A Game of Thrones
George R. R. Martin


This is a perfect book.

There's honestly nothing I can think of that could improve it in any way. This is a book that made me shout at it, that made me giggle and cry, that made me gasp, that made me tremble and hate and love. It's seamless; I'd say it's unputdownable, except that sometimes I found I desperately needed to put it down because I was overwhelmed with the wonder of it, only to pick it up again half an hour later.

I've come to the G.R.R. Martin love-train quite late; good friends have been telling me for nigh on four years that I ought to read the Song of Ice and FireYour browser may not support display of this image. series, saying that I, as a lover of politics and intrigue in fantasy, will find much to enjoy in it. Some perversity or another kept me away; maybe I saw them as "boy books" (even though the friends who told me about them are women), or found them too fat and unwieldy (I used to love fat books, but I've lately become suspicious of them). Maybe it was the fact that the series isn't done yet, and I've seen my friends growing ever more frantic as the next installment's publication date gets pushed back, back, and back again. Maybe it was that, subconsciously, I knew how desperately I'd come to love them. Either way, I'm well and truly and hopelessly hooked.

The Seven Kingdoms have a tumultuous political history, but have been at peace since Robert Baratheon slew the Mad King Aerys Targaryen some ten years earlier and took his throne. He accomplished this thanks to the other noble families of the realm, but most notably the Lannisters, to whom his Queen belongs, and the Starks, led by his best friend Eddard. When the Hand of the King, John Arryn, dies under suspicious circumstances, King Robert summons Eddard from his northern stronghold of Winterfell to become the new Hand and help him rule the realm. Unfortunately, King's Landing is teeming with dozens of ambitious, competing, and treacherous nobles, all keen to play – and win – the Game of Thrones.

We mainly follow members of the Stark family throughout, and just thinking about them makes me want to take each and every single reader out there aside and personally explain why every one of them is fabulous. It's the fact that they're so Your browser may not support display of this image.real, and the world that Martin creates is fully as rich, detailed and compelling as they are. His writing is so immediate, so skillful, that it was never, at any point, possible for me to lean back and say, "oh, what a clever bit of writing," or "ah, what excellent characterization." Instead, my reactions were substantially more visceral, to the tune of "NO YOU EVIL MAN HOW COULD YOU!" or "AUGH! AUGH! YOU CAN'T KILL HIM!" I think that any book that makes you want to hold the author up against a wall by the neck and shake him – in a good way – is ultimately successful, and this one did that and more.

That being said, please allow me to offer a few warnings to those curious about beginning the series. First, don't begin this book if you have some kind of pressing project due in a couple of days, because, trust me, you won't hand it in on time. Second, make sure you know someone who's read A Game of Thrones (at the very least) before you begin; you'll find them extremely helpful when you get to the distressing bits and find you need someone to scream and rant at. Third, for your own sakes, buy Clash of Kings at the same time. The last thing your family members / significant others / friends want is to see you in G.R.R. Martin withdrawal. And lastly…

Why are you still reading this review? Buy the book already!

Coraline
By Neil Gaiman
This is such a great book. It’s creepy and dark in all the right ways, without needing to resort to gore or violence in order to scare, and blessed with an utterly endearing heroine who loves exploring and hates food made “from recipes.” Straightforward and beautifully written.




Harper Trophy, $8.99

Ayn Rand Answers
Edited by Robert Mayhew
Speaking as someone who still loves her novels… This is the book that made me realize that Ayn Rand is mad as pants. It could easily have been titled “When Megalomaniacs Smoke Crack.” If you hate her, you’ll love this. If you love her… Please, please read this book.




New American Library, $21.00

Lud-in-the-Mist
By Hope Mirlees
This fantasy novel was written in 1926 by a friend of Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot – but don’t let that scare you off. This is a book that manages to be as clever and mischievous as it is beautiful and haunting – much like the fairy folk to be found inside it. If you like Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner and Charles de Lint, chances are you’ll love it.




Cold Spring Press, $16.00

Etched City
By K.J. Bishop
Stunning and startling, this book is disturbingly near to perfect. Displaying wit, decadence, carefully crafted corruption and scintillating dialogue between astonishing characters, this is a novel as interested in plumbing the depths of human motivation as it is in exploring the fascinating cityscape of Ashamoil. And it’s her FIRST BOOK.

I highly, highly recommend it.


Spectra Fiction, $19.00

Mr. Timothy
By Louis Bayard
I have to say this was my favourite book of 2004 – and I read it in December, so it isn’t as if it was alone in the running. Beautiful writing goes hand in hand with a realistic evocation of the grit and horrors of the nineteenth century underbelly of London; it’s funny and poignant and shocking at once; the characters are both heartbreaking and utterly endearing. It’s a book I desperately didn’t want to see end, but love too much to want to see a sequel.


Harper Perennial, $19.95

Tracking Ground: A University of Ottawa Anthology
Edited by Sarah Ruffolo
This anthology features the work of eleven students (and one professor) who participated in a year-long poetry workshop at the University of Ottawa in 2003-04. It's quite skillfully edited by Sarah Ruffolo, who also edits the Bywords quarterly poetry journal. There's some really excellent, evocative poetry in here, spanning a wide range of styles-and buying it will most likely give you that warm, fuzzy feeling inside that comes from having supported a local publication. Also, when these poets become famous, you'll own what is, for most of them, their first published work.

