The Forest.....or??????????

In the Woods by Tana French


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
a cracking good Police Procedural...complete with Moody Detectives...a Cold Case that will not die...a truly dastardly Psychopathic (Twisted?) Sister......angst, ennui, political machinations..the whole gamut...but more than that, i saw it as a bittersweet meditation on the fleeting innocence of childhood, the uncertainty of memory, and the fragility of the nuclear Family.......

Exquisitely plotted and paced, this is one amazing book...auspicious for a debut

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The Coup of Coups (Couscous?)

Cages by Dave McKean


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
the best of the best of the best....even if you don't "like" Graphic Novels..this is a Masterpiece. Art/Creativity/Censorship..it's all here...Black & White and Color

The Help?

The Help by Kathryn Stockett


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
One in a line of Southern novels featuring "spunky" women....in this case, two black maids and a white college girl, returned home with "no prospects" (i. e. without a husband in sight). What sets this story apart from the rest is the project in which these three engage themselves....the truth about the lives of "colored" maids....THE HELP, as it were. a bold venture in 1962..in Jackson, Mississippi. A bold venture well told, with a minimum of hand-wringing, and only the requisite Stereotyping....The author is a dab hand at storytelling. I liked the characters who deserved such, and pitied the rest. This book won't set the world on fire, but is an enjoyable read..that left me thinking, again, about the destructive roles that Racism and Fear play in our lives..to this day.



..........and yet...Another

The Night Battles by M.F. Bloxam


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A pre-Christian fertility cult is alive and well in modern-day Valparuta, Sicily. The "Benandanti" still do battle with the "Melandanti"...in Night Battles..to ensure the success of the Harvest. I am in no way equipped to discuss the historical aspects of this book...so i point my finger in the direction of a title mentioned by the Author herself The Night Battles: Witches and Agrarian Cults in the sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg....there is also a Website for this book.....http://thenightbattles.com....

the Paranormal aspect of this book? Not the Laurell K Hamilton variety..no hunky weres and vamps..herein you will find Folklore still liviing..lying close to the living bones...herein you will also find two seriously flawed characters (the Romance angle, if you will)
............Joan: a failed American academic, trying to come to terms with her trashed career, her own past, her mother's death, her childhood in Sicily, to which she's returned in a last ditch effort at meaningful work

............Chiesa....the Man-of-Mystery...the Archivist of Valparuta....at whose behest Joan has landed in this Sicilian backwater.....Chiesa..a man with more secrets than is healthy for anyone to bear...is he, or is he not an actual Benandanti? or is he a flunky for the local Mafia (which no one names directly)?

who is using who(m) here? to what ends? the mutual obsession precludes any Romance-of-the- Doomed...in other words...HOLD THE HANKIES...neither of these people is likeable...too many sharp edges...Joan's tendency to ramble is annoying....but this trait works to the Author's purpose....which is to make a strange and compelling novel...one of the more Unusual i have read in the past year..and i am a Fool for the Unusual

4 Stars (and i look forward to the author's next effort..whenever)


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