the deep moans round with many voices

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in July 2007.

This was a slow month, relatively speaking, probably because I read more nonfiction and less manga. :-)

New: 18
---Windswept: The Story of Wind and Weather, Marq de Villiers (nonfiction: an explanation of our current understanding -- or lack of understanding -- of the atmosphere and the complexities of weather and climate. Engagingly written and absolutely fascinating.)
---The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, Judith Rich Harris (nonfiction: a sociological/psychological book written for mass audiences. Harris's theory is that contrary to popular assumptions, parents have very little influence over their children's behavior outside of the home; instead, peer groups are the deciding environmental influence. The book is over a decade old, so perhaps more current research has changed the available data, but Harris is very convincing.)
---Lao Tzu and Taoism, Max Kaltenmark, trans. Roger Greaves (nonfiction: this is a textbook I never read, for an Asian Religions course that I failed shortly before my first medical leave from college. Dry and academic, but the information is interesting.)
---The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400-the Present, Kenneth Pomeranz and Steven Topik (nonfiction: a collection of essays about the history of world trade and industry, mostly gleaned from a magazine column the two men write. A few essays are by Will Swaim, the original writer of the column.)
---Ysabel, Guy Gavriel Kay (fantasy: in which a modern teenage boy stumbles across a very old story, and tries to change its outcome once one of his friends is caught up as one of the main characters.)
---Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling (fantasy: see my unorganized thoughts)
---The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum (fiction: in which a man with amnesia attempts to find his life, while fleeing enemies both in the criminal world and the American intelligence service. What the cover summaries don't tell you is that this is really a love story; the thriller stuff is just the trappings. *grin*)
---The Bourne Supremacy, Robert Ludlum (fiction: in which someone calling himself Jason Bourne begins a series of assassinations in Asia, and the US government resorts to kidnapping the real Bourne's wife in order to make him hunt the killer. This turns out to be a really stupid mistake...)
---The Bourne Ultimatum, Robert Ludlum (fiction: in which Carlos the Jackal discovers that Bourne is not actually dead, and threatens his family. Bourne's attempt to draw Carlos out unearths a dangerous conspiracy embedded in the US government, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.)
---The Bourne Legacy, Eric Van Lustbader (fiction: in which a terrorist uses Bourne as a distraction while he attempts to disrupt an international summit with a bio-weapon. Lustbader isn't bad at thrillers, but he screws up by leaving Marie completely out of the story. She wouldn't just sit at a safehouse doing nothing for nearly a week; she would be trying to do something to help her husband, or at least to clear his name.)
---The Bourne Betrayal, Eric Van Lustbader (fiction: in which one of Bourne's friends is captured by a terrorist network and things get progressively messier. Also, Lustbader has killed Marie offscreen. I object to that, and I object to the way he sexualizes his female characters. I remember reading one of his ninja books, lo these many years ago, and thinking he was a raging misogynist. I wouldn't go quite that far today, but I really don't think he understands women at all.)
---Hikaru no Go vol. 1, 5-9, Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata (manga: a boy and his ghost play go. Very engaging.)
---Monster vol. 7, Naoki Urasawa (manga: okay, so we didn't veer into the supernatural at the end of vol. 6 -- it was just unclear art that made it look like Johan created an apple from nothing. *grin* In this volume, we learn more about Johan's current plans, and Tenma thinks he finally has a chance to kill Johan.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 3, Kazuya Minekura (manga: two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext.)


Old: 6
---Catspaw, Joan D. Vinge (science fiction: in which Cat is reluctantly hired as a bodyguard to Lady Elnear TaMing, and plunges over his head into vicious political fighting between corporations, the FTA, and the criminal underworld)
---Dreamfall, Joan D. Vinge (science fiction: in which Cat visits the homeworld of the Hydrans -- his mother's race -- and once again finds himself over his head in a really messed up sociopolitical situation. To further complicate things, he falls in love.)
---The Prehistory of The Far Side: A 10th Anniversary Exhibit, Gary Larson (comics: exactly what it says it is, with all the weirdness and humor that implies)
---Angel Sanctuary vol. 20, Kaori Yuki (manga: brilliant and utterly fucked up; Mudo Setsuna learns he's the reincarnation of a rebellious angel, and things get progressively stranger from there.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 1-2, Kazuya Minekura (manga: two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext.)


