While cynic Charles still trimm’d the vane
‘Twixt Querouaille and Castlemaine,
In days that shocked John Evelyn,
My First Possessor fix’d me in.
In days of Dutchmen and of frost,
The narrow sea with James I cross’d,
Returning when once more began
The Age of Saturn and of Anne.
I am a part of all the past;
I knew the Georges, first and last;
I have been oft where else was none
Save the great wig of Addison;
And seen on shelves beneath me grope
The little eager form of Pope.
I lost the Third that own’d me when
French Noailles fled at Dettingen;
The year James WOLFE supris’d Quebec
The Fourth in hunting broke his neck;
The day that William Hogarth dy’d,
The Fifth one found me in Cheapside.
This was a Scholar, one of those
Whose Greek is sounder than their hose;
He lov’d old Books and nappy ale,
So liv’d at Streatham, next to Thrale.
‘Twas there this stain of grease I boast
Was made by Dr. Johnson’s toast.
(He did it, as I think, for Spite;
My Master call’d him Jacobite!)
And now that I so long to-day
Have rested post discrimina,
Safe in the brass-wir’d book-case where
I watch’d the Vicar’s whit’ning hair,
Must I these travell’d bones inter
In some Collector’s sepulchre!
Must I be torn from hence and thrown
With frontispiece and colophon!
With vagrant E’s, and I’s, and O’s,
The spoil of plunder’d Folios!
With scraps and snippets that to Me
Are naught but kitchen company!
Nay, rather, Friend, this favour grant me:
Tear me at once; but don’t transplant me.

Cheltenham. Sep 31, 1792.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex by Charles Darwin.
The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin’s second great book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the superiority of men to women, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.

The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson.
A wildly original and hilarious debut novel about the typical high school experience: the homework, the awkwardness, and the mutant creatures from another galaxy.

When Darren Bennett meets Eric Lederer, there’s an instant connection. They share a love of drawing, the bottom rung on the cruel high school social ladder and a pathological fear of girls. Then Eric reveals a secret: He doesn’t sleep. Ever. When word leaks out about Eric’s condition, he and Darren find themselves on the run. Is it the government trying to tap into Eric’s mind, or something far darker? It could be that not sleeping is only part of what Eric’s capable of, and the truth is both better and worse than they could ever imagine.

Steamed by Kate MacAlister.
When one of Jack Fletcher’s nanoelectromechanical system experiments is jostled in his lab, the resulting explosion sends him into the world of his favorite novel-a seemingly Victorian-era world of steampower, aether guns, corsets, and goggles. A world where the lovely and intrepid Octavia Pye captains her airship straight into his heart…

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.
Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school . . . again. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t seem to stay out of trouble. But can he really be expected to stand by and watch while a bully picks on his scrawny best friend? Or not defend himself against his pre-algebra teacher when she turns into a monster and tries to kill him? Of course, no one believes Percy about the monster incident; he’s not even sure he believes himself.

Until the Minotaur chases him to summer camp.

Suddenly, mythical creatures seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy’s Greek mythology textbook and into his life. The gods of Mount Olympus, he’s coming to realize, are very much alive in the twenty-first century. And worse, he’s angered a few of them: Zeus’s master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.

I recommend all writers find a book like this, one that doesn’t so much tell them why they write, but reminds them in a way they can’t quite explain. One that helps them learn how to embrace the skills they possess and utilize them positively. This book is not just a writer’s prompt book, but it’s not just a writer’s memoir. Goldberg is not mouthing off everything she does to write and telling you to do the exact same; she’s encouraging you to find your own way as she had to, showing you how she found her way and which experiences influenced her, and teaching you to find those guides in your life.

There are prompts every now and again, and you could open the book and go straight to those prompts (they’re in the table of contents), write them, close the book until you need another. But I don’t think you’d quite get the meaning of it; you’d be writing because someone told you to write, not because you needed to for yourself. Goldberg explains the prompt and then has you do it, and it was while reading that explanation that I found I yearned to write on it. I have writer’s prompts books that have words, pictures, sentences, ideas on pages, but I open them and I stare at the prompt for an hour trying to think of anything that could possibly become a story or blog post from it. Maybe my brain doesn’t accept prompts. I wrote on several of the prompts from Wild Mind, however, and I think it’s because they came with writing.

