Blue Shoes and Happiness by Alexander McCall Smith

I have been in quite a slump recently when it comes to reading, and so when I found out this book was waiting for me at the library on Saturday I was hoping it would be just the thing I needed. In many ways, Blue Shoes and Happiness did not disappoint; it was lovely to be back with all the familiar characters, and to learn more about the small but satisfying triumphs of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. These books are relaxing and undemanding reading. They won't win any prizes for great literature, but they have a way of drawing you in irresistibly with their quirky fluffiness.

On the other hand, I'm not sure that Blue Shoes and Happiness grabbed me in quite the same way as many previous installments in this series. I can't quite put my finger on what was "off" about this book. Maybe it was just a bit too formulaic, maybe the author was trying too hard, I don't quite know. All I can say is that many of the things that I found appealing in previous No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books just didn't quite work this time around. I wonder if Mr McCall Smith is getting tired of his characters; at times he almost seemed to be mocking them, and the character development this time around was pretty much nil. I was also disappointed that he seemed to need to knock me over the head with his message about how lovely Africa and the African people are; in past books, this was made clear through loving descriptions of the landscape and through the behaviour (and, occasionally, the internal monologues) of the people themselves. This time, that subtlety was gone, which had the effect for me of making the country and its people less charming.

Overall, then, this wasn't *quite* what I needed to get me out of my slump... but I will keep looking for that book.

Grass for his Pillow by Lian Hearn

I've been very neglectful of my book blog, and it has now been a week since I finished this book. My excuse for not writing immediately is that I was on a bus on my way to Seattle when I finished it, and after spending three days there I had a lot of other things to do and this post got lost in the shuffle. My bad!

Grass for his Pillow continues the Tales of the Otori trilogy begun in Across the Nightingale Floor. The story picks right up where it left off in the first book and is written in the same style, with alternating chapters told from the point of view of Takeo and Kaede. I don't want to give away any details of what happens here, but it was a very satisfying read.

Sometimes the middle book in a trilogy can get boggled down in bridging the beginning and the climax of the overall story, but that isn't the case with Grass for his Pillow - there's plenty of action, suspense, character development, and a very satisfying conclusion that still leaves you wanting to go and pick up the next book immediately to find out what happens next. And in fact, that is more or less what I did. Stay tuned for my thoughts on the concluding book in this series!

Isn't That Bigamy? by Mike Vogel

Since this book was one of the winners of POD-dy Mouth's 2005 Needle Awards (for those of you who don't feel like following the links, the site is a blog that offers reviews of books published through Print-on-Demand companies such as Lulu and iUniverse), I was expecting it to be good and I wasn't disappointed. Isn't That Bigamy? is a delightfully absurd suspense novel about a federal agent (Becky Li, who happens to be a lesbian with a gun fixation) forced to move to a remote town in Utah, posing as the wife of a witness she is protecting (Stan Smith, who happens to be a constantly horny heterosexual with a commitment problem). You see, Stan accidentally saw the head of an Armenian crime syndicate executing an undercover agent, and now the crime boss is not too happy with Stan and would prefer to see him dead - preferably before Stan can testify against him. To that end, he hires his favourite hit man, "Mad Dog" Moogalian (who happens to be a homophobic ex-wrestler who smokes Virginia Slims) to find Stan and eliminate him.

Unfortunately for everyone, Becky and Stan end up in the wrong town and find themselves caught up in the very weird polygamous subculture of Tamarin, Utah. I'm not sure that I need to say much more for you to understand why this book is so hilarious.

I hear that after winning the Needle Award, Mike Vogel found an agent to represent him, so I expect this book will be picked up by a major publishing house and available more widely in the next year or so. But if you feel really compelled to buy it before then, it's available through Amazon.

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom

I'm not sure that I've read very many books by Northern Irish writers in the past, but over the past few months I've discovered two - Colin Bateman and now Ian Sansom. There are some similarities between this book and the Dan Starkey series by Bateman - both mysteries, featuring a lovable loser as the main character. However, Sansom's protagonist is no hard-drinking Belfast journalist and definitely does not get into scrapes with people who want to murder him and his loved ones in unpleasant ways.

Israel Armstrong, the "detective" in this book, is a fat, gormless young Jewish vegetarian from London, whose only redeeming quality is a lifelong fascination with books. This leads him to take the only job he can get with his library science degree from a second-rate university: a librarian's job that plunks him down in Tumdrum, Northern Ireland, a village populated with people who aren't afraid to tell him exactly what they think of him (not much) in the local dialect (which he barely understands). Israel soon discovers that the job, like the village, isn't quite what he expected. Due to budget cuts, the library has been closed and he has been relegated to driving a very old and rusty bus around County Antrim in his new post of mobile librarian. Also, there's the small problem of the entire contents of the library being missing.

Sansom delivers the tale of Israel's hamfisted "investigation" of the book theft with an absurb wit that makes for a very fun, light read. Be aware, though, that this is no edge-of-your seat suspense-filled crime novel - it's more like Ballykissangel on dope.

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

I picked up this book based on a recommendation at Bookseller Chick's blog. It sounded like something Megan would enjoy, but since some of the reviews I found online made reference to "sexual" content, I decided I'd better read it first to make sure it was appropriate for her. I had no idea I was about to get sucked into such a spellbinding book!

Across the Nightingale Floor is a fascinating novel set in a sort of alternate feudal-era Japan. The main characters are Takeo, a 15-year-old orphan from a remote mountain village who is taken in by a wealthy lord and becomes embroiled in the political warfare of the local feuding clans, and Kaede, also 15, a young woman who, due to her noble birth, is a pawn in the increasingly dangerous sparring between several warlords who don't seem to have her best interests at heart. All the elements of the best young adult fiction are here: events in this book move forward swiftly, the two main characters are appealing and heroic, and the novel is a satisfying read. This was one of those books that left me feeling bereft after I finished it. I can't figure out what to do with myself now, and I feel strongly convinced that nothing else other than the next book in this series would satisfy my reading needs. I'm almost tempted to skip the meeting I had planned to attend tonight and go to the library to pick up book two in this trilogy, Grass for his Pillow.

As far as the sexual content goes, it was nothing that Megan couldn't handle, particularly given the "older youth audience" anime that she likes to watch. I was relieved to find this, because it would have been such a shame to miss out on the indescribable pleasure of sharing a book you loved with your child and being able to discuss it at great length later. As it happens, she finished her current novel while I was working on the final chapter of this one (she's working her way through Brian Jacques's Redwall series at the moment) and happened to be sitting around trying to figure out what to do with her reading time. I was very happy to be able to march over to where she was sitting, hand this book to her and instruct her to read it.