July Total: 24 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a lot of fanfiction)

Year to Date: 246 books (135 new, 111 old)

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in June 2007.

(You know, I have to stop reading so much manga. It can't possibly be good for me. *grin*)

New: 16
---Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See, Robert Kurson (nonfiction: the story of Michael May, a man blind since he was 3 years old, who regained his vision through experimental surgery. Kurson shows how May's approach to life in general played into his reaction to vision, and explains technical details clearly, both when dealing with the surgery and when dealing with optical illusions and brain scans.)
---Glasshouse, Charles Stross (science-fiction: in the aftermath of a war fought mostly with information technology -- where computer virus can rewrite your brain to make you think the way their designers want you to think -- several survivors end up in an experimental recreation of the late 20th century. They think the mock-world will be a good place to lie low and recover, but their new home has sinister implications. A fascinating book.)
---Wizards, Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, eds. (fantasy: an anthology of stories nominally about wizards. Some are amazing, some are weird, and some are, frankly, awful. Luckily, the good outweighs the bad.)
---The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time, G. B. Trudeau (comics: a Doonesbury collection, in which we follow BD from his injury in Iraq through the early stages of his recovery back in the US.)
---One Piece vols. 5-6, 8, 10-12, 14, Eiichiro Oda (manga: pirates on crack. Okay, yeah, I'm hooked. The sheer zany exuberance, and the likeability of the characters, pulls me past the places where I'd normally scream about how the worldbuilding doesn't make any sense and the plot developments come out of nowhere, and on and on... *grin* The character development is consistent, which helps cover the other flaws.)
---Godchild vol 5, Kaori Yuki (manga: a young English nobleman and his manservant in Victorian/Edwardian times, with poison, murder, and random supernatural elements. Creepy gothic weirdness, moral ambiguity, and very pretty art.)
---Samurai Deeper Kyo vol. 21, Akimine Kamijyo (manga: samurai fights with random supernatural trappings. This volume is about Shinrei and Hotaru, both backstory and a battle.)
---Hana-Kimi vol. 1, Hisaya Nakajo (manga: a girl disguises herself as a boy and enrolls in an all-boys' school in order to get close to her idol. Extremely silly, but awfully cute and good-hearted.)
---Araiso Executive Committee vol. 1, Kazuya Minekura (manga: this is on crack. It's like Minekura took her own characters from Wild Adapter and did goofy high school AU fanfiction with them... except I think this series was published first, so WTF? Fun, albeit rather over-the-top.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 3, Kazuya Minekura (manga: two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext.)


