Review: Mr. Norrell claims to be the only true magician left in England. His solitary life keeps him far and away from prying eyes, and he spends copious amounts of time in his personal library reading the books he’s accrued through monetary donations, bribery, threats, and other means of dubious nature. In the wee beginning of the book, he cows a sect of theoretical magicians into agreeing to give up their own innocent and uneffective research into magic. His lust for isolation matches his caution and arrogance, and he slowly begins to emerge as a force to be noted. An early act he performs to raise eyebrows involves literally giving life to a dead woman. His fame grinds to halt when he takes an apprentice: Jonathan Strange. Read the rest of this entry »

Review: The government has limited the number of children couples can have to two, but the Wiggin family has a third. Their first two children, Peter and Valentine, are geniuses, but their personalities are polar opposites. Peter harbors a sadistic soul while his sister Valentine projects benevolence and empathy. Their youngest sibling is Andrew Wiggin. Due to his status as a “third”, he is marginalized by his classmates and peers, and he serves as a constant reminder to his parents of their unorthodox situation. Meanwhile, the world is constantly vigilante against another alien attack by what are known as the “buggers”. The species, which resemble giant insects, launched devastating attacks on Earth years ago, and the government keeps the populace reminded of the potential for another assault. Read the rest of this entry »

Review: Valentino Achak Deng, a Dinka living in Southern Sudan, is seven years old when Northern Sudanese raiders come to his small African village, burn it down and finish off a massacre that began months earlier. He is separated from his parents, and in the chaos of burning, screaming, and dying, he flees into the forest surrounding his village. Where does a small boy turn to when faced with the dangers of wild animals, when those that would help him are slaughtered, when armed men roam the countryside hoping to exterminate his people? Read the rest of this entry »

Review: Henry DeTamble stumbles through time erratically and without control. An extremely rare disorder propels him unexpectedly in and out of time, and he struggles to deal with the chaos it creates in his life. Claire is the love of his life, a woman whose love endures while she copes with Henry’s disappearances as he flits in and out of the chronological progression she is a part of. Read the rest of this entry »

Many years ago, when I was a small child, my family’s dog, Grendel, chased a cat down in our yard and slaughtered it right in front of my eyes. I have never seen a look so terrible as the haunting, wide eyes of the cat which quickly disappeared in an explosion of caterwauling and orange, tabby fur. At the tender age of three this was extraordinarily unnerving, and I consigned myself to the indoors for the next eighteen months of my life. During this self-imposed imprisonment I became familiar with what I now know are called “books”.

One of my first reads was a small hard bound book called The Whales Go By. It is the story of a young baleen whale separated from his pod during their migration and his experiences with loss, a storm, and dangerous killer whales. This was soon followed by Scupper, The Sailor Dog, who goes to sea to follow his destiny and is shipwrecked along the way. Read the rest of this entry »