I really do mean to keep up with this better. I have no excuse for not writing, except for my own laziness. However, I haven't been entirely lazy. I have been reading a lot, among other things. Garth Nix - Across the Wall 305 p. A story set in the world of the Abhorsen Trilogy, and a Choose Your Own Adventure spoof are just some of the highlights of this clever, entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable book. Jennifer Donnelly - A Northern Light 396 p. A charming book set against the backdrop of a real murder in 1906. The main character is quite well done, though some of the other characters are lacking in dimension. An engaging book. Garth Nix - The Ragwitch 391 p. Nix's children are precocious, but not stereotypically so, which makes them much more interesting to read about that many other characters. Like all of Nix's work, I found this book hard to put down. Edith Pattou - East 507 p. I'm a sucker for retellings of fairy tales, but this one is particularly good. Surprising and well-written, and drawing from history and mythology as well as the original fairy tale, to weave a multi-dimensional tale. Libba Bray - A Great and Terrible Beauty 432 p. Picked up on a whim because I liked the title. Reminds me of the gothic novels of which I am very fond. I look forward to reading the sequel. Elliot Perlman - Seven Types of Ambiguity 640 p. Perlman is clearly intelligent, but he seem to need to show off his intelligent, which is both distracting, and sometimes boring. I'm still not sure whether or not I liked this book. Cathy Hapka - Lost: Endangered Species 195 p. Ummm...yeah, okay, this is a silly, silly book...as books made from television shows often are. David Laskin - The Children's Blizzard 295 p. Real life tragedies: murder, flood, hurricane, blizzards, you name it...I want to read about it. This was an excellent exploration of the events which lead up to the blizzard, and the reasons why it turned so deadly. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee - Yarn Harlot: The Secret Life of a Knitter 240 p. Love. Love. Love this book. I laughed out loud. Really. If you knit, you should read this (that is, if you haven't already...in which case, you should read it again). Jasper Fforde - The Well of Lost Plots 416 p. There are parts of this series that I really, really like. Things that are clever, or innovative, or just plain fun. And then, sometimes, it seems to get too wrapped up in the gimmick and kind of loses me. So far this year, I have read 17 books, totalling 6833 pages. Go me!