Worst. Weddings. EVER.

You might think that a singleton like myself would remain cynical about weddings, after having attended more than a fair share of them. That, unfortunately, is not the case - and not because the reception gives me too many opportunities to indulge in cake and champagne while secretly bemoaning the absences of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The local weddings I've attended in Honolulu have always been such happy, family-oriented affairs, and if there were any humorless Bridezilla moments - other than the ones that may have been instigated by certain bridesmaids (*ahem* yours truly *ahem*) - I should count myself glad to not have been subjected to them.

And if I should encounter such horrific nuptial conditions at some point or another - either on my own wedding, or with others' - it should come as a great comfort for me that none of those will ever compare to the ones I've encountered in my own reading history.

(Note: I've decided not to include Honeymoon with My Brother in this list, since that one's more of a foregone conclusion. And, c'mon, Franz Wisner got a holiday in Costa Rica and an Oprah guest appearance out of it.)

Should've Spent More Money on the Caterer: Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel

It's the wedding that started it all: Because Mama Elena was way too hung up on the "tradition" thing, Tita loses her true love, Pedro, to her older sister Rosaura - and not only that, but she also suffers the indignity of having to cook for their wedding reception, which also included an extravagant Chabela Wedding Cake, scaled big enough to serve hundreds of guests. Ultimately overwhelmed by emotion, Tita cries into the cake batter... and the icing... and though her tears do not change the flavors per se, the guests who end up eating the cake at the reception are overcome with such intense longing and bitterness that pretty much escalates into weeping, wailing, wide-scale vomiting... and even death. (Makes you wonder what could've happened if one of the guests had been litigious enough to sue for damages, right?) Luckily for the rest of us, Esquivel makes up for the disgusting spectacle with other tasty treats - including the triumphant wedding* which marks the penultimate chapter of the book. (Hee, I wrote penultimate.)

Blood on the Sheets: Chronicle of a Death Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A flamboyant man and his clueless bride commemorate their wedding with an extravagant celebration, and everyone who is everyone in their small town - that is, the entire population - takes part in the revelry. Hours after the last drink has been raised, however, the bride is taken back to her family by the furious groom, claiming that the girl was not a virgin on her own wedding night. What happens afterwards - up to and including the moment when the girl is forced to give up the name of her supposed "lover" - leads to a cycle of vengeance, and a murder so horrific that I felt like I was aiding and abetting the crime myself.

I guess this is the part where I tell you that Gabriel Garcia Marquez must be an artist and a genius for making me feel this way as a reader, blah blah blah, but: no, sorry. That death scene - described repeatedly in both foreshadowing and flashback form -was so grotesque that I couldn't even look at a ham sandwich for days.

Get A Room: On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

By now you've probably heard that Ian McEwan came perilously close to winning the Bad Sex in Fiction Award from the UK Literary Review for his not-safe-for-work descriptions of a honeymoon between two virginal idealists. (Sample passage can be read here.) Really, it's not like anyone reads McEwan for passion and sensuality - again, Atonement notwithstanding - and it's pretty obvious that the author nearly dodged a bullet here just for being a perennial critic's darling. Still and all, it's not like I was holding out any hope for the poor couple in the first place; I knew that their marriage - and the book - was immediately doomed from the time I got to McEwan describing our couple's honeymoon dinner as "long-ago roasted beef" with "soft boiled vegetables" and "potatoes of a bluish hue." Oh, yummy. (See also: Like Water for Chocolate, above.)

Premature Miscalculation: Swimming with Scapulars, by Matthew Lickona

On Chesil Beach may have had the bad food and appetite-killing sex scenes, but it's a mere trifle compared to the real-life wedding night woes of Matthew Lickona. Without giving much of the book away - and this is just but one chapter of many in this book of "confessions" - let's just boil it down to the particulars: Let's just say that you're a devout Catholic, and you've waited longer than forever to finally say your vows before man and God. You know - or you think you know - that you don't want kids, but you can't use birth control outside of Natural Family Planning. So what happens, then, when your wedding night approaches... and you find out that your lovely bride... is in the middle of her ovulation cycle?

Thankfully for the rest of us, Lickona spares us the gory details (he is, after all, a Catholic writer and a married man), but he does handle what could've been scandalous subject matter with a healthy dose of humor - and not a hint of Joshua Harris-esque sermonizing. Not only do he and his wife stay together and consummate the marriage, but they also go on to become parents themselves. Five times over, as a matter of fact. (Thank God for tequila.)

Try To Set the Night on Fire: El Filibusterismo, by Jose Rizal

If only those annoyingly extravagant "high society" weddings in Manila could be interrupted so easily. Here's what happens to the doomed wedding in El Fili (aka Subversion or The Reign of Greed) from the Wikipedia plot summary:

Simoun then tells Basilio his plan at the wedding of of Paulita Gomez and Juanito, Basilio’s hunch-backed classmate. His plan was to conceal an explosive inside a lamp that Simoun will give to the newlyweds as a gift during the wedding reception. The reception will take place at the former home of Captain Tiago, which was now filled with explosives planted by Simoun. According to Simoun, the lamp will stay lighted for only 20 minutes before it flickers; if someone attempts to turn the wick, it will explode and kill everyone inside the house. Basilio has a change of heart and attempts to warn the people inside, including Isagani, his friend and the former boyfriend of Paulita. Simoun leaves the reception early as planned and leaves a note behind..

[edited to remove GIGANTIC SPOILER for those of you who have not read the book at all]

As people begin to panic, the lamp flickers. Father Irene tries to turn the wick up when Isagani, due to his undying love for Paulita, bursts in the room and throws the lamp into the river. He escapes by diving into the river...

...And yet, Paulita Gomez remains married to the hunchback. Gee, "thanks."

*EDITED 05/01/2008: For those of you who have read Like Water for Chocolate, the "triumphant wedding" that I referred to in this section is actually not between Tita and Pedro. To say anything more would be to give away the massive spoiler of the ending (and I should know, having watched this movie so many times in college that even my frat-boy housemates have started saying "te amo" to each other)... so until then, my apologies.

NBLB Weekend Survey #5: Book Fiend Confessions

You can run. You can hide. But that tell-tale bulge in your book tote speaks volumes. You gave in. Your library card's scanned heat burns through your wallet. Your Mastercard digits are fresh in your mind after a hasty purchase on Amazon.com. Books are falling out of your shelves. Your nightstand looks like the display case at Borders.

We know what you did.

We did it too - and we're telling all on this weekend's NBLB Survey #5...the Book Fiend Confessions edition.

