Some book reviews! Really! - The Limits of Enchantment, and St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves - Karen Russell

I had been hearing about this book here and there, and finally picked it up over a year ago.  When Stephen King said that Swamplandia!, Russell's new book, was one of the anticipated books of the year, I thought I'd better go back and read her first book.  I also love the title.  I love wolves, and it's an irresistible title.
St Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves is a book of short stories, and they are fantasy in the way that is fabulous,  in the old original sense of fabulous being strange and wild and wonderful.  Almost all the stories are set in Florida, in and around the water or the forest or the swamp. The two that are not, From Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration, and Accident Brief, Occurrence # 00/422, are set in the prairies/desert (Children's Reminiscences) and the Arctic somewhere (Accident Brief).  All the stories feature young people, usually around 8 or 10 or 12, who are on the cusp of reaching for the adult world, not quite knowing what they are missing, but they are missing it, even as they explore childhood and the darkness around them.  Almost every story features loss, absent parents, mothers who abandon their children to make a living in the way that the very poor do.  These aren't pretty people, neither are they terrifically bad - they are children and the freaky adults they find themselves surrounded with.  If I had to describe the theme of this book, it would be what life would be like if it were a circus - that extraordinarily twilight zone feeling that we get going to the circus, where certainly I want to laugh at the clowns, but at the same time I'm aware there are people underneath and are they happy?  do they want to be laughed at?  (of course they do, but I always worry about what people are really feeling, and not what they are pretending to the world.)This collection of stories is like looking through a fun house mirror, where the carnival aspects of childhood get twisted in ways we know are, even though they shouldn't be.  They are gothic without any of the nonsense about death - surreal stories, almost.  And fascinating.  I really enjoyed this collection.

I love Russells' flights of fancy, her awareness of nature and the children being the ones taking the time to see the stars and trees and being intimately connected with life around them, before adulthood comes to sweep them away.  There are ghosts and convicts and dream camps (I wish I could go to that one!), a  minotaur as a father, and gator-wrestling Ava Wrestles the Alligator, which the new book Swamplandia! is set in the same swampland attraction as the short story is.  One of my favourite quotes is on my sidebar;   "Haunting Olivia" is one of my favourite stories in this collection.  It's told by the older brother who searches endlessly for her in the ocean, hoping to find her ghost among the ghosts of all the other creatures that died, but even when she seemingly contacts him, he still can't find her.  That sense of loss, of searching for something gone, permeates all the stories in this book.  Olivia was sliding down the sand on the back of a very huge crab sled and slid out into the waves, but the tide was going out and the boys didn't wait around to see her come back in.  Just like in real life, tragedy and loss, big changes and small.  "St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" is about werewolves who are taken by nuns to be raised to be like humans.  It's very good, especially as the girls learn how to not think like pack, and how they lose their sense of connectedness when they do that.  Who says being human is the highest realization?  Only humans do.  These stories are weird and wonderful, like the old time circuses and men calling, "Step right up!  See the Bearded woman! One night only!"  Like Ray Bradbury if he had grown up in Florida,  there is a sense of him in her writing.  I highly recommend this book. 4.5/5

The Limits of Enchantment - Graham Joyce

I love this novel.  It's the story of Fern Cullen, a young woman who lives with her mother in a small village in 1966 England.  Mammy Cullen is a midwife, but not of the new school of hospital approved midwives.  She is old-school.  She knows the herbs and small magics that midwives traditionally know since women began having babies and needed help giving birth.  She might be a witch, she might not.  And Fern is on the cusp of asking what she wants to do with her life.  Then Mammy is roughed up by some men - really, just knocked over roughly - and she gets weaker and ends up in the hospital.  Fern has to contend with a group of hippies who move into the neighborhood, the advances of Arthur, and deciding if she wants to carry on her mother's work.  She has the gift, but before she does more than take a few steps for the future, the local gentry who own the land decide she must move out because they are in arrears.  And The Limits of Enchantment is about how Fern discovers who are her friends, and who isn't, and how she learns to ask and to listen and to judge on her own.

The Limits of Enchantment is written from Fern's point of view.  She is engaging and frank, seeing through most people around her.  But she is young, and she has to learn that she can't practice her midwifery without the support of the community around her, and when they initially don't respond to her requests for help, she faces being forced to leave.  How she fights back and how the community rallies around her, is particularly funny and tender. 

