The 1999/2000 Book List

Title	Author	Date	Rating	Comments
Naked	David Sedaris	July 3		A long time ago someone at Trader lent me Barrel Fever, the one with The Santaland Diaries in it. I really liked that. This one's better. In the intervening years, I've heard him on NPR a couple times, and now I read his stories and hear his voice reading them, and that makes them funnier. And get this, from the blurbs, a quote from James Thurber: "Let me be the first to say that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukelele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts."
The Wind's Twelve Quarters	Ursula K. LeGuin	June 28		I can't believe this is out of print. That is just a plain old crime. This is wonderful stuff. There's something about reading science fiction that feels like fantasy that I just love, because it feels somehow smarter than plain old fairies-and-elves fantasy. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Her comments before each story are priceless, and the words and names and place names she made up are peerless. I think I'd pick Darkness Box and The Stars Below as favorites.
Holes	Louis Sachar	June 10		I liked this quite a bit better than The Giver, but I've been assured I missed some symbolism or something in that book. Holes is full of sidetracks, little stories that don't seem related, and the whole thing becomes a bit of a riddle. The good guys win, mostly, and history repeats itself in the most lovely way, and there's a lot of grownups being very, very mean, which is always fun to see.
The Giver	Lois Lowry	May 29		Maybe it's just me. Because Lisa loved this book. I missed the Christ allegory, apparently, and I guess I was wrong about the point of the story. I wanted to know more about how the communities worked; I was properly spooked by the assignment of jobs to twelve-year-olds with the line, "Thank you for your childhood," but I wanted to know what happened later on. The story seemed to end without ending, and the big secret revelation was obvious to me from the start. Unpleasant, to be sure, but hardly surprising.
Sandman: Fables and Reflections	Neil Gaiman	April 26		This is what I read when I need something to read. When I need something that's good and depressing and just beautiful. This is the volume with Johanna Constantine, and I'm crazy about her. This is the volume that has Orpheus' wedding in it, and I love that. Orpheus, toga-clad and carrying his lyre, walking around in Death's apartment, is just such a perfect Gaimanism, and I love it all.
Edith Ann: My Life So Far	Jane Wagner	April 26		Remember the animated specials with Edith Ann in them? As much as I adore Lily Tomlin, as much as the little girl in the huge chair cracked me up, the Jane Wagner version, the smart, sarcastic, slightly sad little girl with the big head, is better. Her voice is perfect, and some of the things she says are things I say, or wish I'd thought of first. Childhood is the leading cause of stress among kids my age.
Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days	Neil Gaiman	March 30		Do you realize how much I freaked out when I saw a new Neil Gaiman trade paperback in the rack? When I knew it wasn't Sandman, but picked it up and saw Sandman stuff in it? Well, a lot. This is short stories, including "Hold Me," which I'd seen before, in a Vertigo preview or something, and a wonderfully spooky mystery featuring the original 1930s Sandman. For an instant he comes face to face with his namesake, who's still imprisoned by the weird old guy at that point, and it's just so great. "So great." Clearly, I'm at a loss for words. The Neil Effect, that.
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions	Neil Gaiman	March 12		Ordinarily, almost everything of Neil's gets a 5. I love the stories in this book. I love "Troll Bridge" and "Chivalry" and "Looking For The Girl." The thing is, I read Angels And Visitations ages ago, and before that I read a Datlow/Windling anthology or five, so I've read "Troll Bridge" half a dozen times. And "Babycakes." And "Virus." And even though this collection has more stuff in it, and more comments, and I liked "When We Went To See The End Of The World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11 1/4" very much, it doesn't make up for it. I want to see the new stuff.
Juxtaposition	Piers Anthony	March 5		The third one in the trilogy. Once you start, you have to finish, you know how that is. Although I could have *sworn* I owned the fourth through seventh books of the trilogy (yes, I know, that's the Piers Anthony m.o.), I couldn't find them. Just as well.
