Keep Up with Book Series (Part 1)

It's been about three years since my last progress report on all the series of books I'm trying to read at the same time. Have I almost caught up yet? Or am I even farther behind? Behold, the depressing facts...

| A |

Louisa May Alcott

• Little Women series: I've only read the first book or two, Little Women and Good Wives (whether this counts as one book or two is precisely the question). The series continues in at least two more books that I have yet to read, Little Men and Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out. I make no promises.

M.T. Anderson

• Norumbegan Quartet: I think I finally got hold of the fourth book, The Chamber in the Sky, on Kindle. But I haven't done much Kindle reading lately. I've got a lot of good stuff on there, I should remember it next time I'm pawing through my bookcase for something new.
• Octavian Nothing series: I've only read the first book. Book 2, The Kingdom on the Waves, looks like it may be good. I'll have to request it at the library.
• Pals in Peril series: I've read the first two of six books. I think the next installment, Jasper Dash and the Flame Pits of Delaware, may be lurking somewhere in the back row of books on one of my shelves.

Jonathan Auxier

• Peter Nimble series: A second book, Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard, came out earlier this year. I'd better look for it at the library.

Avi (Edward Irving Wortis)

• Dimwood Forest series: I've read four of the six books. That leaves Poppy's Return, which may be already be tucked in that back row somewhere, and Poppy and Ereth.
• Crispin series: I didn't even realize until now that Crispin: The Cross of Lead had two sequels: At the Edge of the World and The End of Time.

| B |

Natalie Babbitt

• This isn't really a series, but I've read one of her books (Tuck Everlasting), and I've had another (The Eyes of the Amaryllis) on my to-read shelf for some time.

P.D. Baccalario

• Century quartet: I've read the first two books. The other titles, which I need to look up, are City of Wind and Dragon of Seas.

E.D. Baker

• Frog Princess series: I've read three books of what is already an eight-book series, with a ninth book rumored to be in progress. Note to self: the next installment is No Time for Magic.

Blue Balliett

• Calder Pillay series: After writing a couple stand-alone books that I may like to read just for fun, this author came out in 2015 with a fourth book in the series of which I have read three. Title: Pieces and Players.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes

• Bailey Morgan series: Again, I didn't know there was a sequel to Tattoo until I looked for it. It's titled Fate. Meantime, the same author has been working on five other series, in case you're interested in modern-world teen fantasy.

T.A. Barron

• Adventures of Kate series: So far I have only read The Merlin Effect, which is actually the third of three books. When time permits, perhaps I will look up Heartlight and The Ancient One.
• Merlin series: I thought I had finished what I knew as the "Lost Years of Merlin" cycle, a five-book series. But as of 2011 there were 12 books in this series, of which the next on deck for me is Book 6, The Dragon of Avalon.

Dale E. Basye

• Heck series: I have only explored three of the seven circles of Heck, where the bad kids go to be darned for all eternity. The remaining titles are Fibble, Snivel, Precocia, and Wise Acres.

K.P. Bath

• Lucy Wickwright series: There actually is a third book in this series, titled The Black Arrow of Cant, but I'm frankly leery of reading it since, during my review of his second book, I learned of the author's conviction on child pornography charges.

Joan Bauer

• Rules of the Road series: Again, I didn't know until just now that Rules of the Road had a sequel, Best Foot Forward.

L. Frank Baum

• Oz series: Although I wrote one omnibus review of the Oz books, it was incomplete. I've had the remaining books in the series since about 2006, along with a few other Baum titles that I have yet to read. It's not that I'm uninterested, but reading them seems a lot of trouble just to add a paragraph or three to an omnibus review of the entire series. Oh well...

Peter S. Beagle

• Again, no series in particular, but I have several of his books on my to-read shelf, and I'm now interested in getting I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons.

Ian Beck

• Tom Trueheart series: I have read two of the three books. The third is Tom Trueheart and the Land of Myths and Legends.

Frank Beddor

• Looking Glass Wars: The third book, which I have yet to read, is Arch Enemy.

Alan Beechey

• Oliver Swithin Mysteries: There is a third installment, This Private Plot. I would love to see it, especially having corresponded briefly with the author after my review of his first two books. I recall he seemed discouraged about his career. I would like to give him any encouragement I can.

