The Books I Read in May

This month looks like another lean one compared to previous months, but I'm still reading about a book a week. Which is more than average for most people.

The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I'm having so much fun reading the Pendergast books in preparation for #11, Cold Vengeance, which comes out in August. I was up until midnight reading the last 30 pages. In this one, a construction excavation uncovers a basement full of hundred-year-old skeletons, and Pendergast becomes involved. Because any self-respecting FBI agent from the New Orleans office would naturally travel all the way to NYC to investigate a hundred-year-old serial killing. :P I love Pendergast.

Favorite quote: "She could not help but notice that his torso, although slender, was powerfully muscled."

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Chon and David Levithan

These two YA writers have collaborated on three or four books by writing alternating chapters. I really enjoyed this one. Lily leaves a notebook on a shelf in The Strand, a giant used bookstore in Manhattan. The notebook contains scavenger hunt-type clues leading the finder ever closer to her. Dash finds the notebook just before Christmas and leaves his own clues for Lily. This starts a madcap adventure all over NYC as the two circle around each other and eventually meet, with unexpected results. I liked the humor and how fully drawn Dash and Lily were.

Favorite quote: "I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable. I particularly loved the adjective bookish, which I found other people used about as often as ramrod or chum or teetotaler."

Poison Study, by Maria V. Snyder

My little book club's May selection. High fantasy. (Wait, what IS high fantasy? There were castles, sort of, and horses and magic and stuff.) A prisoner awaiting execution is offered the dubious opportunity of becoming the Commander's food taster. I enjoyed it, except I don't think the love interest tension played out long enough. :P I have the next book in the trilogy waiting for me in the other room.

Favorite quote: "There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on what's brewing for tomorrow."

Still Life With Crows, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

I had to pick this up immediately after finishing the last one. I could hardly wait. A gruesome murder with weird little touches brings Pendergast to a town in southwestern Kansas. (By bus. It's hard to picture the man himself on a crowded little bus. I rather picture him in first-class on a plane, alternately charming and annoying the flight staff.) There's some interesting touches added to Pendergast's character. Often we see him as cold (only outwardly, though--dude, that man is a fire inside!), but no one who is truly cold can charm people the way he does, as he so thoroughly charms his hostess in this book. And his interaction with his assistant, teenager Corrie Swanson, oh she of the purple hair and multiple piercings, shows him to have a pretty wicked sense of humor, as well as an affectionate side, even though he doesn't always know what to do with that affection.

Favorite quote: " 'It is a quotation from Einstein: "The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance." I would suggest to Dr. Chauncy that in combination, the two qualities are even more alarming.' "

Across the Universe, by Beth Revis

It's hard to find YA sci-fi. There's a lot of fantasy, realistic fiction (which is SO boring to me unless there's some kind of twist, like a series of murders, or a scavenger hunt across NYC), the waning favorite, vampires, and the waxing favorite, dystopian. But not a lot of sci-fi. So I was pretty excited to get hold of this book. 16-year-old Amy and her parents are cryogenically frozen and put on a spaceship bound for a new planet. Amy's parents are a military leader and a scientist. Amy is listed as non-essential. The trip is supposed to take 200 years, and there is a population maintained on the ship to keep it moving. But Amy wakes up 50 years too soon. She has been thawed, and no one, not even Eldest, the man who leads the ship's population, and Elder, his teenage apprentice, can tell her why.

The Peach Keeper, by Sarah Addison Allen

If this lady keeps going at this rate, she's going to hit my favorite author list. Each novel is better than the last, and this one is my favorite. Willa Jackson, longtime resident of Walls of Water, North Carolina, receives an invitation for the grand opening of an inn. This inn used to be the house Willa's grandmother grew up in, until financial crisis forced the family out. The invitation is issued by Paxton Osgood, a super uptight society chick whose family now owns the inn. When a skeleton is discovered on the grounds of the inn, at the base of a peach tree that never bears fruit, Willa and Paxton must join forces to discover who the skeleton is and why their grandmothers stopped being best friends. And of course there's lots of food and romance and a little magic, trademarks of Sarah Addison Allen's stories.

Favorite quote: " 'We are who we are. It's surprising how little say we have in it. Once you accept that, the rest is easy.' "