The Lives of Christopher Chant

by Diana Wynne Jones

Grade: Good

I decidedly like Diana Wynne Jones. The Lives of Christopher Chant fully lived up to my expectations.
The whole Goddess thing was cool. I didn't expect Millie to be like that as a child, though. I liked her way better than I liked Janet from Charmed Life.
I liked Tacroy a lot too.
I love awesome power displays, such as the part where he lifted the whole house after the silver was taken from him.

"And as his arms went up, he felt something come loose with them--come loose with a vengeance.
Everything in the room went upwards except Christopher, the mirror, the tiepin, the tooth-brace and the money. These slid to the floor as the table surged upwards, but were collected by the carpet which came billowing up after it. Christopher hastily stepped off the carpet and stood watching everything soar around him--all the clocks, several tables, chairs, rugs, pictures, vases, ornaments, and Dr. Pawson too. He and his armchair both went up, majestically, like a balloon, and bumped against the ceiling. The ceiling bellied upwards and the chandelier plastered itself sideways against it. From above came crashings, shrieks, and an immense airy grinding. Christopher could feel that the roof of the house had come off and was on its way to the sky, pursued by the attics. It was an incredible feeling."

All this for a simple levitation spell. Cool.

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 133

I loved all the math and science and footnotes. I liked this footnote, explaining all the uninteresting things Colin would talk about:

"Among many, many others, the following things were definitely not interesting: the pupillary sphincter, mitosis, baroque architecture, jokes that have physics equations as punch lines, the British monarchy, Russian grammar, and the signifacant role that salt has played in human history."
(Those things are so totally interesting! I'd much rather hear about them than a lot of other thigns people talk about.)

And the cover was fantastic! The best cover ever, definitely.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of yucky stuff in it too. Too much for me to finish it at this time. So I stopped at page 133. (I am planning to read it again someday.)

Wasting Police Time

by PC David Copperfield

Grade: Unfinished
Read to: Page 105

I found this quite fascinating, actually. It is graded "Unfinished" not because I didn't like it, but because it was kind of hard to read the whole thing. Some of it was rather similar to all the rest of it, if you know what I mean. It was basically a blog made into a book.
However, I liked how much you learned about the police "culture", (like you learned about butler "culture" in The Remains of the Day). And I loved how politically incorrect he was! All he said about basically everything was very cool and agreeable (meaning able to be agreed with by me).

INSERT: The Children of Men

by P. D. James

Grade: Good
Inserted: After Band of Brothers

There's that certain modern quality...I can't quite grasp it or describe it. Perhaps it is simply a grown-up quality. Anyhow, this book had it, and I don't enjoy it.
However, this book was good. It's amazing she wrote it in 1992, when the possible percussions of birth-control were certainly not thought about. Extremely prophetic, in an exaggerated sense, considering that Europe is dying.
The main character was interesting as well. I like the middle-aged Oxford professor type. He reminded me slightly of the main character in Gentlemen and Players.

The Remains of the Day

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Grade: Good

Certainly slow moving. But I loved how deep it seemed to go into butler "culture". I loved it way more than Never Let Me Go. They both were a bit tragic, but I understood this one more, it was extremely proper (written by a Jeeves, you see), and it really wasn't entirely unhappy.
I liked how Ishiguro managed to convey that the narrator was mistaken in his ideals, even though the narrator himself was obviously convinced he was right. I suppose that's what all good authors should be able to do.

(There's a doctor in this book. Why was he stuck in? He sounded like an Agatha Christie doctor. I suppose that's what they were like in those days...Where they though? That somehow seems unlikely. Anyway, his name is Dr. Carlisle, and I don't quite understand why he was so insistant in his questioning about whether Stevens enjoyed talking to the villagers.)

Book of a Thousand Days

by Shannon Hale

Grade: All right

The most fascinating thing about this book is that it happens to be set in Mongolia--which, of course, is the country which I am researching right now.
Otherwise, it had some interesting parts--I liked how the princess didn't have some dramatic change in character. It seemed like most authors would have made her have one. However, I didn't find it very interesting. So...it's fine. All right.

Anansi Boys

by Neil Gaiman

Grade: Good

Some of it I didn't like at all. Mostly middle bits. The part with the ghost was boring. The end was great, though. I loved Spider at the end, and the part where Charlie sang.
Speaking of Spider--I thought he was cute at the end. From about when he lost his tongue onwards. Fat Charlie was nice as he wasn't a typical hero exactly. And I always like stories about gods and people with superhuman powers. It's been compared to Douglas Adams, and it certainly reminds me of The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, but I liked it better, I think. The characters seem a bit more character-like, while the Adams people never go quite far enough for me to like them (for the most part).

Here are some random Spider quotes that I liked for an unkown reason. Just to clarify, I don't actually like people like Spider usually. It's just that he happens to be handsome, which I dislike, so I expected to hate him. Since I didn't hate him, I was pleasantly surprised. Any person in whom I am pleasantly surprised, I tend to like a lot.

"Spider's eyes were like puddles after the rain, and Charlie saw things in them he had not seen before: affection, perhaps, and confusion and, mostly, apology."

"Spider said nothing, but a miserable expression crept across his face, and he no longer looked like a doctor: now he looked like a man who had borrowed a white coate from behind a door and was worried that someone would notice."
(Actually, he looks like Charlie. That's why I liked this quote.)

"And then, after the kiss was done, how he stood, like a man who had just discovered the art of standing and had figured out how to do it better than anyone else who would ever come along."
(Interesting way of portraying happiness.)

"'Do you think we can make this work?' she asked.
'I think so,' said Spider soberly. 'And if I get bored with you, I'll just go away and do something else. So not to worry.'"
(I imagined him saying this perfectly seriously. No joke here whatsoever. It only works that way. Other way is not funny.)

Weird thing I didn't understand: Why didn't Rosie and Spider have any kids? Not that I minded exactly that they didn't, it's just that he seemed to emphasize it, and I don't understand the significance.