Book Babble: Kate’s Top 5 Irrepressible Sidekicks

Sometimes, you can’t rely on the protagonist in a book to carry the day. Or, if you can, you run into a minor character who steals the show. For example, when I was a little girl, I couldn’t stand The Little Mermaid‘s Ariel but Sebastian? I would’ve paid money to see Sebastian: The Movie, even though I was too young to really understand the concept of money as a whole. And in a book, a good sidekick character is worth his (or her) weight in pure, unblemished gold.

So submitted for your approval, Memiorites, here are my top five irrepressible sidekicks.

Boomer, Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares

Ordinarily, a character I’d essentially just met wouldn’t even place on a list like this, but I am in love with Dash’s best friend Boomer. Not in a creepy way, but in an I-wanna-squish-him way.

One of the things that works best about Dash is his sardonic, cynical outlook on life in general. I think Levithan and Cohn captured the essence of teenage boy perfectly when they wrote Dash. He’s sarcastic, snide, a little broken, and a lot resentful of what the world expects from people, especially teenaged boy-type people. But the best part about Dash, for me, is Boomer.

Boomer is the classic foil. He’s clueless almost to the point of you wondering if he has a bit of a developmental problem; he loves kids’ movies; he’s almost cavity-inducing in his earnestness and sincerity; he’s incredibly kind. He serves as a window into Dash’s world, too, because when you start the book, you think to yourself, “Dash probably hangs out with people just like himself. An army of little Dashes, snarking at the universe.” And then, you meet Boomer.

I would’ve like Dash & Lily if Boomer hadn’t been there, make no mistake, but he was that little push I needed to stop liking the book and start loving it. He’s a little something extra-special in an already really great book.

Helen Walsh, Anybody Out There?

In a lot of ways, I think Anybody Out There? is one of Marian Keyes’ heavier books. It deals with a lot in a short span of time and it’s almost suffocating in the veins of pain that run through it – and in how absolutely brilliantly it’s done. But more than the actual plot of the book, which I can’t really say anything about without spoiling it, I loved the secondary, mirror plot belonging to main-character Anna’s youngest sister, Helen.

Helen, of the five Walsh sisters, is the irresponsible, lackadaisical, drifts-from-job-to-job-and-drives-her-parents-mental one, but in this book she is absolutely the perfect relief the whole damn time. Her mother recounts most of her exploits as she works as a private eye investigating an infidelity case (which, as it usually goes with the Walsh sisters, spirals entirely out of her control), and oh my stars and garters, it is hilarious. Literally laugh-out-loud-until-you-hurt (LOLUYH?) funny.

And Keyes is brilliant, as an author, in that she places the Helen sections perfectly amid all of Anna’s struggles. Just when you think you literally cannot take another step in Anna’s journey without your heart falling on the floor, there’s Helen, putting herself in mortal peril when all she was supposed to do was take a few photographs. Her mother’s dramatic retellings are even better. It’s absolutely perfect.

I’ll admit that of all the sisters, I was least sold on Helen for a long time, if only because I didn’t feel like I knew her as well as I knew Rachel or the others, but Anybody Out There? had me changing my mind. She’s the one sister who doesn’t have her own book, too, but I don’t think I want one. I think I love Helen as the comic relief, the secondary plot, and the mirror to her sisters’ worlds. Plus, I don’t think anything could top her role in Anybody Out There? No, seriously, I don’t.

Jean Tannen, The Lies of Locke Lamora

I’m not sure if Jean is technically a sidekick. I mean, that’s like saying Brad Pitt’s character in Ocean’s Eleven is a sidekick, and I’m not sure I fully agree with that. But clearly, The Lies of Locke Lamora is entirely focused on Locke as the protagonist, lives-eats-sleeps-and-breathes Locke, and leaves me no choice but to address Jean as a sidekick. Which is okay, because it gives me a chance to talk about Jean, or, as I like to refer to him, my literary boyfriend.

Jean is a thousand things rolled into one, a bit of a high fantasy Hank McCoy but with less fur. He’s a brilliant fighter with an unconventional weapon of choice (seriously, they’re hatchets, how cool is that?), he reads poetry and thinks deep thoughts, he’s unfailingly loyal, and he’s absolutely brilliant. I knew from the very first moment that he appeared in The Lies of Locke Lamora that he would be my favorite character, and I was absolutely right.

