The Egyptologist, Arthur Phillips

It's hard to talk about this one without giving the book's "surprise" ending away. This is the story of Egyptologist Ralph Trilipush's archaeological expedition to open the tomb of King Atum-Hadu, a pharaoh whose very existence is questioned by most Egyptian experts. Trilipush hits Egypt in the same season that Carter opens the tomb of Tut-ankh-amen, though without quite the same results. We get the story via letters and journals kept by Trilipush, and through those that correspond with him, and through letters written years later by a detective named Ferrell who is convinced that Trilipush is a fraud. It quickly becomes obvious that the well-born Trilipush is quite the raving egomanic, whose talent for historical revision rivals even mind. The book has a "surprise" ending that I'm sorry to say wasn't much of a surprise, though it was throughout an engaging read. The best way to sum it up: entertaining.

Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris

"Five Quarters of the Orange" is the story of Frambroise and her siblings Reine-Claude and Cassis -- children of a migraine-suffering mother and a killed-in-action soldier. During World War II the three children turn informant on their tiny French village, trading secrets for candy and fishing tackle. As their relationship with their mother deterioriates, so does the situation with the Germans stationed nearby. Harris folds the story of Frambroise's childhood into what's happening years later as Frambroise tries to run a small restaurant in the village under a different name. Harris' writing, as always, makes your mouth water and your nose twitch as the children put down buckwheat pancakes and saucissson. The plot moves forward at a good pace, and the characters are interesting, if not believable. I have one major complaint about the book -- and that has to do with the building of suspense. Harris spends more than 250 pages building toward the childhood and adult climax, promising to reveal a terrible secret when the denouement is finally reached. Sadly, I found both secret and crisis less than they had built up to be, which lessened the overall impact of the book.

Troll: A Love Story, Johanna Sinisalo

Troll is a semi-sweet taste of Finnish fiction. Handsome, gay, advertising photographer Michael comes home late one night to find a group of teens teasing a young troll cub in his courtyard. Beguiled by the troll, Michael takes it in, hiding it from others even as he tries to learn what to feed it. As his involvement with the troll, Pessi, intensifies, Michael's relationships with others start to warp. Sinisalo's writing, through the filter of translation, is slightly awkward but fast-paced. Action is interspersed with excerpts from scholarly and literary works about trolls. A quick read, a sweet book, but nothing special.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

For whatever reason, I had the impression that "The Picture of Dorian Gray" was going to be yet another closely written Victorian novel delving into the inner lives of the poor rich. And, actually, it is, but it's also a fantasy, a science fiction folly -- and that, I didn't expect. Dorian Gray is an unbelievably handsome gentleman who makes a deal with the devil. His portrait, instead of his face, shows the effects of age and a decadent lifestyle. The freedom this gives him sends him spiraling into evil behavior and corruption, which Wilde illustrates with admirable literary aplomb. I don't know how Wilde could stand himself, the way he can turn a phrase is mind-boggling. The book is short, sweet and fantastic.

Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh, C.J. Cherryh

Cherryh is a ... comprehensive... writer, and that's true of these short stories as much as it is in Cyteen or Tripoint. Cherryh is never content to set up a situation or a problem and then solve it. No, her stories require inventions of worlds, including social, legal, economic and political systems. These are among the densest short stories you will ever read; on page 466 I found a 125-word sentence describing light hitting books and floor in a hallway. The shortest story in this collection (page 586) takes microbes from reproduction to space travel in the space of a paragraph. For the dedicated fan and hardcore science fiction lover.

I Am Madame X, Gioia Diliberto

I was seduced by the cover of this book, and the concept -- a biography of Madame X, subject of John Singer Sargent's infamous portrait. Diliberto uses this novel to reconstruct the life of this society darling. It's a neat idea, but it's only a so-so book. Diliberto tries to give us an idea of what Paris was like at the time, but succeeds only in putting together a lukewarm bodice-ripper. The book isn't bad, but it isn't interesting either.

