I had decided that once school started, I would only read for pleasure on long weekends and during vacations, a resolution which mostly succeeded. I did manage to read probably 65% of my school-related work, which for me was quite a feat - somehow things I would happily read for fun end up sitting on my lap as I stare at train ads when they're assigned. Anyway, I managed to get through a few more books since late August; brief notes follow.

70. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan This was so brilliant - so much dense, science-textbooky material which becomes breezy. And now of course I am obsessed with corn.

71. Specimen Days, Michael Cunningham I had read The Hours, but only after seeing the movie so I was a bit disappointed. Specimen Days was fantastico, though, with very deft narration and time changes and different roots to the same story. I can't wait to read this again, one day.

72. American Gods, Neil Gaiman I am counting this even though I didn't finish it, because the last third or so of what I read was such hard work. What a let down. Am I this unable to suspend disbelief? I don't think so, I think it was pretty over the top.

73. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

74. Bodily Harm, Margaret Atwood

75. They Do it With Mirrors, Agatha Christie

76. Mystery of the Blue Train, Agatha Christie

77. Towards Zero, Agatha Christie

78. 4:50 from Paddington, Agatha Christie

79. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall

80. The Twentieth-Century American City, Jon Teaford

81. The Color of Water, James McBride

82. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg

83. Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue, Mark Kurlansky

84. Blood Mask, Lauren Kelly (Joyce Carol Oates)

85. The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, eds. Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Deb Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith

86. Tenderness, Robert Cormier

87. The Zigzag Way, Anita Desai

88. I am the Cheese, Robert Cormier

89. The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier

90. Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman

91. Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld

A teenager who is autistic tries to solve the mystery of his neighbor's dog's death. The back cover blurb makes this seem pretty light and harmless, which it definitely isn't - what a set of parents Christopher has. I wonder if I would pass the maths A-level? His journey for knowledge and his other journey to London are so fraught but they are, of course, necessary.

This is what happens when I wander the Carroll Gardens branch library. The cover promised an in-depth examination of socioeconomic structures via this memoir about life as a white kid living in the 70's-era LES projects. The in-depth examination was not so much there, but the reading was still great fun because I know those projects pretty well, and then he went to Stuyvesant, and then he grew up and became a sociology professor at Yale (living in Chelsea, like, gas much? guess he's not an ecologist). And he even seems like a mathematical sociologist! So basically I liked this book because I want to work for its author.

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So this was amazing - like Cloud Atlas but with context and emotional punch between each of the layers of the story. Every piece was compelling in its own right, and then the ties together were unexpected but not with a hammer, you know?

I have been totally lax on the nonfic thing for a while. The last decent one was the Angela Davis back in early June. This was a sweet little collection of essays from the new queer generation (read: the ones that make me feel old), focusing mainly on the gay male experience but with a healthy dose of all the other letters. Nothing too standoutish, except for the feeling stodgy part.

One mystery plucked out of a series, and the writing style was pretty engaging but the characters were totally flat and the rationale of the crime was both unbelievable and boring. Are all British mysteries this cozy? Surely not.

Very formulaic pulp-mystery crap, except for the interesting (thorough) treatment of mental illness. I am pretty committed to some exploration of mental illness, so it's always good to read about in other fiction.

So an anthology put out by an awards committee interested in scifi that explores gender (not necessarily female.) I think I found this through bookslut, and the next edition is headed my way thanks to leopac, and it was perfect for what I needed to read. I've never been big on short stories - I feel it's like watching movies. If I'm interested enough in characters I want to know about them for years, not just two hours. This was the first time that I changed my mind on that. Many of these stories would never be enough to fully flesh out into novels, but as speculative events they are just brilliant. The Geoff Ryman was amazing with the self-loathing gay man in the near future who bears children with his lover. The essays were pretty interesting - certainly the first time I read something by Ursula LeGuin all the way through, and my love for Joanna Russ has increased - but the Ice Queen trilogy at the end left me dry. The Catgirl Manifesto was hard to read but the Monica Lewinsky as post-modern feminist essayist who was then executed is just such a brilliant idea that I don't even know what to do. The Matt Ruff excerpt I can't even talk about yet.

I finally finished the trilogy last week. Such a difference from The Thin Man, this was so beat-down and conspiracy-minded and bringin' the corrupt establishment down. Very noir, with the dirty cops and mayor and detective with questionable morals but unshakeable ethics. Is this the kind of this that will go over well in YA? I definitely want to stay away from the cozy-atmosphere type of setting, where the protagonist is all superego on a high horse and never ever vulnerable. I guess that can't even happen in YA fiction, no character growth. Mystery with character growth must be such a tough thing to do. No wonder Veronica Mars had one genius season followed by an average one. How can you make YA mystery a compelling series?