This is a really enjoyable book. Fern is a strong character as is Mammy.  All the characters are interesting and idiosyncratic - they are really vividly drawn.  I liked the setting - 1966, a small village, and I especially liked the midwife and magical aspects of the story.  I highly recommend this book, especially to anyone interested in folklore and herbal lore, and changing society.  5/5

Science fiction at its 'alternative' best - Fringe, Roger Zelazny

 Carl's Sci Fi Experience (see my side-bar for the link) is a wonderful time to bring some science fiction into my reading life.  My friend Lee in Dallas sent me for Christmas a collection of Roger Zelazny's stories, Frost and Fire.  I did read one of the Amber novels  many years ago, but I haven't read any of his short stories.  She was reminded of his Hugo-Winning short story "24 Views of Mt Fuji, by Hokusai", which is in this collection, from an episode of Fringe.  So, last week, we read "24 Views of Mt Fuji".  It is beautiful. The story opens with Mari, standing at a view of Mt Fuji, discussing a little bit of love, and that she is on a pilgrimmage.  "Having viewed this scene, and thought my thoughts, and felt my feelings, I have begun."  She carries a book that has reproductions of 24 of Hokusai's 48 paintings of Mt Fuji, and the story follows her as she walks around the mountain, finding current scenes that recreate as closely as possible the original illustrations in her book.  At each stop, she releases more of herself, more of her thoughts and feelings, as she is also chased by unknown assailants, and we see different views of Mt Fuji.  It becomes a layering of impressions and reminisences, of the way memory circles and swirls around and around, until we discover that we have been looking at one thing through different landscapes.  It is hauntingly beautiful.  One of my favourite parts caught my eye:  "Twenty-four ways of looking at Mt. Fuji. It struck me that it would be good to take one thing in life and regard it from many viewpoints, as a focus for my being, and perhaps as a penance for alternatives missed."  As I read this, my thoughts flew to Fringe, my favourite tv show for two years now.

Fringe is SF tv at its best.  You have seen me rave in the past about Fringe here, and here, and here.  This season, we have been alternating (ha!) between the alternate world and this world, as Olivia as made her way back and the team has discovered what the alternate Walter wanted from our side.  What is gripping me most about this show right now is how one man's actions have had repercussions in everything.  One world, the alternate, is literally falling to pieces, breaking open to threatened vortexes. Last night we discovered that this world is beginning to show signs of the vortex spreading to here.  We also discovered that Walter has been haunted by what he saw when he was in the Alternate Universe last season, the broken places of the world.


All because he took Peter to save his life, and didn't return him after.  It is stunning storytelling, extremely powerful and moving, and we have no idea what comes next.  So when I read the lines above from "24 Views", I thought that's what the writers of Fringe are doing.  They are meditating on what Walter did.  We are getting 24, 48, even 64 views of the 'Zero Event" (as the Alternate Universe calls it, the day Peter was taken, because everything started from then), of how one action is spreading ripples through that world, our world, and who knows how far beyond.
How many ways can we view what Walter did?  As many ways as there are to explore the mysteries of the human heart. Because what Walter did was out of love and grief, this is a human-oriented science fiction story; no matter how unusual or fascinating the science, the exploration of faith, love, and loss, are at the heart of this show.

Roger Zelazny's story is wonderful, and while I don't describe it in SF terms, that was because I didn't want to give away a key plot point which is very SF.  Fringe is fabulous (in both senses of the word) tv.  Science fiction isn't just about rocket ships and space - though as you all know, I'm a Trekker through and through, I love my space stories! - it's about where humanity meets science and how we experience the world, the galaxy, the universe through the lens of our human heart.  I don't read as much science fiction as I want to, and I'm grateful for Carl's Sci Fi experience for pushing me to read  some science fiction now, and not later, like I always say.  I will be reading the other award-winning story from the Frost and Fire collection, "Permafrost", and I picked up Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century edited by Orson Scott Card, from the library earlier this week.  I might only have one week left in this challenge, but I am reading and enjoying some science fiction!