Old: 30
---Many Waters, Madeleine L'Engle (science-fiction/fantasy/young adult: companion to A Wrinkle in Time. Sandy and Dennys Murray accidentally send themselves back in time to the story of Noah and the flood. Beautiful and uplifting... and very neatly sidesteps what my fandom-corrupted mind insists is a blatant setup for a threesome. Bad Liz, no biscuit!)
---Dealing with Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede (fantasy: Book One of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in which Cimorene runs off to become a dragon's princess)
---Searching for Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede (fantasy: Book Two of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in which Mendanbar has problems with wizards and meets Cimorene; my favorite of the series)
---Calling on Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede (fantasy: Book Three of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, in which someone steals Mendanbar's sword and a quest ensues)
---Talking to Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede (fantasy: Book Four of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which picks up 17 years later and resolves the semi-cliffhanger at the end of Book Three)
---The Dead Zone, Stephen King (fiction/horror: a young man wakes up from a five-year coma with the 'gift' of precognition. Then he discovers he may be the only person who can prevent a horrifically dangerous man from becoming president of the United States. I love this book, especially the bittersweet might-have-beens between Johnny and Sara.)
---On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King (nonfiction: part autobiography, part discussion of writing. I picked this up looking for a bit where he talks about The Dead Zone and kind of got sucked in and reread the whole thing. King is compulsively readable like that.)
---The Elements of Style 3rd Edition, William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White (nonfiction: one of only three writing books I have ever found useful, rather than merely interesting. Clarity, clarity, clarity. *grin*)
---The Outlaws of Sherwood, Robin McKinley (historical/fantasy: a retelling of the Robin Hood legends. Notable for a dogged air of realism in the way a group of outlaws manage to stay hidden in a forest -- and the greater realism in the short length of their career. Also, McKinley's Robin is the worst archer in his band, which amuses me.)
---Sherwood, Parke Godwin (historical/fantasy: another Robin Hood story; this one bucks tradition and occurs during the Norman Conquest rather than the Crusades. In an interesting spin, Godwin makes the sheriff of Nottingham a sympathetic character, and substitutes war, politics, and culture clashes as a more depersonalized enemy.)
---Flash: The Return of Barry Allen, Mark Waid, Greg LaRocque, Roy Richardson, et al (comics: you know, I remember this seeming a lot better when I was a teenager...)
---Flash: Terminal Velocity, Mark Waid, et al (comics: this one, on the other hand, holds up, despite the overwriting and melodrama. I think it's because this story arc is clearly built around a love story; the superhero trappings are more downplayed.)
---Angel Sanctuary vol. 19, Kaori Yuki (manga: brilliant and utterly fucked up; Mudo Setsuna learns he's the reincarnation of a rebellious angel, and things get progressively stranger from there.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 1, Kazuya Minekura (manga: two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext. This volume is mostly introduction.)
---Saiyuki vols. 1-9, Kazuya Minekura (manga: four guys and a jeep travel west to save the world, but the journey is more important than the destination. This is brilliant and I love it.)
---Saiyuki Reload vols. 1-7, Kazuya Minekura (manga: continuation of Saiyuki)


June Total: 46 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a lot of fanfiction)

Year to Date: 222 books (117 new, 105 old)

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in May 2007.

New: 13
---Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, Robert D. Kaplan (nonfiction: a combined history, cultural analysis, and travelogue, focusing on former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. It was written in the early 1990s and provides both a snapshot of the first years after the fall of communism, and a good prediction of the trajectory of the Balkans over the next 15 years. I found this book particularly interesting because I visited Romania in 1997, and Kaplan's description of Romania rings true to my own experience there.)
---Domnei, James Branch Cabell (fantasy: Cabell is weird. He's also probably as obscure as Lord Dunsany by this point, which is a pity, because he has a marvelous sureness of tone and a deft touch with irony. Domnei combines two stories of chivalrous love -- 'women worship,' as he terms it -- neither of which turns out quite as one might expect. Cabell plays with clichés, and then rips them neatly to shreds and laughs at you for expecting them. And yet, there's something deeper under the irony, something that keeps the stories from being mere reactionary wisps.)
---The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujold (fantasy: in which a young woman in trouble meets a tired man from a people dedicated to hunting down the remnants of a magical menace that destroyed a previous high society. Stuff happens, they end up being joint participants in a puzzling bit of magic, and they fall in love along the way. Slight but well-written, and Bujold nearly redeems herself from the stock 'nobody in my family understands me!' cliché she starts with. Nearly.)
---How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman, M.D. (nonfiction: pretty much what the title says, quite readable, and very interesting. I recommend it.)
---We, Yevgeny Zamyatin, trans. Mirra Ginsburg (science fiction: the earliest dystopian novel, before Brave New World or 1984. Zamyatin, an ardent Russian revolutionary, was squeezed out and silenced for his refusal to accept totalitarianism. This book is beautiful, poetic, and heart-breaking. Read it.)
---Jacob Have I Loved, Katherine Paterson (young adult: a coming of age story set in the 1940s, on a Chesapeake Bay island. I don't think it's quite as good as Bridge to Terabithia, but it shows some of the same themes: the importance of dreams, and imagination, and family, and the way it's easy to label one thing as the source of all your troubles when really life is too complicated to sum up like that.)
---Feast of Souls, C. S. Friedman (fantasy: the first of a trilogy, set in a world where magic drains a witch's life, but magisters -- all male -- have found a way to get around that, for a sinister price. A young woman determined to be the first female magister, a touchy political situation in a great empire, and the revival of soul-eating beasts long thought extinct, all collide messily. The book is clearly part of a larger story, and I can't evaluate it properly without knowing what's to come.)
---Dr. Bloodmoney, Philip K. Dick (science fiction: the mildest post-nuclear-war story I've ever read, and in that sense perhaps the most realistic, despite the surrealism of other plot elements. On one hand, it feels vaguely autistic -- people don't react emotionally in ways that feel quite 'right' to me, or connect properly with each other -- and on the other, Dick is fervently determined to prove the importance of human connections. )
---Arctic Wings: Birds of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Stephen Brown, ed. (nonfiction: descriptions of various types of birds that spend all or part of the year in the Refuge, lots of pictures, and various pleas to keep the land clear of human interference, particularly oil drilling.)
---Nana vol. 5, Ai Yazawa (manga: young adults in Tokyo; love, sex, and rock. It's not my usual thing, but it's very well done, and the sense of searching, of not knowing where you want to be nor how to get to there, resonates with me and pulls me past Nana K's obsession with romance and fashion. The art's quirky, but it grows on you.)
---Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle vol. 12, CLAMP (manga: the conclusion of the flying race arc. Still awfully cute, though I hope we get back to the more serious side in vol. 13.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 2, Kazuya Minekura (manga: the story of two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext.)
---Trigun Maximum vol. 11, Yasuhiro Nightow (manga: still on crack, and I'm still peeved about what happened in vol. 10, but we're definitely reaching the climax, and Nightow is finally explaining a number of previously confusing things.)


