A nice surprise last week was to see that the Booklist review of MAP include a YA recommendation: "True tales of adventure, heroics, and tragedy will appeal to teen readers". I thought that older teens (especially boys) would enjoy it but I was concerned that the liberal use of the word fuck in a few chapters would scare reviewers (especially the formal publications) away from that. I am delighted to be wrong on that score and hope that other places will see the teen appeal. (This might be my last stab at attaining teen popularity.) (Yes, I know I'm pathetic for even thinking that.)

I have read a veritable ton of books in recent weeks mostly for the October, November and (eep) December columns. I was most surprised by Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. It is a really well done ghost story - a Buffyesque (with male protag) tale that is a heckuva lot more violent and appropriately gory. The best bit though was how well Blake captures a high school setting; she doesn't take any easy ways out or go for cliches and the characters, on every level, are extremely well thought out. Good stuff.

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman bio Wild Unrest taught me a ton about her. Author Helen Horowitz clearly respects her subject and while I knew a bit about Gilman going in (Yellow Wallpaper is an all time favorite read), there has been so much written about her and written into her works that it's hard to separate the truth from the myth. Horowitz is an academic and the book reads as such but frankly I needed that (and wanted it). Gilman is still as powerful as ever even without some true story of being locked in a room to back her up. More Gilman is always a good thing.

I also finished Zazen by Vanessa Veselka and I'm still thinking of how to review this one. It's sort of equal parts Portland grunge/Red Dawn/modern take on 1930s Berlin and every book about a "disaffected young woman going through the motions while she tries to find herself" that you have ever read. All of this means it's pretty hard to shake when you are done with it but also pretty hard to classify. (I keep thinking of Kathe Koja's Under the Poppy which it is not at all like but it gave me the same sort of "party while the world crashes down around you" sort of feeling. I'll have something up on here in the next couple of weeks for sure.

Finally, Terri Windling had a couple of quotes up last week about gratitude that really impressed me. Here's the one that has made me think long and hard about my Catholic upbringing - why do we only say grace over food, anyway?

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink." - G. K. Chesterton