Are you, my Gentle Reader?  have you discovered - or revisited - a favourite science fiction author or story for this 'experience'? 

some fun posts around the book blog world: cover art, libraries, mysteries and stealing the TARDIS

Memory at Stella Matutina has a fabulous post - Bibliophiles Steal a TARDIS.  She asks if you could travel through Time and Space to an author in the past, what would you tell them?  She has made it more interesting by imagining you give them a suggestion that leads to their greatest works.  I picked Shakespeare and imagined I would go back in time and encourage a poetless playwright to try his hand at the sonnet......Memory did pick Jane Austen, so I joined her on that one, since I could never resist getting a chance to meet one of my very favourite authors.  Who would you go to?  Let Memory know!  PS I would have to bring my daughter along, you will have to read my comment at Memory's post to find out why......

Ana at things mean alot has a thoughtful post on libraries:  Books Are So Cheap!  Who needs Libraries?.  Because a couple of you, my Gentle readers, left comments on my recent book library post about the fees different libraries are charging just to request a book, I have been thinking about the differences in library systems (having lived in England for a year), and why libraries are important.  Ana's post is interesting. Do you use the library?  Do you buy books second-hand?  Weigh in on the debate at Ana's post. Let her know what you think.  I left a lengthy comment and still didn't run out of things to say.  I think libraries are so important to the health of a community as well as a city and a country.  It's a place for people of any background to gather to learn, to share, to explore all the sum of knowledge their library contains, and has access to.  They frequently offer classes to help the disadvantaged learn how to write resumes, job-seek, type, use computers, and in our case here in Ottawa, the Ottawa Public Library also has frequent guest writers speaking out on various topics, from investing money to bird-watching, depending on how local/Canadian the writer is, and their recent book topic.  And it's free.  So anyone can attend.  It's that freedom that I think is so very important, and I don't like that libraries are so often the target of budget-conscious city councils.  Most especially (and this comes up over and over from Ana's commenters as well) the library is a place for children to explore the world of books and read far more widely than their parents, no matter how much money they make, can give them.  I certainly used the library from a young age, and read so many books that we didn't have at home.  I read the ones at home too.  The library offered so much choice and variety, I could try anything I wanted and learn whatever I wanted.  It's like a tiny slice of heaven for book-lovers, and I don't think of it as a pleasure or frivolous.  It is far more important than that.  What do you think?  Let her know.

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise ( I love this blog name!) has a fun post: When did you begin reading Crime fiction?.  You will have to go there to see what my answer is, and please let her know.  I will say that I began early, and it was among the very first kind of books I read, and I have never really looked back, although fantasy is my next favourite genre. I thought I read them equally until I began keeping a books read journal in the 1990s, and realized that I read more mystery than fantasy at about a 2:1 ratio.  That was quite shocking at first, since I was spending my time at the local fantasy store, going to science fiction conventions, and immersing myself in fantasy reading.  To know that I naturally read mystery more than anything else - once I got over that surprise, I began, in the past several years, letting myself read and discover all the mysteries out there that I didn't know about before.  It wasn't that I wasn't reading mysteries during my fantasy years, it was that I wasn't thinking about how much I enjoyed them consciously.  Once I understood my reading history and how far back it stretched, I realized I had my home in mysteries early on.  I also let myself read as many mysteries as I want to, instead of thinking I should be reading more classics, or biographies, or whatever.  I am of course free to read what I want to!  but sometimes we put barriers on ourselves about what we can read, for various reasons, and I always thought I should be a widely-read reader, rather than reading for love. I'm not sure if it's time, or my health concerns, but something changed in my late 30's, and I decided to read what I loved, and much more of it.  No one is judging me for what I read, except me!

The funny thing is, now that I'm reading for love, I've discovered other books in other genres that I do love - Mary Oliver, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Jasper Fforde,  as well as many, many wonderful mysteries........so what do you love to read?  And if you do read mysteries, let Kerrie know when you began.

For those of you who do read mysteries, Peter over at Detectives Beyond Borders has a fun post:  The BBC Gets It Wrong on Hard-Boiled Fiction.  Did Hemingway publish the first hard-boiled detective story, or was it Hammett?  The critic at the BBC asserted it was Hemingway.  I would have said Dashiell Hammett, myself.  I did a History of Mystery Novels in university (now long ago!) and I am sitting here trying to remember:  we covered Philip Marlowe and Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett, but I don't believe Ernest Hemingway even came up in this course.  We were studying who was important in the development of the mystery novel, not just big names who wrote mystery fiction.  I think that might be where the BBC critic got mixed up.  It also depends on your definition of hard-boiled fiction - hard-boiled I think of as pertaining to detectives and a certain world-weary way of looking at the world and crime.  Hemingway certainly wrote in this manner - world-weariness -  for much of his fiction, but not in crime terms.  It's interesting that I can read hard-boiled detective fiction, but I can't read Hemingway with much enjoyment.  What do you think?  Let Peter know, they have a very interesting debate going in the comments on this post.

