Bibliomania

When Thomas Edgar gets back from his trip to the Amazon, he is visibly ill and refuses to speak. His wife, Sophie, is worried sick, and prepared to go to drastic measures to find out what's going on. Did Thomas find the fabled butterfly he was looking for? What happened?

This is a very compelling novel, hard to put down.

I got this book because Shaun Tan illustrated it. I'd never read Link before, and I was pleasantly surprised.

The book is a collection of fantasy/horror stories, and many of them are close to perfect. Another collection for kids that anybody should enjoy.

Frankie is thrilled to get a hot and popular new boyfriend her freshman year. But she is also aware of the precariousness of her new status and aware of not being taken seriously. So Frankie takes matters into her own hands.

I loved this book. Frankie is a great character.

In this autobiography, Brand tells us about his disturbing, self-indulgent life. It's kind of sad, really, but he manages to make it very funny and relatable. This is weird, because I've read several first-person accounts of drug addiction, and none of them made me laugh before.

Excerpt:
The "naked woman," whose presence in my copy of The Guardian necessitated its confiscation, is actually made of marble. My sexual addiction hasn't yet involved the molestation of sculptures. I don't--on seeing the Venus de Milo--think "Phwooar! I wouldn't mind a go in her armpit."

The trouble with real life is that you don't know whether you're the hero or just some nice chap who gets bumped off in chapter five to show what a rotter the villain is without anyone minding too much.

So much for slowing down on these. I guess I'll have to find copies for myself, too..

Okay, so Professor Tamar's friend Michael Cantrip has been called to advise on a tax matter (which upsets his friend Julia, who actually works in tax law). The whole thing is about a trust which was so cleverly written that nobody has any idea who the beneficiary is supposed to be. When one of the trust people is murdered, Cantrip's friends begin to worry about him, especially as it seems he has disappeared.

One of the best things about this novel is that a lot of it is told in the form of faxes from Cantrip to Julia, and his voice is really fun to read. Kind of like Bertie Wooster, only less boring and funnier.

Excerpt:
Look here, Larwood, what I want to know is why birds nowadays aren't like they used to be in the old days. Yielding is what birds were in the old days, and what I specially like about birds being yielding is that they can't start being it till they've jolly well got something to yield to, viz they jolly well wait to be asked.