2008 Books: 1-4

I am logging all of the books I read this year. If you have any suggestions, comment away!

1. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (316 pp)
This is an amazing group of short stories. The majority are horror, but there are some great gems that fall out of that genre as well. Joe Hill (incidentally, son of Stephen King) has a gift for setting and characterization that is crucial in a good short story. My favorites- and these may change upon further readings- are "Best New Horror", "The Black Phone", "The Widow's Breakfast" and "Voluntary Committal." I highly recommend this collection.

2. Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin (183 pp)
This was just a brilliant read: part memoir, part cookbook, Home Cooking is a collection of essays that covers everything from her favorite ways to cook red peppers to different ways to make potato salad to how to feed 150 people at once. I'm coming to her later than most, but I'm glad I've finally read this. Laurie Colwin's voice is so warm and casual and her stories make me want to spend the rest of the day in the kitchen putting together homey, simple-but-divine meals. She died very young- at 37, I believe- but managed to write several novels and short stories. She has another collection of cooking stories that I cannot wait to read. Again, this comes highly recommended.

3. What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy by Gregory Maguire (304 pp)
Three young kids and their cousin are riding out what appears to be a natural disaster of epic proportions when Gage, a young man and cousin to the children, tells them a story about a creature named What-the-Dickens. What-the-Dickens is born in an empty tuna can and after narrowly escaping a nasty death at the hands (claws) of a cat, sets out on a journey to find out who he is. He stumbles across the path of another creature like himself and learns that he is a skibberee, aka tooth fairy. The title is somewhat misleading, as I don't think What-the-Dickens is really a rogue: he's just someone with a lot of questions about his place in the world and doesn't follow the rules as they are laid out to him- not out of spite but out of curiosity. The story-within-a-story format works for the most part here, and Gregory Maguire's characters are captivating and sympathetic. I found that the ending was too abrupt and left me wanting more, but overall I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

4. The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce (320 pp)
Sam is seven years old when he meets the tooth fairy for the first time, and it is not a good thing. "Oh, that's bad," it says, when it realizes Sam can see it. Freaky. It turns out to be male at this first meeting, but as Sam grows up the tooth fairy appears again and again, changing from male to female, and causes all sorts of problems for Sam and his friends. This is a coming-of-age story that managed to both freak me out and make me laugh. This was the first book by Graham Joyce that I've read, and I look forward to reading more by him.

Picking two books about the tooth fairy was entirely coincidental, but I enjoyed reading two very different takes on the myth. Next on my list is a nonfiction book about a British double agent and another book by Laurie Colwin.

Total Pages Read: 1,123

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