the island are more frequent than action--but it is a charming, calm, sun-drenched story.  I could almost believe I was reading it in the shade of an olive tree on a quiet summer's day.  In sum, it's not the most exciting book, but it is rather beautiful in its descriptions.

Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Blue Castle

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery is a very light, very romantic, very fun little story about an old maid who is totally dominated by her large family until she decides to take matters into her own hands and start doing as she pleases.  And then things get fun.  I don't want to spoil it for you--you should read it yourself--it's just such a happy, affirming little story that reminds you that you are in control of your own life, and with a little spunk, you can make your life fun.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Borrower

This is a strange, original story by Rebecca Makkai about a young children's librarian who inadvertently finds herself kidnapping a child patron and embarking on a road trip from Missouri to Vermont.  The extreme realism of this story makes it almost believable and also a little depressing, although the narrator's Russian mobster father adds some (dark) humor to the tale that helps lighten it up a bit.  It's less a story about a kidnapping than a story about the narrator's search for home, although you can see how the two ideas are related.  It's not really a happy story, but it is well-told and well-written and a little quirky, and it's an interesting read, for sure.

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Blackout and All Clear

These two books tell an amazing, ultimately heart-warming story about three historians from 2060 Oxford who travel back in time to WWII to study it and end up getting stuck there.  (It's nowhere near as corny as it sounds.  I promise.)  As they await rescue from the future--rescue that seems increasingly unlikely to come--they band together to try to survive the war, making enormous sacrifices to help each other and to help the people they meet.  The wartime setting adds extra tension and excitement to the novel, and I couldn't help but love the characters--time travelers and contemporaries alike.  The protagonists try so hard to do what's right, even when they're not sure if their actions are having good or bad effects.  There's also a good element of mystery to this story, and it's not until the second book that the pieces of the puzzle all start to come together, adding to the suspense this novel maintains right until its end.  But perhaps the best part of these novels is how Willis manages to mix in a good dose of humor amid the fears and horrors of the war.  These are great novels and I highly recommend them.

Chapter Fifty-Six: This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All

Have you been looking for a non-fiction book about librarians and their role in our lives as the Internet and other new technology allow easy and instant access to information?  You probably haven't been looking for such a book, but if you're at all interested in librarians, books, the Internet, or free access to information, you should check out this book by Marilyn Johnson.  It weaves an interesting account of dozens of past and current librarians and trends in the worlds of librarianship, especially as the field changes and grows under the influence of the Internet and other new technologies.  I still feel like I'm making this sound far more dry than it is--although maybe it would seem dry to someone less interested in librarianship than I am.  Still, if you give it a chance, you just might enjoy it and learn a few new things.

Chapter Fifty-Five: One for the Books

I started out really loving this book about books by writer and book-reviewer Joe Queenan, although it started to wear a bit thin by its end.  It is a non-fiction book for avid crazy readers (like myself) about Queenan's own insane reading habits.  I cannot recommend that anyone read this book who is not obsessed with reading.  Let's just say that Queenan makes me look almost illiterate.  Anyway, it was really fun for me to read about another reader's experiences, although some of his prejudices about what he will and won't read--and especially his views on children's literature irritated me.  (Children's literature is for children, he says at one point, anathema for me, considering that I spent my last year of college writing a hundred-page thesis trying to explore what the heck children's literature even is.)  (I was almost equally irritated when he said he hated people from Massachusetts and therefore wouldn't read Hawthorne--this was only slightly redeemed when he said he refused to read books about Yankees fans; while I don't share that prejudice, I do have untoward feelings towards Yankees fans in general.)  Anyway, Queenan at times is a bit snooty about certain things: what he will and won't read, how much he reads as compared to the average American, etc.  Still, despite some irritations, as an insatiable reader myself, I largely enjoyed this book, but I'd only recommend it if you are also an avid reader.

Chapter Fifty-Four: Eva Moves the Furniture

Margot Livesey's Eva Moves the Furniture is a beautiful book about love and loss.  It tells the story of Eva, who throughout her life is visited by companions--a woman and a girl--whom only she can see.  Their nature and intentions are mysterious to Eva, and she alternately hates them and longs for them.  But the back of the book could tell you as much.  What I really want to say is that this is one of my favorite contemporary works for adults.  Eva is an excellent narrator: she has a unique voice and an interesting life.  The whole book is infused with a sort of calm, matter-of-fact-ness, even in times of war (the book is set in Scotland from the 1920s through the 1940s), which is very absorbing.  Indeed, I was always surprised to look up from my book and find myself in America in 2014.  Even though I've read this book many times before, I was still in tears at its fitting ending, and while it's a pretty quick read, the characters are the sort who linger with you after you've closed the book.  I highly recommend it.

