It's OK, my BOOKS are my friends

"Jack this barrier to commerce, man. I got deliveries to make."

God, I love this book. It gets better and funnier every time I read it. Sometimes satires get just silly and over the top,

Snow Crash

but (at least for me) this  feels just about dead on, Burbclaves, Kouriers, Kongbucks and all. Not to mention the fact that the book is now, what, 15 years old? I love a book that I can pick up every year or so and it can be as fresh and thought-provoking as the first time. Probably more.

Usually the first time I read a book, I miss everything but The Plot -- even books where there is no plot. But subsequent reads let me notice and experience so much more about them, since I don't have to worry about Where This Is Headed. It is such a pleasure to find a book that stands up to this time after time.

So picking up this book again is like getting the best shirt you ever owned back from the dry cleaners. It's OLD! It's MINE! But it looks like it's BRAND NEW!

banned books

Fly by Night

Frances Hardinge

So this was a fun read, a good bet for kids who like Inkheart. I especially liked the way Mosca, the "heroine," was such an opportunist, selling out the floating school, and then Eponymous Clent, and then the Stationers ... a welcome change from the ol' stout-hearted, wholesome and brave girl I've come to resignedly expect in books like this.

One low point is the wrapup -- in about ten pages, Mosca leaps from wanting the printing press for her own selfish means to being a First Amendment, information-wants-to-be-free pioneer. Huh? Block that jump!