Switch Bitch, Roald Dahl

In his usual inimitable style, Roald Dahl spins yarns in Switch Bitch. The book is a collection of short stories, two about the bachelor playboy Uncle Oswald, whose incendiary diaries can only be published in carefully chosen segments. "The Great Switcheroo" is the story of wife-swapping that goes horribly wrong, and "The Last Act" is positively Cheever-esque until the last moment. "Switch Bitch" is tightly written and lovely; if you enjoy Roald Dahl, this will be enjoyable though sadly quick to read. One note - it's adults only in this case; who knew the same mind that produced "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" could be quite this dirty?

Kindred, Octavia E. Butler

"Kindred" is a strange book, but that might be expected from a science fiction novel written in the '70s by a black woman. Our heroine is Dana Franklin, a black woman writer, whose life is hard in all the usual ways, but which suddenly takes a turn for the worse when she is yanked into the past to save a little boy. Hour later, it happens again. It turns out she's going to the aid of an ancestor, which isn't all that odd a science fiction plot, but the ancestor happens to be a white plantation owner's son destined to inherit the plantation and the slaves that go with it. Dana not only doesn't fit in, she's assumed to be a slave, and a very unsatisfactory one at that. Horror ensues over time, and Dana's relationship with her white husband begins to warp as they are both changed by the past. A solid and compelling book of the kind that Oprah will undoubtedly get around to honoring and then force all America to read.

Legends II: New Short Novels By the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Edited by Robert Silverberg

If you like fantasy, you can't go wrong with this book. If fantasy isn't your thing, skip this entry entirely - "Legends II" is all about magic, maidens and swords. Authors included in this anthology are Terry Brooks, Neil Gaiman, Tad Williams and Orson Scott Card, among others. Silverberg has arranged the book so that the strongest material is at the front, which was something of a letdown if you read the book cover to cover. The best inclusion was "The Sworn Sword" in which the hero gets neither the girl nor the glory, but keeps his integrity intact nonetheless. Anne McCaffrey's "Beyond Between" was very weak, and probably doesn't make sense to those unfamiliar with her books about Pern. A good read, overall.

The Book of Salt, Monique Truong

Truong's "The Book of Salt" is the first-person story of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas' live-in cook, a homosexual Vietnamese man with ghosts in his past and his head. Binh, though we never learn what his real name is, grows up poor, the child of a loving mother and tyrannical father. His older brother apprentices him in the kitchen of the Governor-General's house, a place where no one has value unless he is French, or speaks some. These early lessons resonate through his life, as he travels as a ship's cook and struggles to survive in Paris. His reflections on language and love are strange, the effect of the book troubling. Though we can hear Binh's voice, somehow we can never really see him; he is in hiding, lost.

The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt

Ludo is four when we meet him. He has all the usual foibles of someone that age - when he wants something, he wants it NOW. He has no volume control, and he's stubbornly insistent on bringing along favorite objects when he leaves the house. What Ludo wants to bring along in the stroller is a massive Homeric dictionary, so that he can look things up while he reads the Odyssey. He's reading the Odyssey because his mother Sibylla has said that she won't teach him Japanese until he's finished it. Sometimes Sibylla tells the story, sometimes Ludo, as the two negotiate raising a genius on the minimal wage Sibylla earns from typing in old issues of magazines. As he grows older, Ludo's learning outstrips his mother's not inconsiderable mental skills, and he turns his mind to solving the puzzle of who his father is, influenced heavily by the strategic skills he learns from The Seven Samurai, a movie his mother watches incessantly. This book is a joy to read, absorbing, fascinating and unpredictable. Its characters, even the peripheral ones, are intricately sketched in and DeWitt's writing throughout pushes you onward to a finish that is satisfying in every way, except that the book is then over.

Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh

It's odd to have read this so soon after reading American Psycho, because barring the serial murders, the books are very similar. Both are social critiques, even parodies, of a particular class of monied young people. In Waugh's book, the action centers on Adam Symes, alternately penniless and wealthy over the course of the book, and his equally alternate fiancee Nina Blount. A writer, Symes accepts with frightening aplomb the confiscation and destruction of his latest manuscript by customs officials, and the consequently back-breaking book deal his editors make him sign. Hopes destroyed, he can no longer marry, and becomes a gossip columnist. The similarities to American Psycho are striking -- both Symes and Bateman are relentlessly social animals, yet unable to remember who people are. Both have a fine eye for appearances (Bateman for clothes, Symes for hypocrisy). Waugh does with humor what Ellis did with horror.

The Chrome Suite, Sandra Birdsell

a sweetly crafted little book about the life of amy barber, a strange kid and now an (who isn't) unhappy adult. amy's childhood in small-town canada goes off the rails when her older sister Jill dies of something hideous involving swollen glands in unmentionable places. amy is 9 when her sister dies, and we never learn what jill suffered from. her family falls apart - mother finds religion, father starts collecting junk small and large, older brother becomes a promiscuous asshole. jump forward to amy as an adult, in a relationship with piotr, a younger man from poland. can't reveal more without revealing too much. this was a strange book to read - i responded strongly to the writing and the characters' emotions, but never actually felt sympathy for amy. i liked this one, though if there's a message in the title, i'm too dull today to figure it out.

American Psycho, Brent Easton Ellis

i've read american psycho before, and i rarely reread books, so this was unusual for me. or maybe not, i've been on a rereading kick lately. anyway, ellis's book is just as appalling now as it was when i first read it four years ago. the writing is amazing. pat bateman works on wall street, though family money means he doesn't really need to. he worries obsessively over his clothes (some of the most revolting parts of the book are the litanous descriptions of everyone's attire, which you come to understand are deathly serious issues for this place and time), hair and accessories. we see the world through pat's eyes, and the materialistic '80s never looked worse. pat's group of "friends" are equally as fried and fucked up; their conversations are characterized by non sequitors that make it clear no one is actually listening to anyone else, or often don't even know who they are talking to. bizarre takes a turn for horror when pat loses it one night and attacks a homeless man. we realize then that pat is a serial murderer, and the number of victims zooms upward - friends, girlfriends, prostitutes, a random child. pat is unmoved by his own brutality, making his descriptions of events entirely chilling. this is neither a book for the weak-hearted, nor is it simply a thriller. pat's random violence speaks for the attitudes of society as a whole, focusing your attention on the shallow venality of the day.

House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III

This is one depressing book. It's hard to tell you a whole lot about it without giving away the plot, but the setup is this: Kathy Nicolo is a hardup cleaning woman living in a house in Corona, California, that she inherited from her father. She's evicted one day because of a tax bill that isn't hers, and the police officer who does the job falls for her right away. The house, once she's out, is sold to an Iranian family who, despite appearances, have this one chance to turn their finances around. The county discovers its mistake in evicting Kathy, but the Iranian refuses to give back the property. Her lawyer tells her to stay away from the house, but Kathy can't, and of course, the Iranians don't take to this very well. The book quickly slides down a slope of threats, intimidation and depression. The big lesson? Don't judge people by the way they look, or their possessions -- inside, everyone is just fucking miserable. Well-written, but it'll make you suicidal even if you're feeling fine.

The Time-Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

This book is so sad. Not slash-your-wrists-in-despair sad, but romantic sad. Henry DeTamble can time travel within his own life. Seems like a good thing, right? He visits himself and people he loves, people he's lost. He gives his younger self stock tips, knows things about the future and meets his future wife, age 6. But when he time travels, it's uncontrollably and unpredictably. He never knows when or where he'll go, and he can't take anything with him, so he's constantly leaving behind piles of empty clothing. And when he arrives wherever, whenever, he's naked and sick and lost. He materializes in front of moving cars, in winter snow, in water. It's a genetic mutation he can't prevent. But through his time traveling, he meets his wife Clare, who knows him most of his life -- and waits for him when he's not there. Sounds like science fiction, but it's really a love story.

Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey

This book is only for the serious fantasy enthusiast, and maybe not for all of those, either. "Kushiel's dart" is the story of PhËdre nÛ Delaunay, who is born into a world of indentured prostitution and trained by a politician to mix sex, spying and sado-masochism. PhËdre quickly becomes a favorite of the court and intrigue follows. This is not the book for you if you're wondering whether you like fantasy or not ñ Carey is highly romantic, and PhËdre is full of "if I knew then what I know now" melodrama. Nonetheless, it's a good, complicated story, fantasy that you can sink your teeth into. And it's kinky.

The Dogs of Babel, Carolyn Parkhurst

I think I may need to add a new category to Unfavorablepink: books you shouldn't read while your spouse is out of town. "The Dogs of Babel" tells the story of Paul Iverson, whose wife Lexy Ransome (what a name!), is killed when she falls out of the apple tree in their back yard. Paul goes into an understandable tailspin trying to understand Lexy's death -- and life, as he finds "incongruities" around the house. Why did Lexy rearrange all the books in the house the day she died? Why was she climbing the apple tree, anyway? Paul eventually fixates on their dog, Lorelei, who was with Lexy that afternoon. If Lorelei could talk, could she explain why Lexy climbed the tree? Could she tell Paul whether Lexy committed suicide or just fell? Paul takes a sabbatical from his university professorship to teach Lorelei to talk. Things get a little bizarre from there. Parkhurst's book is sad and a little crazy, and it feels much too real when read late at night in a quiet house when your husband is 6000 miles away.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon

Christopher John Francis Boone is autistic, a detective and an author. "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" is a murder mystery written by Christopher after a neighborhood dog is killed with a gardening tool. Briefly suspected of the dastardly deed, Christopher sets out to discover what really happened, in the process unravelling the lives of his parents and neighbors. Haddon has written a piercing look at the inner life of an autistic child. Most interesting are Christopher's explanations of people's emotions, his understanding of social interactions and the way in which he experiences new places and people. Christopher leaps off the page with immediacy, alternately hilarious and heart-breaking.

The Virgin Blue, Tracy Chevalier

Chevalier's "The Virgin Blue" is the story of two women, one a French Calvinist in the 1600s, the other a present day midwife. The book switches between the stories of Isabelle and Ella, the story of one informing the genealogical research of the other. Ella moves to France with her architect husband and embarks on French lessons, a search for her French ancestors and, ultimately, she stumbles across a terrible family secret. In the process, she falls in love with a French historian and her marriage begins to unravel. Chevalier's story is interesting, but her writing is disappointing -- the transitions from one woman's life to the others are disjointed and abrupt. Ella's character is ultimately shallow and unappealing, vastly less interesting than that of 16th century Isabelle. A first novel that shows promise but tries a little too hard.

Brick Lane, Monica Ali

Books like this make me feel like I've read too many books. "Brick Lane" has been well-received by critics, and put on various must-read lists, but ultimately it's a story I've read before, many times. The Bangladeshi heroine, Nazneen, narrowly survives birth and grows up in an unhappy home. Her parents marry her to a Bengali immigrant in London -- a much older man whose personal appearance leaves much to be desired. Nazneen embarks on a (not surprisingly) closed-in life of cooking and cleaning for her husband, trimming his corns and nose hair and listening to him rant pedantically about history and politics. She has two children and watches her husband go from bad job to worse. When Nazneen takes a younger man as a lover, she embarks on a path to independence. Add in 9/11 and immigrant politics for current topical interest. There's nothing wrong with "brick lane;" ali's writing has its moments, but overall i'm underwhelmed.

Versailles, Kathryn Davis

"Versailles" reads more like poetry than a novel. This short work of fiction is a collection of vignettes, snapshots from the life of Marie Antoinette. Davis' language is lyrical and evocative, but don't expect a solid storyline. It's helpful to have at least a basic familiarity with Marie Antoinette's life before you begin. "Versailles" is more the idea of a book than a finished product -- experimental perhaps, but I think not really a successful experiment. I didn't know what to expect, and yet I am disappointed. The cover, however, is beautiful.