The Happy Scribe: Undead Histories

1) What books did you buy recently? I seem to be on a history and politics binge lately: Daniel J. Boorstin's The Seekers and The Discoverers; along with Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance and The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? I want a Kindle. Badly. It's probably another gadget I won't use after its novelty wears off in six months...but I covet it every time I check my account. Though the price tag will keep my reading to paper-based books for a good long while. I can't deal with iPods, but I'm a-tremble over the Kindle. Whadyya know.

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire _____" ...A leather bound set of the classics, just like my mom had in her library while I was growing up. There's just something about gilt-edged paper and the smell of leather while reading Cervantes, Thucydides and Shakespeare.

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. I have been hunting for a copy of Eleanor Hoffman's Mischief in Fez for YEARS. I can't just settle for the text version. The original illustrations were so beautiful. Love of that delicate fennec drawing could quite possibly be the root of my infatuation with fluffy, sharp-eared animals.

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. My copy of The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. My mother bought me this thick volume edited by renowned historian Kenneth O. Morgan at Oxford, after we saw the famous dining hall. There is absolutely no way I would part with this book. Some of the twentieth century discussions are already out of date (this edition ends with Thatcher) and I've spilled coffee on some pages (notably, the Tudor years, which were my chosen area of study in college), but no other compilation explores Britain's two thousand year old story with such aplomb.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made? Cherry wood folding shelves for my living room. I realize my current book collection has already spilt onto various windowsills, but I will not settle for ugly shelves. Hubby has the more expensive books, since arts and photography anthologies do cost quite a pretty penny. I'm a cheap book date in comparison - most of my current collection are from my childhood/college stash, or refugees from library sales.

7) If you could design your dream library, what would it look like? Cozy - full of pillowy couches and arched reading lamps in worked nickel, all four walls reaching ceiling-high in books. Huge windows for daylight reading, with a fat, purring cat in the corner. Oh...and all the time in the world to read every single volume.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." The bargain history book pile, especially those big discounts on DK books with all the great pictures. If it's under $15, I'm stuck to it like mud on a farm horse.

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library. Deep breath: Eight Laurell K. Hamilton books (Anita, you saucy minx), Mary Janice Davidson's Sleeping with the Fishes, Shobhaa De's "sari-ripper" Bollywood Nights, Duncan Sprott's ancient family saga The Ptolemies, Meg Cabot's Queen of Babble in the Big City, Hester Browne's The Little Lady Agency and the Prince, and several art compediums. I read them simultaneously, so I could dabble in a little Hamilton paired with MJD (because I need her humor to wash down all those leather pant descriptions), or some Cabot spiced with Bollywood adventures. All those Anita Blake books lately? My librarian thinks I'm doing research on vampires. I don't correct her.

10) "I love my local library because...." It's my sanctuary away from my distractions. And my librarians are pretty cool, despite all that vampire literature they've had to stack for me in the holds' shelf.

Meimei: Wine and Coelho on Loan

1) What books did you buy recently? My parents are reading this blog, so you won't find out here about the trashy bodice-rippers I just purchased on the sly. Apart from that... I just picked up Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, which I will get around to reading soon.

2) What's on your Amazon wish list? Since it's freshly updated: My Life with The Saints, by James Martin (highly recommended by my sister); some yoga DVDs; a couple of books by GK Chesterton and Scott Hahn; Harry Wong's The First Days of School (more on this later) and Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears. Also, LOVE (the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil collaboration), Cranium, and Living Language's In-Flight French in CD form.

*Cue Meimei's sister reading this and thinking: Girl, you have GOT to start editing that list already.*

3) Complete this sentence: "If I had an unlimited book budget, I would acquire...." Great Tastes Made Simple, by Andrea Immer (now Andrea Immer Robinson). This is the book that got me really interested in wine. Immer has an engaging way of writing about wine that doesn't make you feel stupid if you can't tell your Barbera apart from your Barolo. It's a pity this book is way too heavy and pricey for me to keep!

(Note from NBLB: Andrea Robinson also wrote Everyday Dining with Wine. Prepare to part with more of your money, Mei.)

4) Name one hard-to-find book you would love to see on your shelf. In a just world, I would have owned a decent Filipino cookbook - a well-written one with amazing pictures, sturdy paper stock, and great recipes that won't leave my Mom screaming bloody murder for suggesting such insane substitutes should I decide to make the dish outside of the Philippines. It's a pity that Jessica Zafra can't cook and Clinton Palanca is way too high on his own self-importance to write down a decent recipe!

5) Name one book on your shelf right now, that you would NEVER SELL. The Soul of Education, by Rachael Kessler. This was the book that really got me revved up about teaching; it's up there with Parker J. Palmer's The Courage to Teach and Harry Wong's The First Days of School (which I also haven't purchased) as the Holy Triumvirate of Books No Teacher Should Leave Behind, Ever.

6) What is the most expensive book (or book-related purchase) you have made I remember paying upwards of $25 for Kevyn Aucoin's Making Faces when I first bought it here in Honolulu. Worth every flipping penny.

7) Close your eyes: if you could design your dream library, what would it look like? (Erm...you can open your eyes to type the answer...) I'm the kind of person who never leaves her books in the same place, ever... but if I must, I definitely can imagine a Victorian-style personal library, with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Not a lot of hardcovers (unless you count some of my ED textbooks, which I refuse to part with), but you'd best know that the ones I reach for the most would be the ones that are within eye level. No "airplane books" or double-shelving, just my fiction, nonfiction, and cookbooks mingling together. Also, hidden compartments for my respective stashes of booze, herbal teas, and fine dark chocolate.

8) Complete this sentence: "When I walk into a bookstore, I save my wallet from impending doom if I bypass the ___________ shelf/section." I don't have to worry about the romance and fiction sections any more than I have to worry about the cookbooks and DIY crafts! The bargain bins at B&N and Bestsellers are lethal, though: quickie gifts, gag books, gorgeous journals, anthologies of the trashiest bodice-rippers and canned-soup recipes ever written... not to mention $2 Sudoku compilations not edited by Will Shortz. Ay naku!

9) List ALL the books you currently have on loan from your local library.

From the Hawaii State Library System:
- Isabel Allende - Zorro (yes, it sounds cheesy, but I'm curious about how Allende managed to class up the joint here)
- P.G. Wodehouse - Carry On, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters (a little British humor, for a change of pace)
- Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find (I much prefer her dry Catholic wit to the balmy Southern Gothics of Faulkner)
- Ian McEwan - Saturday (I hear that this one is much better than On Chesil Beach, but I'm not touching this until after all that Wodehouse and Allende)

Also on loan from Chaminade's Sullivan Library: Coelho's The Alchemist and Allende's Of Love and Shadows, which I still need to return on Monday.

