railsea.

Yesterday I finished reading Railsea by China Mieville, and it's left me with rustling, unquiet feelings. I love Mieville, and I've been rapidly working my way through his entire canon since I first read Kraken about three years ago. Reading him is a little like trying to keep level footing while standing on an accordion. He is adept at drawing richly detailed, slickly un-right worlds. The setting and the story expand and contract beneath your feet with a speed and grace that's both wonderful and nauseating. There are a number of themes and conceits that he relies on consistently, but his main meat is hybridization. Combined words, enmeshed bodies, physical worlds that are built on a sort of bio-steampunk ethos. I've written before that every Mieville novel starts in a place that seems familiar and easy to follow, but quickly rotates the camera and lets you see that you are in fact standing on the ceiling. Railsea is true to that pattern.

The basic premise is a world in which railroads are so prevalent that they're like a body of water. There's a permanent tangled network of ties and tracks, so thick that all their terminology and lore are language we use for oceans and sailing. Insects and small burrowing creatures have evolved to staggering, predatory size and are hunted by trainsfolk for commerce and, sometimes, for glory and revenge. There's a very heavy cord of Moby Dick running throughout. Mieville's books are themselves hybridizations: tangled, looping, referential cultural markers that make use of material from dozens of other literary sources. I've never come up with a word to adequately describe this. It's not delicate enough to be called literary allusion, not is it anything so sly as to be described as theft. He just straight up uses obvious pieces of what has gone before to make his own thing. Sort of like what would happen if you could build an entirely new house using pieces from existing houses, without actually removing anything from the existing houses. Look, the foundation: that's Melville. The doorframe is the Strugatsky brothers, that paint is a color called Penelope Lively. The result is a proper Painted Lady, but it's Mieville's house, and you couldn't mistake it for anyone else's.

This particular house is full of monsters, civilizations and un-civilizations, and people who are looking for something. It's a sailing story, all pitch and roll, and the hero is trying to find his feet. He doesn't know what's true, and so he doesn't know what he wants. So he keeps pushing and pushing at the edges of what is assumed about the world, looking for what's under the wallpaper. He starts in little ways, like saving a bird from a cockfight even though he knows it will enrage his crewmates, and keeps picking at those elusive things that spur him to action until eventually he finds himself with people and a story that fire his engine and make him move.

I enjoyed Railsea less than any of the other Mieville books I've read. There was no shortage of beautiful words or memorable passages, but I never fell all the way into it. In part, I was irritated by an of-the-moment tone in several places that didn't serve the story and kind of slapped me out of it when I came across them. It had the usual rhythmic, wordy beat that all his writing does, but it seemed more carelessly executed than usual; less durable, somehow. And for the first time, the world he described was one I just couldn't cognitively accept. Tell me about a world where houses contract technological viruses through flawed spoken language and become biologically ill, and I am right with you. A city that is actually two cities existing in the same physical space and within plain view of one another, but operating as separate entities with blinders on? Absolutely. But show me a world where railroads built hundreds of years in the past are so thick on the ground that they are like water, an infrastructure so old that it's spawned the vague religions of prehistory, that is governed but not maintained by any municipality and is assumed to be repaired by angels - here you have lost me. It's choppy. This world never felt real. That explains my general dissatisfaction with the book. My specific itchy feelings about it stem from the religious element in Railsea.

Every one of Mieville's novels deals with religion, or with cultural assumptions so ingrained that they resemble religion. (He also has kind of a thing about angels, and the myriad ways he's made them is strange and wonderful.) The religious elements in his books are viewed with a very wide lens, an anthropological pin in the map of the world he's writing. There's always a wide range of established beliefs, levels of faith, and degrees of action based on that faith (or lack of it). He's very effective at using the language of religion to establish the boundaries that are about to challenge his characters (and thereby challenging the language of faith and the nature of belief in every story he tells, whether that faith is in something supernatural or in the accepted order of things). Even when religion results in very concrete actions (basically all of Kraken), the belief itself is a fluid thing. It grows and shrinks, it flows into other forms of thought, it remakes itself in insidious ways, it drains down between the cracks in the concrete and swells back up through the kitchen sink: it is alive.

The belief system of Railsea is finite and brittle. It has the language of the supernatural, it's acted upon as supernatural, but in the end it's purely mechanical. The taboos of this world are misunderstood words, the gods are machines set in motion so long ago that no one remembers what they are. The protagonist pushes further and further out against the vague chittering warnings of religious faith until it dissipates like so much fog.

