The Guardian has a very cool round-up of 2005 books - the paper asked several prominent writers to list their favorites and explain (in only a sentence or two) why. This is so much better than the stupid (and useless) lists from the NYT and other American papers. Who cares what the reviewers think, when they are only going to repeat what they've already written, and worse, tell us about books we've already heard about a thousand times over. (I love Joan Didion but you'd have to be under a rock not to know about her book.) The Guardian format offers lots more possibilities for overlooked or forgotten titles and is a goldmine for the curious reader. Much recommended.

I am reading three very different books right now: Fallingwater Rising, The Big Why and The Misadventures of Maude March. It is Maude that I am flying through right now - not that the other two books aren't great, but I was in a mood for a good young adult novel and got very lucky when I pulled this one off the "to be reviewed" stack. I have always enjoyed westerns - I blame a childhood where the TV was controlled by much bigger brother who worshipped at the twin altars of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood for that - but I kept reading them long after the threat of violence was lifted in our teenage household. Louis L'Amour, of course, is a sentimental favorite. In high school there was a period where I read pretty much every title in his Sackett series. There was something about how those guys always came to save each other that so impressed me - it made me long for some large, cowboy filled family out west somewhere (although the cowboy part might have been due to some harlequin romance influence). Last of the Breed is an outstanding modern thriller by L'Amour about a Native American Air Force pilot who escapes Cold War Soviet Russia. I still have my hardback copy and have reread it several times - it's first rate. The Haunted Mesa is another modern tale, this one a mystery in the American Southwest with fantasy-type elements - also excellent and also still a prized (and sentimental) part of my personal library.

Maude March is one of the first young adult westerns I have ever read and I'm very very impressed. First, it is gorgeous to look at - whoever designed this dust cover and end papers deserves some praise, they really went all out. The story reads like a classic - two recently orphaned sisters fleeing a unsuitable marriage and looking for their uncle who has been gone for years and is their only chance for a respectable life. Lots of things go wrong on the trip - from being mistaken as bank robbers to suddenly becoming horse thieves, and the plot keeps surging forward from one sudden encounter to the next. But the girls are very well drawn and suffer some remorse for bad decisions and real grief over the loss of their family. I'm not quite done yet, but I'm already quite impressed. This is a very well written novel and I'm sure it will introduce Westerns to a whole new generation of readers. I'll be reviewing it in the February issue of Bookslut and I'm looking forward to raving about it.

Listening to Jimmy Buffet right now and wrapping presents - Christmas does rock, but man - there are a lot of presents on this table!!!