But don’t be fooled by my simplistic description of Jean; he’s not just a throwaway loyal henchman with cool weaponry but a fully-developed character. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the fact that every character has a past, a hook, and a real personality, and Jean is no exception. The sequences about his past made my heart ache and sing at the same time. And that’s part of the magic of The Lies of Locke Lamora: it’s not just high fantasy meets con-artistry, a sort of pseudo-medieval Leverage, but rather a tale of well-developed people that fits together like the pieces of an expensive puzzle.

And seriously. Can Jean please be real? I will even take the killing people and the being a con-man if I can have a guy like him in reality. No actual person even comes close.

Rosie, Water for Elephants; Mogget and the Disreputable Dog, Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen; Koko and YumYum, The Cat Who… series; the Death of Rats, Reaper Man; Ghost, Summer, Grey Wind, Nymeria, Shaggy Dog and Lady, A Game of Thrones

I just cheated, but I have a good reason for it.

Animals in books – animals who matter in books – are one of my all-time favorite things. I think if you incorporate an animal and do it well, as an author, you have done something special. I’m not just talking about “And Frank had a black cat who slept with him at night” animal-inclusion, either, but ones that actually become characters. Animals that are so intertwined into the actual narrative that you can’t imagine the story without them, those are the animals I love.

As I was trying to decide who my final sidekick was going to be, I was incredibly torn. I thought first of Mogget, from Sabriel, the cat-who-isn’t that makes Sabriel’s journey so engaging and absolutely blows your mind by the end of the book, but to talk about Mogget without mentioning the Disreputable Dog seemed wrong. Then I considered ignoring both of them and talking about Ghost, from A Game of Thrones, but you can’t talk about Ghost without talking about the other direwolves and I wasn’t going to put all five of them into a single sidekick entry! (Plus, sorry Elle, I think Summer might be my favorite of the wolves, not Ghost.) And then I thought of the Death of Rats, who made me happy throughout Reaper Man, and I realize there was no way to just pick one animal. Not unless I wanted to pick all of them.

To go completely into why I love each of the eleven (eleven!) pets-slash-companions-slash-friends I just listed would make this painfully long. I mean, I could write a thesis-length treatise on why Water for Elephants wouldn’t be the same without Rosie, or why Koko and YumYum have instilled in me a desperate need for a Siamese cat, but I think those of you who have read books with integral animals know exactly what I mean. The world would be a far sadder place without direwolves howling in the night and YumYum licking photographs, or without Rosie’s irrepressible spirit and the Disreputable Dog’s running commentary, and I think that’s the essential function of a sidekick. It’s not whether you could live without them, because after all, Batman is Batman even without Robin, but whether the book would be as good without them. And in every case listed above, the answer is an unequivocal no.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Dragonlance: Chronicles

Tasslehoff – Tas to his friends – was the first fantasy character I ever fell readily and truly in love with. It’s funny, because I read Chronicles at the same time as a female friend of mine, and while she was drooling after Tanis Half-Elven from page ten onward, there was no character I adored more than Tas. Chronicles consists of the first trilogy of books in what is now a sprawling universe of stories I can barely untangle anymore, but the rest of the books almost don’t matter because they don’t feature my Tas.

Tas is a kender, which is the Dragonlance answer to a halfling, and is a four-foot-tall mini-human with a ridiculous top-knot of which he is very proud. He’s a kleptomaniac but with the best of intentions (and usually he doesn’t mean it anyway), he’s sometimes a bit naïve, and he often throws himself into horrible situations without realizing that he’s about to encounter a dragon or any other number of potentially horrible ways to die. And that’s why I adore Tas in ways I can’t fully describe to you: you just can’t keep him down.

But don’t be fooled by my recounting his madcap adventures (there is seriously one of the spin-off books about him helping to solve a murder! It’s like the Dragonlance Santa Claus brought me my favorite things!). Tas also has a hidden depth. He is a character who made me cry on more than one occasion – and I am not a book-crier. There is a scene with Flint Fireforge, the dwarf who is to Tas what Gimli is to Legolas, that I can’t think about without my heart feeling weak. And I think that’s really testimony to what a good sidekick should be: a little funny, a little serious, a lot unforgettable.

