Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

I started reading this series on my honeymoon in Tahiti; therefore, it is entirely possible that I'm a little biased. That said, I LOVE this series! Sookie is one of my favorites. I really like that her character continues to grow without essentially changing. She learns new things and meets new people without changing her essential self.

This is definitely a brown paper cover sort of book. Bright colors, glitter and two flying vampires. It doesn't get much much more embarrassing than that!

In this episode of the life of a cocktail waitress beloved of two vampires, a weretiger and a werecollie, Sookie gets caught up in a civil war amongst the fae. Her great-grandpa's enemies focus their attention on Sookie and they are very very scary.

Also, Eric and Sookie get married! Sort of. Vampire style. There are strong hints that the next installation in the series will have some sort of climax/resolution of Sookie's relationship with Eric. The last book ended with the reader left waiting for an explanation of Eric's intentions. This book was more of the same. There is some nookie and some revelation of Eric's past, but no real resolution of the whole blood bond/amnesia interlude.

I can't wait for the next book!

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson

This book is not really all that embarrassing to be seen with - by my standards anyhow. I was pleasantly surprised by this, my first completed Neal Stephenson book. This author has been recommended to me by 4-5 people who all swear that I will LOVE his work. Then, every couple of years, I check The Baroque Cycle out from the library and rediscover that it is dry and boring and remember that I never succeed in completing even the first book in the series.

Having finally branched out to a new book by Mr. Stephenson, I understand why people kept trying to get me to read his work. It's fantastic! Despite Neal's space on the shelves in the SciFi section, this book is actually straight envirofiction. It's Carl Hiassen with a bike-messenger-on-crack type tone. Sangamon Taylor is a chemist working for a direct action environmental group. He regularly causes polluting corrupt drones to run in fear. He lives in a co-op, does a lot of drugs, eats Vietnamese food, talks a lot of smack, and is pretty much a jerk. He also passionately believes in what he does.

Enter an old college friend/foe who is working for a bio-tech company which is the subsidiary of a huge chemical company owned by an ex-Vice President who is currently running for President. The old friend has come up with an engineered e coli strain that has the potential to turn the world's oceans into toxic sludge. Sangamon defeats the corporation while being shot at, chased on land and at sea, blown up, poisoned and attacked by Satanists. The plot includes sex, drugs, and heavy metal all set in Boston's Harbor.

This book was a little slow in spots, but was overall a fantastic read. I recommend it to anyone who cares about the environment, who likes asshole men, who lives in Boston, who likes Carl Hiassen, or who just likes a fun story.

A Fine & Private Place by Peter S. Beagle

This one actually is not embarrassing to be seen with, but neither is it especially a book to be proud of. I picked up this book based on the fact that it was written by the author of The Last Unicorn which was one of my favorites during my pre-teen years.

I especially like the tie-in with Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" which was another fave from my teen years. This book is partially a love story between two ghosts, thus disproving that "...none do there (in the grave) embrace.." Good times.

Jonathan Rebeck has been living in a mausoleum in a New York cemetery for 20 years. He spends his days being fed by a raven and playing chess with the dead. The story opens at the burial of Michael who believes that he was poisoned by his wife. Michael meets Mr. Rebeck, discovers that there is an afterlife and that it is very boring, and decides to fight to retain his individuality. Mr. Rebeck, as he does with all ghosts, spends time talking to Michael and explaining the nature of the afterlife. Enter Laura, who was hit by a truck while crossing the street. Laura never had much of a life at all and never knew love or happiness.

Slowly, Laura and Michael fall in love while Mr. Rebeck begins spending time with a Yiddish-speaking, Bronx widow who comes to the cemetery to visit her husband's "house". Laura and Michael have just recognized their feelings for each other when in the course of the murder trial of Michael's wife, the fact comes out that Michael actually killed himself and deliberately implicated his wife in his death. At first, this tears the lovers apart, but their love - unlike live love - is based on reality and on clearly recognizing the truth of who each other really is. Laura still loves Michael. Unfortunately, proven a suicide, Michael must be removed from consecrated ground to another cemetery. During the disinterment of Michael's grave, Laura begs Mr. Rebeck to help them. Mr. Rebeck argues that there is nothing that he can do. He has not left the cemetery in 20 years and is acutely phobic about the thought of venturing out past the gates of his safe little world.

During the course of an internal monologue, Mr. Rebeck faces his self-justifications and doubts and accepts that the time has come to rejoin the living. He arranges with the Cuban night guard, who also sees ghosts, to disinter Laura's coffin and rebury her in the same cemetery as Michael, so that the two lovers may spend eternity together. This internal struggle is the climax of the novel and the actual implementation of the plan is anticlimactic, resulting in the decision of Mr. Rebeck to go back to retrain as a pharmacist and to live in senior-love with Mrs. Klapper.