10) "I love my local library because...."

- They ENCOURAGE you to sit down and read, just about anywhere you can grab a book. It's a refreshing contrast to Barnes & Noble, where you get sales clerks every five minutes looking down their nose to tell you to stop lingering so much in the aisles and/or buy a Frappuccino if you intend to finish your book and still keep your seat in the cafe.
- In the same vein: Librarians won't give you that empty stare when you ask them for a book that you can't find anywhere, or give you a condescending sneer if they catch you with a particularly dirty title in your hands.
- Most of the public libraries that I frequent in Honolulu (Hawaii State, McCully-Moiliili, Manoa and Aina Haina) are air-conditioned in a way that's comfortable and doesn't require an extra layer of clothing.
- If there's a kids' event, you get free pizza coupons if a staffer mistakes you for a teenager. (Yes, it has happened to me!)

Bodice Ripping Cliches, Part 3: A Swift Kick In the Crown Jewels

I'll be the first to admit that the romance novels of Bertrice Small were the source of much unintentional comedy between myself and The Happy Scribe in our younger years. For all the talk about Mme. Small's devotion to historical accuracy and painstaking research, even I will have to admit that our tolerance for romance-novel cliches were diminished by our repeated reading of her oeuvre.

Let's run down the cliche list, shall we? Coercion? Check. Stockholm Syndrome? Check. Horny Scottish Lairds? Check. Repetitious sequences involving kinky sex in harems? Check. Too many underage milksop brides trying to be feisty, yet throwing their corsets to the wind as soon as the Horny Intrepid Hero(es) entice them to bed? Check, check, check.

But the most tiring Bertrice Small cliche of them all, in my opinion, is the one involving the Excessively Horny Real-Life Royal. I swear, after reading so many Bertrice Small novels, you'd think that all these European royals were never taught how to keep it in their pants; not the impetuous young princes, and certainly not the lecherously Dirty Old Kings who ought to know better.

Say what you want here, but apparently Bertrice Small may have taken Henry Kissinger's words about power being "the ultimate aphrodisiac" a little too far here.

Don't even get me started on the repetitive nature of each plot line: Royal seduces our heroine in the most lascivious way; Royal shows Heroine a "good time" in bed; history intervenes (regardless of whether or not our Heroine actually becomes enceinte from their one night of "passion"), and Our Lovely Heroine parts with the Royal on relatively civil terms so that she can be reunited with Our Intrepid Hero. Ho. Freaking. Hum.

With all due respect, I'm the kind of romance reader who would rather enjoy a book where the leads engage in Hot, Sweaty, Exclusive Monogamy. No partner-switching, no plot-driven adultery, not even a single attempted rape. Which is why I find it ironic that I've actually found a Bertrice Small novel that actually defies the cliches I've written above, even with a Horny Royal romping about the premises.

Do not be fooled by the cheese-tastic (and horribly inaccurate) cover: Love, Remember Me is actually Not That Bad. Intended as a sequel-of-sorts to the also semi-cheesy Blaze Wyndham, this novel follows Nyssa Wyndham - the daughter of the titular Blaze - into the court of her mother's ex-lover Henry VIII as a lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, rendered here as a pragmatic, good-humored German princess who sees her sham marriage to Henry for what it is and agrees to part with him on civil terms. Here Small's historical research pays off nicely - the court of the Tudor King, and its surrounding characters, have never been rendered with so much rich detail.

Yes, it starts out very, very badly: Amid speculation that the virginal - and brunette - Nyssa may be in line to be Henry's next mistress (which... considering that her mother used to do the nasty with the King himself: awkward!), certain forces conspire to have Nyssa wake up in bed naked next to the "notorious rake" Lord Varian de Winter, in order to take her out of contention and replace her with Catherine Howard. That the devilishly handsome Lord Varian would also turn out to be an illegitimate relation of Cat Howard also factors prominently in the story, since the rest of the story is centered around the rise and fall of a woman who married for power and ended up in the history books as the "beheaded" between Anne of Cleves ("divorced") and Katherine Parr ("survived").

But enough about poor Cat Howard, who would never have lost her head had she actually kept her own legs crossed. I know some readers have complained about Love, Remember Me having too much history and not enough hot lovin', but I thought that the side action (ahem) between Nyssa and Varian dovetailed nicely with the rest of the history-book aspects of the novel. Nyssa starts out as a feisty but proper 18 year old, who is rightfully freaked out to find herself being gossiped about in relation to both Varian (approximate age in book: 32) and the grossly obese fortysomething King Henry (who, as other characters would point out later in the book, may as well have been her own father... again: ewwwww). Once Nyssa enters the marital chamber, however, Varian handles her "first time" with a surprising amount of finesse and sensitivity... and that's just the first of many heartbreakingly intimate revelations between man and wife. Suffice it to say that Teh Sex between Lord and Lady De Winter may be hot, but it's not as devastating as the quieter conversations they have between all the rumpy-pumpy. It's a testament to Small's restraint that not only do Varian and Nyssa remain faithful to each other throughout the story, but that the only other attempt at Nyssa's post-marital virtue is swiftly thwarted by Nyssa with a few well-placed knee jabs delivered to her attackers.

Despite the age difference between them - not to mention the inordinate amounts of sex - Varian does treat Nyssa with more than a fair measure of equality; as he mentions in the story, he was already preparing to settle down when he met her, and he would have been lucky to choose her as a wife anyway. Nyssa also grows to love Varian - and bears his children (yes, folks, she has twins) - but she also learns to find her own strength, and her growth from lady-in-waiting to fiercely protective matriarch becomes a striking parallel to Cat Howard's infidelity, which Nyssa observes with appropriate puzzlement. By the time Cat ends up facing the chopping block, loyalties are tested and lessons are learned... and our beloved Lord and Lady De Winter emerge from the scandal more ferociously devoted to each other.

Yes, it sounds so cheesy and trite on paper - especially after I've left out some pretty spoilery bits out of that summary above - but the great majority of elements in this book do fit together nicely. You'll be surprised to find how a love story like this could actually turn out to be even more touching amidst all the skullduggery - and even more so to find that such a tastefully developed story could come out of the mind of Bertrice Small, who might as well have bartered every single character in this book into white slavery. At the very least, it should save you some trouble for your next European History midterm.

Salacious B(uffy): The Anita Blake Series

The librarian hands me a pack of hardbacks, eyebrows raised at the titles printed from the computer: Cerulean Dreams, The Lunatic Cafe, Micah...Anita Blake, much? How did I end up becoming a Laurell K. Hamilton junkie?