Guest Blogger Week: Day 1 – Elle from The Book Memoirs (Part 2)

Welcome to Day 1 of Guest Blogger Week!

To kick off the action this week, Elle and Kate are going to join in the fun and tell you about some of their favourite posts. Scroll down for Elle’s Part 2 post and click here for Kate’s Part 1!

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When I started to put together this week, I got lots of emails from the guys and gals joining in, all of whom were absolutely boggled at having to choose just three books. A funny thing happens as soon as you attach the word “favourite” to the word “book” and I admit to peeking at my iPhone at random moments to hide from the incoming cries of, “WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?!” Then, in my deepest wisdom, I naturally cackled evilly at them and went on my way.

It wasn’t until I came to write my own post, however, that I realised that I was having difficulty for an entirely different reason. Of all of my favourite books, at least half of them are so popular that I didn’t want to touch them. So many people already know about these books and the glee of them has been expressed much more eloquently elsewhere. Instead, I wanted to spotlight a handful of books that I don’t think have had enough attention, books on the slightly obscure end of the fiction spectrum, books I’ve fallen in love with and want to squee about with people… only to find that there just aren’t enough people already squeeing!

So, like others this week, I am here to make you a convert. Here are my books, come worship at their altar.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

I knew on the edges of my consciousness that Wilkie Collins existed. I also knew that he was rather good pals with my old frenemy, Charlie Dick – er, Dickens. The problem was, I didn’t know exactly what he was famous for or why his fiction was so important and so I ever actually picked up any of his books. I could now cheerfully go back in time and throttle past!me for never having overlooked the various shiny new books coming my way to investigate this book which is possibly my favourite book of all time. In the world. Ever.

The Woman in White is claimed to be the genesis of sensation fiction. A departure from the Gothic with its dark castles, foreign, barren landscapes and sinister, larger than life villains, sensation fiction was the birthplace of the evil in your own backyard, your own neighbourhood, often your own home. It offered the late nineteenth century reading public a bridge between classes in the horrifying form of the sinister machinations of our neighbours. Money, murder, incest and intrigue dogged the sensation genre; it was the seed that later grew into detective novels and Agatha Christie, it was the genre that made possibly shows like Quincy and Murder She Wrote. In short, The Woman in White is the pièce de résistance of sensation novels and it has just about everything.

The other amazing thing about The Woman in White is that it is told entirely in epistolary form after the fact as Walter Hartright attempts to piece together the sinister chain of events that led to one murder, one incarceration in a madhouse and the evil, cunning Count Fosco’s eventual endgame. The book is written from various points of view, the most sustained of which is Marian who is possibly my most favourite and cherished heroine of all time. She doesn’t wield guns or swords, she doesn’t have a police badge, she doesn’t shapeshift, she isn’t undead. She doesn’t simper, she isn’t breath-takingly beautiful, she doesn’t have a cutting edge of sour sarcasm. She is, instead, simply armed with the sheer, immense awesomeness of her wits.

If I could make everyone reading this post read one novel in their life, it would be The Woman in White. Recommended for people who like mysteries, ghost stories, journals, Agatha Christie, Sarah Waters, Deanna Raybourne, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and Georgette Heyer.

Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes

Rachel’s Holiday came to me at the right time in my life. What can I possibly say about this book without bearing half of my poor little hollowed-out, acorn-shaped shell of a heart in the process? Decisions, decisions.

Rachel’s Holiday looks, upon first glance, like a fairly standard chick-lit book. Girl parties too hard, girl’s friends stage intervention. Contrary to popular belief, I have read a lot of chick-lit in my day and that’s not that uncommon of a plot. Except Marian Keyes takes this plot and this genre to an entirely different level. This book has been awarded a place in my top ten for life, a top ten which includes the only books I can ever point a finger at and shout the words, “Life-changing fiction!” at. You see, Rachel isn’t only an unreliable narrator but she’s every single one of us in some way or another. She’s outgoing but she’s vulnerable, she’s mental but she’s meek, she’s shy but she burns with the righteous justice of someone who’s been walked over all her life. She wants a relationship but she wants compromise even less. She values her independence but she’d like to be coddled on her own terms. She is the contradictory part of me that I will never reconcile.