Hilari Bell

• Farsala series: The third book is Forging the Sword. I would also like to read her Goblin Wood trilogy, at least. I think I might have part of it on my to-read shelf already.

Ted Bell

• Nick McIver series: The second book is The Time Pirate. I have also been interested in trying out his 12-book Alex Hawke series, of which selected volumes are available at my local public library; but I want to start at the beginning, if possible.

John Bellairs

• Lewis Barnavelt series: I'm actually not interested in reading any farther in this series, because after the first three books (which I have read), the rest were ghost-written by Brad Strickland after Bellairs' death. Frustratingly enough, I haven't been able to get within visual range of copy of the four all-Bellairs Anthony Monday books, and of the eight pre-Strickland Johnny Dixon books, I have only gotten my hands on the eighth. Aargh! Priorities (i.e. first books) in each series are The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn and The Curse of the Blue Figurine, respectively.

Jon Berkeley

• Wednesday Tales trilogy: I once received an email from the author offering me a free copy of Book 3, The Lightning Key, but it never came and I never heard from him again. Eventually I will get over my disappointment and locate a copy under my own power.

Jim Bernheimer

• Dead Eye series: I reviewed Pennies for the Ferryman only because the author sent it to me and asked me to. Still, I wouldn't rule out reading its sequel, The Skinwalker Conspiracies.
• Spirals of Destiny series: I could say the same thing about Rider and its sequel, Sorceress.

Luc Besson

• Arthur series: Arthur and the Minimoys has a sequel, Arthur and the Forbidden City. I believe I own a copy of it, and finally reading it shouldn't cost me too much time. I suppose I owe that much effort to the creator of one of my favorite flawed movies, The Fifth Element.

Jeanne Birdsall

• Penderwicks series: I have read only the first two books in this charming quartet. The two I have yet to read are The Penderwicks at Point Mouette and The Penderwicks in Spring.

Holly Black et al.

• Magisterium series (with Cassandra Clare): The third book, which I am eager to absorb, is The Bronze Key.
• Spiderwick series (with Tony DiTerlizzi): I read all the original Spiderwick Chronciles, but they've come out with a spinoff trilogy called Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles: The Nixie's Song, A Giant Problem, and The Wyrm King.
• No series in particular: I'm just interested in some of her stand-alone titles, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and The Darkest Part of the Forest.

Pseudonymous Bosch

• Secret series: I have read two of the five books. That still leaves This Book Is Not Good for You, This Isn't What It Looks Like, and You Have to Stop This. Meantime, Bosch has also started a new "Bad" series, starting with Bad Magic.

Alan Bradley

• Flavia de Luce Mysteries: After the seven books I have read, the eighth is The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse - which I thought I saw in the local public library once, but could never find when I went looking for it again. A ninth book, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd, is due to be released next month.

Libba Bray

• Gemma Doyle series: I somehow managed to read the third book of this trilogy, The Sweet Far Thing, before the first two. No matter, I have them on my to-read shelf: A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels. I might even read them at some point.

Herbie Brennan

• Faerie Wars series: I thought this series was concluded after four books, but now I learn a fifth has been added: The Faeman Quest.

Sarah Rees Brennan

• Lynburn Legacy trilogy: The third book is Unmade.

Carol Ryrie Brink

• Caddie Woodlawn series: A sequel to Caddie Woodlawn has existed since 1939. It was originally titled Magical Melons, but is currently marketed as Caddie Woodlawn's Family. No guarantees that I'll read it, though. I only read C.W. because it was a Newbery Medal book, and I've been slowly working toward reading all of them.

Terry Brooks

• Landover series: Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! was the first of a six-book series. At some point I started reading Book 2, The Black Unicorn, but I can't remember why (or where) I put it down. I'd better dig it out, because I also have one of the Shannara books on deck, and I don't want to get into that series until I'm done with this one.

Anne Patrice Brown

• Dumari Chronicles: The author sent me the first book in this series to review, and then because I wrote something nice about it, she sent me Year Two as well. I haven't felt up to reading it yet. I don't mean this as a put-down, but I have repeatedly found that being sent a book for free (even one I planned to read eventually) tends to kill my desire for it. I could name two or three other examples. I think it has something to do with being spoiled rotten.