It was so difficult to get through it, so hard to keep picking it up. It was hard to come to terms with my own writing life, but when I finally did, I understood that Wild Mind helped me get there. Now what are my plans? To review a book on this blog at least once a month and find my “reviewing style.” To write a serial adventure novel on my personal domain. To build puzzles in my free time, allowing me to work through ideas that aren’t quite getting out on paper. The biggest speed bump I hope to cross over this year is allowing other people to read my unedited writing.

Perhaps Wild Mind won’t change your life, but if you’re a creative type struggling with the why and the how of your art, I recommend picking it up. Just give it a try.

1. 01/06. Dark Hollow by John Connolly
2. 02/02. The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes
3. 02/15. The Killing Kind by John Connolly
4. 02/20. Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
5. 02/24. The Joy of Text by Kristina Grish
6. 03/05. The Eight by Katherine Neville
7. 03/24. Wicked by Gregory Maguire
8. 04/08. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
9. 04/08. Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
10. 04/13. Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
11. 04/30. Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris
12. 05/21. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
13. 06/02. Lover Avenged by J.R. Ward
14. 06/13. South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
15. 06/25. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
16. 07/09. Do You Think What You Think You Think? by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Stangroom
17. 08/05. Tracy’s Tiger by William Saroyan
18. 08/15. Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
19. 08/18. What Would Jane Austen Do? by Laurie Brown
20. 09/08. The Glamorous (Double) Life of Isabel Bookbinder by Holly McQueen
21. 09/14. Blind Submission by Debra Ginsberg
22. 10/04. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
23. 10/08. They Sailed the Skies by J. Gordon Vaeth
24. 10/14. Airman by Eoin Colfer
25. 12/13. A Whole Nother Story by Dr. Cuthbert Soup
26. 12/27. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
27. 12/31. West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Despite the general appeal of all his other books (which I’ve been thinking of perusing anyway), Airman was the first that really grabbed my attention and had me thirsting for more. Conor Broekhart was born in a hot air balloon while it was being shot down by unseen enemies. It would seem that the child was born for flight and adventure, and the novel delivers both well and equally. Under the supervision of a Frenchman who is friend to his father and king, Conor learns to fight and invent with the freedom of science at a very young age. It would seem that life is too good to be true: He has his mother, the scientist, his father, the fighter, and his Princess Isabella, who never really comes into her own character, but is nevertheless necessary as a part of Conor’s life. But, as with most stories set in these worlds, there is also the king’s Marshall, Bonvilain, who is plotting to take the throne and won’t let anyone, not even a young inventor, get in his way.

Upon discovering Bonvilain’s plot, the Marshall sends the young man to Little Saltee, the kingdom’s prison, where he perseveres under terrible conditions for two years. What keeps Conor Broekhart alive? Is it his determination to reveal the truth of Bonvilain’s schemes, or is it a greedy desire to live selfishly, now that he has been separated from his family forever? There is much to learn about Conor in these pages, and his obsession with flying machines makes it all the more interesting to get through.

Though all the elements are there, this is not a fantasy story of “save the princess, get the girl;” however, towards the beginning it almost seemed it would turn in that direction. Airman is a little darker than some other books for younger kids; the main character does spend quite a bit of time under harsh conditions in a prison, and though he’s quick to learn how to get through it, friends are few and far between. That said, despite all he goes through in this book, Conor is never tempted to actually make the kill, and so becomes a moral character to hold onto without the fear of his becoming villainous.

There are a few weaknesses in the book, but the strengths so outshine them that it’s still certainly worth the read. Secondary character development definitely wasn’t a focus in the writing process, and towards the end some things seem a little too convenient, but it is clear that Conor’s flying inventions were very well researched and Conor himself leaves little to the imagination. He’s strong, intelligent, and quite wonderful with the sword, and where he resides so does action. And the best part (well, one of them)? This book is full of quirky and witty comments. Adults will smile as they come across them, and kids will wish they had such quick responses.