I blame the following details:

* Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
* Anne Rice
* Living next to a glamorous cemetery (I like jogging around old tombstones. The dead don't laugh at my thighs.)
* Waiting too long for my next MJD fix
* A hard-boiled newsie friend who admitted in a gush of red wine and late night neurosis how much she adored Narcissus in Chains. (This was eight years ago. I picked up my first Hamilton last weekend.)

I'm reading them as soon as I can get my hands on the goth-decorated covers. This is insane. I also gobbled (in twenty minutes) the graphic novel version of her first book, Guilty Pleasures. Since I can't avoid reading spoilers, I already know Anita has gotten it on with every type of Undead, from Jean Claude the Master Vampire and Richard the Werewolf, to Micah the Wereleopard (hrm...spotty...). I wouldn't be surprised if she finds an attractive zombie some day - though at this point, she does draw the line on decomposing lovers. Hamilton's imagination is as fertile as it gets - I totally understand how she hits the New York Times best-seller list every time she publishes. She writes about a world where vampires have recently acquired U.S. citizenship, throwing a monkey wrench into the usual stake-em-and-leave-em vampire slaying stories. Her heroine Anita is an animator (no, not da kine that works for Pixar - when I first read the description of her job, I was like "Eh? How does she go from drawing cartoons to killing badly-dressed vamps?" Dense = me.), able to raise the dead in order to settle court cases and police investigations. She's also a necromancer, which means she can CONTROL the dead, a power growing stronger with each novel (and each paranormal boinking, apparently).

While I'm hooked, and will keep reading until I've exhausted the tri-county supply of Hamilton books, I cannot help laughing at some outrageous details. Like how Hamilton has made the kinky menage a trois into a power-sharing "triumvirate" of inter-species power. So if Anita's dating a wereleopard and a vampire, they can draw power from each other telepathically, increasing their natural powers through metaphysical bonding...and well...physical contact. Wokey. There's also quite a lot of different "were" animals - it's becoming an undead zoo around here! In the beginning, I was thrilled by the idea of wererats, wereleopards, etc. Now, I'm a little scared...because Anita has a tendency to get "involved" with the latest species (no were-snakes, Anita!!!). I haven't read Narcissus yet, where sex becomes an important act to keep the main characters alive (oh dear!). And I can't decide if I do prefer the characters clothed...because some of the S&M themed outfits are just too much to bear in my (shallow watered) Vogue-loving head. I mean really - do all male vampires shop at Leather Pants R Us? It makes Angel's all-black ensembles seem rather nice in comparison (and they were, weren't they?).

Argh.

But I keep reading. So far, my favorite is The Laughing Corpse, a voodoo-themed novel about killer zombies and the unscrupulous humans who control them. Very gross. Lots of supernatural fighting. In other words - less naked tussling and more clothed whupass. Hamilton is a great writer because she's able to (Count Dracula laugh...PUN) suck you into her improbable world, where a tough heroine with a penchant for guns and stuffed penguins reigns supreme over all other beings. If you can suspend disbelief at Anita's sexual prowess and shield your eyes from the odd fashion choices, this series is worth a few guilty reads in the near-dark.

NBLB Weekend Survey #4 (FINALLY!): Literary Smackables Galore

Finally, after letting Real Life get in the way of blogging during this weekend, the readers of No Book Left Behind have managed to sit down and unleash their anger issues on ten literary characters of their choice. We've both had so much fun trashing our least favorite characters throughout the week that unleashing the can of Literary Whup-Arse on more of our non-favorites would be apt.

Special thanks to the American Library Association for their "Read" posters, and to Tim Gunn for holding the fort and "making it work."



The Happy Scribe: Whiny vampires and milksop heroines need not apply.

10) Fanny Price. Can. Not. Deal. The only Austen heroine who I feel needs a backbone transplant.

9) Bridget Jones. Liked the movies better than the books. Heroine is v. v. annoying. Smoking and kvetching gets old, especially in second book.

8) Louis. Yes, his immortal whining launched Anne Rice's career. But oh my god...someone stake him already if he's so unhappy with his sucky immortality.

7) Edmund Pevensie. I really hoped all that Turkish Delight would make him explode.

6) Fleur Forsyte. Egh. Why in the world she had Jon AND that budding baronet around her spoiled little finger was beyond my comprehension! Maybe because Soames was already a pill...his daughter was just...too much!

5) Dorothy. I loved Baum's other characters. Dorothy was just a little too self-righteous for my taste.

4) Briony Tallis. Too many exclamations from my reading corner on how her dangerous fancies and childish ignorance ruined her sister's chances at love.

3) Bertie Wooster. I adore P.G. Wodehouse's class romps, but in fairness, I feel Jeeves should've filled stupid Bertie's socks with jelly and left to serve the Queen.

2) Fred the Mermaid. Mary Janice Davidson wrote a mermaid series as well. Sometimes I wish Fred would stay underwater. Not my favorite MJD heroine.

1) Any Bertrice Small heroine. See Mei's bodice ripper cliches. (Though in hindsight, these ladies might actually get turned on by a smacking.)


Note: I did not mention Anita Blake because she could probably kick my ass with all her limbs tied together.



Meimei: Shut up, Daedalus. (You too, Judith Krantz and Jean Rhys.)

Before I begin with my list, I have to explain that these characters represent the tip of the iceberg as far as slap-worthy characters are concerned. I’ve already explained Bridget Jones last week; I was also tempted to add Anita Blake, but that’s more of a hate-on-sight (without having read a single book) than a genuine kind of hate. And, while both Agatha Christie and Ian McEwan have written slap-worthy characters, I can’t put them on the list because none of them inspire me to bring on the Slapsgiving that these have.

1) Stephen. Freaking. Daedalus. No other character has ever deserved such a violent smacking – and not just because anyone who has ever gone to the same high school as myself and The Happy Scribe has Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to blame for turning our otherwise fun IBH English classes into depressing slogs. I can’t remember having read Portrait without repeating the words “shut up” so many times - sometimes loud enough to scare my parents - and as much as I actually tolerated Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, I still have Daedalus to blame for ruining the rest of Ulysses for me.

2) Holden. Freaking. Caulfield. The runner-up to Stephen Daedalus in the “Stream-of-Consciousness”/ Douchebag division, easily beating out both Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise from Kerouac’s On the Road (talk about two people who just won’t Shut Up). The only saving grace I could find for Holden comes towards the end of Catcher in the Rye, when he takes his sister to the carousel… but other than that? Grow up, already!

3) Goldilocks. Just because there’s a successful Filipino bakery with your name on it doesn’t make it OK for you to barge into a stranger’s house unannounced and make catty, unwarranted comments about their food and furniture. I hope those three bears caught up to you.