Daughter's Keeper, Aylet Waldman

Elaine and Olivia are mother and daughter, whose tug-of-war over affection hasn't devastated their lives, but is nonetheless inexorable. The stakes of this relationship become higher when Olivia is charged with drug trafficking and must move back in with her mother while she prepares for trial. The picture is further complicated when Olivia discovers she is pregnant by a young Mexican man whose desperation for work inspired him to try dealing drugs. Elaine's fiance, an emotionally distant exercise enthusiaist, loves to cook but is totally uninterested in participating in the situation. Waldman's characters are so easy to identify with that the book sucks you into its emotional turmoil, leaving you ready to cry even after you walk away from it. For all that, the plot is fairy tale predictable, the ending as satisfying as a plate of homemade macaroni and cheese.

Lost in a Good Book, Jasper Fforde

Thursday Next, SpecOps Literary Detective and Jurisfiction Prose Resource Operative, keeps on her toes as she dashes in and out of books, meets crotchety literary figures and keeps the world from turning into pink frosting. Jasper Fforde's second book in the Thursday Next series isn't any easier to follow if you've read the first, but is nonetheless a merry, pun-laden romp. Yes, I used the word "romp"; it was especially meant to describe a book like this and I'm not just being pretentious. Or only a little pretentious. I've meandered into a tangent like this in order to avoid actually describing the plot of this book to you. Let's just say this: it's really fantastic fantasy, and Fforde doesn't feel the need to explain his "science." In his England there are Shakespeare fans so rabid they assume the identity of Anne Hathaway, inventors that make scone dough that never leaves behind any waste, and people keep dodos as pets. Oh, and they've cloned neanderthal man; they drive the trains.

Lost, Gregory Maguire

Gregory Maguire's two previous books gave the Wicked Witch of the West and Cinderella's stepsister a voice -- his retellings of popular fairy tale fantasy were very successful. "Lost" is a depature from that genre into pure fantasy. Winifred Rudge, author and possible descendent of Dickens' Ebenezer Scrooge, has writer's block. Upon arriving for a visit to England, Winifred finds her cousin missing, a ghost haunting his chimney, and a dotty elderly neighbor who gets less dotty and more senile as time goes on. Winifred sets about solving these mysteries with gusto, happily ignoring her own problems while she does it. Things go from mad to madder when she is possessed by the spirit of an medieval Frenchwoman who needs to know whether her child lived when she died. "Lost" intrigues and confuses.

Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

Why is it that the really good books are so sad? J. M. Coetzee's "Disgrace" won the 1999 Booker Prize, as well it should. David Lurie, a lackluster communications professor in Cape Town, engages in a little peccadillo with one of his students, bringing his career to a precipitous end. The novel follows his exploration of the state of disgrace, which he inhabits with deliberation. While visiting his daughter's farm in the Eastern Cape, Lurie and Lucy are attacked -- and Lurie can understand nothing about the reactions of those around him. The book's writing is quietly effective, leaving you genuinely disturbed.

Sleepyhead, Mark Billingham

I picked this one up for its interesting premise: the killer doesn't want his victims to die, but to put them into a permanent vegetative state (a coma) yet still cognizant of everything happening around them. He's not all that successful, however, and manages to kill all but one of his young, female victims. Sadly, though the book begins well, it spins off wildly into trite detective fiction standards, including flashbacks, intuitions and surprise endings. There is little new here besides the initial premise, which is never fully explored. Nonetheless, "Sleepyhead" is competently written and keeps you turning the pages.