For anyone (adult or child — it is written well enough to hold an older reader’s attention, and content-wise does not cross lines for the kids) who enjoys high adventure, deception/scheming, exciting inventions, and a character’s will to survive under any circumstances, Airman would make a perfect treat. At just over 400 pages, it’s a quick read, but an absolutely engaging one that will leave you wishing for Colfer to come up with another adventure for Conor Broekhart. Knowing Conor, though, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Working in used books with a strict trade-in policy, I don’t get much exposure to general fiction that comes out in hardcover. We generally only take the already popular authors, the ones that are sworn to sell (Patterson, Hooper, Balogh, whatever), so when I saw this on the shelf I thought it would be a nice change of pace. Me? Read a new hardback book? It’s usually unheard of. Lately I’ve been into magical tales of wonder and adventure, but primarily kids’ magical tales of wonder and adventure; The Magicians appeared to jump out at me as something that might get me back into adult reading. (Not that there’s anything wrong with kids reading, and I plan to do a lot of it presently, but every so often you do miss seeing the word ‘fuck’ in print, I’m not going to lie.)

A socially awkward but extremely intelligent high schooler named Quentin finds himself being examined for magical prowess and gets admitted into a super secret magic institute that is not Hogwarts because it’s in New York and only has an English “feel” to it. All the while, he pines over the world of one of his favorite childhood books, The Chronicles of Fillory, or something like that, and wishes desperately that he’ll one day be able to visit and go on adventures and quests and beat up mean people, and all.

Long (long) story short, he’s sorted–er, grouped with some older kids (being so advanced, as he is), they play a sport that doesn’t seem to have any purpose to the book at all except perhaps to insert a skill into Quentin or one of the other characters that they otherwise couldn’t believably have which helps them defeat some evil later in the book, and, oh, they find a way into Fillory.

I kept reading, thinking, “okay, something interesting is bound to happen next, right?” and I was rewarded with plot elements that are never tied up, characters that are never seen again or were otherwise unnecessary, and a total repeat of the entire Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia except with different names, lots of cursing, and a bit of Tolkien thrown in.

I don’t read much fantasy, and this is why: There is a moment when most of the loose ends are brought back together, the bigger more demanding questions are answered, and characters are more or less safe or sound. This is not the end of the book. I know why books don’t end here, there’s always one or two other questions, or a character’s unwillingness to just stay put. Personally, if I ever write a fantasy/adventure novel, it’s just going to end there. No quest back home. There won’t be fifty more pages dedicated to healing and displaying how the hero can utilize all the fantastic things he learned on his quest. To me, those parts are the most boring to read (with the exception of Lord of the Rings, where I think it was written quite well, though I admit that sometimes I don’t even watch the end of the movie).

It’s at this point when I think: “When will this adventure end? I’m already done reading it.” I always want to close the book and start something else, and by rights I probably should… but I figure it’s so rare that I read a book like this that I might as well read it to the end.

Was The Magicians a bad book? No, it really wasn’t. Aside from the obvious copycat elements, the main characters were strongly developed, the description was beautifully executed, and I didn’t put it down after the first chapter, thinking: “This book is going to suck, I shouldn’t waste my time.” I wanted to keep reading not out of loyalty to something I’d started, but because it was well-composed. I want to read another of his books just for the writing style.

Do I otherwise recommend it? Probably not, unless you’re into this sort of thing and don’t care that it’s just like those other books… It’s opened for a sequel at the end, and that worries me; either I’ll have to read it, if I remember, or it’s just done open-ended and he did that out of spite for people like me who complain about things that aren’t quite sewn together well enough.