I grew up in a very religious home, but have spent the better part of my adult life pushing against the lore and the language and the assumptions of that faith. This was not a go-to-church-on-Sunday-and-make-the-best-of-it thing; it was an all or nothing thing. As an adult, I see a lot of things in that life that were unwell, and I've fought to get away from them. But I can't ever shake my belief in God entirely, and I'm not sure I want to. What I do want is to know if what belief I have is real or just a habit that's so old it's in my cells. I'm forever taking that rusty habit out and examining it in the light to see how sound it is, but I never have an answer to that question. I'm never going to have an answer to that question. Living with that kind of complex uncertainty about what makes us ourselves is just part of being human. What made me uncomfortable about Railsea was imagining a world where it was possible to push on the last door of belief and see it evaporate. Where you could know for certain that your deities were mechanical creations with concrete financial goals, and your holy texts were simply misunderstood place names. Hoping for that kind of certainty, fearing that kind of certainty.

I don't think think it's necessarily a bad thing to feel my uncomfortable places so acutely, but I wish the book that did it had been better.

33.

I left a library book on the Max yesterday. Specifically, I left Shadows by Robin McKinley on the red line train at Beaverton Transit Center, as it ended its westbound run and switched over to the eastbound. It was about 8:40 in the morning, I was carrying coffee and a tote bag and an umbrella and my phone. I had been reading the book at the beginning of my commute, but then set it aside to do something else, thinking I'd get back to it before I arrived. It was wedged between my left leg and the wall. When the train got to Beaverton TC (which always comes before I'm expecting it, and I have to switch there for the blue line), I got up with my coffee and tote bag and umbrella and phone, and walked off without the library book.

I'm describing this in excruciating detail in order that I might feel every little grain of salt I'm rubbing into my own wound. I left a library book on a train. The ignominy of this is large. Big ignominy.

Oh, I've forgotten a detail that makes it even worse. It wasn't even my library book. It was a loaner from a friend who finished it early and knew I had it on my hold list.

Bignominy.

The worst part, of course, is that I was only about a third of the way through, and it was zipping right along and I was loving it, and now I can't read it until I can get another copy, or until I spend $9 and change on a Kindle edition. Which I'm not going to do, because, well, I'm not. Robin McKinley's great with the vocabulary and the vivid and unexpected characters who are chock full of normal human details and feelings in the midst of their epic magic thing. But not even to punish myself will I spend $9 on the Kindle edition. Having to wait for another copy to roll up the library hold list is punishment enough.

But I can't stop wondering what's happening to this book in the meantime. It was pointed towards the airport when I left it. Did someone find it and think it looked interesting and take it somewhere fun? Did somebody pick it up and return it in a library drop box (this is Portland, I'd bet money there's one of those at the airport)? Is it still sitting on the train? Was it there at the end of the day, and did the driver find it during a final sweep, and drop it in lost and found where it will lie unread forever and its soul will slowly die? Did a kid find it and stash it in her backpack, where it will sit for the next eight months, in a bath of gum wrappers and nail polish and nickels and pens until she finds it at the very end of summer vacation and reads it and falls in love and can't stop telling all her friends about it and they're all totally over it and wish she'd shut up about the main character who loves dogs just exactly as much as she loves dogs and how she doesn't really like her stepfather either and did you guys know that origami figures can ward off evil?

I hope that one's the one. I'll happily pay to replace the book that never returned if that's the one.

the beekeeper's apprentice, by laurie r king

It's January 31, the last day of my What I'm Reading posts. I missed a handful of days around the middle of the month, but I'm kind of shocked I managed to do this almost as planned.

I just finished The Beekeeper's Apprentice today. Laurie King's novel is a bit difficult to classify: I'm not sure if I should call it a mystery, a historical fantasy, young adult fiction, or something else. Her protagonist is Mary Russell, a teenager in Sussex, England during the first World War. Ms. Russell meets the retired Sherlock Holmes, and finding herself presented with a mind as sharp as her own, becomes a sort of apprentice to the master criminologist.

