Arsenic and Old Lace

Another great, hilarious play! I had seen the movie with the same title, but had never read Joseph Kesselring's play. I was delighted that the movie is almost an actual performance of the play! I really enjoyed reading the play and am looking forward to when the movie shows up in my Netflix again!

Recommended for beginning drama readers (very madcap & I hesitate to say it.. zany) and for fans of the movie, especially. People who enjoy reading plays would not find this as high-brow as Harold Pinter or maybe Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but I think it'd be tough to find one who didn't have to suppress a smile once in awhile while reading it.

Dark Water

In this collection of short stories, Koji Suzuki, has put together a set of disturbing tales all centering around the theme of water. While American audiences are somewhat familiar to the titular story from the movie, Dark Water with Jennifer Connelly and Suzuki himself is much more well-known for his Ring series, Ring, Spiral and Loop (and the movies based on them: so far The Ring & Ring 2 and Ringu and Ringu 2).

This is a great creepily sinister set of tales perfect for fans of Koji Suzuki, Japanese horror in general, or just wants a well-written book of spooky stories without having to worry about a lot of gore. Disturbing & creepy? Yes. Gory & icky? No.

The Birthday Party and The Room : Two Plays

Again with the plays! I still think that I need to read some more about Pinter's style to fully enjoy these. Of these two, I liked "The Birthday Party" better, but they were both very odd. I think of the 3 plays by Harold Pinter I've read so far, "The Lover" was the most accessible. Interesting to read, probably just as weird to see performed.

Recommended for people into modernist philosophies, neo-intellectual beatniks, and people really into the history of drama. General audiences would probably not find much appeal.

Mousetrap

The classic play by Agatha Christie lives up to its name! Great, quick, & easy to read - though I'd like to see it performed sometime too. :)

Recommended especially for people who think they dislike reading plays, but who feel guilty they don't read more of them. Also recommended for British mystery fans.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

I know this is a mini-series documentary now, but this book by Dee Brown is very powerful in its own right. It took me a long time to finish less because it's a long book, but more because I could only read so much about irrational, unfounded savagery on the part of our nation's white imperialists from the past at any given time. I'd say that this would definitely round out any curriculum on the settling of the West (obviously at a high school or higher level - just because I don't think a class of elementary school kids could make it through the book).

Hugely worthwhile for all Americans able to read the book. The prose is not light (by any stretch of the imagination), but is very readable & isn't difficult to read in a technical sense. Highly, highly recommended.

Cold Skin

In this creepy novel by Albert Sanchez Piñol, a young man trying to escape his past goes to an island in the Antarctic to take weather measurements. The man he's supposed to replace is missing - the only person present is the lighthouse keeper, Gruner. Strange gets stranger in this horror novel that leaves the reader wondering who the monsters really are.

The story is much more similar to H.P. Lovecraft than Stephen King, but if King's explicitness bothers you, this is not the book for you. If not, this is a disturbingly weird read that will be worth your time. If you've mostly read American horror novels, this will be a special treat for you. :)

Recommended for H.P. Lovecraft fans especially, but other horror readers too. Other readers might not enjoy it as much.

Come Closer

In Come Closer by Sara Gran, we come back to the idea of demonic possession vs. mental instability. I didn't really find this book that scary, but others might. Somehow I still felt outside of the main character, Amanda's, situation - despite the insider's point of view. Most of the time I just didn't feel that sympathetic toward Amanda.

If you keep up on psychological fiction or read all the possession books you can, go for it. If you're looking for something a little creepy & supernatural to balance out all those chick lit books set in NYC, go for it. If you're looking for something edge-of-your seat scary or truly scary, find something else. Sinister at best.

Speak

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is a book for teens about a girl who has been raped and the circumstances surrounding her trauma and the year following as she struggles with reclaiming a place in her world. Largely a book of mental processes and flashbacks, the book tells its story well - bringing the reader into the main character's mind and lets teens experience this event and the start of the healing process from a safe place (outside of the situation). Speak is the Go Ask Alice of this generation (though never fear, there is no shortage of readers for G.A.A.). These books speak to what I like to think of as the "They've got it soooo much worse than I do" appeal factor. This also explains the incredible appeal of A Child Called It to this same audience. In my opinion, Speak is a much higher quality book, though it does not purport to be a true story because it's not so sensationalized and the moral of the story doesn't hit the reader over the head like a sledgehammer. Still, I think probably for a lot of girls (and perhaps a few guys who read this as a required book for school) when they find themselves drifting into a similar situation, they might be more likely to find a friend to take them home before anything happened - or not stick close to their friends so that none of them could be injured or taken advantage of in an inebriated state.

I'd highly recommend this to fans of V.C. Andrews and for people who like to read about other people coming through difficult circumstances (fans of A Child Called It, Go Ask Alice, Mr & Mrs Bo Jones, etc..). For everyone else, it's worthwhile as a teenager, but less impressive for an adult audience. For adults who like this kind of book, I'd recommend Sybil or Ghost Girl.

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

Well, it's a little hard for me to admit that I've actually read one of these, but I *did* read it to increase the number of bestsellers I've read so I can do the Readers' Advisory part of my job better. This is the first book in The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun and it's all right as far as cozy mysteries go. Kinda bland for my taste, but it IS the first one and usually a few books into a series they improve quite a bit before sliding downhill after too many have been published. I like the hard-boiled mysteries and the more intellectual ones, and this is neither - a great book for the bus, bathroom, or before bed (no nightmares!)

Overall, if you like cozy mysteries (mysteries without overt sex, profanity, violence) and have somehow missed Braun, queen of this domain, then these are for you. If you like more of the rough & tumble, I'd skip them and go for something tougher (personally really liked Matthew Pearl's Dante Club).