Anathem, by Neal Stephenson

“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs,” I said. “We have a protractor.” In Stephenson’s latest doorstopper novel, the outline of an enjoyable space opera has been thrown into a blender with a dictionary, some mathematical proofs, and a copy of The Name of the Rose. I’ll tell you up front that [...]

Read Full Post »

Nation, by Terry Pratchett

In a history resembling but several degrees removed from our own, somewhere in the Greater Pelagic Ocean, young Mau has spent a month living alone on the “boy’s island,” building the canoe he’ll need to sail home. Having proved himself worthy, he’s supposed to be welcomed by family and friends ready to celebrate his transition [...]

Read Full Post »

The Shadow Speaker, by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu

It’s 2070, and we’re in next-generation West Africa. Fourteen-year old Ejii Ugabe has supernatural “shadow speaking” talents that she hasn’t fully grown into, not least because her power-hungry estranged father didn’t believe girls should be educated. Her world has already been through an enormous Change, resulting in an unpredictable mix of magical and physical laws, [...]

Read Full Post »

The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. I’d like to just quote the first 1 1/2 pages of this book and have done with posting. That’s how I got sucked into it, and I don’t even like talking animals. Ness’s violent, [...]

Read Full Post »

Use of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks

This dark, convoluted space opera is third in Banks’s loosely-connected Culture series, but you don’t need to have read the first two to understand what’s going on. No, let me rephrase that. If you don’t understand what’s going on, it’s not because you didn’t read the first two books. Banks intentionally drops you into the [...]

Read Full Post »

Mason Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitters Guide—Stories, Patterns, Advice, Opinions, Questions, Answers, Jokes and Pictures, by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne

Mason Dixon Knitting is another book born out of a blog. The two authors met on a chat group for Rowan yarns and developed a friendship, despite living on opposite ends of the U.S. The friendship blossomed into daily emails and eventually into a shared blog, Mason Dixon Knitting. As you might imagine, they do [...]

Read Full Post »

One-Skein Wonders: 101 Yarn-Shop Favorites, edited by Judith Durant

I have a condition that many knitters suffer from: knitting ADD. No sooner do I knit a few inches on a big project than I get itchy to start an entirely new one. The excitement of starting something new is of more interest to me than the satisfaction of finishing something that has taken a [...]

Read Full Post »

Things I Learned from Knitting…whether I wanted to or not, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, otherwise known as the Yarn Harlot, is well-known in the world of Knitters. She started with a blog, the Yarn Harlot, which features her tongue-in-cheek musings about knitting, marriage, parenting, and life in general. Pearl-McPhee has written several books like this one, with short snippets on knitting and life. Her tireless efforts to [...]

Read Full Post »

The Knitting Circle, by Ann Hood

Mary Baxter’s life has fallen apart. Her five-year-old daughter Stella has died from meningitis and it is as if all hope and happiness has flown out of Mary’s life. She can’t work; she and her husband Dylan drift through their days like zombies; and everywhere she goes she hears Stella’s voice: Mary Baxter is drowning [...]

Read Full Post »

Knitting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time, by Betty Christiansen

Knitting for Peace has patterns and essays about the wonderful opportunities knitters have to knit for charity.

Read Full Post »

King Dork, by Frank Portman

It’s a mystery, it’s a dark comedy, but most of all it’s King Dork. Frank Portman’s debut YA novel (up till now Portman has worked as a musician) tells the story of Tom Henderson, a.k.a. King Dork, a.k.a. Chi-Mo, short for child molester, a cruel name given to him by the cruel “normal” kids after a [...]

Read Full Post »

Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem

It’s another day at the office for PI Conrad Metcalf. The timid and ineffective Orton Angwine has been accused of murder and wants Metcalf to clear his name. But Angwine’s obviously a fool:  in trouble with the law, with the criminals he claims have set him up, and with several women who may be femme [...]

Read Full Post »

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin

What is the best form of government? Just how much freedom do you want? These are just two of the many questions raised by Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1974 masterwork, The Dispossessed. It’s the story of Shevek, the most gifted physicist of his generation, born on a small world called Anarres. As the novel opens, [...]

Read Full Post »

Tigerheart, by Peter David

Peter David is one of the great journeyman writers. Although he’s never had a major breakout hit, he’s written fun and popular books for years. Everything from Star Trek novels to graphic novels such as The Hulk, adaptations of Stephen King’s Dark Tower, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, from young adult novels to his punny epic [...]

Read Full Post »

Last Call, by Tim Powers

I’ve been thinking about the recent wave of paranormal fantasy in contemporary settings, wondering if it’s the future of the genre or a fad. How well will this work hold up over time? I’m not sure. I can, however, say that Tim Powers–an author I’ve meant to read for a long time and only recently [...]

Read Full Post »

Best of the Best: A Unified List of the Best Books of 2008

Which books were really the best of 2008? That’s a very subjective question, but to make it a little less so, I’ve compiled a unified list of the best books of the year as named by 70 different review sources and award nomination lists. The unified list shows the number of votes received by each [...]

Read Full Post »

Bad Traffic: An Inspector Jian novel, by Simon Lewis

A phone call from Inspector Jian’s daughter interrupts his relaxed dinner date in Beijing. “Dad, help me, help me. Help me. Help.” The phone goes dead. Jian takes the first plane to England, to Leeds University where Wei Wei should be taking classes. Jian doesn’t speak English and very few people in London can speak [...]

Read Full Post »

The White Mary, by Kira Salak

The White Mary is a novel by Kira Salak, journalist, adventurer, and contributing editor for National Geographic. Salak was the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea and write a nonfiction account of her trip, Four Corners, which was a New York Times notable book in 2001. The ‘white Mary’ (what Papua New Guineans call [...]

Read Full Post »