This book frightened me and gave me a wake-up call. I read it in 1999 and it was the book I should have read on the eve of 2000 to roll in that new me that everyone was so desperately looking for. It hollowed me out, it made me weep, then it dusted me off at the other side and told me, like every Irish mammy in the world has told their daughter at some time or another, bloody well get on with it.

So that’s why I can’t write anymore about Rachel’s Holiday. It’s the book I could only reread every ten years. It’s still waiting for me this year.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Later in the week, Marc from Fantasy Faction is going to come on and try to convert you to new fantasy. Without wanting to steal his thunder, I am here to give you all a helping hand.

Enter Locke Lamora. His only valuable skills in the world come in three Ls: lies, lies, lies. Oh, er, I mean, lies, loyalty and love, of course. Locke Lamora belongs to a new wave of fantasy born of the loins of George R. R. Martin (who loves this book, funnily enough) wherein characters have a life below the waist and moral ambiguity runs free. Locke is a confidence trickster, a con man running a band of con men, in a world where there are no con men because they didn’t exist. He is the first, the best… the really bloody unlucky.

There was huge internet hype about The Lies of Locke Lamora the year it came out and it was sold out absolutely everywhere. I had no choice but to run around the bookstores in Blackpool while I was down for a day trip to find the very last paperback copy on the shelves. The fact that I now own paperback, hardback and mass market paperback is neither here nor there. I had been jaded about fantasy for a long time when I found this novel and I had expected the hype to fall flat on its face but, instead, it elevated the genre to new, lofty heights. It broke a huge dry spell of fantasy for me and started me on a read of old favourites. It gave me confidence to pick up something new.

It also has the dubious honour of being the only book that has made me laugh so hard I peed a little. In public.

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Giveaway

To win a copy of one of one of Elle’s favourite books, simply leave a comment below and then fill in this form!

* The giveaway is, as always, international but please make sure either The Book Depository or Amazon ships to your country before entering.

All giveaway winners will be posted Monday 11th July 2011.

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Check back tomorrow when we’ll have Carla from The Crooked Shelf licking her favourite books all over the blog!

Elle’s Most Anticipated Books of Late 2011

At the beginning of the year, I did an April – July round-up of my most anticipated books of the first half of the year. Some odd things have happened with that list so far and it’s going to be really interesting doing an end of year round-up for those novels (ahem) but, in the meantime, allow me to present to you my July – December 2011 most anticipated books.

July

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Publication Information: Harper Voyager / 12 Jul 2011 / 1040 pages

This is what I consider to be the best addition to the month of July that the month of July has ever seen! This book was a complete surprise for fans of A Song of Ice and Fire being as the blogosphere in general has only recently (as in on April 28th) had confirmation that George R. R. Martin has at last honestly completed A Dance With Dragons and that it’s due to be released in hardback in July! The AV Club perhaps rightfully calls the release of A Dance With Dragons “one of the industry’s bigger ongoing in-jokes” with several failed dates appearing in quick succession, GRRM’s own admission that he had finished and then he hadn’t finished writing it, and the fact that it has been six years in the making. I, however, can honestly say that while that might be the case, I personally couldn’t care less whether we have had to wait six years, or whether GRRM has swiveled from done-to-not-done. I care that we’re getting it and we’re getting it soon. As in 22 days from now which is less than a month which is really really really soon (lack of grammar in this sentence can be widely attributed to wetting-myself-glee).

I’ll be doing a post later this week about why everyone should read A Game of Thrones along with my review of it following my reread so keep an eye out for that one. (Oh, and for those of you wondering why I didn’t include a blurb for this one – it’s because I don’t want to run the risk of spoiling anyone who hasn’t read the series yet. It’s too good to jeopardise.)

August

What, there are books coming out in August? I was only really thinking about the A Song of Ice and Fire 2012 calendar of awesome, personally, but okay! If you say so!

The Jewel and Key by Louise Spiegler

Publication Information: Clarion Books / 29 Aug 2011 / 464 pages

An earthquake and the discovery of a mysterious antique mirror unleash forces that jolt sixteen-year-old Addie McNeal back to 1917 Seattle, just as the United States is entering World War I. Addie finds herself shuttling back and forth between past and present, drawn in both times to the grand Jewel Theater. In both decades the existence of the Jewel is threatened and war is looming . . . and someone she cares about is determined to fight.