Michael Buckley

• Sisters Grimm series: I have read six of these nine books. The remaining titles are The Everafter War, The Inside Story, and The Council of Mirrors. I would also like to try his N.E.R.D.S. series.

Linda Buckley-Archer

• Gideon series: I have no excuse for not having read the third book of this trilogy, Time Quake. It has been on my to-read shelf for years.

Marissa Burt

• Storybound series: Book 2, which I haven't read yet, is Story's End. Hmm. That developed fast.

Jim Butcher

• Cinder Spires series: Well, there's only one book in it so far - The Aeronaut's Windlass - but I haven't read it yet. And amazingly, I'm caught up with all my other Jim Butcher series. What gives? Is he done writing the Dresden Files?

Georgia Byng

• Molly Moon series: The third book of what is now a six- or seven-book series (depending on whether you count a 2007 World Book Day gimmick) is Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure, which has also been on my to-read shelf for quite a while. Oops!

Just like in 2013, I got to the end of the A's thinking, "This isn't so bad." Then I got through the B's and thought, "Shit." From this it may or may not be possible to form a statistically plausible guess as to how many series of books I have started to read, but haven't finished, during the 13 years I've been posting my reviews online. Whether I will actually work my way through to Z is another question...

What Makes a Hymn Useful?

Last night, I received my final proof copy of Useful Hymns (expanded edition) in the mail from Lulu. This morning, I approved it and pulled the trigger on sales and distribution. It is currently priced at $33.48, with a 20 percent discount ($26.78) if purchased directly from Lulu. After a lot of hard work and some irritating delays, what more can I say but, "Thanks be to God!"

To answer the question posed in this entry's title, I would probably have to repeat stuff I have said before. Perhaps I should note that one of the things I'm trying to do with this book is fight back against the "tacky hymns" tackiness that I have lampooned so often on this blog - in some people's view, to an offensive degree. The contrast between the examples I criticized on the "Tacky Hymns" thread and the alternatives presented in Useful Hymns should not need too much analysis and explanation.

Another thing I want it to do is redirect the way hymns are being introduced in today's church, away from "springing hymns that have not been discussed or tested on the church through the latest synodically approved pew hymnal" and toward "authors putting their own stuff out there and seeing what people make of it."

But finally, I have previously alluded to a Gracia Grindal essay on "what makes a hymn Lutheran," in the introduction to a book of hymns that I would mostly have shunted into the "tacky hymns" category. So I guess there isn't a broad consensus on this - on what makes hymns Lutheran, on what makes them beautiful, on what makes them non-tacky, on what makes them (in a word) useful.

It is obvious the question bears answering, but I don't want to get too detailed about it. Writing hymns is an art form; indeed, it is a union and interpenetration of multiple art forms, unparalleled throughout human creativity in complexity, sophistication, the potential for sublimity, and the risk of failure. Further, a successful hymn is an amazingly distilled and compact artifact of the literary, musical, and theological arts. It can have a powerful influence on believers for many generations, either for truth or error. It can be deeply moving and meaningful to individuals. And while there are principles that can be learned from studying hymnody, trying to reduce it to a precise science would not be productive. I'm not usually the kind of person who says things like "You could kill the spirit." But seriously, you could.

Like creating art music, writing excellent hymns is not something we should leave up to other ages of history or other religious communities. I have a conjecture that an active culture of hymn-writing is as vital to the health of the living church at any time as an active culture of yeast is to a commercial bakery. And I think it is also important to make a distinction about the purpose of hymns, about who should be singing them. Hymns may, and should, be used by individuals for their private, and even silent, devotions; sung by choirs or soloists; studied in the classroom either for catechetical purposes or as examples for literary and musical analysis; quoted in sermons and essays; cited in doctrinal debates or apologetic pamphlets addressed to unbelievers; perhaps even engraved on fancy paper and sent as greeting cards for the encouragement and consolation of others. But mainly, their purpose is to be sung by a congregation: to be an instrument for putting the words of the faith into the mouths of the faithful. A conscientious hymn-writer will necessarily struggle to craft hymns that are effective for that purpose. To the extent he succeeds, his hymns may be useful.