Blue Adept	Piers Anthony	February 24		I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Piers Anthony books are like crack. They're everywhere, and once you start, you have to read them all. It's awful. Because everyone I know who's read them has read them all, and I suspect almost everyone who reads them reads them all, and yet at least a third of every one of them is exposition. You can skip whole chunks of any book that's not the first in a series, and you will miss nothing. It's like old newspaper serials, where "The Story So Far" would be twice as long as the new installment. I've been here before. I know these people. Get on with it. And this is not complicated stuff to begin with. This is not hard to pick up.
Split Infinity	Piers Anthony	February 14		If it weren't for the fact that too much of this book is exposition (catching me up on what happened ten pages ago, reintroducing me to characters I haven't seen in at least a whole chapter), I'd really like this one. I first read it many years ago, and I wish now as I wished then that the whole thing was about the Game. I want to know every variation of the Game, just pages and pages of grids and possibilities. Now, that would be interesting.
Naked Came The Manatee	Dave Barry, Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, et al.	January 13		I like this idea. It amuses me greatly. It amuses me that Dave Barry got to start, and he named a manatee Booger, and then a whole bunch of other Floridian authors kept laying traps for each other. The best trap by far comes in chapter 3, Paul Levine's chapter. Until then, you think the book is just silly, and then you read his surprise, what he left for Edna Buchanan to get out from under, and things leave silly and start to turn seriously wacky.
Twelfth Night	William Shakespeare	January 5		I wonder how many people ran out and read Twelfth Night right away after they saw Shakespeare In Love. I wonder how many other people have the postcard I have, of Feste singing "What is love, tis not hereafter, present mirth hath present laughter." I wonder how many people can tell you where "If music be the food of love, play on" and "Some have greatness thrust upon them" come from. I wonder how many don't realize what they're missing when they force their way through Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and even my beloved Hamlet and bypass the comedies. I love the comedies.
The Adventures Of The Stainless Steel Rat	Harry Harrison	January 4		This was actually quite fun, if I recall correctly. (I don't update this page with the frequency I should.) I like ruthless people, and I like fake futures made up in the decades when no one had any idea of the things we'd take for granted in the nineties (or this decade, whatever we're calling it). And I like paperbacks that aren't printed in fourteen-point type; paperbacks that seem to have something to say, and have print small enough to fit it all in. Oh, yeah, and time travel. I nearly forgot the time travel bits.
A Canticle For Leibowitz	Walter M. Miller, Jr.	December 29		An excellent book, to be sure, and a distant future that leaves one somewhat discouraged and terrified, and an interesting glimpse into the workings of a church in isolation, if not exile. But nevertheless a disappointment. It was recommended to me very highly, and it just never got to that high point. Nothing really happened. There didn't seem to be any message, any purpose, any great design. But I do love this, from page 265: "When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle's eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn." I suppose that's enough of a comment on religion for any one novel to hope to accomplish.
The Book of Atrix Wolfe	Patricia A. McKillip	December 16		I loved the ending, but maybe that's just because it took me months to read the middle. I was very excited that it was almost over. I knew who was who (except for one little bit that wasn't nearly as important as the book thought it was), I knew who was going to find who and where they would end up ... yet the book would just keep going, and going, and going. There's only so much description of pot-scrubbing one person can take.
A Christmas Dream	Louisa M. Alcott	December 14		A couple of just delightful stories, the title one and another one about little girls and sheep. A broken binding. But a wonderful book. Because, on the first page, in fountain pen, is written Ruth Edelberg, 14613 Strathmore, East Cleveland, Ohio, Dec. 24, 1918. This, the holding in my hands of 81 years, I absolutely love.
Seventeen Ways to Eat a Mango	Joshua Kadison	December 13		This is a pretty book, all done in handwriting on brown paper, which I picked up because I could have sworn I'd heard of Joshua Kadison before. I had, of course ("Picture Postcards From LA"). There were two things I liked lots about the book. The teacher was named Katchumo, which reminds me of Katchoo, and there's a line in the beginning that I'd like to frame: "And how we vowed that night lying on the lumpy mattress in your dorm that if either of us ever learned anything truly of value, we would find the other and share what we had learned. Well, here goes ..."
