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New Review: Ian McEwan's Atonement November 5, 2005 (9:06 PM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Ian McEwan's Atonement. Now that was a very good book. I'm continuing my hot streak of mainstream novels with Italo Calvino's classic If on a winter's night a traveler. I did not like his Invisible Cities, perhaps because I was expecting an actual novel, but this book is supposed to be very interesting. I also know that it's supposed to be something of a meta-novel. Hey, great! Just don't bore me. After this book, I plan on starting on John Wright's convoluted space opera trilogy, starting with The Golden Age. On a random note, Wright, it seems, was once a lawyer. New Review: Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai November 3, 2005 (11:18 PM) ( link ) ADDED a review of Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai. Still reading through Ian McEwan's Atonement. Why is there a war chapter? I dunno--it's kind of a jarring transition. But the book is pretty good anyway. Four-Year Anniversary and Top 10 List (2004-2005) November 2, 2005 (11:27 PM) ( link ) September 2005 marked the four-year anniversary of this book reviews page. By my count, in the last year I read 46 books and wrote 36 reviews. That's 9 books more than last year, but a depressing 27 books fewer than my first year doing this. Fortunately, I managed to dig up 10 books that I really enjoyed. And here they are. The Best Books of 2004-2005 That I Read 10. Ursula K Le Guin's The Other Wind Quiet, haunting, beautifully written. This is high fantasy with a real emotional punch. 9. Robin McKinley's Sunshine A vampire romance novel that I enjoyed a great deal more than I had expected. It has a fairly lackluster plot, but (over)compensates with a hugely appealing narrator. 8. Steven Brust's The Khaavren Romances Dumas in the Vlad Taltos universe. This entire series was just unabashedly fun. 7. Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others One of the best science-fiction short story collections out there. It's amazing to think this is Chiang's first. I look forward to the years ahead. 6. Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten I've liked all of Fforde's Thursday Next novels, but this one is the best. Absolutely hilarious--something I rarely say about books. 5. Charles Palliser's The Quincunx A convoluted and somewhat depressing Victorian-style novel that features, at its core, a fiendishly intricate mystery about the narrator's ancestry. I'm not sure that I would put myself through it again, but boy was it a roller coaster the first time through. 4. Jeff VanderMeer's Veniss Underground A very dark but gorgeously written novel with deliberately mythic overtones. And I'll be damned: I can still recall that incredible scene with the meerkat and the fiddler crabs. 3. Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw Jane Austen with dragons, but funnier. (And shorter!) 2. Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife I will forever be ashamed by how much I enjoyed this purple-prosed, overly sentimental, obviously contrived book. But I also couldn't put it down. Classy literature: 0; Niffenegger: 1. 1. Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost In hindsight, I'll admit that parts of this book are over-long, perhaps even tedious. But in the end there is a moment of such transcendent power that I simply fell in love. Your mileage may vary. Previous Years: 2001-2002 | 2002-2003 | 2003-2004

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