Old School, Tobias Wolff

Old School is the story of a boy's prep school and of one boy's literary aspirations. Our hero is a scholarship boy who works hard to fit in, masking his personality and hiding a secret he seems to feel will have serious social repercussions. During a school literary competition, things go first very right and then very wrong. Will our hero ever become a writer? Wolff's book is beautifully written and his descriptions of life at a boy's school are lyrically beautiful. Nevertheless the book has some plot flaws that distract from the main thrust of the theme, and the book ties up just a little too neatly in excusing the main character's misdeeds. Wolff is to be admired for creating a character a very real set of fears and secrets. The cameo appearances by Ayn Rand and Robert Frost are highly comical.

Do Try to Speak As We Do: The Diary of an American Au Pair, Marjorie Leet Ford

Light and sweet like cotton candy, this book is part coming-of-age story, part cultural commentary. Narrator Melissa leaves behind a called-off wedding and unemployment to care for a Parliament member's three children and suffer the biting tongue of their mother while she does it. Melissa clings to sanity my writing letters and keeping a journal describing life in England. "Do Try to Speak As We Do" is quite funny; Ford has skirted the edge of saccharine successfully. A book for the beach, not meant for those seeking something to sink their teeth into.

Blackwood Farm, Anne Rice

I don't know why I read this. I didn't want to. I needed a book to read on the plane and this one wasn't even a handy paperback, since I got it in the library. It's a terrible book. Anne Rice's original books about vampires at least had the advantage of being something new in the world of vampire fiction; the glow is definitely off. Unless you are a die-hard fan of Rice or have some kind of serious vampire fixation, do something fun like clean your bathroom with the time you would have wasted reading this.

Oh, the plot? Well, a fabulously weathly and beautiful young man is made unwillingly into a vampire. The real problems start when the spirit that has been attached to him since a boy (well, of course there was a spirit attached to him!) gets a taste for blood. Enter the vampire Lestat (you remember Lestat, don't you?) and about 500 pages of excrutiatingly boring and decidedly distasteful family history before they solve his little problem and go off to have their little vampire sex party.

The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown

The Da Vinci Code is quick read and an ideal book for people looking for a smart, engaging book to read on a plane. It's a step above your standard airplane book, and certainly the subject material is well beyond the usual book of that kind. This is the story of a Harvard symbologist and a French cryptologist who are thrown into an unlikely Grail quest during a murder investigation. The fast-paced book contains secret societies, conspiracy theories, hidden treasures, and religious revelations. The author was clearly a fan of plot twists, as the ending of the book involves several. Wisely, Brown also resists a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" scene in which God makes an appearance.

In the Forests of Serre, Patricia A. McKillip

I have several friends who like to read but really don't have time for fantasy. This is not the book for them. In the Forests of Serre is entirely a work of fantasy, including princesses, magic and witches. Princess Sidonie of Dacia is sent to Serre to marry its recently widowed prince, who isn't all that interested in cooperating with his father's plans for his future. Sidonie travels with a sorcerer sent along to protect her but things go awry when the untamed magic of Serre corrupts him and he begins to steal the prince's identity. Add an irresistible firebird/woman, a witch fixated on chickens and a terrible monster to the mix and you've got a good read with a reasonably happy ending.

The Dormant Beast, Enki Bilal

Ugh. I'm a big fan of graphic novels, and this one was pretty awful -- melodramatic, and predictable. Women, apparently, also only have one face. They can have different hair, but they all have the same face.

The Last Man (Book 1), Brian Vaughn

This is a graphic novel premised on an interesting idea -- what happens if every man and every male animal on earth dies simultaneously. Who runs the government? What kind of social structures come into play? And then it falls apart when it becomes apparent that really what the book is about is the sole remaining man on earth. Oh, and his pet monkey. Do I really need to say more about this?

Enchantment, Daphne Merkin

This book reminded me of how I felt after reading Angela's Ashes, which is to say, damn depressed. The main character, Hannah, is the ultimate in unsympathetic heroines. She's whiny, self-centered and fixated on an abusive relationship with her mother. I'll admit that her mother does pretty much seem like a bitch, and was certainly cold, but I also spent the entire book (during which no real action happens) mentally screaming at Hannah to grow up and get a life. I suspect that the book is highly autobiographical, and if I don't ever get to meet Merkin I think I'll be fine with that.

Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories, Gilbert Hernandez

This massive graphic novel brings to life the inhabitants of a backward Mexican town called Palomar, following many of them from birth to death. Palomar brings into one volume Hernandez' output from 1982 to the present time; there are approximately 25 different stories in the book, some as long as two hundred pages, some as short as two. Hernandez' scope is epic, his storylines clearly developed, and the book itself is produced on high-quality glossy paper. It's weight, however, makes reading it something of a chore -- plan to take breaks! I'm more fascinated by the form of this work than the storylines themselves; it's tough to think of many other graphic novels that can rival Palomar in size. The artwork itself is remarkably consistent, given that Hernandez drew the first of these panels 20 years ago. Unfortunately, however, that span of time is most obvious in his rendering of recurring characters that are often only recognizable through their more bizarre physical characteristics (read: scars and enormous breasts). Palomar is definitely worth a read if you're a fan of comics, graphics novels or epics.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I had high expectations for Love in the Time of Cholera, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez' lyrical writing in other words. Sadly, I was disappointed. It's always disturbing to be underwhelmed by a book commonly regarded as a classic piece of literature, but I found this book slow moving, overly descriptive and relatively plot-less. It felt very like this was 350 pages of character sketch -- very developed character sketches, but character sketches. This might not be the end of the world if the characters were likable or understandable, but Marquez really isn't exploring real people in this book. Then there's the ending. I won't give it away, but it's frankly bizarre. The book takes a turn into fantasy at its end. Do I recommend it? Love in the Time of Cholera is definitely worth reading, but don't make it the only one of Marquez' works you read.

Worlds Apart, Joe Haldeman

This book was so bad that even though I finished it exactly one month ago I have no memory of it. Forgettability is never a good quality in books when you're an author; it's great for me, though.

The Wife, Meg Wolitzer

Another book for the surprise-ending category. "The Wife" is the story of a husband and wife who meet as teacher and graduate student. The husband, a well-known novelist, is receiving a coveted literary prize. His wife has decided to end the marriage as soon as he gets his prize. Much of the book is written as a flashback during the award ceremony and the festivities surrounding it. The husband is clearly guilty of being a prick, the suspense of the book comes in discovering in just how much of a prick he is. I quite enjoyed this book, except for the ending, which seemed to twist the meaning of the book back on itself (I can't say more about this without giving about the entire plot and spoiling the book for you.). Nonetheless, I recommend this one.

The Far Pavilions, M.M. Kaye

For whatever reason I feel faintly guilty about my pleasure in reading this book. That may perhaps be because it contains so many of those elements traditionally found in romance novels -- impossible love, exotic locations, foreign culture, corsets. For all that, The Far Pavilions went down like a satisfying dessert (with the added advantage that its length meant it could be savored for some time). I'd give a lot for a second helping. The Far Pavilions takes us from the birth in the Kashmiri mountains of our hero, Ash, an English boy that by chance is raised Indian woman. His Anglo origins are eventually discovered and as an adult he serves as a military officer, where he never quite feels either English or Indian. Though Ash's dilemma is fairly obvious, there are few of us that cannot identify with the story's theme of isolation, of being torn between two ideas and unable to fully identify with either. I love a long, absorbing read and a good story; The Far Pavilions is all these things.

Bel Canto, Ann Patchett

Bel Canto is a delicious read. It's an apple a day. It sings, the writing, the story and sometimes the characters. Bel Canto is the story of a hostage situation, which takes place in an unknown but presumably South American country. The hostages come from all over the world; they are captains of industry, scions of the aristocracy, leaders of government. Oh yes, and there is a world-famous opera singer, the sole female hostage with whom everyone -- hostages and captors alike -- is in love. An inevitably poignant plot is nonetheless beautifully written and developed. Most wonderfully, the book is infused with music, although you will never actually hear a note.