Under normal circumstances, I really dislike the use of an existing literary character by another author, particularly when it's one I know and love so well. I came across a glowing recommendation of the Mary Russell series on a blog recently (I think it was either feministing.com or Salon.com's Broadsheet, but I can't find the link now), and since I was embarking on a whole stack of pleasurable holiday reading, I added the first book of the series to the pile. Given my prejudices, I was mostly expecting to be irate from the get-go, but I was surprised. Mary Russell is that somewhat implausible character of fiction - orphaned, wealthy, brilliant , well-spoken and determined; but she is also well-written and likable. Sherlock Holmes as written by Laurie King is surprisingly intact (mostly). He's lost something of his famed misogyny, obviously, since he's taken on a teenage girl as an apprentice, but King navigates that neatly by setting Mary up as the first intellectual equal Holmes has ever encountered (apart from his brother, Mycroft, and his notorious nemesis Professor Moriarty). He's intrigued and challenged, and pursues the friendship in spite of himself.

The mystery plot is ordinary, but it held my interest. There were a couple of spots where a contemporary turn of phrase or coy literary device were jarring, but I have to say I didn't really care. As a feminist hero, Mary Russell is something of a treat, and I had a really good time reading this. Two thumbs up.

the best american nonrequired reading 2007, ed. by dave eggers

The Best American Nonrequired Reading series is a favorite of mine for train reading. The series includes lists, short stories, comics/graphic novels, tv scripts, essays, memoir and other nonfiction pieces that were published throughout the collection year. I've chosen 2007 because it's the one I read most recently, but they're all great. The series is edited by Dave Eggers, and the pieces are chosen by high school students from the San Francisco Bay area who participate in Eggers' writing center.

My favorite pieces from this collection are a profoundly upsetting story about Hurricane Katrina, called "American Cheese," by Joshua Clark, and a short story by artist/filmmaker Miranda July called "How to Tell Stories to Children." There's also a hilarious list called "Best American Names for Horses Expected to Have Undistinguished Careers." Great stuff.

the wellspring: poems, by sharon olds

My introduction to Sharon Olds' poetry was in May of 1995, when her poem "January, Daughter" appeared in the New Yorker. One of my favorite professors had just had her first child, and I clipped the poem out of the magazine to give to her. The spare intimacy of it was striking. She is the most physical of poets - her work is sharp and uncluttered, but will move you so powerfully into the realm of an idea or belief that you feel it in your body. I have all of her books of poetry, and choosing this particular one to recommend is really mostly random. I'm basing my choice on the fact that I wanted to use a specific poem here, and it's in The Wellspring. Like a lot of Olds' work, it's both funny and devastating; it feels light, but you'll notice it hanging around later on.

Forty-One, Alone, No Gerbil
by Sharon Olds

In the strange quiet, I realize
there's no on else in the house. No bucktooth
mouth pulls at stainless-steel teat, no
hairy mammal runs on a treadmill--
Charlie is dead, the last of our children's half-children.
When our daughter found him lying in the shavings, trans-
mogrified backwards from a living body
into a bolt of rodent bread
she turned her back on early motherhood
and went on single, with nothing. Crackers,
Fluffy, Pretzel, Biscuit, Charlie,
buried on the old farm we bought
where she could know nature. Well, now she knows it
and it sucks. Creatures she loved, mobile and
needy, have gone down stiff and indifferent,
she will not adopt again though she cannot
have children yet, her body like a blueprint
of the understructure for a woman's body,
so now everything stops for a while,
now I must wait many years
to hear in this house again the faint
powerful calls of a young animal.

created in darkness by troubled americans: the best of mcsweeney's humor category

McSweeney's humor writing is one of those magic treatments that can improve the worst day - kind of like the Swedish Chef. This gem in Short Imagined Monologues is still making me giggle. A couple of years ago, some genius over there at the Internet Tendency thought it would be a swell idea to collect the really, really, really funny stuff and put it in portable paper form as Created In Darkness By Troubled Americans. This is great, because I can carry it around in my bag. Kind of an aspirin for the soul. Travel-size endorphins, accessible at will.