Another point toward the question of what makes hymns useful has to do with spotting potential uses for hymns: being alert to opportunities to serve a need in the lives of the faithful, to fill a gap in the available hymn literature that answers to a foreseeable purpose. Some hymns are written for very narrow purposes or occasions, such as the dedication or anniversary of a specific church or institution. Some hymns are so general, or so light on content, that their usefulness is mainly as an "all-purpose" number to stick into any opening on any occasion. But between those extremes, there is plenty of room for hymns that answer to needs that regularly arise in the lives of individual Christians, congregations, or entire church bodies. Needs like, for example, encouragement while battling temptation, hungering for the Sacrament, suffering in body or mind, grieving, worrying, feeling concerned about the body politic, being divided from loved ones or other Christians, etc.

There are other ways hymns may be useful, such as clarifying key doctrines, meditating on the lessons for each Sunday of the church year, and explaining the relevance of certain Bible stories to the lives of today's believers. But perhaps more to the point than what purposes the hymns serve is their manner of serving them.

I don't think it is vital for the usefulness of a hymn to be written in modern, man-on-the-street language. I think it is acceptable, and even desirable, for hymns to use dignified, cultured language that sets them apart from gutter speech and ephemeral pop culture. I am not averse to writing hymns in a modestly archaic poetic register, though the density and obscurity of poetic devices in a single hymn should be limited by compassion for laypeople with middling literacy. I try to let a high-toned modern idiom predominate in my work. I aim to write skillful, economical verse that fades to transparency between the reader or singer and the subject it portrays. But I also recognize it wouldn't really be poetry - there wouldn't be any point in making the effort, really - if it weren't more interesting and aesthetically beautiful than a block of prose that conveyed the same meaning.

Poetics of Hymnody
With regard to the poetry of hymns - whether crafting my own, or evaluating that of others - I particularly value economy of words. I think conspicuous wordiness is a dead giveaway of a lack of experience or ability in writing poetry. A good hymn will sound like it's squeezing a lot of meaning into a few words, rather than reaching for extra words to stretch its message to fill a given meter and rhyme scheme. An economical hymn may be quite long, because it is trying to say a lot, or because its argument requires a lot of logical steps or scriptural examples. But the impression such a hymn should convey is one of thoroughness, rather than prolixity.

Another piece of the poetic puzzle is a vividness of expression that awakens the imagination, the senses, the emotions, and the memory of other literature. As most experienced writers will readily say, though some still struggle with it in practice, the right way to achieve this is not by loading your lines with adjectives and adverbs, but by choosing strong verbs and being deft with a well-turned metaphor or simile. All the other poetic devices you learned in 10th-grade English class, like alliteration and assonance, may also be of some use.

I doubt anyone could write more than 200 hymns in the same meter without going insane. Variety is what keeps you interested in what you're doing as a hymn-writer. So being acquainted with, or prepared to experiment with, a variety of stanza structures is a plus. You'll find some meters are harder than others to pull off, but the results are sometimes surprisingly rewarding. The same goes for rhyme schemes. It can help to be open to modest experiments in patterns of end-rhymes, internal rhymes, and what my 12th-grade English prof called "slant-rime" (sic) - which may also require you to grow a thick skin when dealing with pedants who consider anything but a perfect rhyme to be a versifying error.

The main thing, I guess, is to start writing poetry after having read a lot of poetry, and to continue reading a lot of other poetry, learning and thinking about why it does or doesn't work, practicing how to imitate and extend those techniques that work, and eventually to write enough poetry that it stops reading like a student's painful attempt to fulfill a classroom assignment and begins to show signs of being your own style. Along the way you will write a lot of stuff that you won't keep, and some stuff that you can only save by radically revising it, before you reach the point where a finished poem springs right into your mind and flows through your hand onto paper with only slight alterations, then or thereafter.

If you're serious about wanting to write good poetry someday, don't give up. Begin with the understanding that, like any other skill, it's going to take thousands of hours of hands-on experience to achieve an expert level. You could shut yourself up in a cell with adequate light, plumbing, reading and writing materials, a desk and a chair, and someone to pass you food and drink through a slot in the door, and by devoting every waking hour to the discipline of learning to write poetry, you may become Robert Frost (or at least Robert Browning) in about five years. Or you could take a stab at it on and off for 25 years, with occasional periods of intense focus, as I did. I recommend the latter. The life experience that comes packaged with it will give you more interesting material to write about.