Eventually, Addie realizes that only she has the key to saving the Jewel—and the lives of her friends. But will she figure out how to manipulate the intricately woven threads of time and truly set things right?

The Jewel and Key is the kind of book that has… oh, all of my hooks in it from start to finish? So discovery of old creepy item – check. A time period in one of my favourite and over-romanticised cities – check. World War I – check. Theatre – check. Hrm. What is there not to like about this book? There has to be something… Seriously, though, this one has had really, really good reviews so far on Goodreads from people lucky enough to get early ARCs. I’m really looking forward to it.

A big fat duh also goes to waiting for Simone Elkeles’ Chain Reaction, you know? More on this series to come from us shortly, too. Oh, the controversy!

September

Have you any IDEA how many books are coming out in September? No, you probably don’t. Not at all. But there are. Lots and lots and lots of them. Too many to count. So many that I could spend this entire section just giving honourable mentions to the ones that I like the best. Instead I will say this: you might not see me much in September.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Publication Information: Harvill Secker / 15 Sep 2011 / 400 pages

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

September might be bountiful month in terms of books this is the one I’m most looking forward to (and one which I might have to get in hardback and paperback because of the inverted black/white covers which are both awesome). Anyone who knows me will by now know that I am completely obsessed with circuses and have been ever since I was introduced to John Wayne in The Magnificent Showman as a child. I will one day write that book that’s in my head. Until then, however, I’ll enjoy Ms Morgenstern’s efforts in The Night Circus.

It would be remiss of me not to give honourable mentions for September, however, so I also have to highlight the YA titles Burnout (a memory-loss tale with a dangerous twist), Going Underground (teen-boy drop-out who gets a job digging graves), and Lie (a twisted tale about a young girl who is witness to a horrifying crime… involving her boyfriend and two young El Salvadoran boys).

October

If I’m honest, October isn’t a month which holds very many titles that make me sit up and scream. I’m looking forward to reading Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins but I have formed this opinion without having read Anna and the French Kiss so I’ll be reading both in October when this comes out.

Another novel I’m really looking forward to is Terry Pratchett’s Snuff, his 39th Discworld novel. For any fellow fan of the series, you’ll all recognise this as bittersweet giving Terry’s diagnosis a few years ago.

It isn’t fair not to also mention the awesome novel Girl’s Don’t Fly (a girl making rapid, radical changes in her life), either, but October is a month I might just spend being sad.

November

November is possibly just as good as July. Do you want to know why November is just as good as July? Of course you do. It is because November finally has…

The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch

Publication Information: Gollancz / 17 Nov 2011 / 488 pages

Having pulled off the greatest heist of their career, Locke and his trusted partner in thievery, Jean, have escaped with a tidy fortune. But Locke’s body is paying the price. Poisoned by an enemy from his past, he is slowly dying. And no physiker or alchemist can help him. Yet just as the end is near, a mysterious Bondsmagi offers Locke an opportunity that will either save him – or finish him off once and for all.

Magi political elections are imminent, and the factions are in need of a pawn. If Locke agrees to play the role, sorcery will be used to purge the venom from his body – though the process will be so excruciating he may well wish for death. Locke is opposed, but two factors cause his will to crumble: Jean’s imploring – and the Bondsmagi’s mention of a woman from Locke’s past . . . Sabetha. The love of his life. His equal in skill and wit. And now his greatest rival.

If I’m honest, I’m almost as desperate for The Republic of Thieves as I am for A Dance With Dragons. Scott Lynch has been quote open with his battles with mental health since beginning the Gentleman Bastard series in 2006 and the release date of the book has been set back multiple times. I’ll elaborate a little more on the series and why it has my emotions wrapped around its rather particular little finger in my Why You Should Read A Game of Thrones post but it can be safely said that The Republic of Thieves will be gone pretty much within a day or so of it landing into my grubby, sticky, fantasy-loving mitts. I am absolutely going to be contacting Scott before the book is released with the hopes that he’ll be able to come on the blog and give us an interview about himself and the series so watch this space.