Amy at My Friend Amy has a very fun post in "A Cover Trend I Enjoy.'  Now, I don't read many romances unless there is a mystery or fantasy element to it, but I do admit that I like looking at the covers of historical romances. I like the pretty gowns too, dresses that only socialites and princesses wear today.  However, this post title got me to thinking about trends in book covers.  I have to admit I am a sucker for photographed covers - I almost always pick the book up to admire! like this one purchased last month:
as well as artistic rendered covers, such as this one on the latest book by Rosy Thornton:
Looking closely at them, I can see right away that as is usual for me now, there are no people.  Isn't this interesting?  I don't like people in my photographs, only in art.  I really like both of these covers, too.  I am thrilled to finally have a copy of The Tapestry of Love - the author asked if I would like a copy to review, and I said yes because I've seen her book around on the blogs and I fell in love with both the story idea as well as the cover (and haven't seen a copy in paperback over here yet).  **I generally don't accept copies to review from anyone. I'm not interested in arcs since I worked in bookstores before, and I'm not interested in being the first to read a book.  It's just how I am, these days.  So I did caution the author that I have to be in the mood for a romance, but this cover is so irresistible and the premise - a middle-aged woman  after a divorce begins life anew  in France, opening her own business, and well frankly, most of my daydreams are about escaping (with my family!) to anywhere that isn't in a city these days, so I'm finding I want to read the book now. So I said yes.  It arrived today and I opened it up, all excited.  This lovely cover is now mine!!!!  and as soon as I read the story I will let you know how it is. Stay tuned. 
*****Edited to add later same night:  OMG!  Look at these book covers that I found over at Jane's blog, Reading, Writing, Working, Playing, in her post: My Penguin Classics.....All Mine!  These are beautiful, gorgeous, fabulous, wonderful covers.  I want these books!  So I went to Penguin Books.com to check them out, at the Penguin Classic Deluxe Editions, which these editions turn out to be part of.  I love the covers by Ruben Toledo.  So I went to Penguin Canada, where our Classic Deluxe Editions are listed here.  I am so happy they are available here!  Sometimes there is a problem with the Penguin copyright, so I have some books to look for now.   I did find something else totally new:  the Penguin Classics RED editions, which are the same price as other Penguin editions, but 50% of the cost goes directly to fund Aids recovery.  Not research, but medicine for a person.  The art is very different, but it's also very cool (except for Dracula, I'm still figuring that one out.)  Did I say I am lured by cover art?  Hmmm, I think I have to admit that yes, it does it's job very well (when it's well done).  And I don't mind! 

And that's what got me thinking from the book blog world today.  Have any posts inspired you?

Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey - the most amazing myth journey

Well, I have Chris from Stuff As Dreams are Made Of to thank for his comment he left on my previous post.  He'd been looking to read Guardian of the Dead, so I pulled it from my towering " it's not so big if you put it into smaller piles" stack of library books today.  It's seven hours later, and in between making meals and doing  the housework, I read this book today.  Trust me, you won't want to put it down.  It's unbelievably fantastic and good.  I love this book.  I think it's safe to say it's one of my books of the year.

The book is about Ellie Spencer, a 17 year old girl attending boarding school on the South Island of New Zealand while her parents go around the world on a cruise.  It's not what you think, because her mother has just survived her treatment for breast cancer, and they are doing this in celebration.  Ellie has to finish school, and she chose Mansfield because it is on South Island, far from her home on the North Island; she couldn't go live with her sister in Sydney because her sister is gay and her parents don't want her lifestyle to rub off on Ellie.  Very normal, nothing unusual in that.  She thinks she is a normal 17 year old girl, and that is part of the delight of this novel:  all her reactions are, from her dislike of her body to her crush on the loner Mark, to her best friend Kevin who is hiding a secret, to the descriptions of the world around her, are satisfyingly real and prosaic.  And then she bumps into Mark by accident, and everything changes.  It's not what you think, though it is that too:  Mark is not what he seems to be, and in touching her, he awakens a latent talent in her for seeing the magic things around her.  She discovers she can use magical items, too. 