Music of Hymnody
I daresay learning to write music is an ambition that captivates fewer people than the writing of poetry. While a few people have a natural genius for inventing memorable melodies and improvising the harmony and accompaniment to go with them, most of us mere mortals only arrive there with anything resembling confidence after a course of music theory. Those geniuses, if they don't read music, may be condemned to having to dictate their compositions to someone who has taken music theory, in order to get them down on paper. So one way or another, the writing of hymn music is probably going to involve the study of that subject, at either first or second hand.

Music theory is a tough subject. Few people even begin to study it, and it shakes most of them off within the first semester. The tiny remnant who survive the entire curriculum, as undergraduate music majors, are often bonded like brothers (and sisters) in arms. A good preparation, before even trying to survive music theory, is to become a proficient note-reader, which probably means learning to play the piano. That's also not a bad idea if your ambition is eventually to be able to write realistically playable hymn tunes and accompaniment. If you have the natural genius for it, you might even be able to skip taking theory after achieving keyboard and note-reading proficiency. But once you've done that, I guarantee you'll find that taking music theory becomes a less intimidating prospect, and pays dividends in the variety and sophistication of the music you are capable of creating.

You might be surprised to learn there is a stage in the study of music theory when four-part harmonizations of traditional chorales (hymn-tunes) become a staple of students' harmonic analysis and composition exercises. A lot of hymn arrangements in mid-20th century hymnals are examples of typical, "textbook harmony" that could have been written any time since Martin Luther's day until now. There are also a lot of arrangements, predominating in some hymn-books, typical of 19th-century hymn composition in being either excessively smarmy or tediously, harmonically static. And there are hymn arrangements from the late 20th century to the present that are a little freer and more flowing in their texture, and often more "modern" in their harmony as well. My ideas of useful hymnody dispose me to prefer either the earliest or latest of these three style periods, and to avoid the one in the middle.

Sometime ago, I started a thread about how to write a tune, but I never carried it through as planned. Maybe I'll get back to it sometime. But for now, I think it is enough to say that useful hymn tunes can be inspired by the example of one's favorite tunes from any period, nationality, or denomination in Christian history. When I write hymn tunes, I aim to achieve the greatest possible variety in style, both in the shape of the melody and in the style of accompaniment, from Reformation-era German chorales to American shape-note part-songs, from medieval church modes to Scandinavian Romanticism, and from high Anglican hymn tunes to contemporary art songs. Sometimes their harmony is traditional, chordal, hymnal-style chorale; sometimes it is dissonant and weird. Their resemblance to the models I had in mind may be evident more in my imagination than to anyone else. But whatever style or register I try to adopt in a given tune, above all I aim to make them memorable and distinct in their melodic contours, to have an effective harmonic structure and dramatic shape, and to be propelled forward by a certain rhythmic energy. And again, I want to write tunes that a congregation might reasonably be asked to try and learn to sing.

Spirituality of Hymnody
Once you get past the way the words are put together and the tune a congregation may be expected to sing, the biggest part of the question "What makes a hymn useful?" remains. Given a little time to read back over my own blog, I am sure I could produce several notable examples of hymns that were very successful as poems and/or as pieces of music (whether for the congregation to sing or not), yet flew wide of the mark of really being a useful hymn. At bottom, a hymn's poetry and music are excellent in vain if it doesn't have that theological je ne sais quoi. That bit of French right there means, "I don't know what." But actually, I do know what. And now I'm going to tell it to you.

First, no one without the Holy Spirit, and without faith in Christ, can write an excellent Christian hymn. They can perhaps write a shallow and dead imitation or parody of one, but those who would be taken in by it ought to have higher standards. Exceptions to this rule will immediately come to mind; for example, Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was personally an atheist, contributed to The English Hymnal of 1906 (which he co-edited with the noted socialist Percy Dearmer) a number of very attractive hymn tunes, including the famous SINE NOMINE (since then wedded to "For all the saints who from their labors rest"), some of them adapted from British folk-tunes, that are still spreading into more and more hymn-books. But I make no claim about the theological qualifications to write or arrange the music for a hymn; for that, the only qualifications necessary are of musical concern. I remain convinced that for a hymn text to avoid being tacky in its application to Lutheran corporate worship, it cannot be written by someone who rejects the faith. This is all another way of saying truly useful hymnody is a gift of God.