Friday Circle, $4.99

The Spiderwick Chronicles
By Holly Black, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi.
These five little books are wonderful. Though they're definitely the next great thing in what we pretentious English majors like to call "KidLit," don't expect Harry Potter rip-offs; these are smaller in scope (the story of one family instead of a whole wizarding world), and there's less of sorcery and more of the wild and fey to Black's work. These charming books combine great storytelling and beautiful illustrations with very real, solid characters that kids can definitely relate to, and there are all sorts of goblins, faeries and mysterious attics to be found within. As a personal addendum, I can't help a bit of personal bias here, since these books got my twelve year old brother to enjoy reading.

Simon & Schuster, $14.95 each, $57.99 for box set.

American Gods
Neil Gaiman
This is a brilliant, fast-paced, unputdownable book that I can't seem to stop re-reading. Great characters and fantastic dialogue especially, but listen up: yes, Sandman was good. Yes, it was ground-breaking and trend-setting and revolutionized the graphic novel genre-but trust me when I say that Gaiman's actual writing is much, much better in his stand-alone novels. So, even if you didn't like the Sandman series, even if comic books aren't your thing… Buy this book. Read it. Then, join the "I love Mr. Wednesday" fan club which I'll be starting up shortly. (full review pending)

Harper Collins, Perennial, $20.95

Reading in the Dark
Seamus Deane
A sad, haunting novel, subtly threaded with the magic and superstitions of Ireland. Set in Northern Ireland during the '40s and '50s, it's beautifully written and incredibly moving.






Random House, Vintage, 19.95

The Dead School
Patrick McCabe
Our in-store "shelf-talker" cards definitely aren't big enough for the praise I want to heap upon this book, but neither, I suspect, is a full-sized web-page. All you really need to know, however, is that brilliant characters, flawless pacing, and a unique black humour entirely McCabe's own make this into a work I can unabashedly call genius.




H.B. Fenn, Picador, $14.99

The Syrian Christ
Abraham Mitrie Rihbany
This is a beautiful, thought-provoking book. Written in 1916 before the British-French partition of the Middle-East, it places the Bible back into the Semitic context that produced it, and explores the ways in which Syrian (read as: Semitic) culture permeates the Bible at every turn. Written in gentle, elegant prose, this book remains immensely relevant and is a fascinating read.

Apamea Press, $22.95

Summerland
Michael Chabon
Coyote invented baseball, did you know? And it's the favoured game of giants, faeries, Sasquatches and were-creatures in this wonderfully original novel about child-heroes, friendship and the end of the world. While Chabon obviously knows his stuff, you definitely don't need to be a baseball aficionado to thoroughly enjoy this excellent book (though if you are, I wonder how you'll be able to help loving it), and at $12.95, it's a - well, I'm sure you can supply the baseball puns for yourselves. But read it!

H.B. Fenn, Hyperion, $12.95

Tooth and Claw
Jo Walton
Imagine Jane Austen's world, only peopled with dragons. Now, before you start laughing, imagine someone actually pulling that off. Hard, right? And yet Jo Walton manages it beautifully in this immensely clever book. A little harsher than Austen on the whole -- dragons eat each other -- but really, it just makes it better. I was hooked by the end of the first chapter. Also, you know a book's at least half decent when it wins the World Fantasy Award, if you'll forgive the massive understatement, and this one did, for 2004. Give it a shot!

Tor Fantasy, $9.99

Blackbird House
Alice Hoffman
In Cape Cod, there is a small farm compassing a small house, called Blackbird House. It's called that because of the white blackbird -- perhaps a ghost, perhaps not -- that has haunted the house since the eighteenth century. In it, people lose things; people who are lost find things; desire, love, heartbreak and fulfillment chase each other through the rafters and around the fields full of sweet peas, while the house witnesses and keeps their stories. This isn't the tale of one individual or family but of several, whose only link to each other through the years is the house and the grounds surrounding it, as well as the traces of themselves they leave behind.

If you're unfamiliar with Hoffman's work, you should know that her prose is lucid, sensuous and magical, her characters real, complex and complete, and her stories always imbued with a charm entirely her own. Blackbird House is a good introduction to and a perfect example of her style, often tagged as "magical realism." She takes fantastical elements-a three-hundred pound halibut that bites off a man's leg, cows that give milk so sweet and filling that one cup will slake a day's thirst-and weaves them into psychological realities so honest and compelling that one must believe the fantasy is truer than the fact.

If you are familiar with Hoffman's work, you should know that Blackbird House takes her skill a step further, that each story stands on its own and is as complete in itself as ripe fruit plucked from a tree. Like many of her books, this one will make you crave things, whether they be sweet peas or milk, honeycomb or salt air. There are cranberries, crimson pears and blood-red boots to be found within; women named Violet, Garnet and Ruby; brothers, sisters and snatches of whale-song. It is a beautiful book that will move you to tears for a different reason each time you read it.

Published by Ballantine Books, $21.00.

(Thanks for taking a break from a summer grad course in Medieval Romance to whip this off, kiddo -- Pat)