4) Jewel Bundren, from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. In a book full of slap-worthy characters – including poor dead Addie – Jewel stands out as the whiniest and most incompetent of them all… and that’s saying a whole lot, without giving the “plot” (ha ha) away.

5) Mama Elena, from Like Water for Chocolate. Unlike her fellow archetype Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mama Elena’s cruel hounding of her own biological daughter seems way too telenovela-ish for me. Did Laura Esquivel really need to manifest her as a vengeful ghost and a hypocrite at the same time? At least Elizabeth Bennet got to dispatch of Lady Catherine with one of the best smack-down monologues ever written; Mama Elena’s come-uppance, on the other hand, comes a few chapters too late, and even then – both in the book and the movie - it’s handled way too abruptly.

6) The titular character from How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It didn’t take me too long to realize that this Stella was Terry McMillan’s version of a Mary Sue… and that’s before she realized that her Hot Jamaican Mandingo Lover Man was actually a gold-digging little queen.

7) Every single female lead character in the Danielle Steel oeuvre. “Hi, I can’t decide what I want for myself because my mother was too frigid to love me as a child, and Danielle thinks that giving me an actual personality would ruin all those dramatic ‘scenes’ and ‘monologues’ she wrote for me. Watch me as I screw my way through this book like a dispassionate sexbot!”

8) Billy Ikehorn, from Judith Krantz’s Scruples series. “Hi, I can’t decide what I want for myself because I’m used to being a horny, power-hungry slut, and Judith’s idea of giving me a personality is to have me screw rich and powerful men so I can dump them when they get bored of me. Watch me as I sleep my way to self-esteem… through three books!”

9) Waverly Jong, from The Joy Luck Club. True, she was the uppity daughter of an uppity mother, and Amy Tan did take both of them down a few pegs towards the end of the book. That doesn’t make the scenes where she rubs the other Joy Luck girls the wrong way any less painful, though.

10) Bertha Rochester. Fine, I say: Mr. Rochester was an idiot to keep her in the attic. And, from having watched the first movie adaptation of Wide Sargasso Sea, maybe there are a few reasons for me to be sympathetic towards her. But, c’mon – of all the interesting side characters in Jane Eyre, did we really need Jean Rhys to tell us how horrible Bertha and Edward were to each other? (And would the world be a better place if it had been Jasper Fforde’s province instead?) Extra slaptastic points goes to Bertha’s most recent adapted-for-screen incarnations – not just for getting to play “Touch My Body” with Nathaniel Parker and Rafe Spall (note to Rafe: Final season of LOST – look into it) but also for damn near defacing the lovely visage of Toby Stephens, who recently became one of my favorite OG Rochesters.

Please Stand By

Those of you who have been waiting for the NBLB Weekend Q&A may need to be patient; both of our reader-bloggers have been incredibly busy lately with non-blog-related business, which means that our regular weekly feature may be a tad delayed in posting. Fret not, however - there's a lot more reading and reviews in store over the weekend!

In the meantime, you can get your own Tim Gunn poster - and other celebs, too - at the online store for the American Library Association.

Big Ole Brain Crush: Daniel J. Boorstin's The Creators

If you ever get a chance to cruise downtown Oberlin, OH, check out the used book store (that is, if you don't blow your money at the bead shop...advice: start at the coffee shop and walk to the right). I got twinkly little stars in my eyes from cool book overload. Yellowing and yet in pristine condition on the crowded shelves were out of print copies of fairy tales, drama anthologies and classics. I nearly went home with an E.M. Forster biography and an illustrated Shakespeare, but my cash didn't stretch that far (we still have to eat this week, darn it). So, practicing the same restraint I apply to shoe stores, I browsed, bovine-like in my constant chewing over of titles and authors. What I love about Oberlin's liberal atmosphere is that the clerks are friendly, but not pushy. They're used to students and artists with limited budgets, so the "buy! buy! buy!" schmooze doesn't exist. (I would, however, still steer bead lovers to my neighborhood's City Buddha versus the crazy expensive stuff at the bead shop...still, those Peruvian bags were way cool...sigh...)

Anyways, when I finally made my choice, there was no question what my home library missed: Daniel J. Boorstin's Knowledge trilogy.

There are three key things that saved me from completely chucking myself out my 13th floor window (lucky, yeah?) while writing upper level European history essays: coffee, the love of my late (great) Pomeranian, and a copy of Boorstin's The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination. This book needs to be in your library if you adore art and history, and want to maintain that love affair despite the rocky essay deadlines and those interminable recitals of dates and religious upheavals. Boorstin's take on history's greatest artists isn't written like classroom text. This was what was so great about reading this book in my early high school years - history became a flesh and blood story, not a distant, dusty timeline. Critics of Boorstin's work tend to skewer him for presenting a Western-slanted account of the past 3,000 years. I was glad I didn't see it that way - I discovered this book as a story of how individuals left lasting imprints on society - how the efforts of one man or woman could be remembered from the works and words they left behind. It's as close to immortality we humans can achieve in THIS life.

I first read this book between trips to Europe, sandwiched between my childhood exploration of the Louvre, and when I dragged my Dad and little sister through it as an adult. My professors spanning high school and college were then treated to massive chunks of quotes from Mr. Boorstin's series of biographies in last-minute essays.Then I read it one really bad night while I cried about my own "art" alone in my college apartment. I don't care what the critics say. Boorstin's short biographies don't have to be read in order - for one day, Michaelangelo provides healing and guidance, for another, it could be Mohammed providing inspiration - it's good to have this option from a heavy history tome. The book is divided organically, according to themes - of God, structures, images, words, music, time/space, and the intangibles of the human soul. Appealing to my journalistic spirit is the prevailing question of WHY - the search for the answer to this question over the ages, versus the more utilitarian (and therefore more cold) question of today, HOW to get it done. The answers are in the architecture, the poetry, the philosophies, the religions, the paintings...it lifts the heart to think this can be a neverending exploration. You'll want to read Dante and Dickens, view Picasso, listen to Bach - you will want to experience it for YOURSELF.

I didn't find The Creators at the bookstore, but I did scoop up Seekers and Discoverers. Both deserve a re-read, after nearly three years of missing Boorstin from my library. I have had a huge brain crush on this man's writing for over a decade. "The nation's collective IQ took a nosedive on February 28, 2004, when Daniel Joseph Boorstin - historian, professor, writer, curator, librarian, and great American Booster - died of pneumonia at age 89." (The New Atlantis obituary) His career reads like an account of ten lives, all mashed together into this big, beautiful intellect. More importantly, he lived and wrote generously. The Creators points to the beginning of a path -wherever your mind is inclined. He is criticized for lack of elaboration - but he was not motivated to impress us with a huge tsunami of research (which he undoubtedly had to swim in, to produce these marvelous books). He gives us a compass to discover our own roads to expression. This is the survey class of your dreams - that first brain crush on art, history, religion and cultures, culminating in a lifelong love affair.