Old: 28
---The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin (nonfiction: exactly what the title says. Even when I disagree with Le Guin, she makes me think; that's valuable.)
---Fruits Basket vol. 15, Natsuki Takaya (manga: the story of a girl and the very strange family she becomes involved with and tries to heal.)
---Wild Adapter vol. 1, Kazuya Minekura (manga: the story of two young men, a strange drug case, and various underworld machinations in greater metropolitan Tokyo. Film noir, horror, and science fiction run together through a blender, with generous subtext. This volume is mostly introduction.)
---Saiyuki vols. 1-9, Kazuya Minekura (manga: four guys and a jeep travel west to save the world, but the journey is more important than the destination. This is brilliant and I love it.)
---Saiyuki Reload vols. 1-7, Kazuya Minekura (manga: continuation of Saiyuki)
---Lucifer vols. 2-9, Mike Carey, Peter Gross, et al (comics: what the devil did after retiring as the king of hell. Wheels within wheels within wheels. I'm not completely convinced that all the pieces hold together in the cold light of logic and hindsight, but it catches me up and convinces me completely while I'm reading.)
---But I Digress, Peter David (nonfiction: a collection of opinion columns written for Comics Buyer's Guide in the early 1990s. Peter David amuses me.)


May Total: 41 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a lot of fanfiction)

Year to Date: 176 books (101 new, 75 old)

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in April 2007.

