Amysue's Read-o-rama

Widdershins.

Charles de Lint is another of my favorite writers.  I devoured his newest book (my 38th of the year!) in two days and it would have been far shorter but I forced myself to slow down.  Widdershins is another novel set in and about the fictional city of Newford.

Newford.  De Lint has created a place, peopled with characters that are not only real to me but imbue me with a sense of peace the moment I start reading and fall into their world again.  I am always touched by his ability to understand the many issues and contradictions that follow those he calls the children of the secret (survivors of childhood abuse).  It is a gift and I know that in his writings he has managed to touch and heal many lives without sacrificing the story he is telling.

I was especially tickled that this novel dealt with two of my favorite Newford characters, Jilly and Geordie.  Oh and Whiskey Jack was there too.  Just a treat. I hated to finish it, but it's OK I can revisit them in any of the earlier novels or stories and I'm sure there will be new ones.

"A long time ago a bunch of people reached a general consensus as to what's real and what's not and most of us have been going along with it ever since. "-charles de lint

36 and 37...

Pathetic.  No time to do anything but mention that I read Jim Butcher's great new entry in his Dresden Files series, Proven Guilty.  I also had fun reading (and looking at the wonderful photographs) Cash, a collection of essays (some by the man in black himself) about Johnny Cash, put out by Rolling Stone soon after his death.

And 34.

Connie Willis's, Bellwether.  Read this book.  It will confirm all you suspect about the corporate world and our unwitting sheeplike acceptance of everything we are spoonfed.

Book 33.

Allegra Goodman's latest novel, Intuition.  I mostly enjoyed this novel and the interplay it protrayed between the lvies of various researchers in an academic cancer research facility.  However, what really grabbed me and made it impossible for me to stop reading was the act that it took place in the mid eighties in Cambridge and was a snapshot of my neighborhood and world at that time.

It's funny because yesterday I stopped in the Square after some doctors appointments and thought about how much it had changed.  Reading the novel brought back the Square as I remembered it, although by 1985 it was already beginignt it's not so slow slide to generic malldom.  The loss of Wordsworth a couple of years ago pretty much sealed the deal.  I spent hours in that store, and even worked there at one point in 1986-87.  I always met my friends there and we would spend at least an hour in the shelves before venturing out to lunch or wherever.  Harvard Square, was for me, a life long bookworm mecca and it's sad that now there are almost no great stores left.

Three more.

30. Possible Side Effects, Augusten Burroughs:  Another collection of beautifully crafted, heartbreaking (and often heartbreakingly funny) essays.

31. & 32. Uglies and Pretties, Scott Westerfeld:  The first two in a trilogy dealing with a near future dystopia that is thought provoking and consuming in the sense that I both couldn't put wither of these books down without dropping everything to finish them and I can't stop thinking about the many issues they've brought up.  Chiefly, is it wrong to manipulate the population into being happy, somewhat mindless, stepford humans if the alternative is destruction of the planet and each other?  I'd say yes, but I also keep thinking basic human decency will win out, but what if it doesn't really exist?  I'm looking forward to the last in the series, Specials.

                           

And 28 and 29...

The other two Chrestomanci novels:

The Magicians of Caprona and Witch Week, both by Diana Wynne Jones, of course.