These creators, makers of the new, can never become obsolete, for in the arts there is no correct answer. The story of discoverers could be told in simple chronological order, since the latest science replaces what went before. But the arts are another story — a story of infinite addition. We must find order in the random flexings of the imagination.

-- Daniel J. Boorstin

Hook, Line, Sinker: Agatha Christie and Le Train a Grande Perfidie

I had been on a major Agatha Christie kick lately - which is actually a late-in-life discovery for me, having been hooked by the televised versions of the Miss Marple series. (And yes, I am aware that the recent versions were not faithful to Dame Christie's version - though I'll admit that I will still take them over last Sunday's desecration of E. M. Forster.) While I'm up here, I'll also say that I have not always had the chance to watch David Suchet's portrayal of Hercule Poirot on TV. I did, however - geek alert! - download and waste hours of my time on the computer-game versions of Death on the Nile and Peril at End House. Yes, the games do bear the signature of Dame Christie by way of a nifty licensing agreement - though not necessarily faithful to the plots of the books themselves (see the Wikipedia entries for both books if you want more spoiling) - and the game play is superb.

That said, I plowed through the first two Hercule Poirot books from my stash - Evil Under the Sun and The Mysterious Affair at Styles - both of which turned out to be quick, addictive reads that made me lose track of time at the bus stops and office desks where I tried to sneak them in. I figured, since I was already hooked, I might as well get cracking on the third book in my stack: Murder on the Orient Express. How hard could it be, right?

Easier said than done. It took me three days to get through this whole novel, even though it was no thicker than the two other books I had just finished.

How hard is it, anyway, to get through a claustrophobic murder mystery surrounding the not-quite-cold corpse of a wealthy, obnoxious American? How hard is it to figure things out when Dame Christie's publishers were kind enough to even provide me with a diagram of everyone's accommodations? How hard could it be for anyone to figure out who the murderer is, with all these passengers on board - bound only by a common hallway on a passenger cab - and a snowdrift blocking the train's way from Istanbul to Calais?

By then I was no longer a stranger to Christie's recurring theme of treachery in close quarters - not after having played the games and watched the movies - so of course I had to find out which one of the twelve passengers was the culprit. Midway through the book, however, I was practically suspicious of everyone on board - even with all the airtight alibis and lack of access to crime-fighting resources. CSI this certainly isn't. And if you thought the mystery surrounding Le Train a Grande Perfidie (a little pun, by the way, pour les Francophones et Francophiles) was going to get tied up neatly in a pretty bow, with Hercule Poirot offering a pithy soundbite while twirling his Mustache of Justice... think again.


I had to read the last chapter of the book three times this afternoon, just to make sure I actually got everything straight - all while screaming all sorts of obscenities (in my head, of course) and wondering how in Dame Christie's own mind did she able to manage to wrap such a dark mystery in so much skull-duggery without making the whole thing sound so depressing. Any other writer would've come close to putting the same elements together, and still would never have come up with something so intricately structured and engineered.

In Hercule Poirot's own words: "The whole thing was a very cleverly planned jigsaw puzzle, so arranged that every fresh piece of knowledge that came to light made the solution of the whole more difficult."

And it took me another re-read to realize that this was more than just another story about a dead American on a train; it was, after all, the story of the world at large in the early 20th century, where globalization in commerce also brought about the globalization of scandal and treachery. (Ian McEwan, are you taking notes?) True, the Americans in this story are nowhere near heroic - though the Europeans don't fare any better, either - and Christie even manages to sneak in a "ripped-from-the-headlines" allusion to the Lindbergh kidnapping case to drive home her point... but that's just a small fraction of the bigger picture - as M. Bouc, the train-company executive who helps Poirot solve the mystery, gives us a clue at the very beginning:

"...All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their separate ways, never perhaps to see each other again."

But are these passengers really strangers to each other - trains passing in the night, so to speak? Can they truly get away from each other, in the light of such grand tragedy? And what does this case have to do with those other places in that particular point in history, where people of all classes, sexes, and ethnicities often found themselves with no choice but to co-exist with one another while living with their own consciences? (Let me put it this way: If it were truly up to me, Barack Obama should be reading this book right now.)


To say anything more about the book at this point would be to ruin the grand mystery behind such perfidy; I can't even tell you whether or not the solution to the mystery actually leads to the resolution of the crime. What I can tell you for sure, though, is that Murder on the Orient Express could not be any more relevant now than it was in the 1930s, and it will definitely make you wonder how much of what we now know as history has been foreshadowed by the undisputed Queen of Mysteries in this singular, treacherous train ride. You won't be sorry.

O Death, Where Is Thy Eyeliner?

During my early teens - and at the same exact time when The Happy Scribe buried herself in sci-fi and fantasy books - I was too busy experimenting with alternate realities of my own. Unfortunately, for my parents and my fantasy-loving brother, that period of experimentation did not involve the piles of Asimov, Bradbury, and Tolkien paperbacks that had been intentionally given to me for my own study. Instead, my reading material of choice revolved around the unholy texts that I smuggled into my homework breaks after school - texts with the words Seventeen and Sassy brandished along the covers, with smiling faces and exhortations for self-improvement sandwiched between full-page spreads for Cover Girl and Maybelline.

Yes, I was a teenager. Yes, I was interested in fashion, and boys. But since it was such a challenging moment of my life - none of the "fashionable" clothes really fit me body-wise, and the boys in my particular school were not exactly interested in dating curvy, dark-skinned girls who wrote book reports on Jane Eyre and The Pelican Brief - I turned my attention towards the sections that really mattered to me: hair and makeup.

(You can read part of my makeup journey in this classic entry from Domesticity, which I devoted to the most important discovery I made as a teenager: Red lipstick changes everything.)

So imagine my joy one day when, as I waited at the airport for one of my older siblings to fly in for the holidays, I stumbled upon a copy of Allure. (I didn't buy it then - remember, this was the time when the fashion spreads in Allure were more interested in featuring crinolines and bondage pants than "suggesting" fashion themes.) Imagine my delight when I found out that the great majority of the magazine's content was devoted to makeup: how to put it on correctly, how to wear it without looking like a circus freak. And imagine how my eyes widened as I saw the name of the makeup artist who was responsible for transforming those faces: a young man (definitely gay, I thought) by the name of Kevyn Aucoin.

