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!