I haven't really been reading high literature this past month, no sirree.
Jupiter's Bones by Faye Kellerman (an interesting concept, but I feel like there's an unnecessary level of family involvement in the main character's plot line)
Nights of Rain and Stars by Maeve Binchy (not one of her best, but better than many of the other recent ones I've read. Why is the Irish girl always whiny?)
Nothing But The Truth by John Lescroart (great twist)
See Jane Run by Joy Fielding (I was so angry at Jane, the main character. SO ANGRY! And it made me want to keep reading.)
The Janson Directive by Robert Ludlum (so much action in... okay, it's a long book but it certainly is about three movies worth of action. I hated the obligatory male and female main characters must sleep together moment. ugh.)

And then, then I read Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier.
I had heard good things about Girl with a Pearl Earring (and I enjoyed the book), but this one, set in early 20th century London, was brilliant. The story is told in pieces from the point of view of almost every character in turn, from the maid and cook, to the gravedigger's boy, to the three women at the centre of the story. My favourite chapter was this:
Over his shoulder, I saw a star fall. It was me.
Revealing the speaker or the circumstance will ruin the book.
The writing is crisp, the plot brilliant and the details spot on (or at least, they were to a girl who knows a bit about the suffragettes, and remembers what the mom wore in Mary Poppins). I may just have to seek out Girl with a Pearl Earring next.

I'd heard about Diana Wynne Jones several times, and somehow missed out on her books. Surprising, considering how much I loved fantasy books as a child, her target audience.
The Merlin Conspiracy, her most recent children's novel, is a brilliant ride through several imaginary worlds, as well as our own. The several versions of England, and their interconnected pieces, are brilliant. The characters are bright, occasionally flawed and frustrating, but engaging. The dual narrative lines of Roddy and Nic allow for the intimacy of a first person telling, while bringing together the two plot lines. That's actually one of the best part of these books - trying to figure out how Nic and Roddy are connected before Jones reveals it.
My one problem? Jones is obviously trying to build a new series (or two) based on Roddy and Nic and hints a little too often at Nic's checkered past in this book without giving detail. Though, to be frank, I'm looking forward to reading the next book and find out why Nic abdicated that throne he's supposed to be sitting on.

I finished this earlier this week (actually, I've read lots lately, and just haven't been keeping up on my posting) and loved it. I wasn't surprised, since I loved American Gods as well. And Coraline, for that matter.
Neil Gaiman does an amazing job of making poor Fat Charlie sympathetic, even while he does things that are so frustrating to the reader... it's a good way to get a reader hooked and interested. Fat Charlie bumbles his way through and the reader is given enough clues as to who everyone is (because it's almost never clear to Fat Charlie) and what they're really up to (because Fat Charlie misses all of that too) that it works. There's action, adventure and romance, and all within the crazy idea that Anansi had a child and then all kinds of misadventures happened to the one who missed out on the god-like powers.
Knowing as little as possible about the plot is an advantage to the reader, and makes the ride that much more enjoyable. Anansi Boys is funny and interesting, while capturing the sense of mystery of the old stories.

I went on a binge and read these three Kathy Reichs novels, Death du Jour, Deadly Decisions and Bare Bones. That's the order in which she wrote them (with a few others in between) and the others in which I read them. Reading one author's books close together like this always makes me think more about style than content.
Here are some things that bothered me about Reichs writing about Montreal. For one thing, she kept calling it Quebec Province in the first two books. Who the hell calls it that? It's the province of Quebec. We don't live in... Africa. That's the only place I can think of where they refer to anything as _____ Province. Luckily, she fixes that by the third one I read. She also refers to going to Lafleur's as going to Lafleur. Yes, the sign says Lafleur. If you are an anglo living in Montreal, the " 's" is implied. At any rate, more annoying, and bad misinformation for tourists, she orders a hot dog by calling it a chien chaud.
I have lived in this province for four years. I go to our local hot dog joint all the time, in a city much more French than Montreal. I order a hot dog steamé. Or, sometimes I order toasté. That's steamed or toasted to the rest of us. Anglos in Montreal order steamies. And if I want a rootbeer, I order a rootbeer. A friend of mine once tried to order a racinette, and the girl at the counter didn't know what he was talking about. The same goes for milkshake. It may say lait battu on the sign, but order a milkshake au fraise.
Now that I have that off my chest, I want to point out a couple of cheap tricks. In Death du Jour, the cult is heading towards their Guardian Angel, and she's evil. This is a spoiler, by the way. They're going to Ange Guardien, a little town between Sherbrooke and Montreal. Um. Yeah. I am shaking my head.
The other thing that bothers me is that this forensic anthropologist gets into all kinds of ridiculous trouble, which usually leads to someone else getting shot or getting herself bashed over the head. She's a forensic anthropologist. I have a hard enough time believing that of an FBI agent.
Therein lies the true flaw. And I'm not even getting into her main character being called "Tempe" (say it Temp-ee).
Sure, they're a good read and the mysteries are good, and sometimes difficult to figure out (except Bare Bones - I didn't have the why, but I definitely had the who pegged from about 40 pages in), but the other flaws made me so angry I wanted to throw the book at the wall. And, at least once, I did. I refrained with the other two, since they were library books.