1. 01/04. After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
2. 01/11. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
3. 01/19. The Bookwoman’s Last Fling by John Dunning
4. 01/21. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
5. 01/22. Who’s Killing the Great Writers of America? by Robert Kaplow
6. 02/11. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
7. 02/23. How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard
8. 02/26. Don’t You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix
9. 02/29. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
10. 03/06. Sword of Rome by Constance O’Banyon
11. 03/15. Four Letter Word, edited by Joshua Knelman
12. 03/18. Unsigned by Julie Kaewert
13. 03/23. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
14. 04/02. Once… by James Herbert
15. 04/21. Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
16. 04/21. The Gladiator’s Honor by Michelle Styles
17. 04/25. Unsolicited by Julie Kaewert
18. 04/26. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
19. 05/05. Marie-Therese, Child of Terror by Susan Nagel
20. 05/22. The Complete Fairy Tales by George Macdonald
21. 05/29. I Sing the Body Electric! by Ray Bradbury
22. 06/01. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
23. 06/05. Lover Enshrined by JR Ward
24. 06/10. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
25. 06/13. The Darkest Night by Gena Showalter
26. 06/22. The Darkest Kiss by Gena Showalter
27. 06/27. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
28. 07/03. The Castle in the Forest by Norman Mailer
29. 07/07. Unbound by Julie Kaewert
30. 07/08. Warriors: Into the Wild by Erin Hunter
31. 07/13. The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
32. 07/15. Warriors: Fire and Ice by Erin Hunter
33. 07/17. Warriors: Forest of Secrets by Erin Hunter
34. 07/18. Warriors: Rising Storm by Erin Hunter
35. 07/21. Publish and Perish by Sally Wright
36. 07/23. Warriors: A Dangerous Path by Erin Hunter
37. 07/24. Fatal Attraction by Alicia Fields
38. 07/28. Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Millington
39. 08/03. Warriors: The Darkest Hour by Erin Hunter
40. 08/05. The Darkest Pleasure by Gena Showalter
41. 08/09. The People’s Act of Love by James Meek
42. 08/11. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
43. 08/19. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
44. 08/22. Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
45. 08/24. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
46. 09/02. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
47. 09/12. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
48. 09/18. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
49. 09/24. Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon
50. 10/02. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
51. 10/06. Confessions of a Book-Lover by Maurice Francis Egan
52. 10/08. The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters
53. 10/16. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
54. 10/20. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
55. 10/22. Ithaka by Adele Geras
56. 10/23. Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett
57. 10/29. Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
58. 11/07. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
59. 12/07. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier may be one of those books you’ve seen a lot, perhaps you’ve read something about it here and there, seen it mentioned, but you never really thought to pick it up. Perhaps it’s because it was shelved in the Gothic Romance section of your bookstore, right before Georgette Heyer and Barbara Michaels. You thought, well, it’s probably not my thing, so I’m not going to bother with it. Instead I’ll continue through life hearing references to it, and shrugging. At least that’s what I thought.

It starts at the end, or rather a little bit after the end, and then takes you back into time and brings you up to why the end is where it is (it doesn’t start immediately where it ends, but presumably a few years afterwards, as the characters are much older and more experienced). That beginning part, that was the slow part, but once we were taken back into time by the narrator, to meet Maxim, Mrs. Danvers, Frith, and eventually Rebecca, that’s when I couldn’t put the book down.

Shocked? It’s true. Rebecca is not the narrator. She’s the exwife of Maxim, now dead, and the narrator is the new 20 years younger wife of Maxim. Their relationship is strained; she’s merely 21 years old, but she’s madly and devastatingly in love with a man who gives her short responses and doesn’t seem to appear to be in love with her at all. She wonders if he married her just for the company, or to feed from her youth, or, worst of all, to have another dog to pet (yes, she compares herself to the dog a lot). To her, he’s probably still intensly in love with Rebecca, so a beautiful, loving, companionable relationship will never bloom between them.

This book wasn’t predictable. The twist comes suddenly and it’s remarkably shocking. I sat with my mouth gaping open for a good five minutes before I could continue, because I just could not believe it. The only characters in this novel with any sort of decent development are Rebecca and the narrator, though Rebecca is never alive, only talked about, and more or less a ghost.

It’s tricky to call her a “ghost,” you see, because she wasn’t an ethereal being who hung about the house poking fun at Maxim and his new wife. She was alive, however, through other characters. Maxim’s refusal to talk about her even kept her presence, but it was Mrs. Danvers who really let it all go. If you’ve ever read about a creepy, skeleton-like character who was obsessed with her mistress, you’ll have to rethink that interpretation after reading Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers was always a shadow to our narrator, creeping about, getting her into the wrong sorts of things. But when Rebecca was mentioned, suddenly her face lit up, she regained all of her color, and she passionately swept through rooms like a butterfly in the moonlight.