In those heady mid-to-late Nineties, there was nobody else I wanted to do my hair and makeup, if I had the money - and nobody else did it better. I loved reading his articles in Allure, and watching him do makeovers on Oprah. I remember purchasing my copy of Making Faces at a local bookstore in Honolulu - one of my first "grown-up" purchases - and poring over every page obsessively, trying to memorize his detailed descriptions of eyebrow shapes and lip-lining techniques before committing them to my own face. Let me tell you, I didn't always succeed at replicating the master's work, but his written encouragement buoyed me through those strange moments in college:

That's why I began doing makeup in the first place: I was hoping that through helping people see the beauty in themselves, I could try and find it in me.

At one point, I mentioned Kevyn Aucoin's books to The Happy Scribe, who was also going through a dark period that chipped away at her own self-esteem. Her eyes widened; up until then she'd only heard about him from magazine spreads and second-hand stories from her fashionista relatives about his amazing generosity and character. She borrowed Making Faces and Face Forward from the library, and immediately found solace - not in replicating the makeup per se (yeah, good luck to both of us recreating ourselves in the image of Linda Evangelista) but in reveling in the kind words and open-heartedness that became as much of an Aucoin signature as his magic touch with the makeup brushes.

Life is too short to spend hoping that the perfectly arched eyebrow or hottest new lip shade will mask an ugly heart.

Kevyn Aucoin is no longer with us, having succumbed to complications from a brain tumor before the launch of his now-successful makeup line. His death did come as a shock to me; what I thought were quirks in his personality - all the kind words, the lack of cattiness, and his boundless optimism for the future - suddenly became clear to me as the work of a genuine soul: one who saw himself not as a gran maestro but an active contributor to society, despite the indentured nature of his chosen livelihood. Imagine that - a fashion insider who believed in the truest, purest form of beauty as a beacon of hope.

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.

Every single person who has ever been involved in the fashion and beauty industry - from the top makeup artists to the lowliest of beauty bloggers in the periphery - all of them owe their love of beauty to the fabulous Mr. Aucoin. It's impossible now to read a blog entry or magazine story about a runway look without seeing somebody comment about how they've seen that particular technique in one of Kevyn's books. How apt, then, that the recently released book celebrating his life and legacy would bear such a wonderfully apropos subtitle: A Beautiful Life.

Gateways into Other Worlds: Death's Apprentice, Masked Androids, and Spicy Worms

Nothing grabbed me as a young reader quite like the sci-fi/fantasy sections. I was a lonely kid with big glasses and braces, more prone to be banged in the face by locker doors than the sort to boldly go into perilous situations filled with hostile aliens (the cafeteria at lunchtime, for example). I loved the library because no one in my middle school and early high school classes went there during their breaks - unless it was to find a spot where they could flirt quietly amidst the stacks (which meant they didn't have enough oxygen to call out insults). In this sanctuary away from teen dramas, down went my backpack amongst the myths, legends and fables of distant and imagined worlds, my face hidden behind books covered in starships, dragons and wizard hats. It was heaven. I didn't want to leave when the bell rang.

With this extended entry, I feel the thrill of an ambassador about to present the untold riches, peoples and creatures of Narnia, Middle Earth, the Federation, Discworld, Oz, Arrakis, and the Sandman's World of Dreams. In these places populated by the fantastic, one misfit child's mind felt liberated. The authors' vivid descriptions and unforgettable characters brought me to the Decameron, Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Proust, Joyce, Tolstoy...they were my gateways to loving literature, in all its glorious possibilities.

There were certain novels that sparked the journeys into each land, those I heartily recommend for those new to a particular series and/or author. Here is a list of sci-fi/fantasy "gateway novels" - the literary appetizers garnished liberally with the hope they will foster a lifelong craving for some of the world's best storytellers:

J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth: The Hobbit

If you haven't read much elf-and-sword lore yet, this is THE starter book, paired heavily with Edith Hamilton's Mythology (read why you should have this slim volume in your book stacks from the great Filipina writer Jessica Zafra here). I was lucky to have read this before diving into the Lord of the Rings saga and the rest of Tolkien's books, (including The Silmarillion, because I'm a huge geek like that). I don't think I would've really caught on to Middle Earth's feudal-fantasy landscape without Bilbo Baggins as my Virgil at the gates. You meet all the LOTR regulars here - from the tricky Gandalf, the glamorous Elves, the disgusting goblins, and one Ring-crazy former Hobbit called Gollum. Bilbo is not a starry-eyed Frodo - he is a lot more cunning, and I must say, quite the furry-footed kleptomaniac (keep a tally of how many magical objects his sticky little fingers manage to carry away). With evil wolves, a dragon, giant spiders and a burly bear-man, I'm surprised Peter Jackson didn't attempt to do this book first. (Ah, but would we have seen Orlando preen so prettily into the camera with his humongous bow if this book superseded LOTR in theaters? We musn't contemplate such things!) The pre-Viggo fight scenes will be hitting the silver screen in condensed form for fans soon - Guillermo del Toro is directing the prequel set for release in 2010. For readers, I do hope you'll make time for The Hobbit way before then. Tolkien was just discovering the boundaries of his created world. Beware...beyond the first page, there be dragons. And what a sight it must've been - for the very first time in Tolkien's mind.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld: Mort

Here's one for you job hunters out there: would you accept an internship...from Death? Pratchett's Discworld series kicks off at The Color of Magic, but in Mort, his fourth novel, is where the author's delightful satire seeps through the pages with laugh after laugh, from the audacity of the Grim Reaper owning a horse called Binky, to the insane conundrums faced by Death's apprentice, the farm boy Mort. You'll also discover Death's "family" - his adopted daughter Ysabell, his cranky manservant Albert, and Death's mini-me the Death of Rats - the Addams-like residents of the Reaper's realm Mon Repos. Pratchett's Death is one of my favorite characters in the series - he evolves from the silent figure with the scythe, to someone who could possibly take the place of Discworld's version of Santa Claus, complete with all-capped HO HO HO's. Be prepared to LIKE Death after reading this book. You will be cheering for him in Reaper Man and Hogfather, and he definitely steals the plot from the main heroes in Soul Music and the Gaiman-Pratchett collaboration Good Omens. And watch out for the cosmic struggle between Death and the Auditors, the Universe's humor-deficient accountants. Death and Taxes are the two constants in life...but at least Death gets the punchline.