There were whole sections of this book that were dry as dust and even more boring. However, just as I was about to give up on the story, I would reach a section filled with insight and metaphor and an ultra-simplistic trick of expressing highly complex concepts. This will never be one of my favorite books, but it was not a waste of time to read. Oddly, this is one of George RR Martin's faves. I don't really see that it was an influence on The Game of Thrones, but who knows? I would cautiously recommend this book.

The Shape-Changer's Wife by Sharon Shinn

I am a huge fan of Sharon Shinn. Summers in Castle Auburn is one of my favorite books and I loved her concept with the Archangel series. I even enjoyed the Thirteen Houses books up to a certain point in the series. Therefore, I was excited to finally read her first published work.

This is a small book with a central ethical question of whether one person has the right to impose his will on other beings whether human, animal, or vegetation.

Aubrey travels to apprentice with a great shapechanger. While learning how to change shape, he also learns about the shapechanger, his household and his wife. He discovers that the servants in the castle were originally animals and after falling in love with her, discovers that the shapechanger's wife was originally a willow tree in the King's grove. These discoveries shake and appall him, but do not inspire him to act. Then, the shapechanger brings home a new "niece" who used to be a fawn and now shares a room with the wizard. Still, Aubrey fails to act. It is only when the shapechanger returns from a trip with a dog who used to be a young noble of the court that Aubrey decides that he has reached his limit. He kills the shapechanger and restores all of the changed people, animals, and vegetation back to the original forms, including his beloved.

Interesting that it was only the violation of the rights of a human being that was untenable.

The story was simple, sweet and evocative. I'll remember this story for quite awhile, but I doubt that I will rush to reread it. Not a favorite book, but a good first effort by a fave author.

Promises in Death by JD Robb

Eve Dallas is back! After a couple of duds, Nora Roberts (J.D. Robb) pulls off a good one again.

If you skip over the cheesy, repetitive love scenes between Eve and the impossibly perfect Roarke, this is a tight murder "mystery" with some movement along the larger story arc.

We have a repeat appearance by Max Ricker and some serious development of Morris' character.

I laughed out loud a couple of times and really enjoyed this book. On the plus side, the cover is sedate enough that I feel no shame carrying this on the bus. I'm good for another 2-3 churned out installments now that I have renewed hope that there will be the occasional good story along the series. Luckily, since Roberts produces 2-3 of these books/year, we won't have long to wait for the next book.

Magic Strikes by Ilona Andrews

This hits a 4 on the embarrassment scale, but a 5 on the awesome read scale! I love this series.

Kate Daniels is a mercenary on loan to the Knights of Merciful Aid who is also a friend of the pack (shapeshifters) and the daughter of a powerful, immortal wizard/vampire controller. All of this takes place in a future, alternate Atlanta. Fantastic!

This third book in the series also throws in an underground fight circuit which arranges matches to the death between whatever creatures want to participate.

Kate and her furry future mate, Curran, join forces to save their friend Derek and to defeat an evil nonhuman fight team. In the course of events, Kate chops up a number of people with her sword and uses some magic that reveals her to those in the know as her father's daughter.

All in all, a fantastic (pun intended) story with humor, action, romance (just a hint) and philosophy. What I really like about the author is that she manages to get all this packed into 320 pages instead of the 700 or so that a fantasy blockbuster usually takes. This is a light read with a lot of texture. I highly recommend it despite the humiliation of being seen on the bus with this book cover. Ouch!

Watch Series by Sergei Lukyanenko

FANTASTIC series! There is a reason why this has been a runaway international bestseller. This series is a combination original new fantasy series, philosophical conversation, and fairly classic Russian lit. It's a great look into Post-Soviet Russia and is a rollicking great story.

The basic premise is that there are among us "Others", people who start out the same as you or me, but have the potential to be initiated into life as a magic-wielding, immortal Other. Whether you are feeling positive or negative emotions at the time of initiation determines whether you will be a Light One or a Dark One, whether you will work for Good or for Individualism and Evil. Hmm, no anti-capitalism bias there. Once that has been determined, the Other may choose to go about his/her everyday (immortal) life, or to join the respective Watch; police force, and work as a spy/soldier in the war between good and evil.

Anton is the everyman hero who transforms into a still unlikely but wildly fortunate hero by the fourth book. Fumbling his way through the machinations of the Great Ones, he learns about life, about the nature of good and evil and the nature of the very universe. All while drinking lots and lots of vodka.

I would go out and buy these books for everyone if I had the money and thought that you would actually read them! Go, read!

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This book is fantastic! I first became interested in Bod, short for Nobody, when I read his short story in a collection of stories by Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things. While I wasn't exactly dying to read more, I was intrigued enough to order a copy of the newly published expanded book from the library. This was an excellent choice. I am a huge fan of Mr. Gaiman's books. His sense of the absurd and fantastic really meshes well with my life-view. A book about a boy raised by ghosts in a graveyard, watched over by a guardian vampire and substitute-guardian werewolf is just one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time! Qualifier: the inclusion of a mummy to the team of guardians was a little too much. You have to draw the line somewhere.