Greasy Lake & Other Stories	T. Coraghessan Boyle	December 13		I liked this a little less than Without A Hero, but the first story starts with a Springsteen quote, and Stones In My Passway, Hellhound In My Heart, about Robert Johnson, was great, and The Overcoat II reminded me pleasantly of Crime and Punishment and 1984, two books I didn't think could spark pleasant reminders at all. Oh, and you must read Rupert Beersley and the Beggar-Master of Sivani-Hoota, because you know Watson always wanted Holmes to screw up.
Fuzzies and Other People	H. Beam Piper	November 11		When you read Jules Verne, you're amazed that a writer a hundred years ago could predict things like weightlessness. When you read H. Beam Piper, you're amazed that a writer thirty-five years ago couldn't predict that anything at all would change. There are so many anachronisms. And then there are quasi-melting pot names like (get this) Hirohito Bjornsen. Hirohito Bjornsen?!
Stardust	Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess	November 11		The kind of book that makes me want to kiss the inventor of paper. If I had the right, I would quote pages 68 and 69 in their entirety. "It was night in the glade by the pool and the sky was bespattered with stars beyond counting. ... And there was a voice, a high clear, female voice, which said 'Ow,' and then, very quietly, it said 'fuck,' and then it said 'Ow,' once more. And then it said nothing at all, and there was silence in the glade." This is a special, beautiful, truly stellar book. It's the best gift Dan ever gave me. Please, please, get the edition with the Charles Vess illustrations.
Without A Hero and Other Stories	T. Corahessan Boyle	November 10		If I were the author of The Road To Wellville, I don't think I'd print that on my books. I think I'd just coast on having a wonderful name like "Coraghessan" to throw around. In any case, 56-0 was sort of heartbreaking, and Top of the Food Chain barreled down a road I'd always wondered about, and Big Game I really liked, for being about Hemingway a little, and Filthy With Things scared the living daylights out of me.
The World of Pooh	A.A. Milne	November 8		The whole point, you see, is Eeyore. No one can draw downtrodden like E.H. Shepard, and no one can write a good Hum like Milne did. And no one uses the word fierce enough anymore. Then there's the Rather Delightful Fact that one of the color plates is put in upside-down, and I bought it used so there's a Richard Scarry bookplate marked "Bobby" in a 6-year-old's writing, and the whole thing just charms the socks off of you.
Strangers In Paradise: It's a Good Life	Terry Moore	November 2		My only complaint about SIP is that the books are too short. I wish there were twenty episodes to a collection instead of three or five. It's too expensive this way. Although I must admit the freezing naked waterfall wedding cracked me up. For all its brevity, this volume is just as good as the previous two, and I need to get the rest with all speed.
Strangers In Paradise: I Dream Of You	Terry Moore	November 2		Do you know what I love? I love reading words that tell me what to do, and that tell me I've been doing the right thing all along. Dave Sim's afterword to this book has some of those words. "It's a cliche about a good on-going series that it reads better as a unit than it does in installment form. I hear it all the time about Cerebus, Neil does about Sandman, Alan does about From Hell." That there is just about the whole of the enchilada.
The Minpins	Roald Dahl	November 2		I really like the idea of postage stamp-sized windows and doors opening in a huge tree, and tiny people in suction-cup boots walking out and strolling through the ceiling of the forest. I like the idea of a swan big enough to carry a not-so-small boy while flying. "And above all, watch with glittering eyes the world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."
A Doonesbury Special	Garry Trudeau and John and Faith Hubley	November 2		I've never seen the Doonesbury TV special, which aired in 1977. Herein are a perfect B.D. huddle, a surfacing in Walden Puddle, and other great things, but what I'm scared of is Zonker's voice, because I've never heard it. It already bothers me a great deal when the people who color the daily comics give him brown hair; hearing the wrong voice would probably be very upsetting.