Grab a copy, and immerse yourself in lists (Words That Would Make Nice Names for Babies, If It Weren't for Their Unsuitable Meanings; Canceled Regional Morning TV Shows). Or maybe a nerd diatribe (On the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor). In case you're not already convinced by these three titles alone (and don't forget the read the Steampunk monologue linked above), here's a sample list (lists are my favorite McSweeneyism - they're so efficient):

Subjects My Dad Doesn't Like and Will Discuss At Length If Raised
by Kate Harris

Peacocks

The blue rug my mother bought for the front room

People borrowing things from his shed

The motion picture Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Food courts

Sugar that has been spilled on the kitchen tiles

Alternative medicine

The fact that the cat is putting on weight

Odors that can't be explained

who wants to be a poodle i don't, by lauren child

I've neglected childrens literature in my what I'm reading posts. Leslie bought this book for some small friends of ours recently, and I recommend it to anyone who's a fan of this art form. Trixie Twinkle Toes hates her name, and longs to run through puddles. She's stuck indoors through every rainy day in deference to her glamorous owner's impressive shoe collection. Trixie yearns to be a real dog. Follow the story of how Trixie earns her doggie cred through Lauren Child's enchanting Who Wants to be a Poodle I Don't (published by the always impressive Candlewick Press). Gorgeous, densely collaged illustrations by the author are a treat in themselves - a wonderful story just makes it that much better.

fragile things, by neil gaiman

Once again, I bring you Neil Gaiman and a book I haven't finished reading. As with my last unfinished read, this is a case of savoring something so pleasurable that I'm loathe to let it go. Fragile Things is a collection, subtitled Short Fictions and Wonders. That about sums it up. Gaiman is at his funny and unsettling best (often simultaneously) in these pieces. My favorite so far has been "October in the Chair," a mild and atmospheric fantasy that's a perfect showcase for Gaiman's elastic voice and that acrobatic way he twists about from one thing to another without any sense of vertigo at all.

"They looked at one another across the fire, the months of the year.

June, hesitant and clean, raised her hand and said, "I have one about a guard on the X-ray machines at LaGuardia Airport, who could read all about people from the outlines of their luggage on the screen, and one day she saw a luggage X-ray so beautiful that she fell in love with the person, and she had to figure out which person in the line it was, and she couldn't, and she pined for months and months. And when the person came through again she knew it this time, and it was the man, and he was a wizened old Indian man and she was pretty and black and, like, twenty-five, and she knew it would never work out and she let him go, because she could also see from the shapes of his bags on the screen that he was going to die soon."

October said, "Fair enough, young June. Tell that one."

June stared at him, like a spooked animal. "I just did," she said."

That's one of the tidiest pieces of wonderful I've ever encountered. First of all, the personification of each month is spot-on perfect. Secondly, that little tidbit there is one of the most wonderful stories I've ever read. And it's tossed off as a joke of a half-story within a story. Such are the riches lurking in this man's head that he can take a gem like x-ray-reading lady and use it to show how the month of June is an adolescent. That's why I'm reading slowly. You could overdose from the clever.

tabloid dreams: stories, by robert olen butler

I'm fast approaching the Fail Zone for my January book reviews, so I'm going to try to post two today to make up for missing the entire weekend. Or to overachieve for today. Either way.

I first heard of Robert Olen Butler on NPR when he won the Pulitzer for his collection of short stories A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain. He's written many novels, most of which I think are mediocre, but he has a wonderful touch with short stories - light, but profoundly intimate. I came across Tabloid Dreams more than a decade ago (I know, I'm straying pretty far off the last-two-years path here) when I was working part time at a Crown Books. I'd enjoyed the first collection and thought this would be good too, but really I bought it for the cover. (We've talked about this...) It's a triumph of lurid seduction. "Look at me!" I couldn't resist.

Each of these stories has a title that might be a tabloid headline: "Titanic Victim Speaks Through Waterbed;" "Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot;" "Help Me Find My Spaceman Lover." (Butler later wrote a full-length novel based on "Help Me Find My Spaceman Lover.") A surreal and profoundly moving story is behind each of these ludicrously magical titles. My favorite story is "Every Man She Kisses Dies." It's tender and strange and profoundly disturbing. You can read it here. Or just get yourself a gorgeously bright copy of Tabloid Dreams for your very own.

