Spoiler alert: Lucky is Loki

I am listening to Joanne Harris's Runemarks and I find myself vexed at how my copious knowledge of Norse Mythology--the D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths is one of my bibles--spoils the story for me. I am still wending my way through the first 100 pages and it's OBVIOUS to me that Lucky, the charming young redhead our heroine meets in the tunnels of World Below, is Loki. He even uses a fishing net, an overly clear shout-out if you ask me.

That said, Ms. Harris' imaginative world which envisions a world after Ragnarok where the old gods still exist, often in hiding, and the real villain is The Order which seems marvelously like the old Catholic Church is pretty great.

I'll post again when I've finished the book. At the end of the day, anything that calls to memory the Norse myths gets the passionatereader stamp of approval.

More books for teens

On Sunday, the NYT published its annual Children's Books Review. I read the reviews and, given that I no longer have anyone interested in Mother Goose rhymes or picture books, I concentrated on the tomes for older kids. Here are the ones I've bought. If you click on each title, you'll go to the NYT review of the book. I'll review each one when I've read it.


Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron

Underground by Jean Ferris

Uglies (Boxed Set): Uglies, Pretties, Specials (Uglies) by Scott Westerfeld (The review is nominally about the last book--I'm going to read the three that preceded it.

Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (I loved her book Elsewhere.)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

Looking for books for your teen....

Martine Leavitt's “Keturah and Lord Death,” was a finalist last fall for a National Book Award. The heroine, Keturah, needs to find her one true love and save her village from the Plague while playing Scheherazade to Death himself.

The Bayern trilogy by Shannon Hale--"The Goose Girl," "Enna Burning" and "River Secrets"--is superb. Well written--it touches on true love, the nature of evil, and the seductiveness of power.

"The Golden Compass," "The Subtle Knife," and "The Amber Spyglass," a terrific trilogy by the great Phillip Pullman. Pullman's books evoke the otherworldliness of Tolkien and Lewis, but have at their hearts, a world far more ruled by man than by God.

"King Dork," by Frank Portman, is a bitterly hilarious mystery replete with a great sense of rock and roll. Amazon.com picked it as one of the best YA books of 2006.


"The Foretelling" by Alice Hoffman reworks the story of the Amazon women, imagining them as warrior women whose wars cost them more than their culture can ultimately bear.

"The City of Ember," "The People of Sparks", "The Prophet of Yonwood" by Jeanne Duprau explore the future with grace and a page-turning plot.

"Neverwhere" and "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman are wondrous dark fairy tales replete with murderous villains and witty heroes/heroines.

The Thief trilogy by Megan Whalen Turner is an adventure tale set in a semi-Mediterranean land.

"Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes" by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein runs the reader through all of the world's great philosophies through the lens of jokes...and it works!

The Sevenwaters Trilogy by Juliet Marillier tells the story of a young woman's journey to adulthood in a believable and engaging fantasy world.

"The Hero and the Crown" and "The Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley are two of the best high fantasy books ever written--the reader looking for a story both profound and compelling will love these tales of the land of Damar.

"Special Topics in Calamity Physics" by Marisha Pessl, published in 2006, is a hodgepodge of a book, so full of sly references to just about everything that, by its end, the reader is walloped by the stellar plot.

"The Curse of Chalion" by Lois McMaster Bujold is a great blend of adventure, fairy tale, and religion.

"The Memory Keeper's Daughter" by Kim Edwards delves into the notions of family and secrets in a believable and moving way.

"Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger is a love story extraordinaire--literally, in that Henry and Clare love each other through the magic and pain of Henry's unwanted ability to travel spontaneously through time.

"The Chanters of Trimaris" trilogy by Kate Constable tells the tale of Calwyn and the land of Trimaris. Ms. Constable blends fantasy and ecology in a way that resonates with modern readers.

"A Certain Slant of Light" by Laura Whitcomb is a love story set in a sort of Purgatory. The book is both readable and comforting in its vision of what each of us needs to do to be the best we can be.

"Looking for Alaska" by John Green is a YA book about suicide, friendship, and humor, full of laughs, insights and a few well-placed tears.