If the book just contained that story, it would be a good solid fantasy novel.  It contains much more though, and this is where it hums and sings like the best novels do.  Healey has woven New Zealand's myths into this story, so we meet some gods and goddesses, and other spirits, the guardians of places, hence the name of the book.  What is even more wonderful than having Maori myths brought to life, is that New Zealand, like any continent settled first by the First People (Aboriginals, we white people name them), and then by white settlers, so there is a mixing of peoples, languages and myths now.  Guardian of the Dead is about the ancient New Zealand myths stirring, but it's seen through the eyes of a non-aboriginal girl who loves the Classics.  So we get a fabulous mix of Classical mythology with Maori mythology.  It's magic.  Every magical form we meet, every old creature, the Guardian of the Dead herself - are believable and true and awesome. 

This is a story about discovery:  Ellie discovers who she is and what she can do.  She discovers love, she discovers friends and friendship.  She is betrayed, over and over, and stumbles along with only her determination and faithfulness to guide her.  I liked Ellie, and I wanted to be Ellie.  I liked her that much.  She discovers magic.  She discovers that the world isn't about her.  She discovers how to control people, and how it makes her feel.  She discovers myths are real. Her friends are interesting, and she is practical, down to earth, partly because her mother did have cancer, and Ellie spent a lot of her time helping her mother when she could.  She makes the story work because she is just a 17 year old girl who mostly wants to be loved.

The journey in to myth is fraught with peril, and it is dangerous to meet myths themselves;  humans are never the same afterward.  So it is for Ellie, and Mark, as they learn the surviving putapaiarehe are trying to regain the immortality they once had long ago, and join in the attempt to stop them, for it means the destruction of the North Island all together if the ancient creatures succeed. 

This is one of my favourite moments in the book, when Ellie is in danger from Mark's mother, Reka, who is a Maori fairy, or patupaiarehe, but really she is a species that is not human:

I wasn't moving. My feet were rooted as Reka's song rose.  Numbed, I heard my fate in her voice - not death, but the long, wooden life of tree and bush, sleeping away winters and rising in the spring to thrust mindless to the sun.  I might live a century or more until the rot claimed me, and never remember that I had once been a girl, with limbs instead of branches, who had fought, and run, and kissed.
   Anger faded into placid acceptance as her voice sang out the final phrase and hung, questioning, on the last word. 
    I began to sigh my consent.

One of the myths I like is the story of Daphne and Apollo, which this little scene reminded me of very much.  How did Daphne feel, when she turned from Apollo's advances, and her father rescues her by turning her into a tree?  Much like how Ellie feels as Reska enchants her, I imagine.  However Ellie is not fleeing from a boy, and she chooses to stay alive as a girl, before she is saved.  This book is about empowerment too, for women, with several very strong female characters like Ellie, to Iris her new friend who is running the school play, to Ellie's teacher Miss Lagribaldi, to the Guardian of the Dead, to Mark's mother who is a dark enchantress.  They are all powerful in their way, and for me, I found fascinating and energizing. It's not myths for women, it's women who happen to be powerful encountering and working with or within myths, becoming guardians of secrets.  It's a fascinating glimpse into myths that are real because we believe.  It really is an extraordinary novel.

  The Guardian of the Dead is a marvelous journey to a mythic world.  I can't recommend this book highly enough.  5/5.

Library haul *Or, the madness of wanting to read everything

I was busy in January, reading 10 books.  10!!!  I am so proud.  A lot of my tv viewing has gone down, and I've been enjoying reading more.  This is not say I'm not watching my favourites, I could never miss Fringe!    Mostly, I am enjoying reading,  and making time to read more  That is really what my resolution is about, making more time for books.  I know I can't read everything out there, though I really want to.
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries! 

It seems I am finding almost every book interesting and irresistible.  Actually, I think I always have, but between all the books I bought in January (that's the next planned post) and the 20 + books out from my library, I'm pretty well feeling like the next six months of reading is covered!. Ok, I can hear you all wondering, what books did I haul from the library?

