Aug 14
2004
If you judge by the reader comments in the review sections of Amazon.com, fans of Robin McKinley are a varied bunch. While all of her books can be filed under “fantasy”, the scope and tone of her...
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Aug 14
2004
In my more clear-eyed moments, I can tell that L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series is her best work--unlike the majority of her other books, the Anne series balances her sentimental ten...
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Aug 14
2004
Gail Carson Levine is like the diet version of Robin McKinley. Her books never get quite as freaky as some of Ms. McKinley's weirder stuff, but then she never gets quite as good, either. But if ...
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Aug 14
2004
I think lumping Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy in with the Harry Potter books is criminal. If you must compare Pullman's work to something, try Susan Cooper, and please don't press a...
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Aug 14
2004
I have no idea who makes this kind of decision, but whoever decided that the late, great Edward Gorey should provide the cover art for Sarah Caudwell's books was an absolute genius. Their styles ...
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Aug 14
2004
While all of Chabon's books are excellent, two in particular are Wordcandy. His young adult book Summerland is a gorgeously written novel that does for American mythology what Susan Cooper and Ll...
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Aug 14
2004
I know very little about this woman. She lives in Minneapolis, and she has a very pretty website. Her books Truth or Dairy and Wurst Case Scenario are fun stuff--the rambling journals of a self-...
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Aug 14
2004
Both Colette’s life story and the vast majority of her books read like a really far-fetched story arc on Sex and the City… if SATC was set in turn-of-the-previous-century Paris. While Colette is ...
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Aug 14
2004
Eoin Colfer is one of the many, many fine authors to have been relegated to the "If you loved the Harry Potter books, try ___" list, which always irritates me because it seems like so many o...
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Aug 14
2004
My little brother is incapable of reading Susan Cooper’s two-time Newbury Award-winning The Dark Is Rising series without giving this whiny speech about how none of the books’ suspense actually wo...
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Aug 14
2004
Jennifer Crusie ties with Lisa Kleypas for the number one spot on my “Best Romance Novelists Currently Writing” list. While the two authors may seem to have little in common (Crusie writes sharp,...
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Aug 14
2004
The books of Suzanne Enoch, who is an otherwise only slightly above-average historical romance novelist, have been elevated to Wordcandy status for two reasons. First, she can write a non-annoyin...
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Aug 14
2004
When I was poking around Ms. Evanovich's website I came across the following quote, and since I can't imagine a better description of her heroine than the following line, I'm just going to steal i...
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Aug 14
2004
Bridget Jones's Diary is one of those mega-successful books, like the Harry Potter series or Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum mysteries, that it's just plain stupid not to at least try. Besides b...
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Aug 14
2004
Louise Fitzhugh’s 1964 novel Harriet the Spy introduced readers to a new type of children’s book: a post-Dick and Jane story where everybody, including the heroine, was pretty screwed up. Everyth...
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Aug 14
2004
E. M. Forster, author, critic, and member of the Bloomsbury Group, wrote two great books, Howard’s End and A Room with a View, and several reasonably good ones, many of which seem to have been mad...
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Aug 14
2004
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, Chris Fuhrman’s first and only novel, opens with the following paragraph:“By eighth grade, Jesus Christ had been bone meal and rumors for most of 1,974 years, bu...
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Aug 14
2004
Despite the fact that he's always photographed dressed up in black t-shirts and leather jackets, looking like he'd be happier with a skull in one hand, Neil Gaiman is actually capable of being a t...
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Aug 14
2004
Julie Garwood is a perfectly respectable romance novelist. She has a very limited output and is similar in sensibility to Judith McNaught, although without, happily, the weird sex stuff. While a...
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Aug 14
2004
The only one of Mrs. Gaskell's books that I have read is Wives and Daughters. I thoroughly enjoyed it--it has the sprawling plot and occasional heavy-handed moralizing of a Dickens novel, enliven...
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Aug 14
2004
If Chris Crutcher wrote for adults rather than kids and was about fifty times less entertaining, I bet the people from Oprah's Book Club would be knocking his door down. Crutcher's books feature ...
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Aug 11
2004
Although Jane Eyre is commonly described as a Gothic love story, only about half of the book is devoted to Jane's romance with Mr. Rochester. The first quarter of the novel focuses on Jane's mise...
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Aug 11
2004
Fanny Burney's first and best-known novel, 1778's Evelina, is usually described as the first novel of manners. Burney had originally intended the book to serve as an instruction manual for young ...
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Aug 11
2004
A. S. Byatt is smarter than you are. She knows it, and when you read one of her novels, you'll know it, too. When she's in a rub-this-in-your-face mood, this can make wading through one of her n...
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Aug 11
2004
Like Edgar Allen Poe, Lewis Carroll's books are too-often critiqued in the context of his private life. Highly intelligent, talented, and socially ambitious, Carroll's romantic inclinations were ...
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Aug 11
2004
While I have enjoyed every Julia Quinn book currently in print, I do have some ongoing problems with her writing: she's nowhere near as well researched as, say, Lisa Kleypas, and I find many of he...
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Aug 11
2004
While there is little to distinguish Megan McCafferty’s Jessica Darling novels from the slew of other young adult diary-style novels, they are perfectly respectable entries in an enjoyable and rap...
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Aug 11
2004
Ordinarily I would put information like this in the Bitter Aftertaste section, but my feelings about Judith McNaught are so mixed that I have to begin with it: her romances feature some of the cre...
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Aug 11
2004
Arturo Perez-Reverte’s books always fall apart in the last few chapters, but the rest of the story is so much fun that you have to forgive him. If you’re looking for enjoyably atmospheric mysteri...
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Aug 11
2004
Like the books of Judith McNaught, the plots of Susan Elizabeth Phillips's books all-too-frequently hinge on some (at best) very questionable sex. Unlike Judith McNaught (who honestly doesn't see...
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