The Island of Dr Moreau. by HG Wells

ISBN: um....

I read this on the recommendation of a customer, who told me she would not be responsible if I had nightmares and threw up. Um... This girl should read monster island. Anyway, I like Wells (War of the Worlds is one of my favourite classics) and this lived up to his name. Unfortunately it was extremely short and was really not as gory as I was expecting/hoping. We have vivisection and that is it, and that is really not even described. Meh.

3/5

The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks

ISBN: 071563318x

I typically keep this book by my bedside, since reading and re-reading it relaxes me. Something about being prepared, studying the land and learning which vehicle to use to escape an infested area (bicycle is always best!) just makes me happy. The book is funny and scary at the same time, entertaining and educative, and is a great companion read to World War Z.

5/5

Calculating God, by Robert J Sawyer

This is the second time I read this book, and it still makes me happy. The premise is that aliens land in Toronto to try and figure out if there are mass extinctions on earth that match theirs. Such an ocurence would prove that there is a God. It is touching and scientific and kinda scary all at once. If there is a god, I want it to be this one.

4/5

Ella Minnow Pea, by Mark Dunn

ISBN: 978-0385722438

I read this in under 12 hours, including sleeping a night-full in there. It is very short (only 200 pages) but it is also so incredibly excellent that I woke up early to finish it (then went back to bed). This book is written in the form of letters, whose vocabulary and word usage gets more and more constricted as letters fall of the statue devoted to Nollop (the guy who wrote: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog) and they get axed from the island's vocabulary. The penalty for using these letters is eventually death. This book is hilarious and still scary, a literary 1984 if you will.

5/5

Zodiac: the eco-thriller, by Neal Stephenson

ISBN: 978-0802143150


I have tried to read Snow Crash three times now and cannot get beyond the first thirty pages. Something about this guy's writing style bugs the shit out of me. It distracts me and I find it hard to keep track of who is speaking. Sometimes I skip pages and don't notice. BUT! Despite this book not being my kind of writing style, I really liked it. The topic, toxic waste and how we could "solve" it is fantastic, and it really kept me interested for the whole book. It got really good by the end, but the writing style gave me a headache. For some weird reason it is classified as sci-fi, when it should be in the regular fiction, along Christopher Buckley and the like.

3/5

Lizard, by Banana Yoshimoto

ISBN: 978-0671532765

This collection of short stories is one of the best I have ever read. Sophie from work said I should pick this author up, and she was right. The title story is especially moving, because it wraps you up, then it's over, and you never see it coming. You just feel it should keep going, but it doesn't. Crazy.

5/5

Failed Reads - September

Colony, by Rob Grant
Diary of a Madman, by Gogol
May Bird and the ever After by ...
Swimming With The Fishes by Mary Janice Davidson

The Fourth Bear, by Jasper Fforde

ISBN: 978-0340835722

This book was just as awesome as The Big Over Easy, if not better. They develop the characters a bit more and they twist and turn the story so many times that by the time you get to the last little bit, you STILL have no answers. Love how he sums up what happened to all the characters after the book in a short little blurb. The next one will be about the hare and tortoise.

5/5

The Professor's Daughter, by Joan Sfar and Emmanuel Gulbert

ISBN: 978-1596431300

This short graphic novel deals with egyptian mummies walking around and love. It is very pretty and mostly in sepia tones, and has a nice rounded feel to it. My only complaint is that is way too short, though I would not like to see it stretched for my sake.

4/5

Fat, by Rob Grant

ISBN: 978-0575078208

I'm sorry to have to say it, but I ate this novel up. It follows the story of one girl with anorexia, one overweight, anger-driven chef and one publicity spinner in charge of making a Well Farm (fat-nazi camp), skipping to each one each chapter, and mixing up the narratives by the end. It is really excellent, a study of how being "fat" is now illegal. The book starts by talking about the fat tax that planes are charging people based on their BMI, to account for the extra fuel needed to carry extra-sized people around.

5/5

Baltimore, or the steadfast tin soldier and the vampire, by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

ISBN: 978-0553804713

This illustrated novel is one of the scarier things I have ever read. Almost a collection of short tales, the whole thing is wound together so well that you barely ever miss a beat. It is a story about war, plague, human weakness and vampires. These vampires are original and disgusting, and there is no way you can root for them in any capacity. It is a gorgeous, 35$ book and I am seriously considering buying it. Help me resist!

6/5 and more.

The Big Over Easy, by Jasper Fforde

ISBN: 978-0340835685

Jasper Fforde is the author of The Eyre Affair (The Thursday Next novels) and this is his Nursery Crime Division novels, Staring Jack Spratt and Mary Mary. This novel had an awesome buildup, tons of twists and seriously funny characters. It follows the veins of The Eyre Affair, where the world Fforde presents is more concerned with literature than anything else (such as right and wrong). Interesting factoid: The Eyre Affair is mentioned as a fictitious book in the novel. That was a nice little wink in the right direction.

There is a second book staring these characters called The Fourth Bear. Look for it soon.

5/5

Fantasy Gone Wrong, ed. Martin Greenberg

ISGN: 978-0756403805

This is a collection of short stories that explore how WRONG fantasy can get. Stories of note include Food Fight, where a man can hear food talking, conspiring against our arteries, and Crumbs which takes knighthood and gingerbread and bops it on the head.

3/5