In the end, I read 92 books in 2005. Bill said I should set the goal to 100, and I laughed. I was right. This 92 is respectable, but it is definitely not 100. To be honest, I didn't count the pregnancy and baby books I read, which would put me somewhere around 98. It's still 100.
That said, I'm still not setting 100 books as my goal for 2006. I've decided I'm not going to have a number goal. Instead, this is the year I'm going to try reading books and authors I've heard about, but have never managed to read.
I'm off to a good start. I finished American Psycho the other day, and I'm reading a Kathy Reichs novel. She's the forensic anthropologist who writes thrillers. I'm enjoying my first, and the library has several more.
My other goal is to keep up with the reviews, which is part of my overall resolution for the year - write more.

I've been meaning to read this since it came out... and I should have picked it up earlier. The copy I bought was a $5 paperback in a bin at the Bay, of all places, which tells you how long I've been really meaning to pick this up.
Gibson's Virtual Light was my favourite book at 14/15. There's something about the female leads in his novels - they are the kinds of women I would want to be. That goes for Cayce Pollard, the lead in Pattern Recognition, as well. Who wouldn't want to be Cayce, with her all black outfits and her ability to determine what will be cool? Even her allergy to brandnames and trademarks is cool.
Gibson's look into an extreme, technological world of marketing is dead on - it's advanced, but based in reality and very possible. The solution to who makes the footage, and how one person could possibly be the source is both brilliant and eerily plausible. Even the 9/11 references, which are key to the plot and character development, are beyond plausible - they are necessary to the story. Gibson has managed to capture what most of the world has been feeling about the tragic events, without playing them out for the tragedy.
Gibson references the real world, from brand names and trademarks to real world figures (as pointed out early on, Cayce is so named for Edgar Cayce, the famous early 20th century psychic, which is a gift from her mother, who believes the voices of the dead appear on sound recordings) in a way that isn't intrusive. Don't think American Psycho - though the brands are necessary to the story, and knowing Hello Kitty and Prada would be helpful to having a mental picture of the places amd people Cayce sees (and why she reacts as she does), it isn't the same level of brand recognition and worship. It's more disdain and contempt, in a subtle acknowledgement that brands will become more global as the Internet takes over.
Because in the end, it's really a novel about how the Internet has changed the world. Gibson was the first to really get the Internet into literature, and he will always be the guru of how it affects life, even in the 21st Century.

There was something about this latest installment in the Baudelaires' miserable adventures that brought the magic back for me. [Spoiler alert, if you didn't already know.] I am already a huge fan of Daniel Handler's adult novels. I find them clever, witty, and full of twists, in the spirit of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and Terry Pratchett (who are, of course, some of my favourite authors).
As Violet, Klaus and Sunny wind (and boy, has the road been winding so far) their way to their final adventure, the books have regained their momentum. I found 11 interesting... but not as engaging as many of the others. I laughed, but not as heartily. I laughed even harder at certain moments in the Hotel Denouement. The clever names were back in force, and the ridiculous references were fresh and funny. And "Snicket" revealed just enough of the secrets of who the VFD are, and what the schism was all about, to have readers dying for Book 13, and what can only be the big reveal.
And you just know it's going to be good - and probably just slightly ridiculous.

I actually finished this a few days ago, and was rather eager to post about it... then I started (and finished) reading John Grisham's The Testament. Man, John Grisham can write some intriguing drivel.

Back to Brick Lane, though. It was like a modern Jane Austen. With immigrants. From Bangladesh. Who are poor and live in council housing in Britain. So really, not that much like Jane Austen, except that it's set in Britain.
But it reminded me of Jane Austen - the female lead, discovering who she really is despite having repressed her own desires and moving with fate. The tensions of Sept. 11, 2001 and terrorism come into play, since the characters in the novel are all Muslims, and they feel the pressure of being different (maintaining purdah, for instance) in their adopted home. The book is intriguing on many levels, particularly the chapters of ill-written letters from the main character's sister - the parallel, but opposite, life. One always did what she was supposed to, the other never did. Which one is happier is debatable.
Ali weaves an interesting look into the post-colonial world of Britain, without coming across as preaching about racism, the immigrant condition or any of the other political topics her novel touches.

It's set in a call centre, which was like sinking into a warm bath. Sometimes, I miss the monotony of answering telephone calls and selling hotel reservations. Like the main character in this novel, I find it to be an easy way to make money, too easy, like you're fooling the establishment.
Dan Thomas moves into his call centre after his father is hit by a car, leaving Dan to try to cover the rent for their room. He takes the stray cat with him, and soon embarks on a journey of cover-ups as he lies to cover lies to cover lies.
It's twisted and funny, even the untimely death of the stray and the accidental seduction of a superior at the call centre. When it comes to the end, though, and Dan has to get on with his new life, completely different from the one he lived at the start of the novel, there's no resolution, just new beginnings. It works, for the most part, though it leaves you wondering if the car accident that started the whole change in his life was truly accidental, or, like Dan himself wonders, his mother has somehow had her way over his life.