batman: whatever happened to the caped crusader?, by neil gaiman & andy kubert

This just in: I am a fangirl. A nerdy, nerdy fangirl. The story of me reading Neil Gaiman's brilliant 2-part Batman: Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader? is almost as good (I think) as the actual comic. I borrowed it from Shana after it came out last year, and was reading it one lovely Saturday before leaving the house to go to the Printer's Row Book Fair downtown. I had a short argument with myself about whether I should take the second volume with me on the train. It went like this: "Take it! I want to find out what happens!" "But it's not your book, and if you put it in your bag, it's going to get all shcrumply." "But who killed Batman? If I don't take it on the train, I won't find out until tonight! The metacomicmystery will torture me!" "But look how clean and pretty this copy is. It's collectible. You can't put it in your bag and haul it all over Chicago." Tidy Girl won the argument, and the comic stayed home while I got on the train, went to Printer's Row, watched Gail Gand cook some eggs, met Lynda Barry, bought some stuff from the Drawn & Quarterly Booth, and headed back towards the el to go home. And as we (that's me and some friends, not me and Tidy Girl who argues inside my head) were rounding the corner to cross Congress in front of the library, I looked up just in time to avoid running smack into Neil Gaiman himself. The actual author, who tells the good stories and wears the good jackets and has the too much hair. So if I had shushed Tidy Girl and stuffed the comic into my bag, I'd have been able to ask him to sign it. As it was, I tripped over my own feet, stumbled slightly, said "Um...but..." and stood staring after him with my mouth hanging open while he smiled, waved and headed into Printer's Row. That's a true story. Well done, Tidy Girl. Shut up.

I know it's hard to believe there could be a better story than that, but the actual comic is pretty excellent. And owes some little debts to both Joss Whedon and Stephen King in the ways-to-make-you-crazy-and-break-your-heart-while-really-impressing-you department. Yes, indeed, I'm a fangirl.

you don't love me yet, by jonathan lethem

Ok. Normally I'm the big religious zealot for Jonathan Lethem. He writes rich and twisty books with unique characters. He is the reigning champion of excellent titles (Motherless Brooklyn. Amnesia Moon. As She Climbed Across the Table.). He writes some of the most genuine sex scenes I've ever encountered. He's funny. He's erudite. His protagonists have unconventional and uncompromising moral compasses.

And yet...I do not love You Don't Love Me Yet. Yet. Or ever, probably, since I've finished reading it and had several months to sit with it and nothing new has dawned on me. The title thing and the sex scene thing and the appealing writing are still intact (the opening sentence, "They met at the museum to end it." is a masterpiece), but I didn't like a single character. That may have been the point, I don't know; but I didn't really enjoy myself. Read something else he wrote. Anything, really. Everything else I've ever read by him is amazing.

exit music, by ian rankin

Mysteries are like water to the living organism of my reading life. I read about three mysteries to every one book in any other genre. And I'm kind of picky about them, which makes it difficult to keep the shelves properly stocked. Generally, I prefer something in the classic puzzle vein to police procedurals, but once in a while I find a police procedural series with a great sense of place and good solid satisfying characters (and that doesn't make me too queasy - I have a weak stomach for lurid forensic detail, however perfectly written. Serial killers and torture are out.).

I went about reading Ian Rankin all backwards. He's been on my list to check out for a while, and when I was shopping for vacation books before Christmas, I picked up Exit Music. It's the last book in his Inspector John Rebus series. I knew that when I bought it, and I'm not sure why I chose this particular title, but I did and I read it last week.

A good sense of place can make or break a mystery. Even if the setting has nothing to do with the details of the plot, it sets you up to be invested in your detective for the long term. The Rebus novels are set in Edinburgh, and the scene is perfectly judged. Heavy-handed description isn't Rankin's thing, but he draws the city beautifully and shades it in with a dose of politics that I found fascinating.

John Rebus and his partner are also nicely crafted - complex and difficult, but again brought to life with a minimum of word fuss. There's plenty of backstory to the series - it didn't seem necessary to have read the earlier books to be invested in this one, but Rankin alludes to past events often enough to make me want to go back and read the rest of the series. Lean, subtle and satisfying.

84, charing cross road, by helene hanff

My January book review project ran into a hiccup this weekend when I lost my internet connection for 24 hours. There was no book review for yesterday, and in keeping with my policy to remain sane at all times, I'm just letting that one go.

I'm sure that anyone who reads this blog has also read 84, Charing Cross Road. Really, I just want to write about it as a way of saying hello again to one of my favorite books. If by any chance you're not familiar with it, and I'm so lucky as to be the girl who introduces you, I'm honored. It's a collection of correspondence between Helene Hanff, an American writer in New York, and Frank Doel, the manager of Marks & Co. Booksellers in London. The letters span 20 years, from 1949 to 1969. You'll be hard-pressed to find a funnier, more poignant or more genuine book anywhere. I rarely say this about a book, but the movie is every bit as good (Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins, 1987).