Here is a photo of my Library loot:

The Library Loot (with Blogger responsible beside it)
The pile on the left:
-Spellbent - Lucy A Snyder
- Death at Wentwater Court - Carola Dunn (Cath at Read Warbler, her post here)
- Sweater Quest - Adrienne Martini (Terri Windling, post here,  Delia Sherman, post here)
- Life and Fate - Vassily Grossman
- Sepulchre - Kate Moss (because of Bride's review of The Winter Ghosts, over at Bride of the Book God), and this one features a tarot deck. 
- The Westminster Poisoner - Susanna Gregory
- Guardian of the Dead - Karen Healey (a blogger somewhere)....
- Well-Witched - Frances Hardinge (Locus magazine review)
- Visitation - Jenny Erpenbeck
- Juliet, Naked - *Nick Hornby*
- How To Make Friends with Demons - Graham Joyce (Locus magazine - see my sidebar)

The pile on the right:
- Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell - BBC production,  dvd. (score!!)
 - The Cold Light of Mourning - Elizabeth J. Duncan (Mystery Scene Magazine review)
 - The Laughing Policeman - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo (Detectives Beyond Borders blog, post here)
- Dangerous Angels - Francesca Block (Chris at Stuff as Dreams Are Made Of, post here)
- Murder on the Rocks - Karen MacInerney (Mystery Scene Magazine review)
- Dead Witch Walking - Kim Harrison
- Silent in the Grave - Deanna Raybourne (Bride at Bride of the Book God, post here)
- Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading - Maureen Corrigan (Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings, post here)
- The Burning Land - Bernard Cornwell (Mariel at Where Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops, post here - it led me to all her reviews of The Arthurian Cycle by Cornwell)
- The Limits of Enchantment - Graham Joyce
- A Chance Meeting - Rachel Cohen (Nymeth at Things Means Alot, post here; it's actually Litlove's comment to Nymeth that caught my eye, but the entire post made me add 4 books to my reading list!)
 - The Outlander - Gil Adamson

I forgot to put in the picture the library book I'm currently reading:
- Valley of the Lost - Vicki Delany (Kathleen at Boarding in My Forties recommended this author to me, how I missed a new Canadian mystery series I have no idea, but I am very much enjoying her.  Lesa at Lesa's Book Critiques has reviews of all the books in the series, beginning here.)

I can hear you all laughing.  I know I won't read all of these, though I'm going to try!  It's so much fun to click that button online and request a book from our library.  If only we could click a button and order more time just for reading, too!!

I'd say there are a lot of very bad Bloggers out there too, though really I thank you from the bottom of my heart for pointing me towards some excellent books to read.

Happy reading, happy library loot!

Complete and Utter Book Lust

All about Book Lust: 

Ever since Jane  posted about this over at Reading, Writing, Working, Playing, I've wanted this:
Pride and Prejudice, the Annotated version. 

 I want this so much!!!  Annotated Jane Austen!  One of my favourite books!  I didn't even know she came annotated.  Oh priceless treasure!  It's on the books I'm about to order.  O sweet joy!!  This is complete and utter book lust, my Gentle Readers. Oh my. 

I also have to advise you that Edward Gorey's The Unstrung Harp, which I reviewed here, is available in Amphigorey.


Can you feel the longing?

 I confess, I really want to read this:  The Passage by Justin Cronin.
I hope it lives up to the buzz.  It comes out in paperback right before my birthday, so that's lovely timing!  My only question is,  can I  wait that long?  I can't carry hardcovers so I try to not buy them too often.

I have Margaret at Of Books and Bicycles to blame be thankful for this:  ever since she reviewed The Gentleman's Daughter by Amanda Vickery, I've wanted it.

I finally have tracked it down at Amazon.ca, and it's on the books I'm about to order.  I'm so excited!!  Women's life in 18th century England!  It's like reading what the world was like when Jane Austen wrote, when the Bronte sisters were getting ready to write.

Bride of the Book God talked about Leviathan,  which is being released over here as The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare.

A year and a half  now since her post, and  I've been watching for this book all this time! It's coming in soft cover in two weeks, since I somehow missed the release in Hardcover over here (I still can't believe this).  I have loved whales, since I was a child.  Does this book qualify as a need then, instead of a  want? how about Jane Austen then? 

And as soon as I can find a copy, Patricia Brigg's Silver Borne is finally out in paperback.

Mercy Thompson #5. How does she settle into the pack? Does Adam try to cramp her mechanic don't fence me in lifestyle?  Her nose for danger?