New: 27
---Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (science fiction: this is actually not about censorship. It's about human nature and futility and hope, and about how we need to live and be aware of living instead of just going through the motions. It reminds me of A Canticle for Leibowitz, only without the heavy Catholic overlay, and with Bradbury's habit of tiptoeing just this side of the line between vividness and overwriting... except when he trips and crosses it. *grin*)
---Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell (nonfiction: about assumptions and subconscious thinking, and how our conscious selves are much less in charge of our thoughts, actions, and emotions than we think we are.)
---Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (fiction: I have now read all six of her novels. Yay! See my review for detailed thoughts.)
---Bloodchild and Other Stories, Octavia E. Butler (science fiction: a short story collection, explores power dynamics and human relations with 'the other.' Butler doesn't flinch from potentially unsettling conclusions, which repels and draws me in equal measure.)
---Saiyuki, vols. 1-9, Kazuya Minekura (manga: four guys and a jeep travel west to save the world, but the journey is more important than the destination. This is brilliant and I love it. I will attempt a better review in a few days.)
---Saiyuki: Reload, vols. 1-7, Kazuya Minekura (manga: continuation of Saiyuki. It's fascinating to watch Minekura's art style evolve over the course of the story.)
---Wild Adapter, vol. 1, Kazuya Minekura (manga: modern-day noir, small-time yakuza and an almost supernatural drug in the suburbs of Tokyo. I am assured there is massive subtext starting in vol. 2 once we properly meet the other main character. *grin* Beautiful artwork.)
---Fruits Basket vol. 16, (manga: high school life, family drama, supernatural elements, comedy, tragedy. And yet all the elements balance. I love this series.)
---Trigun Maximum, vol. 10, Yasuhiro Nightow (manga: cracked-out sci-fi and gunfights. You know what? ( spoiler ) *nods firmly*)
---Samurai Deeper Kyo, vol. 20, Akimine Kamijyo (manga: samurai fights with random supernatural trappings. Okay, can we stop the set-piece fights and get on with the story? Nice revelation about Yuya's brother, though.)
---Monster vols. 5-6, Naoki Urasawa (manga: like The Fugitive, only creepier, set in reunification Germany with all the attendant social issues. The art is clean and clear, the plot is gripping, and... I think we may have swerved into supernatural territory at the end of vol. 6. I guess that's not too surprising, given how implausible some of the other plot points are, but it's still a bit of a shock after such a long, careful build-up and the resolute grounding of the other weird elements in the fabric of everyday life.)
---Lucifer, vol. 11 [Evensong], Mike Carey, Peter Gross, et al (comics: the end of the story, and there's really no other way it could have ended. That was how things had to go. I am sorry for ever doubting Carey; he pulled everything together amazingly well, given the number of wheels he'd tossed into the air and started spinning. And he ended the story; technically, DC owns the rights to this particular interpretation of the devil, but it would be hard for anyone to retcon things back from where Carey took them.)

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Old: 9
---Taltos, Steven Brust (fantasy: in which we learn how Vlad met Morrolan, Sethra Lavode, and Aliera)
---Issola, Steven Brust (fantasy: in which Lady Teldra finally gets some characterization, and Vlad saves the world... or, more accurately, kind of helps other people save the world while wishing he were somewhere else and didn't have friends who routinely get involved in stuff like that)
---Phoenix, Steven Brust (fantasy: in which Vlad kills a king, starts a war, and gets in a lot of trouble, most of which is, ironically enough, unrelated to the assassination and the war)
---The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination, Ursula K. Le Guin (nonfiction: pretty much what it says on the cover)
---The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, Malcolm Gladwell (nonfiction: also pretty much what it says on the cover. Fascinating.)
---Heroes Die, Matthew Woodring Stover (sci-fi/fantasy: combines your typical bloody sword-and-sorcery with a bleak dystopian science fiction future and manages to be a tightly-paced action/adventure, a nuanced and unromantic love story, and a bleak yet ferociously unbowed piece of social criticism and philosophy, all at the same time. I love this book.)
---Blade of Tyshalle, (sci-fi/fantasy: which resolves some of the unresolved plot threads from Heroes Die, as well as deepening the world-building in both Overworld and the dystopian future Earth. "Each of us is the sum of our scars" -- this is a true thing.)
---Lucifer, vol. 1 [Devil in the Gateway], Mike Carey, Scott Hampton, Chris Weston, et al (comics: going back to the beginning, and by god, there are the seeds of the end, laid out one by one. The series doesn't really hit its stride until vol. 2 or 3, but already this grabbed my attention.)
---The Sandman, vol. 4 [Season of Mists], Neil Gaiman, et al (comics: in which Lucifer quits his position as ruler of Hell and dumps disposal of that realm onto Dream, who copes badly.)

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April Total: 36 books (plus several magazines and a lot of fanfiction)

Year to Date: 135 books (88 new, 47 old)

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My landlords are building a fence. This is good, because when I saw the cleared ground, my first fear was that they were getting ready to build a garage. See, their ultimate plan is to build a connected garage with a studio apartment over it, and then to convert the house back into one unit instead of two apartments. Which means I will have to move.

