My reading focus right now is staring at the headlight of an oncoming library train-wreck. Most of my books are coming due NOW, no more renews. In a fortnight things get better, but it's a giant gulp to get there. On the plus side, so far I've enjoyed all these books I haven't bothered to read until the deadline, and occasionally I let myself remember that I could always, you know, check the books out again.

So, I have many of my own books with bookmarks, but they have all been relegated to the bottom shelf of my night stand while I keep one step ahead of the library due date tigers. I am energetically reading:

• The Private Patient, by PD James. I really like the fine spotlight James puts on each character in turn.
• Where Men Win Glory, by Jon Krakauer. The is the second book he's written about a dead young man; in this case Pat Tillman is vibrantly alive until he gets shot.
• Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot. Boys and girls aren't THAT different after all. I'm on the preschool chapter, which doesn't resonate that much because my boys never did the girls-are-different thing. Of course, they never played much with dolls, either.
• Promise of the Flame, Sylvia Engdahl. Another too-talky book about psychic people creating a new society. A bit too repetitive for me to love.

I inched along in a few books that aren't as pressing, mainly because they fit in my coat pocket.

• Blaze of Memory, by Nalini Singh. Still don't think I'll like this one.
• Positive Discipline, by Jane Nelsen. Got to keep up with my homework. I'm actually liking this one a lot; it helps me keep my cool when all around me are losing theirs.

I didn't read any of my home books, dang it. Maybe in the spring. I did page through LeGuin's Tombs of Atuan while putting it away, but I just read the good bits.

One last list: Books I Have Finished This Week.

• Blood Memories, Barb Hendee. Vampire book.
• Huntress, anthology. Not recommended.
• Who is Stealing the Twelve Days of Christmas?, Martha Freeman. Gentle kidlit mystery.
• Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat. Lynne Jonell. Lots of fun.
• The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen, M.T. Anderson. Silly with deep spots.
• Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz. James Bond, Jr. pastiche, with less racism.
• Good Poems, ed. Garrison Keillor. I found nine keepers.
• The Drunkard's Walk. Leonard Mlodinow. Captivating book about randomness and probability and life.

So, three kidlit, a YA, two paranormal fantasy, poetry and science. Closer to a well-balanced meal, and mostly enjoyable reads.

Silly Ladies: Huntress

Huntress is an introduction anthology; four longish stories by four paranormal authors, each with a tough female magical lead who fights baddies and has sex. Hopefully good sex, but whatever.

I picked it up because I hoped that Marjorie M. Liu's story "The Robber Bride" was a Dirk and Steele entry. Those are her delightfully over-plotted books where it's never enough to have a shape-shifting seven foot warrior enslaved to your Chinese puzzle box, but you also need magical metal-reading powers and ruthless tongs avenging the murder of innocents, not to mention the immortal evil magician lurking in the shadows.

The story in this book wasn't as satisfying; too much time was spent worrying on the many mighty powers the protagonist had forgotten she had; it destroyed the suspense because I just figured something amazing would float up from her memory, which is basically what happened. The relationship with the crow man never seemed real. Still, it was the most satisfying story of the bunch.

"Devil's Bargain" by Christine Warren had two of my least favorite tropes. First, the characters feel deeply in love at first sight, with pledges of eternal devotion and stuff within hours, based apparently on them both being trapped in the same short story. Second, there is the choice between Lilli's death and the enslavement and doom of the entire world. Aaron throws a hissy fit because Lilli chooses to save the world, which would have meant he'd be lonely (sshh-- she's magically saved). Uh Aaron, I think your hideous death soon afterward would have helped you deal with your feelings. Idiots.

Caitlin Kittredge's entry, "Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go," is interesting because it plays with many of the rules. Jack Winter is a guy, and there is no happy-ever-after. He has sex with the evil woman, Ava, who uses her magic to enslave him. Nina, the good one, appears to be dead at the end. Jack goes beyond rough-edged into unlikable. The story had a lot of potential, but the confusion of the action scenes kept me from caring too much. Sometimes a death/disappearance was for real, sometimes it wasn't, with the result that I didn't know whether it mattered until I didn't care anyway.