Second, it must be written to the glory of God, without confusing the Persons of the Trinity or dividing His Substance, and without obscuring the union of God and Man in one person, Jesus Christ.

Third, Christ should be at the center of it, either the object to whom it is addressed or the subject of whom it is concerned, depicted as the source of every good, especially of the forgiveness of our sins and eternal salvation.

Fourth, it should be true to the witness of God's Word in the Bible, and should correctly apply His benefits for us in the proclamation of the Gospel, the forgiveness of sins, baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

Fifth, it should not so make light of Christ's suffering and cross, or of the afflictions of the faithful, as to peddle the cheap grace of a false gospel of individual self-salvation or of reward and glory, in this world or any other, to be obtained through man's works, decisions, feelings, spiritual gifts, religious observances, sacrifices, etc., etc.

Sixth, without despising the gifts and opportunities God provides for His church in the present life, it should point the hearts of today's struggling believers toward the time and place not yet revealed, in which the faithful will behold the glorious face of Christ and be comforted for all eternity.

To put these six criteria into one brief, though perhaps too heavily laden sentence, a useful hymn is a reflection of God-given faith in the true God; Christ-centered, normed by Scripture, rich in biblical thought, oriented through the means of grace on the gospel of the forgiveness of sins in the cross of Jesus, sensitive to the struggles of believers, keyed into our life as vessels of grace in the present world, yet also locked on target in the promised world to come.

This is what I have tried to achieve by writing more than 200 "useful hymns." This is the reverse of what I deplore in my bitchy attacks on "tacky hymns." It is what I hope my new book will encourage other Lutheran hymn-writers to strive for in what, if my suggestion carries any weight, will soon become a bumper-crop of hymn-books, large and small, out of which the church may profitably enrich its store of sacred songs.

The Last Enchantment

The Last Enchantment
by Mary Stewart
Recommended Ages: 14+

In the third installment of Mary Stewart's Arthurian Saga, Merlin - prince, prophet, polymath - narrates the early years of High King Arthur's reign after his sudden rise to power in Book 2, The Hollow Hills. In fascinating scenic and quasi-historical detail, he guides us through the consolidation of the parts of England still ruled by petty kings descended from Roman legionnaires, their defense of the land against encroaching Angles and Saxons, the construction of Camelot, and the establishment of a great era of peace and prosperity. But while Arthur achieves one victory after another and grows into a wise king, Merlin's power is on the wane, and he feels the fate he foresaw long ago - being "buried quick" (i.e. entombed alive) - stalking him ever more closely.

There is plenty of trouble in Camelot. Some of those petty kings aren't so loyal. Arthur's half-sister Morgause, an evil sorceress, is married to one of them. She bears a son - Arthur's bastard son, conceived by treachery - and Merlin suspects the son survived King Lot's Herod-like attempt to wipe out every boy born about that time and place. He foresees, too, that Mordred - if he lives - will somehow become Arthur's bane; but he cannot bring himself to do anything to prevent it.

Then there's a hint of danger from Arthur's other sister Morgan, who also practices some dark arts, though her husband is a king more loyal to him. After Morgause, it is a certain Guenever, or perhaps Guinevere, whose name vibrates in Merlin's mind with a certain doom. But as with the lad Ninian, whom Merlin would like to make his disciple, there is a grim surprise in that quarter, and a sort of second coming - Guinevere and Ninian doublets, or doppelgangers, or something like that. The magic is weird. And just because this retelling of the ancient saga is photo-realistic and rich with historical color, does not mean it is stripped of magic. Far from it!