I'm sitting here paging through the book looking for a tidbit to post, and getting teary-eyed from the wonderfulness. I'll pick a funny one, so I don't get all maudlin. Here you are. A small diatribe from Helene to Frank, all cantankerous and sans header (when a girl wants a book, she doesn't bother with pesky niceties like addresses and salutations. or punctuation and capitalization):

"March 25, 1950

Frank Doel, what are you DOING over there, you are not doing ANYthing, you are just sitting AROUND.

Where is Leigh Hunt? Where is the Oxford Verse? Where is the Vulgate and dear goofy John Henry, I thought they'd be such nice uplifting reading for Lent, and NOTHING do you send me.

you leave me sitting here writing long margin notes in library books that don't belong to me, some day they'll find out i did it and take my library card away.

I have made arrangements with the Easter bunny to bring you an Egg, he will get over there and find you have died of Inertia.

I require a book of love poems with spring coming on. No Keats or Shelley, send me poets who can make love without slobbering - Wyatt or Jonson or somebody, use your own judgment. just a nice book preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park.

Well, don't just sit there! Go find it! i swear i don't know how that shop keeps going."

the plague of doves, by louise erdrich

I first started reading Louise Erdrich when I was in college. Since then, I've read everything she's written - there are not many authors about whom I can make that claim - and each new novel is a pleasure I savor and anticipate. In her many years of writing, she's build an extensive and powerful family tree of interconnected characters, spanning more than a century of stories. Erdrich's approach involves first person narratives by several characters, divided into books within a single novel. It nearly always happens that when I am the most invested in a character, the most knit into their storyline, she switches to a new book and I experience a terrible, anguishing loss and sense of vertigo until I get acclimated to the new voice. And then it happens all over again. She knows best, though, and I'm never disappointed in the complete picture, once I can see it. The Plague of Doves, in the simplest terms, is an unsolved mystery that has affected the lives of the characters for decades. In whole, of course, it's much more than that and the causes and repercussions of the crime are layered and layered until they form the structure of an entire town. Erdrich's language is rich and melodic; I have the same pleasurable trust in her skill that I feel when I read Michael Chabon's work. For example: "...he opens the case and picks up his fiddle. As he tunes it, making such unfamiliar noise, the patients come out of their rooms or are attracted from down the corridor. The nurses venture from their station and stand, arms folded, chewing gum. Their mouths stop moving when he starts playing, and some of the patients sit down, right where they are, a couple of them on the floor, as if the music has cut through the big room like a scythe. After that first run of notes, the music gathers. Corwin plays a slow and pretty tune that makes people's eyes unfocus...they look like they might weep, but that changes quickly as Corwin picks up tempo and plucks out a lively jig that has a sense of humor in the phrasing. At this point, Warren leaves his wall and begins to walk around and around the room, faster and faster. The music ticks along in a jerky way, a Red River jig. Then something monstrous happens. All sounds merge for a moment in the belly of the violin and fill the room with distress. My throat fills. I jump up. Alarm strikes through us. Warren stops walking and backs up flat against the wall. But Corwin draws some note out of the chaos in his hands, and then draws it further up and up, further, until it is unbearable and at that very point where it might become a shriek, the note changes key a fraction and breaks into the most lucid sweetness." I think you should go find out what that's all about.

safe area: gorazde, by joe sacco

This is the kind of work that makes my head turn inside out, a bit. The amount of knowledge, personal danger, painstaking work and openness required to produce Joe Sacco's journalistic graphic novel of the war in Bosnia is mind-boggling. There's no way I can possibly provide an adequate summary here, but I admire this book so much and I wanted to at least present it as a recommended read. The subtitle of Safe Area: Gorazde is The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-95; that's as succinct as anyone could possibly be about the subject matter, but it doesn't convey how personal the book feels. It's terribly human. Intricate and expressive black and white drawings owe a stylistic debt to R. Crumb, but also have an unavoidable plainness and confrontation that are all Sacco's. Intimate, painful, informative and generous. Also look for Palestine, his graphic novel that won the American Book Award in 1996. Drawn & Quarterly has published his collection of graphic short stories called The Fixer, and I believe he also has a graphic novel out about Gaza. All of which makes me even more mind-boggled and grateful for Sacco's storytelling generosity.

the polysyllabic spree, by nick hornby

A collection of fourteen months of his essays from the Believer magazine:
A hilarious and true account of one man's struggle
with the monthly tide of the books he's bought
and the books he's been meaning to read.