I would definitely recommend this book to any Neil Gaiman fans and would probably recommend it to someone unfamiliar with his work. The flow of the storyline is a little choppy, most likely because of its origins as a couple of short stories. All in all, I consider the two hours I spent reading this book to have been time well-spent! Sure, I could have been trying to solve world hunger, but reading about how to defeat a ghoul will probably prove useful at some point in my life, right?

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

This book was intended for inclusion in my companion blog: Books to Brag About. Unfortunately, after reading the book and digesting the message, I have had to reassign the placement of my review into Books I'm Ashamed to be Seen With. Ouch.

I culled this book from one of those, "Best Business Books of All Times" lists published by BNET. The method has gotten great reviews and has been used by IBM and other luminaries of the public and private sector. The author's career was made following the publication of this book, and he has been able to support himself on consulting and speaking engagements regarding the 6 Hats for the last twenty years.

All of that said, I was excited to read the book and to learn about this analytical tool and thinking guideline that I was ashamed to admit I had never heard of. Hmm. This method is currently being taught in elementary school as the way to think. I am sincerely sceptical regarding the quality of cognition that will be developed through the use of the 6 Hat method.

Basically, different patterns of thinking are developed: organizational; factual; positive; critical; creative; and emotional, and are assigned a color. The individual or the group is then supposed to regulate their thought patterns to follow the designated type of thought allowed during a period of time. To that end, either an agenda is set during a "blue hat" moment (organizational) regarding which thinking hat will follow the other; or, a facilitator will ask members of a group to "put on their yellow hats for a few minutes", etc. etc.

This is ridiculously juvenile. The basic concept, that a human being is capable of controlling his/her thoughts and is not at the mercy of his/her thought processes, is one that I heartily concur with. I am astounded that more people haven't realized that the brain can be forced from an unproductive emotional train of thought and disciplined into following a more rational mindset. However, the synthetic, overly structured nature of setting a thinking style agenda in advance as well as the ridiculous, overly jolly image of the silly hats is ridiculous.

I don't know if the concept of controlling your thought patterns can only be attractive through a simple and visually appealing message or if the author actually had the moment of epiphany through the visualization of six different hats, but I wish that Mr. de Bono had stuck to more scholarly theory and skipped the whole hat metaphor.

Bravo for the underlying message of rationalism - even the emotional thinking pattern serves to recognize and identify emotional subtexts to bring them to the open and hopefully to bring to light the self-serving and ignoble nature of most people's innermost thoughts. However, a trip to the embarrassing book list was earned by being so doggone silly!

Southern Vampire Series by Charlaine Harris

I picked up my first Sookie Stackhouse mystery novel for light reading on my honeymoon. Really, you can't spend all your time with your new husband, can you? :)

The one that I happened to read first was Definitely Dead, number 6 in the series. Now, normally, I would never read a series out of order, since the development of the characters and the change in the author's style over time is one of the most interesting parts of reading a series; however, this book's cover had a glittery image of a blonde girl riding a tiger through the air with a vampire reaching for the tiger's tail. It just doesn't get any better than that. Also, ever since reading The Life of Pi, I've had a fondness for books with tigers.

Anyhoo, I read the book during a couple of down hours on my luna de miel and absolutely loved it! The storyline was not difficult to pick up and Sookie is absolutely adorable as a cocktail waitress/mind reader from Northern Louisiana. The vampires were approached from a new angle, I love the whole Kings and Queens thing, and the whole tone of the writing is just light and downhome and fun! This actually came as something of a surprise to me, as I have seen these books in Borders for years and have dismissed them as yet another cynical attempt by a mainstream author to capitalize on the recent popularity of paranormal fiction. Instead, this really is a fresh new series with a series joie de vivre and an evolving story line.

The romance thread throughout the series is a lot of fun, though I for one am hoping that Sookie does not end up with Sam. He's cute, but just not exciting enough. The other players in Sookie's love life are: Vampire Bill; vampire Sheriff Eric; werepanther Calvin; Were Alcide; weretiger Quinn, and a little Christmas gift from her grandpa, a fairy disguised as a werewolf! After all, Sookie's chances with a human are hurt by her ability to read the minds of human beings.

The gradual introduction of new characters and new aspects of the paranormal world keep each book fresh and interesting. Sookie's evolution from quirky and naive to even quirkier but much less naive is good, but I'm still hoping for good things to come to her, especially now that we know that she is 1/8 fairy!

The books might be a little embarrassing to be seen with, but at eight books and counting, I'd say that they are worth a little pink in your cheek. Go forth and read!

1. Dead Until Dark
2. Living Dead in Dallas
3. Club Dead
4. Dead to the World
5. Dead as a Doornail
6. Definitely Dead
7. All Together Dead
8. From Dead to Worse
9. Dead and Gone (to be released May 5, 2009)