Honourable mentions for November must by requirement include Amplified (kicked out of her house, Jasmine takes what she has of her savings and runs off to Santa Cruz to become a music star) and Death Watch (Silas’ father dies and he discovers he’s not only a mortician but an Undertaker, trusted with the peace of the dead).

December

Ah, December. You quaint little month that I will spend buying crap for people who want crap and not buying nearly enough books for people who want books. How I love thee. NOT. (Actually, I do, I just don’t like the commerical-everything and impulse buying and bath salts. Blah.)

One of the most unfortunate things about December, however, is that it’s bookless for the Elle! I haven’t found anything coming out in December that I’m looking really forward to. I’m sure I’m missing lots of goodies but none have caught my eye. Anyone have any suggestions?

Kate’s Summery Intentions

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

With her trademark humor, wisdom, and honesty, Lamott tells us stories of daily life – shopping at the supermarket on her birthday and winning a free ham she doesn’t want; skiing with a dying friend who teaches her to fall; celebrating Thanksgiving with Sam and his dad; attending protest rallies. She watches the seasons come and go, and shares with us the comfort and insights that she draws from life around her even as she continues to panic and despair – and also to struggle, as all of us must, to make the world a safer, and more loving, place to live.

My junior year of college, in my Composition Theory and Practice course, we read Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, a collection of essays about the trials and tribulations of being a writer, and I fell in love. Lamott’s writing is accessible, honest, funny, and imbued with a really real sense of reflection. She’s not just telling funny stories; she makes points. She works to understand aspects of her life – of family, of loss, and of what she does for a living.

I bought Traveling Mercies and Plan B, her two books on faith (though she now has a third) for a colleague when I worked in Arizona, and I’m pretty sure she didn’t appreciate them because Lamott is light years away from a Bible-thumping, classical Christian that makes most reasonable people want to cross themselves. She’s reasonable and thoughtful and really works to reconcile life with what she believes, and I’m excited to read more of her.

Paper Towns by John Green

Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows. After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

I read Looking for Alaska years ago, before Elle even knew who John Green was, and was absolutely taken away by how engrossing his story and characters were. When his second book, An Abundance of Katherines, came out, I looked it over and decided it really didn’t sound as interesting as Looking for Alaska. I decided to pass it by, and then sort of lost track of John Green.

But Paper Towns is lauded by fans of his (and I think Green himself) as his best book. I read the sample on my Kindle and was incredibly impressed by it. Needless to say, this is high on my list of summer reads.

I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak

Meet Ed Kennedy—underage cabdriver, pathetic cardplayer, and useless at romance. He lives in a shack with his coffee-addicted dog, the Doorman, and he’s hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence, until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery. That’s when the first Ace arrives. That’s when Ed becomes the messenger. . .

I mentioned this in a recent Book Babble of mine, but The Book Thief blew my mind and I have heard many of its fans say that I am the Messenger is an even better book. Despite this – and despite having owned a copy for years – I have never actually gotten around to reading it.

But the plot sounds incredibly interesting (mysterious, sort of conspiracy-theory-esque, or, like my mom called it, “almost like a superhero”) and I find Zusak to be an incredibly gifted storyteller, so I’m excited to dive into this book and see what it’s all about.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

In his highly acclaimed novel The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch took us on an adrenaline-fueled adventure with a band of daring thieves led by con artist extraordinaire Locke Lamora. Now Lynch brings back his outrageous hero for a caper so death-defying, nothing short of a miracle will pull it off.

The first book in Lynch’s series, The Lies of Locke Lamora, is probably one of my favorite fantasy books of all time. I’d almost entirely stopped reading fantasy when Elle suggested I read Locke Lamora, and after I finished, I wondered why I’d ever stopped. Lynch creates a world that is one part Ocean’s Eleven and one part high fantasy, and I couldn’t put the first brick of a book down.

Because Lynch keeps delaying his next Locke Lamora book, I keep delaying reading Red Seas Under Red Skies. It’s like eating the last candy in a packet or using the last bit of toilet paper: once you do that, you’re out. But every time I see this book, sitting on my shelves, I just want to take it and read it cover to cover. I think it’s just time, now.