The Cartoon History Of The Universe: Volumes 1-7, From The Big Bang To Alexander The Great	Larry Gonick	October 31		A truly impressive scholarly work in the guise of a comedy. Lots of jokes, and you feel smart when you get them, because they're smart jokes. A wonderful bibliography, with editorial comments on the books used for research. I think all bibliographies should have to include blurbs like "1200 pages, no laughs!" and "Millions of mediocre drawings." Otherwise, how is the reader to know where to go next?
Stopping Spam	O'Reilly (Alan Schwartz & Simson Garfinkel)	October 19		Though I took copious notes on reading headers, reporting mail fraud, and tracing spammers back to their sources, this book solved my problem with one simple piece of advice. I set a filter in Netscape to shunt any mail that doesn't have "closr" in its "To:" field into a "low priority" folder, except for a few mailing lists (like Suck) that I actually want. It works perfectly. The junk e-mail doesn't clutter up my inbox, and I can get rid of it all with a glance and a click.
Goodnight Opus	Berkeley Breathed	October 29		I've always thought Opus looked more than a little weird in three dimensions. The lesson of "departing from the text," however, is one that's rather priceless to learn. If I hadn't departed from the text, who knows where I would have ended up.
The Complete Strangers In Paradise: Volume One	Terry Moore	October 26		Rated a 5 on potential, which is a bad habit of mine. But I'm so thrilled to have found another comic I can read. It's been ages since I finished with Sandman, so I needed something good. I needed something with real people, not magic, because nothing magic was going to be able to compare, and I needed something with really great art. Here it is. A comic book, you understand, with women drawn the way they should be. It's terrific.
Tiny Treasures	American Girl Library	October 16		Oh, this is great. A long time ago I found a how-to article in a craft magazine about making little felt dolls, with clothes made out of ribbons. Skinny satin ribbons and thick grosgrain ribbons and just a bit of sewing made these ingenious little clothes. I made them, and I loved them. This book is full of stuff just that good. Turned bedposts and table legs made from lollipop sticks and map tacks. Clothes hangers and drinking straws made from colored paper clips. Can't wait.
Thursday's Child	Noel Streatfeild	October 12		One of the shadowy, half-remembered books in the back of my mind is a big hardcover in a scratchy green cloth binding, a book called Thursday's Child by Noel Streatfeild. I despair of ever finding that book again, because this one, an out-of-print British paperback Amazon found for me after a lengthy search, isn't the right story. It has the right characters, like the lovely Lavinia Beresford and the central Margaret Thursday, but I fear it has been abridged. With an axe. This is the kind of thing that makes me want to cry.
A Difficulty With Dwarves	Craig Shaw Gardner	September 22		A silly, pointless little book; a couple of days I sort of wish I had back. No beginning, no end, just a short little middle. Worthless. Explain to me, then, why at the Goodwill book sale the other day I insisted on buying all the sequels. Damn.
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azbakan	J.K. Rowling	September 12		I feel lucky that I never outgrew children's books. But then I feel sorry for all the people my age (and older) who think they have. I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that when I was ten or twelve, there weren't books as perfect as these. There weren't 400-page novels that spoke to me like a person instead of like a child, with characters who were people and just happened to be children. There damn well should have been.
Singer From The Sea	Sheri S. Tepper	September 9		It's been a while since I read this, and it just hasn't stayed with me the way most of her books do. I really loved The Family Tree, and this one's just not as good as that one was. It has a twist, yes, and I didn't see it coming (except that there's always a twist, so I was looking for one), but all of a sudden I can sort of see the point of people who say she writes the same book, about women oppressed by society, over and over again. No, I don't mean that. I still love them.