"A Great and Terrible Beauty" and "Rebel Angels" by Libba Bray are the first two books in a dense fantasy trilogy set in Victorian England.


"The Sea of Trolls" and "The Land of the Silver Apples" by Nancy Farmer are great books for anyone looking for reading in a post-Potter world.

"Wild Blue Yonder" by Jean Thompson is a moving, funny tale of a dysfunctional family and its rather crazed teenaged daughter who is trying to find her place in the world.

"Tithe" and "Valiant" by Holly Black and "Wicked Lovely" by Melissa Marr are well-written modern horror books that transcend the clichés of the genre.

"The Book of Lost Things" is a wonderfully complex read by John Connolly takes fairy tales to their genuinely unsettling place.

The Photograph****

This book changed my life. Really.

Years ago, in my more than two decades love affair with my husband, we each wrote each other, at separate times, a horrible letter. We were young, we were angry, we had the clarity of those who've never had scary medical tests, we were not who we are now, either singularly or together. Anyway, I saved these two missives of acrimony because I thought someday I might use the words in a novel. However, after reading Ms. Lively's powerful The Photograph, I shredded the sheaves. I realized that, were I to suddenly die, my children might find those horrible words and, hence, see their parents' marriage through a different, sadder lens.

In The Photograph, Glyn, a widower in his early sixties, finds a photo of his lovely, young wife, Kath holding hands with Nick, her sister Elaine's husband. It's clear from the surreptitious way Kath and Nick are hiding their hands: they were lovers. Even though Kath has been dead for several years, Glyn becomes obsessed with finding out "the truth" about Kath, Nick and the years long gone. In the extraordinarily competent hands of Ms. Lively, the reader enters into the thoughts of all the players on her novel's stage. The impact of the found photograph resonates in the lives of not only Glyn, Nick and Elaine, but also in the life of Nick and Elaine's daughter, Polly, and in the life of Oliver, Nick's ex-business partner. Each character realizes several truths about the past and are able to see more clearly the present.

I cried as I read the last chapter of the book--I was so moved by interplay of love and loss Lively creates. It's so easy to look at another through the lens we choose and when we do so, we often miss so damn much. Others, and the lives we share with them, are marvelously untidy. The Photograph is a masterful novel--unflinching and yet sympathetic towards those who fill its pages.

Dragon Slippers**

Dragonslippers by Jessica Day George was a perfectly respectable, predictable, fantasy novel with a smart, cheeky young woman as the protagonist, Creel. I read this book with my 11 year old daughter and we both thought it was OK. It's certainly not taxing--it's fantasy Muzak, pleasant, forgettable and kind of a waste of reading time. Parts of the plot were so similar to the vastly superior Goose Girl by Shannon Hale that it had a whiff of plagiarism.

However, if you have a daughter in the 7-12 range who is always on the lookout for fantasy books with strong young women in them, I bet she'd enjoy this book. An few hours lost to an OK book are not really squandered, they're whiled away, and that's just fine.

To My Dearest Friends **

This chick-lit book by Patricia Volk let me down. A scribe no less than a book reviewer from THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote:

To My Dearest Friends is a cozy, kick-off-your-shoes-and-curl-up novel. If you happen to find it in an airport bookstore, you’re lucky. Just make sure you remember to catch your flight.

I found it to be a cozy, dull, help-you-go-to-sleep novel. I couldn't stand Alice, one of the novel's two protagonists and I found the other, Nanny, a natter-er! The feel good ending with its slightly odd plot twist seemed flat out saccharine.

Perhaps I am not a good candidate for chick lit--I was unable to finish another highly recommended CL book: Sheer Abandon. Whiny women or women whose lives work out to perfection by the end of the tale bore me. Kara Thrace, where are you when I need you?

The Foretelling **1/2

I read all of Alice Hoffman's books. Some, like Illumination Night, I love and have read again and again. Others, like The River King, I sped through and will never pick up again. Ms. Hoffman made her name writing books for adults but, in recent years, she has penned many a young adult novel. Of those I have read, The Foretelling is the one I like best. The story is a retelling of the Amazon women and it imagines them as warrior women whose wars cost them more than their culture can ultimately bear. If you are looking for a book to share with your daughter, this is a good one.