Fortunately, that time still seems a few years away. :-)

It's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in February 2007.

New: 15
---Grendel, John Gardner (fiction: see my review)
---Remembering Satan, Lawrence Wright (nonfiction: a story of 'recovered' memory and the Satanic cult cultural psychosis of the early 1990s; sobering)
---The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France, David Andress (nonfiction: what fascinates me is the way they changed the subtitle when republishing this in America; the British version is called The Terror: Civil War in Revolutionary France, which is just as accurate and much less 'OMG, look, relevance to Iraq and stuff!', and thus more to my taste.)
---Glory Season, David Brin (science fiction: a thought experiment on a world deliberately created to be stable and pastoral, in which genetic manipulation has produced a pronounced gender imbalance -- tilted in favor of women -- and some very strange reproductive traits, such as natural self-cloning. Fascinating, though the end is too abrupt.)
---Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Edward Albee (playscript: um. Yes. Well. Two incredibly dysfunctional marriages collide with each other one night after an alcohol-soaked party in the mid twentieth century. It reminds me of Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, for the morbid fascination of the families in question, and I would like to see it staged some time.)
---Wish, vol. 4, CLAMP (manga: in which an angel and a human fall in love. Cute, but slight -- too much telling and not enough showing -- and this particular treatment of Judeo-Christian mythology bugs me for some reason.)
---Shirahime-Syo: Snow Goddess Tales, CLAMP (manga: depressing traditional style short stories; very pretty. I like the brush style.)
---Samurai Deeper Kyo, vol. 19, Akimine Kamijyo (manga: swordfights and pseudo-deep philosophy; complications continue to pile on top of each other as Yuya's time runs out)
---Nana, vols. 1, 2 & 4, Ai Yazawa (manga: college-age people in Tokyo; love, sex, and rock. This is really not my usual thing, but it's very well done, and the sense of searching, of not quite knowing where you want to be in the world, nor how to get to wherever that place is, resonates with me and pulls me past Nana K's obsession with romance and fashion. The art style's quirky, but it grows on you.)
---Tokyo Babylon, vols. 3-4, 6-7, CLAMP (manga: the episodic adventures of a young onmyoji, his twin sister, and their secretive friend in early 1990s Tokyo. The doubled tone -- cheerful and light over creepy and downright depressing -- is handled very skillfully. Also, Seishiro is hot. Yes, I'm shallow; I admit it.)


Old: 14
---Songsmith, Andre Norton and A.C. Crispin (fantasy: a Witch World novel in the classic style; I like it, but I would have prefered if the main character had not developed a magical talent. It would have been much more interesting to see her manage without one.)
---Gold Unicorn, Tanith Lee (fantasy: sequel to Black Unicorn; in which Taniquel discovers that her half-sister is trying to conquer the world, and several people take a brief detour through hell. Literally.)
---How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card (nonfiction: I meant to just read the bits on submission guidelines, but Card's style is engaging and I ended up breezing over the whole thing again.)
---The Riddle-Master of Hed, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Heir to Sea and Fire, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Harpist in the Wind, Patricia McKillip (fantasy: see last year's comments)
---Lucifer, vols. 8-10 [The Wolf Beneath the Tree; Crux; Morningstar], Mike Carey, Peter Gross, Ryan Kelley, et al (comics: in which the world ends. Almost.)
---Twelve Who Ruled: The Year of the Terror in the French Revolution, R.R. Palmer (nonfiction: a chronicle of the Committee of Public Safety, very interesting; I recommend it despite its age.)
---This Immortal, Roger Zelazny (science fiction: in which, after a nuclear war, aliens have bailed out humanity; the consequences are complicated and awkward for several reasons. Fun. This is the one where Zelazny does Greek mythology.)
---Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett (fantasy: a Discworld novel)
---Tokyo Babylon, vol. 5, CLAMP (manga: the transition point between cute and definitively creepy)
---Fruits Basket, vol. 14, Natsuki Takaya (manga: heartwarming)


February Total: 29 books

Year to Date: 64 books (43 new, 21 old)

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In other news, I opened the store successfully and did not go crazy in the process. Yay me! *throws confetti*