maribou | Man Begs Blink; New Book Vanishes; Private Hotel King; Wearing Green Paper

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
Yes, I know, I can't believe I'm only getting around to this now either. More nuanced than its hype made it seem, and the discussion of face-reading will stick with me.
(244/300)

After Man, by Dugal Dixon (reread)
This is an absolutely incredible book, detailing the author's vast imaginative act of dreaming up an entire ecosystem's worth of post-apocalyptic evolutionary forms. I LOVE this book. It's so beautiful and inventive. One of these days I will get my own copy instead of just reading a different library copy every couple of years. I wish it was still in print.
(245/300)

The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, by Hooman Majd
Journalistic-type book by an Iranian-American who spends a lot of time in Iran, often mixing with or formally interviewing or advising some of its more powerful citizens. Informative and interesting. I really enjoyed reading this, though he does (by his own admission) focus more on positive and/or ruefully ironic aspects of his encounters, and really not much at all on the horrible things that happen there... but you know, there are LOTS of books to read about all the horrible things. And I didn't feel like he was covering up, or anything - just choosing to talk about other things. It's well worth a read.
(246/300)

Before Green Gables, by Budge Wilson
I was EXTREMELY dubious about this book, but a trusted friend told me it would all be okay and it was worth reading really really. So I gave it a shot. Strangely for a book that talks about Anne's life as a young child, the Montgomery it most reminds me of are her works for more adult readers - Jane of Lantern Hill, and The Blue Castle, and some of the short stories. This story honors the world LMM made, and the integrity of her characters, without just being a slavish pastiche. Worth trying, if you are an Anne lover who has been feeling skeptical about this one. I rather loved it.
(247/300)

The Book of Small, by Emily Carr
Some parts of Emily Carr's writing I just can't connect with - but those parts are all intermingled with other parts that I just plain adore. And I liked having the look back into Victoria's past.
(248/300)

New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer
I was really bored until First Plot-Significant Event happened and then I couldn't put it down. So I'll be keeping on reading these. Also, I really like Jacob.
(249/300)

The Victoria Vanishes, by Christopher Fowler
Quite satisfying. I wish there'd been more of Meera and Bingley and Kershaw, but considering, it all hung together very well. My favorite of this series is still The Water Room.
(250/300)

Paper Towns, by John Green
A sweet-sad book. Somehow the main characters (or at least the protagonist) felt younger than their actual age of high school senior... but still it was a lovely read.
(251/300)

King Rat, by China Miéville
Friggin' great. LOVED this, excellent recommendation by

ilmarinen, very impressed, maybe a little bit haunted. Punkish fairy-tale-inflected horror/fantasy, with lots of drum'n'bass worked in. Thud thud thud wooo-ee.
(252/300)

Private Arrangements, by Sherry Thomas
At first the amount of descriptive cliches the author was using drove me up a wall... but then I got into the humor and the chemistry and whatnot and I completely failed to notice any other cliches that may or may not have been in the remaining 5/6ths of the book. So I guess my first reading of a straight-up romance novel since junior high was a success? I really really enjoyed it, as fluff books go. Very witty and sparkling plot, fun bantery dialogue.
(253/300)

Hotel Transylvania, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
I read a couple of the St. Germain stories as a teenager and loved them (and they made me put Yarbro on my 'authors I trust to be good' list) but I'd mostly forgotten about them in the last decade or so.

loree strongly recommended them several months ago, and then I was reading about them in one of the reader's advisory books I just read, and that gave me the impetus to start the series from the beginning. If I like the rest of them as well as I liked this one, I have just struck a rich vein of vampire-novel gold. (There are another 20 in the series...)
(254/300)

Where Am I Wearing?, by Kelsey Timmerman (ARC)
There are voluminous and deeply insightful tomes on the subject of globalization. This is not one of them. It's the story of a 20-something liberal arts school grad who embarks on a quixotic attempt to find the factory where his favorite clothes were made, and meet the people who made them. Funny, touching, and ambivalent. A chewy read that will make you think without raking you over the intellectual coals.
(255/300)