Dead in a Prairie House by William R. Drennan

In response to the scandal generated by his open affair with the proto-feminist and free love advocate Mamah Borthwick Cheney, Frank Lloyd Wright had begun to build Taliesin as a refuge and “love cottage” for himself and his mistress (both married at the time to others).

Conceived as the apotheosis of Wright’s prairie house style, the original Taliesin would stand in all its isolated glory for only a few months before the bloody slayings that rocked the nation and reduced the structure itself to a smoking hull.

While I lived in Arizona, I went on a tour of Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and school in Scottsdale, Arizona. My mother, who adores Wright and in fact has visited dozens of his houses over the years, forced us to spend a shameful amount of time in the gift shop, where I spotted this book. I’ve always been a bit of a true-crime junkie, and there is something especially interesting knowing that this topic has been mostly ignored over the years. Whether this will be an engaging piece of non-fiction or the kind of dull, sandpapery true-crime that will make my head explode, I’m not sure yet, but I’m willing to give it a try.

Heist Society by Ally Carter

When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own—scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected.

I like heist stories. Movies, books, TV shows, you name it: if it involves professional thieves doing what they do best, I am completely sucked in. Elle found the second book in this series by mostly-accident and having read the sample? I was hooked.

It feels to me like a summer read, too. Funny, airy, the kind of thing you want to read on your porch while your neighbor grills and you sip a drink with a little umbrella in it. Which is my goal, because I don’t spend enough time on my porch.

I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be  Your Class President by Josh Lieb

Twelve-year-old Oliver Watson’s got the IQ of a grilled cheese sandwich. Or so everyone in Omaha thinks. In reality, Oliver’s a mad evil genius on his way to world domination, and he’s used his great brain to make himself the third-richest person on earth! Then Oliver’s father—and archnemesis—makes a crack about the upcoming middle school election, and Oliver takes it as a personal challenge. He’ll run, and he’ll win! Turns out, though, that overthrowing foreign dictators is actually way easier than getting kids to like you. . . Can this evil genius win the class presidency and keep his true identity a secret, all in time to impress his dad?

My methodology for picking up this book involved going to Barnes & Nobles to pick up something else (I don’t even remember what, anymore), seeing it on the shelf, and knowing that I had to have it. It was blurbed by Jon Stewart. Of The Daily Show. How could I not pick it up and buy it?

It’s wickedly funny. I am not sure I even care about the plot, if only because the first three or four pages were actively hilarious. And maybe that makes me shallow, but sometimes, I need a laugh. Or several, which this book promises.

Eve Green by Susan Fletcher

Pregnant with her first child, Eve Green recalls her mother’s death when she was eight years old and her struggle to make sense of her parents’ mysterious romantic past. Eve is sent to live with her grandparents in rural Wales, where she finds comfort in friendships with Daniel, a quiet farmhand, and Billy, a disabled, reclusive friend of her mother’s. When a ravishing local girl disappears, one of Eve’s friends comes under suspicion. Eve will do everything she can to protect him, but at the risk of complicity in a matter she barely understands. This is a timeless and beautifully told story about family secrets and unresolved liaisons.

Once upon a time (and I don’t think Elle even knows this), I had a thing for Wales. So I went to the Tempe Public Library, searched for fiction about Wales, and brought home a massive stack of books to read. One of them was Eve Green, and clearly, I never read it.

Years passed, and since then, Elle has been on me to read Eve Green. I checked it out from the Topeka Public Library last summer – and returned it without reading it. I want to read it, I intend to read it, but I am a bit of an ADHD reader who, when she checks out a book, ends up reading something entirely different from what she checked out. So once again, I will add Eve Green to my summer reading plans – and hopefully actually read it this time around.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Though he may not speak of them, the memories still dwell inside Jacob Jankowski’s ninety-something-year-old mind. Memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow, irrational rules, its own way of life, and its own way of death. The world of the circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell.

This is Elle’s doing. Despite the fact I bought this book years ago when asking for suggestions (yes, this is a pattern), I’ve never read it. It sits on my shelf, being pretty, and taking up space.

But Elle and I made a deal that if she read The Westing Game, I would read Water for Elephants. Thus, Water for Elephants is on my summer reading list and will get read, come hell or high water.