Relatively Recent Reading: Mar-Apr 2010
MARCH
APRIL
- Jennifer Murdley's Toad by Bruce Coville (156 pp.)
first line: "If Jennifer Murdley hadn't been forced to wear her brother's underpants to school, the whole thing might never have happened."
- The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin & Sabine Concludes by Nick Bantock
first line: "Aug 12 / Sabine / I was sure I understood."
- A Book of Epitaphs by Raymond Lamont Brown (123 pp.)
first line (of the preface): "This selection of epitaphs has been planned to show as many of man's emotions as possible, so that we have a book of laughter and piety, irony and wisdom, wit and humour."
- Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary by Brandon Mull (527 pp.)
first line: "Kendra Sorenson briskly scraped the head of a wooden match against the rough strip on the side of a rectangular matchbox."
- Strange Deaths: More Than 375 Freakish Fatalities by Ian Simmons, et al. (120 pp.)
first line (of the introduction): "Death and taxes (or, as Ian misheard as a child, taxis) are supposed to be the only constants in life and, as Peter Greenaway has one of his characters point out in his film Drowning by Numbers, 'A great many things are dying very violently all the time.'"
- 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (316 pp.)
stories: Best New Horror / 20th Century Ghost / Pop Art / You Will Hear the Locust Sing / Abraham's Boys / Better Than Home / The Black Phone / In the Rundown / The Cape / Last Breath / Dead-Wood / The Widow's Breakfast / Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead / My Father's Mask / Voluntary Committal / Scheherazade's Typewriter
APRIL
- Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow (308 pp.)
first line: "Let's sing about the man there / at the breakfast table / brown skin, thin features, white T, / his olive hand making endless circles / in the classifieds / 'wanted' 'wanted' 'wanted' / small jobs little money / but you have to start somewhere."
- The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong (390 pp.)
first line (of the prologue): "Mommy forgot to warn the new babysitter about the basement."
first line (of the first chapter): "I bolted up in bed, one hand clutching my pendant, the other wrapped in my sheets."
- The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong (357 pp.)
first line: "When the door to my cell clicked open, the first thought that flitted through my doped-up brain was that Liz had changed her mind and come back."
- Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong (414 pp.)
first line (of the prologue): "Todd adjusted his leather power seat and smiled."
first line (of the first chapter): "I was in trouble with the Elders. Again."
- Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong (528 pp.)
first line (of the prologue): "'Got another CSI question for you,' Gloria said as Simon walked into the communication hub with an armload of papers."
first line (of the first chapter): "I sat in a hotel room, across from two thirty-something witches in business suits, listening as they said all the right things."
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer Omnibus, Volume 3 (graphic novel)