Of all the books written about books, this is my favorite. I'm a big fan of Nick Hornby's non-fiction, be it about books, music, sports or anything else. He's erudite, cranky and conversational, for which I'm grateful. For several years, Hornby wrote a column for Believer magazine, detailing his book buying and reading, month by month. He's not writing it anymore, but his columns are collected in three books, of which The Polysyllabic Spree is the first. The title refers to his name for "the ninety-nine young and menacingly serene people who run the Believer." The magazine, as its name indicates, runs on a basic and unflinching principle: talk about books and the people who write them with joy rather than malice. No snarking, no smuggery (yes, I've just made that word up, and I'm copyrighting it). Tongue in cheek, Hornby takes this to heart and when he recounts reading something he really hates, does it without identifying the book. Which makes for the occasional very brief review. It's a rare case where he isn't engaged on some level, though, and the web of connections he manages to spin amongst his impressively disparate library is amazing. I'd love to sit next to him on a park bench sometime, and just wind him up and set him ticking. Reading his column has led me to wonderful reading experiences, and has also helped me thin out some of my own library acquisitions to make room for worthier stuff.

Some samples, should you need further convincing:

"Clockers was my big book of the month, the centerpiece around which I can now arrange the short books so that they look functional - pretty, even, if I position them right. I cheated a little, I know - Clockers is essentially a thriller, so it didn't feel as through I'd had to work for my 650 pages - but it was still a major reading job. Why isn't Richard Price incredibly famous, like Tom Wolfe? His work is properly plotted, indisputably authentic and serious-minded, and it has soul and moral authority."

"I've been trying to write a short story that entails my knowing something about contemporary theories of time - hence Introducing Time - but every time I pick up any kind of book about science I start to cry. This actually inhibits my reading pretty badly, due to not being able to see. I'm OK with time theorists up until, say, St. Augustine, and then I start to panic, and the panic then gives way to actual weeping. By my estimation, I should be able to understand Newton by the time I'm 850 years old - by which time I'll probably discover that some smartass has invented a new theory, and he's out of date anyway. The short story should be done some time shortly after that. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, because it's killing me."

"...if you get to the end of Random Family and conclude that it was written to create "a frisson," then, I'm sorry, but you should be compelled to have your literacy surgically removed, without anesthetic."

"Tony Hoagland is the sort of poet you dream of finding but almost never do. His work is relaxed, deceptively easy on the eye and ear, and it has jokes and unexpected little bursts of melancholic resonance. Plus, I pretty much understood all of it, and yet it's clever - as you almost certainly know, contemporary poetry is a kind of Reykjavik, a place where accessibility and intelligence have been fighting a Cold War by proxy for the last half-century."

If you don't have The Pollysyllabic Spree, buy it. Sales go to support education and creative writing programs in the US and UK. If you already bought this one, but it's in the not-read column of your personal scoreboard, put it in your tote bag now. It's your friend.

when the messenger is hot, by elizabeth crane

Leslie gave me When the Messenger is Hot a couple of years ago after she met Elizabeth Crane. Sixteen short stories of brittleness and strength, hope in spite of damage, each one funny and "never self-indulgent or whiny" (dailycandy.com). All of Crane's protagonists have a touch of the barking mad about them, and it's easy to identify with them. Graceful touches of magical realism somehow make her stories even more real. My favorite story is Privacy and Coffee, a delicate and beautiful urban fairy tale of isolation and coping with loss. Hilarious and lovely.

sunshine, by robin mckinley

Oh, Sunshine, how I love you. Robin McKinley's fantasy is a hugely satisfying read on two levels. Sunshine is a baker in a cafe that I devoutly wish was a real place, preferably right down the block. The book starts by laying the scene with cinnamon rolls and early morning work. The characters are wonderful and rich, and the talk of flour and butter and recipes and people is so absorbing that you forget you've just started reading a fantasy novel. And then vampire things happen, and that part is just as good.