And, of course, the narrator keenly felt the dead woman’s presence. It wasn’t just Mrs. Danvers or Rebecca’s cousin Favill, it was her mind that did it. Can I tell you something? This creature was annoying. I liked her, don’t get me wrong, but she was 21 years old, and it reminded me a lot of myself when I was 19 years old. Something would happen that she couldn’t quite understand, and she’d make up several possibilities as to why it might have happened. One, perhaps, would be positive and logical, but the rest would be completely negative, even bringing people out of their normal selves to explain a situation. She would go on for two to four pages about how her life was over because of this one silly thing that happened, then once you turned the page again, it would be solved, simply and quickly, and everything would be fine. No, really, perfect! How could she have been so odd about it? Let’s move on with life, but don’t forget to mention that you’ve “grown” because of this experience, and you’re not the same person you were two pages ago.

…Except, then you do the exact same thing five pages later. Perhaps if she had really grown at some point and stopped living in her fantasies and realized that her ideas were much too elaborate to be real, it would have been fine. But, as I said, it reminded me of me when I was 19, much too young to understand the world but old enough to think I did. Sometimes it’s positively exciting when I find myself in a book, but in this instance, I was just reminded of all the stupid things I did back then. I wanted to tug her arm and tell her to stop it at once, that she wasn’t helping anything, and that everything would be fine.

In any case, these fantasies led to her opinions on Rebecca, and her ideas about Maxim’s love for Rebecca, and it generally made her a poor sport throughout the book. She kept the dead exwife alive, however, in a way that perhaps Mrs. Danvers couldn’t accomplish. While Mrs. Danvers dusted her old rooms and saved all of her things to touch, smell, and remember, the narrator was acutely frightened of her. A ghost.

Now I’ve come to the end of my review and you’re probably wondering one of two things (or both!). In all my long-winded criticism, what did I like about the book? And why have I never mentioned the narrator’s name?

To the first, I’ll tell you that the only thing that annoyed me was the narrator’s conception of life. It, however, fueled the book, and explained a lot of why she didn’t understand things that were blatantly in front of her face. (It was easy to guess about the white dress, for example, but that other thing I mentioned was still such a shock.) For a while I thought the book poorly developed because there were several characters, but only two took the spotlight. Maxim, despite being there from beginning to end, was barely comprehended at all, except as the love of the narrator. But then I realized that this actually isn’t a romance novel. It’s not about the love between two people, it’s about Rebecca’s effect on everyone she’d touched in her life. It’s about how a woman became a ghost to a whole slew of people, some she haunted, others she lingered near because they loved her. And it’s about the things that happened during her life which caused that to happen. It’s more of a mystery, really. And when was the last time I wrote something this long about a book? I love books that make me think.

As to the second, the narrator didn’t have a name in the book. It was mentioned once or twice—”You have a lovely name,” and, “It suits you well,” and so on—but aside from slight references, we are never told what her name is. The significance I think is tied up into Rebecca, of course, whose name is all over the book. A question is brought up sometime towards the end of the book, about whether or not Rebecca “won.” It’s generally concluded by the characters that she didn’t. Yet, she’ll be the one I walk away from this book remembering.

Someone will ask me some day what this book is about and whether or not I recommend it. I’ll have to say, “You know, I really don’t know, without giving it all away, and yes, I really do recommend it.”

The Bradfords, for example, flee as soon as possible; this wealthy family with plenty of resource to get away from the sickness, leaves all slaves to die in the shadow of the plague while they seek refuge in safer parts. The difference between class is stark in this novel; those “lower” beings, according to the Bradfords, are compassionate, caring, and strong, while the Bradfords appear weak, spoiled, and cold. It can’t just be a matter of upbringing, for while the only other wealthy characters in this book are compassionate through their own grave misfortunes, the poor can be just as heartless.

Anna Firth, our narrator, is the strongest survivor of them all. Compelled by her love for Elinor, Mompellion’s wife, she encourages the villagers to stick to the plan, even though she has lost all that is dear to her and has injustices done to her, besides. We learn of her long dead husband, Sam, and what it mean to her to have him in her life; their children, died later in the story from the plague, and her relations with an abusive father and indifferent stepmother. It’s clear where she gets her will to survive, and her motherly compassion for all those around her, though with such extremes of hatred and jealousy as most of the other villagers have, it’s a wonder that Anna herself possesses none of it. She seems too perfect.

I’ll get right to it: I’m conflicted about this book. On the one hand, it was a very easy, very quick read and I think I enjoyed it a lot. On the other hand, Anna Firth was an unconvincing lead character, and the ending was so full of her many passions and emotions that I don’t even know where to being criticising it. The novel was more or less slow paced until the last 20 pages or so, and the prologue, which jumped into an entirely new world; I felt uprooted.