Chapter Fifty-Three: Pride and Prejudice

It's been a while since I last read Pride and Prejudice, which is to this day the only of Jane Austen's books that I've read.  Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed rereading this tale of thwarted, unrequited, and finally vindicated love.  It's clear why this novel remains a classic even now, two hundred and one years after it was first published.  The characters are all lovable or so silly and easy and fun to dislike that one can hardly help wanting to read about what happens to them.  Elizabeth Bennet is, of course, the star of the show.  She spunky and willing to speak her mind, she insists on marrying for love in an age where that was often not the priority, and she is even willing to recognize her own mistakes and change her point of view!  If you haven't read this classic, read it, and if you have, re-read it!

Chapter Fifty-Two: Sparrow in the Keep

Sparrow in the Keep, by Jean Ann Hudson, is the fun and interesting story of Sparrow, a young woman raised by her parents in the wilderness, and her encounters with the court of Count Gustav of Wilker, a medieval-esque land.  Sparrow is an excellent main character: she is unique because of her upbringing and her extraordinary abilities of observation and communication, the latter bordering on telepathy with both humans and animals.  However, the various dramas of courtly life anchor the story almost as much as Sparrow does, and Hudson successfully manages a sizable cast of court and village characters without letting the reader become confused about their identities, relationships, or motives.  This is a fun tale well worth the read!

Chapter Fifty-One: Anne of Green Gables

I love these books!  Anne of Green Gables is the first in this delightful series of eight and the best known of them, and I really enjoyed all of them.  I haven't read any of them in a while, and it was so much fun to re-read them (and I think read number 8 and maybe 7 for the first time).  Anne is a delightful and spunky heroine, and when the focus shifts from her to her children in the last three books of the series, they prove to be more interesting than I thought they would be, although I can never love them quite as much as I love Anne.  Additionally, Prince Edward Island, Canada, provides a glorious setting for these books: pastoral, idyllic, charming.  I often laughed aloud while reading these books (sometimes I was laughing at the floweriness of the prose, I'll admit, rather than at the events of the story), which to me is the mark of a good read.

Chapter Fifty: Amphigorey

This is a fun and strange collection of works by Edward Gorey, who illustrates his own writing, some of which is poetry and some of which is prose. (Amphigory, by the way, means a meaningless or nonsensical piece of writing, especially one intended as a parody, so the title, Amphigorey (punning on his surname) is quite apt.)  Gorey is a strange fellow, judging by his works, some of which have plots and some of which are intriguingly non-linear.  His illustrations have a Victorian or Edwardian style to them, which definitely adds to the creepiness of stories.  His work is quite unique, and it is well worth checking out if you want something wacky.

Chapter Forty-Nine: Brothers of the Head

This is quite possibly the strangest book I have ever read.  The edition I read includes illustrations by Ian Pollock to add to the story by Brian Aldiss, which tells the tale of conjoined twins from an isolated English hamlet who are sold into the pop music industry by their widowed father.  Thrust into fame, they meet and fall in love with a woman, learn the ropes of fronting a rock band, and they become more competitive than ever.  This is not a particularly happy story, beginning, middle, or end, but it is certainly compelling.  To add to the strangeness and intrigue, the brothers have a third head, which is dormant, attached to one shoulder.  But the third head doesn't stay dormant forever...  Only read this story if you want a truly strange experience.

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Wild Things

This book by Dave Eggers, an expansion of Maurice Sendak's classic picture book "Where the Wild Things Are" is very strange.  The edition I had happened to be covered in faux fur with a slit cut around painted human eyes...   The content of this book might be stranger than its furry cover, although in fairness the content of the storybook is pretty bizarre, too.  Eggers stays fairly faithful to his model, although of course in expanding a very short picture book into a full-length novel, he added a lot of details that were only hinted at in the storybook or that were not there at all.  Most of these details fit with my ideas about and impressions of Sendak's story, although I was rather disappointed in the ending of The Wild Things.  Without giving it away, all I'll say is that, while it remains fairly faithful to the original in terms of plot, I thought the feeling of the novel's ending was vastly different from the feeling of the storybook's ending, and I know which one I prefer.  Still, if you like "Where the Wild Things Are," it's definitely worth your while to read The Wild Things, if for nothing else than to compare the two and get a fresh perspective on what is considered a childhood classic (whatever that even means).

Chapter Forty-Seven: Abarat (Books 1-3)

This series by Clive Barker is one of the most original stories I've read.  He creates such a rich world in Abarat, populated by scores of strange entities and set in fantastic realms as it is.  It is essential to read the editions that include his amazing, brilliant full-color illustrations.  They add so much to the text and also really are helpful in visualizing some of what he's describing, especially the stuff that's more far-out.  These books--two more are planned--are basically adventure and coming-of-age stories, but their premise is so original--the Abarat is another world, composed of islands, each of which is an hour, confusing traditional ideas about where and when--that these books seem very fresh.  I also love the heroine, Candy Quackenbush.  She's flawed and spunky and down-to-earth and has the right balance of ordinary and extraordinary.  If you want a good fantasy and adventure series, I highly recommend these books (Abarat, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War, and Abarat: Absolute Midnight).  I myself am eagerly awaiting the publication of books four and five.