I've read an other Cin Craven story by Jenna Maclaine, and I won't be looking for more. The characters were incredibly stupid. See, Cin and her sexy husband (he's really sexy) are vampire enforcers for the vampire king. In "Sin Slayer" they go after a demon who borrows bodies; if one is killed he just hops into another one. Michael (he's the sexy one) spots him immediately, and Cin mentions that she needs some supplies to contain him magically; maybe they should wait until they are ready. Michael sexily grabs his sword and runs after the guy, so Cin tags along. They catch him, and can't do anything. So sexy-guy Michael attacks and Cin throws fireballs and they kill the host body. Oh woe, Cin's sexy husband is now possessed by an evil demon! He says mean things to her! He kisses other women! She mopes around. My eyeballs start bleeding. Even Cin calling another woman stupid doesn't cheer me up. I prayed for Buffy to show up and kill them all, but no luck.

This is not a good introduction to any of these authors. D-

Tiny Rats: Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat

People always tell kids to be good. But sometimes being likable is not enough. Lynne Jonell's Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat gives a good example of this limitation. Emmy starts out trying to be good enough for her parents to care about her, or for the other kids to notice her, but nothing works. The class rat advises her to try being mean, but that doesn't work either. So, luckily for the reader, she starts taking more direct action, first rather aimlessly and then figuring out exactly what is going wrong and how to fix it.

Earlier this week I sat in during N's library period, and the librarian was talking about themes. (I confess that I whispered my answer to N so he could call it out. Good job, N!) With that on my mind, I think the theme for this book is being true to yourself. Emmy stops trying to please others and works things out for herself. The rat tries on different identities until he find one that suits. There's even a look at a parent forcing soccer on his son until the boy, a gifted athletic, longs for a break. And it's all fun. Emmy isn't even an orphan, although her parents leave her alone with her vast wealth (which is one of the problems she has to fix). There are evil scientists, nasty nannies, and sports mad chipmunks. I had a great time reading this book, and I bet my sons would like it as well. Too bad I waited until the day it was due to read it. B+

Reluctant Spy: Stormbreaker, Alex Rider #1

What if James Bond had a nephew? And what if the secret service wanted a young-looking spy? Anyone who enjoys speculating along these lines can see what Anthony Horowitz did with Stormbreaker, the first in the Alex Rider series. I've been ignoring these because I'm a snob, but a friend talked me into trying one, and it's a lot of fun.

The boy, Alex, is grounded with realism but his exploits are larger than life. His uncle, who dies in the first chapter, encouraged him to learn solid skills such as driving, martial arts, and self-sufficiency. This pays off when the uncle's old office blackmails Alex into finishing the highly dangerous mission that killed his uncle. Armed only with the super-gadgets the lab provides, Alex sets off to thwart a super-villain, complete with killer jelly-fish, underground mind/secret factory, evil henchmen, and deadly chases on foot, on all-terrain vehicles, and by airplane vs parachute.

I won't tell whether he succeeds, but the zillions of sequels might be a hint. I'll definitely offer this to my fifth grader. B

Cute and Sad: The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen

Today is Reading on the Beach's A-Z Wednesday, with C the starring letter. Every week bloggers are invited to spotlight a book starting with the letter of the week. You show the cover, tell the title, give a synopsis, and post a link. Just to be annoying, I like to actually read (sometimes just finish) the book on that day, so I include my little review. Makes things more interesting. Then I sign up on her page to see what everyone else came up with.

This is a special week for me, because I think I started with the letter C. So I've come full circle. My kids are also now starting to play along, although sometimes they forget. So X has nothing this week, but P and I frantically rampaged around our picture books after piano lessons and came up with precious little. We only had fifteen minutes to read (P also believes in reading the text) so our options were limited. We looked at A Child's Garden of Verses, but only had time to read a couple (which P found much less painful than expected). But we also found Curious George's Are You Curious, an abridged board book featuring some scenes from the life of the monkey. P's review: Boring, but fast to read. The rhymes are lame.

