maribou | American Felaheen: A Memoir of a Figment; Last Leaping King of All; Lisey's Poison Wind; Lean Coffin

American Wife (ARC), by Curtis Sittenfeld
I liked this novel less than I expected to when all I knew was that Sittenfeld wrote it, and more than I expected to when I realized it was basically the life story of an imaginary alt version of the current president's wife. Or, the answer to the question of 'how does one of us become one of them?' Anyway, the quality of the writing, especially the characterization, and the "page-turner" quotient were superb. I did sort of feel like it was Kitty Kelly for those of us who are purportedly too refined to read Kitty Kelly ... but that isn't always a bad thing.
(188/300)

Books: A Memoir, by Larry McMurtry
I was not expecting this book to be so fragmentary, nor so collector-focused.... but I loved it anyway. If you like *really* geeking out about books, mostly books-as-objects-to-be-bought-and-sold, the way booksellers do, you will enjoy this book.
(189/300)

Felaheen, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
An excellent conclusion to the series - I can't believe I didn't know it was out, and has been for years ... Alternate near-future noir, mostly set in the Muslim empire - the main city is El Iskandrya, and she's almost a character in her own right... And I find both the hero and his chief sidekick vastly sympathetic. But if I've piqued your interest, do yourself a favor and start with Pashazade.
(190/300)

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, by Elizabeth McCracken
So I saw this on the library's new book list, and thought "oo, it's short and I've always wanted to read her and I'm in the mood more for biography than a novel anyway." And then I found out, oops, it's REALLY REALLY HEARTBREAKINGLY SAD ... the main thread of the story is how she lost a baby in stillbirth, and had to deal with that grief. So, it's really really well-made, and I was very touched and in a weird way comforted by reading it ... but if you don't think you can deal with a whole book about how much it sucks when your baby dies, maybe try something else of hers? I'm not sure I would've read this if I'd known what it was about before I got pulled in by the story. (That only took a couple of pages.)
(191/300)

Leaping Beauty: And Other Animal Fairy Tales, by Gregory Maguire
Cute, fun. Most of these felt pretty-off-the-cuff, not as brilliantly crafted as his best stuff - but there were a couple of gems.
(192/300)

Y: The Last Man: Volume 10: Whys and Wherefores, by Brian K. Vaughan et al
I liked this volume better before I got to the very end - the epilogue chapter. Still, the series as a whole was amazing, and the epilogue wasn't *bad* - just unnecessary and not up to my previous high standards. It did give me a couple of delighted-happiness moments though ... but maybe those 2 or 3 moments could've been worked into the last actual chapter instead.
(193/300)

The House of All Sorts, by Emily Carr
I've loved Emily Carr's paintings for a very long time, since I was in elementary school - and I've been meaning to read some of her writing for almost that long. Glad I finally did - I will be picking up more. The landlady stories, while amusing, pretty much fall into the category of "Well, it passes the time" - and some of the casual typical-of-their-time prejudices were a bit squicky to this modern reader - but the dog stories absolutely shone, as did the tidbits of childhood autobiography. Really really good.
(194/300)

Robin and the King, by Parke Godwin
Fun "what happens after Robin Hood comes out of the forest" story that sets Robin, aka Edward of Denby, at the time of William the Conqueror, just before and just after his death. I have an infinite appetite for Robin Hood stories, much like my infinite appetite for Arthurian stories, but with fewer opportunities for fulfillment ... so I really enjoyed this one. YMMV. The fraught relationship between Robin and Rossel (more commonly known as Rufus, the conqueror's heir) is especially good. Oh, and technically it's a sequel to Sherwood (which I read as a teenager), but really if you have a vague idea who Robin Hood is, you don't need to have read the first one to dig this one.
(195/300)

The Poison Master, by Liz Williams
Three stars for the characterization/writing/etc, which was fine, but skimpy around the edges, and five emphatic stars for the world she created. SO NEEFTY. I seriously loved puzzling everything out, and I'm not usually a pro-puzzling-things-out kind of reader. But this world was so cool that the book became a page-turner just so I could see what cool thing would be part of the world next ... plot and character were seriously secondary considerations... it's possible that they were better than I appreciated just because I was so wrapped up in the bits and bobs of the world itself.
(196/300)

Ill Wind, by Rachel Caine
Yay! I found a new fun fluff series! Wisecracking weather warden flees unjust persecution and struggles to hold her world together, what's not to love? Lucky me, there's another 7 books out in the series already.
(197/300)

Lisey's Story, by Stephen King
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Stephen King is our modern version of Dickens, and will still be read a hundred years from now. So it isn't much of a surprise that I love them both... I'd been saving the reading of this one for a while, and came across it in the airport bookstore, and said, "yes! that! that's what I need on my flight home," and it very precisely was. Insofar as I like some King better and some worse, this definitely goes into the better pile ... flavored like Hearts in Atlantis and Bag of Bones.
(198/300)

Lean Mean Thirteen, by Janet Evanovich
Still popcorn, still fun. Frequent cause of moments where I'm sitting reading, I crack up,

birdmojo says "What's so funny???", and it's hard to explain. I must say, I like how Stephanie realizes she's changed and deals with it cheerfully and maybe with a bit of pride, as opposed to SOME protagonists who get all broody and angsty about their changes OVER AND OVER again without ever changing back (slantwise glance at Anita Blake).
(199/300)

The Glass Coffin, by Gail Bowen
Another one of the Joanna Kilbourn series I somehow missed the first time around. But since the characters involved in this one were more peripheral to Joanna's day-to-day-life, the suspense was preserved a lot better - no saying 'oh, well, THIS person is obviously not a suspect because they show up all the time in later books...' Anyway, it was a fun read, and I do love how literate and intellectual these are, in their own very quirky and Canadian way. Very satisfying.
(200/300)