And finally, because it's the second half of one book, and because it's Connie Willis:  All Clear.

 This will count for Carl's Sci Fi Challenge, as well as the British Challenge.  And she is one of my favourite writers. It's in hard cover, but I can't wait until next winter some time. I have to find out what happens.

Of course, this is just the temporary I Need to get as Soon as Possible List, not to be confused with I Always Buy The Latest Book By This Author List (which is permanent book lust), or  the Show Me A Good Mystery and You Know I'll Want to Try it List.  Or the Still Missing a Few Titles in this Series List.  Or the Brand New To Me Because Of Bad Bloggers Reading Lists, list........

In other words, you really can't ever have enough books, my Gentle Readers!

Is there a particular book you are anticipating this year, Gentle Reader?

The Unseen - Alexandra Sokoloff - Very Frightening Haunted House novel

So, you know I am a sucker for horror stories.  I love being scared - in the good way, safely, through a book.  Not in the bad way, which is in real life. I've found that the very best frightening books spill over into my life so that I become unable to read them at night.  I become too nervous, too jumpy.  Now, I like this feeling or I wouldn't read scary novels.  The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff  is one of those novels. It is so good and so frightening that I had to stop reading it last night and wait for the safety of daylight to read it.  So imagine this:  sitting at the kitchen table, cup of tea at hand, children on Wii, sun streaming in the window, and I am still scared.  That's how good and scary this book is.

The premise:
Dr Laurel MacDonald flees from the West coast and ends up in North Carolina at Duke University, desperately searching for a proposal for a book so she can keep her job as associate professor and tenure.  She discovers that the University used to have a psychic research facility on campus, that suddenly shut down in 1965, the year her mother left Durham for the west coast.  Laurel knows she has family back east, but it's only after she buys her house and tells her mother what she's done that her mother reminds her that she has relatives there: her aunt and her uncle.  From the time she discovers that the 700 boxes from the old psychic research faculty have been released a(from where they were hidden in storage), to when she makes the link to her uncle's mysterious mental disability which came from the same psychic research program, I found a real sense of unease growing.  We follow the set-up that leads to her and her associate professor Brendan Cody to Folger House, where an experiment to see if a reported poltergeist experience could be uncovered to be true, first done in 1965 and that led to the mysterious shut down of the department.  They discover the house, and this leads to them deciding to recreate the experiment again using psychological and personality profiles like Myers-Briggs, combining them with tested psychic ability  to see if there is a link between personality profiles, psychic ability and expectation of psychic phenomena (which I think would be an interesting subject to study, by the way).   There is a palpable sense of unease that grows into real terror as Laurel,  Brandon and their two test students enter the supposed haunted house.

There is a little similarity with Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House:  two observers, and two test subjects who test high on evaluation tests for psychic abilities; an experiment at a haunted house, where they stay for a period of time to record what happens.  These are the only similarities, but I did want to point out they were there.  The Haunting of Hill House is one of my favourite and all-time frightening ghost stories, and it is to Ms Sokoloff's credit that the similarities are only in the set-up, not in the execution at all.  The Unseen stands on its own, and is in its own right it's very own ghost story.  And it as unsettling and frightening as The Haunting of Hill House is.

It is terrifying in places, and I am very glad I read most of it during the daylight, and with people around me.  I'm really glad I'm not alone tonight!  That's how scary I found some of this book.   I think it's one of the best horror novels I have read in years.  So if you are looking for something to scare you, if you want that delicious frisson of fear running up your spine and tingling in your scalp, making the hair stand up on your arms just in reading about ghosts, then pick this one up.

5/5 and most highly recommended.

I could only find this in hardcover at my library.  Even now, Amazon.ca says the paperback isn't available in Canada at all. I also discovered at her website that she has a new book just being released: The Book of Shadows.  It combines a detective with a witch as a team.  Sounds good!!!  I'll be looking for this one now.

******Edited to add:  I forgot to add that I have been aware of this writer ever since I reviewed Ms Sokoloff's first novel, The Harrowing, here two years ago.  I am thrilled that The Unseen is better than The Harrowing (at least in my opinion it is) - because as frightening as The Harrowing was, I thought it could be more, and The Unseen does that.  This is a horror writer to watch, and I hope that The Book of Shadows is as good as either of these two.