My book was chosen because it's been out from the library the longest, and it is also short. M.T. Anderson writes edgy YA books which I keep meaning to read and also has a wacky middle school series floating along. X checked out

The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen, the second in a series involving kid superheroes and Lily, a would-be regular kid. The series satirises mystery series such as Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the Boxcar Children, featuring a Tom Swift like boy inventor and a zombie fighting girl, along with regular kid Lily. They stumble into an old-fashioned luxury inn with wacky characters, including many other heroes of books series. There are Lemony Snicket like asides and authorial comments, but what I found most interesting were the occasional dips into real pathos. Kate, the zombie fighter, wrestles with a desire for a real life, which become more poignant later when the real fate of action heroes is revealed. She's trapped forever (or for the duration of her books' success) at her current age. In between the slapstick gags, that's a real tragedy. B (X liked this one a lot, but I didn't ask him if he also found it sad between the jokes.)

Nine Cheers for Good Poems

My book club read some poems a few months back. We picked Garrison Keiller's anthologies (Good Poems and Good Poems for Hard Times), with the idea that we'd all get to pick one poem and we'd concentrate on those picked. My book club does not like to strain our brains; we are in it for the good times. But we had fun with the poems. They are all from his radio show, so meant to be heard while doing life; short poems that you could listen to while cooking, or driving, or cleaning.

Now, this was months ago. I checked our local library, but didn't see the book. I consulted a librarian, and she thought it might be lost, so she put in on hold for me and started an investigation. I forgot about it and got the other book from the county library and we had our meeting. Weeks went by, and suddenly I got a call from the librarian -- they found my book! Hooray.

Well, if they go to that much trouble, I figure I should read the book. Someday. So it sat, looking hopefully at me from my bedside table, until I noticed that I'd had it for 8 weeks and it had to go back on Thursday. So I've been living in poems for the past weekend, and it's fun. All the poems are short, which I like, because if I read a poem over three pages I want to get something out of it, but I'll experiment with short stuff. Also fun was that we had listened to the audio version a few months ago, and I could hear some of the words echoing back. I've got nine going into my poetry notebook, of which the family favorite is the pairing of Williams and Gambino's "This Is Just To Say" poems. P thinks they should assign this type to his class.

Forgive me

you were

driving me

insane

Random: The Drunkard's Walk

I've signed up for a Science book challenge, because Science is Cool. No, really. And I like reading (or sometimes, having read) books that connect directly to the world, instead of all books that connect through a mirror. Here's my first entry!

Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers claimed that luck was a big component of success; that most big winners just happened to be in the right place at the right time, doing the right things. That's a conclusion Leonard Mlodinow also reaches in The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, a look at probability and randomness, and how we recognize and mistake them in daily lives.

He reviews the history of probability, which I hadn't ever really thought about. The idea of figuring out percentages and basing judgements on them is a lot newer than I realized. For one thing, if everything is an Act of God (and thinking otherwise is a sin), then there's not much use in figuring probabilities. But as math got more sophisticated, and calculus and actuaries and probability became hot topics, our understanding grew. Not that people's actions change much. Mlodinow is also interested in how we tend to judge things, and how people tend to see patterns in chaos. The gambler's fallacy is powerful -- how many people feel the urge to ride a lucky streak, or admire the "hot hands" of a sports player, or trust in the good history of a broker? Watching the Olympics, I heard an announcer mention that a skier had never had a serious accident, which was obviously a powerful jinx, and then I waved this book at the screen to rebut the jinx. And then the guy wiped out. But if he hadn't, this wouldn't be a story, right?

I like the entertaining tone, and the personal notes. When discussing variations in grades, he confesses to absent-mindedly rewriting his son's paper when asked for comments, and then noticing he had forgotten to do "save-as" at the beginning. So he just had the kid turn it in, and then to his son's smirking satisfaction only got an A-. But the point that teachers tend to grade to expectations -- good students get good grades, bad students worse ones, even when turning in the same work (sometimes literally), and that normal variation happens even in situations we'd like to think are more controlled was made without condescension. There aren't any equations that I remember, but it was a fun trip through some meaty flavors of mathematics.

Oh, and Mlodinow finds the idea that luck plays such a huge part in success comforting. The part that we control is how often we show up, so consistency and stubbornness really enhance your chances, and anyone can come up with those. B+