How about some content instead of moderator blather? :D

[jadis]

I'm still behind pace for 50 books this year, but this may be one of the best years I've had in recent memory. I think I only hit 25 for the whole year in 2006, so I'll take what I can get.

1. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
2. The Brief History of the Dead - Kevin Brockmeier
3. Diary of a Mad Housewife - Sue Kaufman
4. Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk
5. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
6. Fledgling - Octavia E. Butler
7. Seed to Harvest: Wild Seed: Octavia Butler
8. Seed to Harvest: Mind of My Mind: Octavia Butler
9. Seed to Harvest: Clay's Ark: Octavia Butler
10. Seed to Harvest: Patternmaster: Octavia Butler
11. Cell: Stephen King
12. Into Thin Air: Jon Krakauer
13. King Rat: James Clavell
14. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove: Christopher Moore
15. Diary: Chuck Palahniuk
16. Lullaby: Chuck Palahniuk
17. The Memory Keeper's Daughter: Kim Edwards
18. Neverwhere: Neil Gaiman
19. Evidence of Things Unseen: Marianne Wiggins
20. The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini

1. Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwartz - A book about family secrets centered around a young single woman (Amanda) whose sister has died and left behind her daughter Ruth for Amanda to raise. The circumstances of her sister's death are the secret that Amanda cannot bring herself to reveal, and it shapes the lives of everyone around her. I believe this selected for Oprah's Book Club. My thoughts: It was engaging (I think I read it in under 2 days), but this sort of plot occasionally makes me want to reach into the pages and shake the main character and yell "JUST TELL SOMEONE YOUR SECRET ALREADY SO WE CAN GET ON WITH IT!!" Of course, if they did that, there's be no plot and hence no book, so there's that.
2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy - A post-apocalyptic novel about a man and his son travelling alone though a grey and grim (and dangerous) world as they make their way towards the coast in search of "the good guys", of which there are few left in this dystopican future. I like Cormac McCarthy's style, and I'm a huge fan of dystopian fiction, and this book didn't disappoint. The book focuses on the relationship between the father/son and explores the power of hope and will to survive. I mostly enjoyed it, however...the anal and pedantic part of me occasionally had a hard time getting past the paucity of detail about what had happened to the world. I know that this was deliberate on McCarthy's part, but I had a hard time imagining what could have happened to result in the world he described and it interfered with my suspension of disbelief.
3. All the Pretty Horses (The Border Trilogy, Part I), Cormac McCarthy - A young man in post-WWII Texas finds himself aimless after his grandfather passes away and his mother sells the family ranch. He sets off for Mexico with his best friend and their horses, hoping to find a future for himself, but finding instead heartbreak and hardship. Again, I'm really enjoying McCarthy's style, and I couldn't put this book down. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.
4. Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl - A teenage genius (Blue) and her father, an itinerant professor of poli/sci, settle down in a small town in NC for her senior year before going off to Harvard. Blue meets a mysterious teacher named Hannah, who is murdered (not a spoiler, this is set up in the intro) and sets off a chain of events that turn Blue's life and future upside down. Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Pessl's use of language nearly makes me weep with gratitude. Descriptive and clever without making you feel like she's showing off having memorized the thesaurus. Hundreds of sneaky little pop-culture references, and a page-turning plot that will have you unable to put the book down after page 250 or so. I look forward to her future works.
5. Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris - A novel covering Hannibal Lecter's childhood and the horrors he suffered during his family's exile during WWII and the genesis of his eventual madness. This book had potential, but I think Harris is painting by numbers at this point. I read this in the span of a few hours on a bus trip to the Watkins Glen Wine Festival, chosen solely because I knew it would be fluff, and I was right. One of the inherent problems with a prequel is that we already know Hannibal Lecter, so there's absolutely no tension in the scenes where his fate might be at risk. There are also some contradictory things going on in Hannibal's mind (what leads how down the path to cannibalism) that are just a little hard to believe, considering how intelligent and self-aware Hannibal is purported to be. I give it a giant "Meh."
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling - Yes, I succumbed. Blew through it in about 10 hours, now I don't have to worry about having it spoiled while I moderate your entries. ;) That's all I have to say about that.

In progress: The Crossing (The Border Trilogy: Book II), Cormac McCarthy