It was good, but I suppose there was something lacking from it, and I can’t put my finger on what it was. Perhaps it’s that the main character really was the Plague. Novels with inanimate protagonists are always a bit uncomfortable. If that’s true, however, the “main character” as I’m defining it drops out somewhere along the way in favor of Anna, who finds immeasurable strength in the aftermath. For advertising itself as a “novel of the plague,” I feel a tinge uncomfortable that the plague should drop off sometime in the favor of Anna’s pursuit of a true career—her calling, perhaps.

Anna proves the saying that what does not kill us makes us stronger. If you’re looking for a bold, intelligent (though perceived dull by other characters), strong woman character in a novel, this is probably a good choice, all plague and depressing descriptions aside. If you’re looking for a coherent plot, then I’d skip this one. When I started reading this book, I thought it was going somewhere, but was quickly fooled into realizing that actually, it fumbled in the darkness of a sickness that no one could find cure for or define, exactly. I was introduced to several very interesting characters, none of whom had any relevance later on. Once the plague was dealth with, the book should have ended, but instead that extra bit was tagged on just to let you know what happened to Anna.

My shrug of indifference should give indication to how attached I was. I didn’t care what happened to Anna. Indeed, Elinor seemed more of a main character at times, as her story threaded in and out of everything Anna did. It defined Mompellion’s actions as well. Where was she in the end, but a ghost no longer leading Anna through the chaos of death?

As a historical novel, however, Year of Wonders was impressively put together. I felt I was there throughout my entire reading of it, and while some books will suck you in so fully that you have to convince yourself that you’re in the 21st century, this did, at least, make me blink at my surroundings any time I lifted my head. Wonders was thoroughly convincing with vivid, detailed description, indicating the author’s clear sense of life during this time period and the location.

What I expected was a novel exploring humanity during a time of crisis. Most of it exceeded my expectations, catching me off guard sometimes, but what I also got was a failed attempt at an ending narrative. Perhaps if I ever venture to reread it, I’ll stop when the plague dies out.

This is one of those books you’ll want to set aside some time to read, not only because it’s very long, but because it’s so extremely well written that you won’t want to set it down. Ever. Not even to work. Not even to do daily tasks. I found myself carrying this book around with me everywhere I went, bumping into things and people on the way. Unsmartly, I read while waiting for red lights to turn. When I was out of the house, I visited bookstores just to pile through a chapter or two while I had some time to spare (a book of this size would not fit in the purse I was carrying around this month). Rarely does a book capture me so much as to distract me from everything, but this book did. I wanted to know about Edward, his motivations, why he killed the red-haired man and then went for oysters (this is not a spoiler; it’s the first line in the book).

Edward Glyver has a passion for vengeance. He wants what is rightfully his, and feels the only way to get this is to assassinate celebrated writer Phoebus Daunt. Daunt, a young man from Edward’s school days, usurped Edward in all of his ambitions – schooling, a particular woman, inheretence, and happiness – and Edward is determined to get back what is rightfully his. The Meaning of Night, pieced together from a handwritten account of the murderer’s confession, takes the reader through Edward’s history.

Both Glyver and Daunt are a healthy mixture of good and evil, making it difficult to find one to “root” for. If you enjoy books with a clear-cut hero and villian, this is not the book for you. Constantly throughout my reading of this book, I found myself changing “sides,” one moment hoping that Glyver succeeded, the next wishing he would fail. It is written entirely from his perspective, being his confession, and thus is unreliable; sometimes the reader must draw conclusions of her own assuming the dimensions of the other characters.

Despite the 700-page length of this book, the plot never slows and the reader never gets bored. There is ever a twist or new character to dwell upon, though no character is introduced aimlessly; everything connects. Set in Victorian England, it is clear that Cox has a comprehensive grasp of the setting; the reader easily slips into the environment (sometimes having trouble readjusting to life outside…). I have read that this book is not unlike Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke, though I can’t confirm this as I haven’t read it, though it is reminiscient of Dickens.

Extraordinarily well-written and engulfing, The Meaning of Night quickly became a favorite. I would recommend it to anyone in need of an involved, complex plot.