The language is slipshod, and I didn't care one bit. I just read and read and read with great happiness until there wasn't any more book to read. Now I'm hoping for a sequel (I'm not sure if there's one planned or not - it could go either way). I don't want to give away any more plot than that: cinnamon rolls as big as your head, and vampires that are true to lore but not like any vampires I've ever read about before. It's wonderful. Read it.

the good fairies of new york, by martin millar

Three weeks before winter break started, I bought a stack of books in anticipation of being able to lie in a sunny spot on the floor and read all I wanted. The Good Fairies of New York was at the top of the stack. Partly because it's a petite wee thing, like its subjects, but also because it seemed like such a beguiling idea. Two fairies with torn kilts and brilliantly dyed hair escape from Scotland and come to New York, hoping to start the world's first radical Celtic punk band. What could be more charming?

I had planned to be swept off my feet, but although I enjoyed the book, it never really stole my heart. The characters, with the exception a wiry and lunatic homeless woman, all seemed two-dimensional to me. The plot got mired in a loop of repeated, frustrating action in the middle and didn't launch out of it for about 30 pages. The two main characters are hilarious, but I never quite overcame my urge to send them for a time out. Neil Gaiman wrote a generous and lovely introduction to the book, and while he claims to be mystified about Martin Millar's status as a slightly lesser author in the ranks of British fantasy novelists, I can see why that is. It didn't help that I was simultaneously reading a perfect short story of Gaiman's at the same time ("October in the Chair"), and so was reminded of his more masterful ability.

Still, it's not a pleasing read. The final scenes are so speedy and tie up all the gags so brilliantly, that I wasn't sorry. And I don't think you will be, either.

pie every day, by pat willard

I have a lot of cookbooks, and I use and enjoy most of them, but the ones I love the most are the ones that are all about a single food or technique. I love to hear people talk about discovering and mastering something that changed their life. Pie Every Day is one of my favorite finds ever, and my copy is covered in butter splotches and fruit juices and the tracks of my tears over failed crusts. I treasure it. This book has been out of print for years, which is a travesty, but it's readily available used online.

Pat Willard started making pies in order to establish something for herself in a new environment where she wasn't quite sure of herself. So she set about making lots and lots and lots of pies and the making of pies knit its way into her life and her pie-filled life found its way into this charming collection in hilarious stories. Sometimes they're specific to one pie, sometimes they're specific to eating, and sometimes they're just really funny and it doesn't matter where they fit in. For instance, pie as a way to soothe a frazzled neighbor:

"The only person I could entice at first was Fran, the mother of [my son's] best friend. She was about to have her third child and was working part-time. On the day I called her for the first time with an offer of cherry pie and tea, her middle son had just washed her car keys down the drain-pipe in the backyard. 'I'll be right over,' she said, and appeared five minutes later, carrying the defendant sideways across her swollen belly...When Fran looked out the window to see where the children were going, what she saw was [my son] stark naked, balancing on the top rung of an old plastic jungle gym, pretending to be Indiana Jones (his whip a strip of insulation he'd pulled from the doorjamb). 'You see what he's doing?' she asked. 'You want sugar or honey?' I replied, gently coaxing her to the table."

I'm not saying it's anything I want happening to me, but it's fun to read about in between recipes for Onion-Apple Tartlets, Red Grape Pie, and Blueberry-Whipped Cream Pie. My copy opens automatically to the page for Bittersweet Lemon Tart, a tried and true favorite and a real pleasure if you like your pie sour.

Bittersweet Lemon Tart

1 single 11-inch dessert tart crust, unbaked
2 medium lemons, ends cut off
1/3 cup white rum
2/3 cup sugar
3 large eggs
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 8 pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the slicing disk, process the lemons (peels and all) until finely cut. Transfer to a medium bowl and throw out all the seeds you can find. (a blender also works fine for this, as long as you slice the lemons first)

Pour the rum over the lemons, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let sit for at least 30 minutes or overnight. The longer the lemon mixture sits, the more heady (and potent) the flavor.

Return the lemons to the food processor and process the soaked lemons until finely chopped. Add the sugar, eggs, and butter and process until the butter is completely incorporated (the mixture will look curdled).

Place the prepared tart pan on a baking sheet and pour in the filling.

Bake for 30 minutes in the center of the oven. Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees and bake for 10 minutes more or until the crust is golden.

Call your friends and sit down for a slice of flaky, golden, rum-soaked lemony joy.