Half Magic	Edward Eager	September 5		Then again, maybe there were real books for kids when I was a kid. My mind is full of half-remembered stories, books I'll probably never find again. But one of those memories is Half Magic, a book that belonged to my mother, with the family that finds the way to having their wishes half granted, and in the end gets everything they need. There's a wonderful drawing in this book of the children (including delightful Katharine) gathered on the porch for just the right reason. "In the summer you could take out ten books at a time, instead of three."
The Exorcist	William Peter Blatty	August 31		I felt positively evil reading this book, a 1974 printing, where other people could see me. It's ... visceral, and guilty somehow. I used to drive home from work over the Key Bridge, and I'd stop at a traffic light on M Street. Georgetown. I can see the steps from that intersection. I don't drive home that way anymore.
Speaker For The Dead	Orson Scott Card	August 29		A very different book from Ender's Game, and in one small way better, just because of Jane. Jane's a really, really good character. A great idea. I wasn't that crazy about the piggies, and I didn't understand what was going on until it was explained to me, so I resented that a little bit.
The Family Tree	Sheri S. Tepper	August 23		I have a stack of recent Tepper books waiting for me, and now I'm afraid to read them. Not since Grass has a book of hers been this good. Depending on the mood I'm in when you ask, I might even like it better than The Gate To Women's Country. And in true Tepper fashion, the twist is there, and this time it's a doozy.
The Compleat Works Of Wllm Shkspr (Abridged)	The Reduced Shakespeare Company	August 16		Apparently Hamlet is about meat. And socks. And it's 45 seconds long. Also, all sixteen of Shakespeare's comedies may be performed at the same time by a cast of three. This is wondrous ... and wondrous strange. Splendiferous stuff.
The Blair Witch Project: A Dossier	D.A. Stern	Friday the 13th		I totally bought into the whole Blair Witch thing. Books, movie, TV documentary, website, secret footage, everything. The movie is just a small slice of the whole thing. It almost qualifies for the term mytharc. And have I mentioned that I've been to Burkittsville? Burkittsville's kinda spooky.
My Uncle Oswald	Roald Dahl	August 9		One of Dahl's dirty books for grown-ups, as opposed to his simply naughty books for children. Where else can you read about the sexual preferences of Pablo Picasso and Marcel Proust? Of course, the most interesting part of the whole adventure was realizing that those two, plus Enrico Caruso, Henry Ford, Claude Monet, Igor Stravinsky, Giacomo Puccini (a standout) and Rudyard Kipling, among others, were all alive at the same time.
The Sweet Hereafter	Russell Banks	August 7		I've always found it impressive when someone manages to convincingly tell more than one side of the same story. Books with multiple narrators don't work sometimes, because you can tell the author identified more with one character and was trying to write from the others' points of view just for the sake of doing so. But here, I didn't get that impression. Every narrator was convincing enough that I liked them all, even though none of them was particularly likable.
Faeries	Brian Froud and Alan Lee	August 6		Just lovely. Like Gnomes with a dark side. Threatening, and intriguing, and ethereal, and irresistible. Beautiful, of course, but far from nice.
The Last Of The Really Great Whangdoodles	Julie Edwards	July 30		That was cute. Especially the "About the Author" section, in which you can see that Mrs. Edwards, in addition to having written the book Mandy, "has also appeared in many popular films, including The Sound of Music and Mary Poppins." I didn't know it was that Julie.
Notting Hill	Richard Curtis	July 21		I'm a sucker for this guy. No, not that guy, not Hugh, but Richard Curtis. And Tim McInnerny. I liked the movie, of course—otherwise I wouldn't have bothered reading the screenplay—but the screenplay was better than the movie. Edited-out scenes, alternate storylines, a very funny afterword, lovely pictures. Plus the book's printed on just the most wonderful paper. I'm a sucker for good paper.
1984	George Orwell	July 18		One of those things I'd always meant to read (well, since the year I was eleven, anyway) and had never gotten around to. Turns out I had completely wrong ideas about what it had to say. Plus it wasn't as scary as I'd been led to believe.