L. Frank Baum's Oz: Ozma of Oz

My first Oz book was not The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - there were simply no copies at my middle school library. At that time, I didn't have access to public libraries, so I made do with the L. Frank Baum books I could find. Ozma of Oz was my first glimpse of this American-spun world of talking animals and strange, scary half-creatures. Dorothy's prevailing common sense and inner strength stands out in this book - Judy Garland may sing prettily, but she is too delicate to fill the real ruby slippers of this sturdy, farm-raised heroine. I love how the author celebrated the power of women in his fantasy land, from the determined Ozma, Billina the hen, Dorothy and even the scary Princess Langwidere (a head-exchanging villainess who would be right at home in a Frank Miller graphic novel). This Oz isn't the pastel-colored, GP-rated world we all remember from the movies - it is a menacing place with hostile inhabitants, surrounded by a Deadly Desert and under constant threat from invading enemies like the evil Nome King (watch for him in later books - the short-legged bugger just doesn't give up!). I wasn't into Oz after seeing the movie, but after reading this book, I was thoroughly intrigued by the ensemble of characters in this American "fairy country," full of warring tribes, painful transformations, and malicious magic. Maguire's Wicked has deep roots - the dark Oz was always there...but of course, it took another mega-musical to get everyone else somewhere over the rainbow.

Star Trek The Next Generation: Masks by John Vornholt

If you read only ONE Star Trek book in your lifetime (and aren't afraid to admit it), John Vornholt's Masks stands by itself, placing the Enterprise crew in a world where everyone wears a mask denoting their social rank. The feudal society of Lorca and how these men and women of the future cope with a culture where appearance means EVERYTHING is incredibly fascinating. Usually, the new planet serves as a backdrop to the spaceship's dramas, but this is one of the few situations where the author takes the time to really build a culture that lives and breathes independently of the U.S.S. Enterprise's scandalous officers (yes, it IS a space soap after all...I lost count how many alien women Riker has romanced...he seems to want to top Capt. Kirk's record of most extraterrestrial affairs per season). There are some ridiculous moments - like how Picard's Lorcan love interest marvels at his naked bald head (I couldn't stop laughing) - but on the whole, it's an exciting, quick read for the fan and non-fan alike. I found this book (and the early Next Generation books in general) a lot more fun than most of the novels set in the original Star Trek universe. This could get me thrown out of a TrekKIE convention...but hey, I was always more of a TrekKER at the peak of my Enterprise-lovin' days (Why the emphasis between Trekkie/Trekker? If you're over twelve years old, consider yourself lucky NOT to know the difference.) This was my very first TNG book and certainly not my last - but it's the only one I've re-read more than once. Check it out. It's okay. Really. The Klingons don't bite...unless they like you.

C.S. Lewis's Narnia: The Horse and His Boy

I did not read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first - I didn't even know this book was part of a series when I received it as a gift one childhood Christmas. This is one of the earliest books I remember reading as a kid - and I confess, I loved it for the talking horses Bree and Hwin. If you saw my book shelf as a child, I was more than a little pony crazy: displayed prominently among pastel My Little Ponies were Black Beauty, The Black Stallion and one of the most beautiful books I have ever owned, King of the Wind (this equine love affair will have to be a separate entry in itself). You can read this desert-themed Narnia book without the other volumes - at its heart is the coming of age of the hero Shasta, caught in a Prince and a Pauper-like case of mistaken identity (Shasta would be the Pauper mistaken for Prince Corin, who is the heir to the throne of Archenland). In his travels, Shasta bonds with a young aristocrat Aravis, who is running away from an arranged marriage to the grand vizier. They both "own" (I say this loosely) talking horses - the image-conscious war charger Bree, and his intelligent (and more humble) counterpart, the Narnian-born mare Hwin - who are on their own quest to free themselves from human-imposed "slavery." There are Pevensie cameos, but so minimal, a first-time reader won't need to run to previous books for explanations about English children and magic wardrobes. And anyone who adores a "ta-da!" surprise ending will adore how Lewis ties up all the loose ends into a beautiful ribbon of continuing relationships, sans whiny British tots craving Snow Queen sweets (I need to add Edmund to my list of literary smackables).

Frank Herbert's Arrakis: Dune

My husband gave me this book and told me to read it. No questions. No comments. I was terrified - I had fallen asleep on the film! I had laughed at the spice! And I didn't get the (ew!) worms! This was going to be disaster, I thought, covering myself in a comfy blankie as I opened the book. I started reading the first lines. Hubby says I didn't stop reading, glued to one place. I finished it in a few hours. Holy Bene Gesserit. It was awesome. I felt completely mind-blasted. Herbert's complex societies makes this book a twentieth century masterpiece. The story hinges on the coming of a world's Messiah, the Kwisatz Haderach, based loosely on the Hebrew expression "jumping of the path." It's insane how generations of directed breeding (via the Bene Gesserit sisterhood) focused on the creation of Paul Atreides. It's also similarly insane how the melange trade - "the spice!" - is so vital to Herbert's universe. And oh yeah, Baron Harkonnen is TOTALLY insane, for sure. But you know what's really crazy? How it all - the spice, the Fremen, the worms, Paul's glowing eyes - they all make perfect sense in THIS world. You are truly taken away from your reality...and at the same time can't help seeing where Herbert found his inspirations in THIS universe. No questions. No comments. My husband hugged me after I freaked out at the last page, totally stoned on the author's creativity. It's a wild worm ride of a read.

Neil Gaiman's the Dreaming: Brief Lives

Hitting the Sandman series is like injecting your brain directly with a caffeine-packed syringe. You begin to understand why so many musicians love Gaiman's graphic novels - there's this blaze, this grinding riff of creativity sparkling off each superbly-worded, beautifully-drawn story. I was completely intimidated by it at first - a comedian-slash-musician friend of mine found out about my Pratchett obsession and immediately asked me if I liked Gaiman (these authors are like the BoGo of British fantasy). When I told him I only read the collaboration Good Omens, he scoffed (just like when I confessed I was into guitar music, but had never heard Tuck and Patti until my radio station gave us free tickets...and I sat there in open-mouthed wonder while my friend mimed chords and slapped me on the back for coming to the party so late). So now I do love Tuck's rendition of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror..and I absolutely adore the stories of the Endless. Where had Dream/Gaiman (you have to compare photos/sketches to understand what I mean) been all my life? This was an adult discovery - I felt like I had missed out on so many years I could've shared Sandman quotes and quips - a huge continent in the fantasy world that required one very enthusiastic, guitar-playing Magellan to show me the way. Brief Lives was my first Gaiman. I was a little lost, but here is where Edith Hamilton (gods, bless her!) came into play - if you know your mythology, you won't be lost for very long. It's Gaiman's longest graphic novel, with lots of background revelations and plot twists. These are tales for grownups - the endings are not sugarcoated, the characters can be good, bad and in-between, and you'll see a bit of yourself in all of them...and that may scare you. I won't say more, because words can barely describe what's going on in Gaiman's head. You just have to read it.