On my way to Ljubljana, I stopped in London, and ganked a couple of books not yet available in the Colonies. So, to rub it in . . .
A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon. Haddon's last book, of course, was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the book everyone was reading in I'm going to say 2003. (At some point, I want to do a study of some sort about how it seems like at any given time, everyone you know is reading one particular book. Like right now, I think everyone is reading Jodi Picoult. Last year, it was Middlesex.) A Spot of Bother is neither as buzz-prone (no flashy narrative tricks, no mystery) nor as -- um, good -- as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It actually reads a bit like Brothers & Sisters in novel form. Haddon does an excellent job with one character, however: George, the patriarch balancing between existential anxiety and full-blown madness, is so compelling he almost throws the book off balance.
The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly. Wow. I'm not sure where to start. Let's try, imagine The Wizard of Oz or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, only informed by actual psychological insight. On the eve of World War II, a London adolescent loses his mother. When the Blitz begins, his family -- father, stepmother, baby half-brother -- withdraws to a remote house while the boy withdraws into his reading. Then either he goes completely bat-shit crazy, or there's magic, or he's just working things out, allegorically -- take your pick. No matter how you interpret what's going on, though, there's a lot that's just really disturbing and amazing. I think people are letting their kids read this book, which . . . bravo.
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