This story is ultimately about Merlin accepting that he must decrease while Arthur and others increase; about a legendary sorcerer making peace with his fate, and finding mercy in it. It is rich in emotional depths and multi-dimensional characters, abounding in lyrical description as well as intense passages of suspense, mystery, intrigue, and danger. It hints at things yet to come (Gawain and his brothers becoming Arthur's knights; the quest for the grail; etc.) and throws unexpected interpretations on stories whose shapes have become tediously familiar (such as Lancelot and Guinevere, Nimuë and the crystal cave, and more). It conjures strong feelings of foreboding, regret, longing, and excitement. It is all that a legend of King Arthur should be, except trivial, bizarre, preposterous, or cloaked in archaic language. It is like the great last act of a three-part memoir of a great epoch in history, as seen by one of its crucial but peripheral actors; and yet it leaves open the door for two more Arthurian novels: The Wicked Day and The Prince and the Pilgrim.

Anyone but Ivy Pocket

Anyone but Ivy Pocket
by Caleb Krisp
Recommended Ages: 12+

Ivy Pocket, age 12, is an orphan living by her wits who has somehow risen in the world to the position of lady's maid, but she's terrible at it. Anything but discreet, she is impulsive, pushy, disaster-prone, compulsively honest in a sense that approaches the boundary of rudeness and then cheerfully hops right over it, and at the same time capable of telling colossal whoppers - to herself and to others - when it comes to her private business. She constantly tells herself that she has the natural instincts of a young Sherlock Holmes, a secret agent, a Buddhist monk, etc. She believes, to the point of delusion, in her own excellent qualities. But she is actually a walking wave of catastrophe, whose escapades are as funny to the reader as they are mortifying to those around her.

So one day, Ivy finds herself jobless in Paris with one pound to her name. Then a dying, rich countess offers her 500 pounds to present a certain priceless jewel - the mysterious Clock Diamond - to the granddaughter of an estranged girlhood friend on her 12th birthday. Practically the moment Ivy leaves the room, the old lady is murdered. Intrigues and dangers begin to swirl around the girl even before she lands in England, and the pace of weirdness picks up after she arrives at the Butterfield estate and meets the spoiled Matilda and her nicer cousin Rebecca. Someone is trying to snatch the diamond before Ivy presents it at Matilda's birthday ball. The girls' tutor seems to have a sinister agenda. A friendly author who comes to the state at Ivy's request knows more than she should.

Then Ivy exhibits spooky new abilities, like healing wounds, being able to fall down a stairway without dying, and seeing dead people. One of them, the ghostly countess, keeps putting the frighteners on her, urging her to fulfill her promise. Meanwhile, the stone shows Ivy tantalizing glimpses of her forgotten childhood, before she found herself in the orphanage. As the poor girl becomes increasingly confused about the right thing to do, evil forces close in on her, ensuring the night of the birthday ball will be an action-loaded disaster in the true Ivy Pocket tradition.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It was scary, funny, and full of crisply written passages that I marked to quote in this review; but on second thought, I'll let you discover them for yourself. One thing I found original about it was the clearly-drawn character of Ivy, a good picaresque heroine in that she can see through other characters' nonsense (mostly), while he reader can see through hers. A goodly part of the fun in this book is due to the streak of satirical irony that runs right through it. Also to the author's credit is the creative combination of straight-up period mystery, comedy, and paranormal thriller, blended in a way that smelled fresh to me. The only thing I would complain about was the design of the book, as published by Greenwillow. Apart from the charming illustrations by Barbara Cantini, the page design made this book one of the most irritating reading experiences I have had in some time. There was something off about the font, size, and linespacing of the text that made it look squished - and needlessly so, since so much space was wasted between lines of text. Between that and the often low-contrast ink color, reading my copy of Ivy Pocket was an eye-strain ordeal. I only bring up book design flaws in a review when they seriously affect my enjoyment of the book. Memo to Mr. Krisp, whoever he is: Insist on a new edition soon, with entirely new typesetting. Thanks!

Judging by his unclear dust-jacket photo and his goof-ball biographical blurb, Caleb Krisp may be a pseudonym for some other author yet to be outed, in the tradition of N.E. Bode, Pseudonymous Bosch, and Lemony Snicket, and many before them. So, while I can't assert this is his debut book, it is the first book he has published under this particular name. It already has a sequel, Somebody Stop Ivy Pocket, and it is rumored there will be at least a third book in this series.

The League of Beastly Dreadfuls

The League of Beastly Dreadfuls
by Holly Grant
Recommended Ages: 11+

Anastasia McCrumpet thinks she's an average, or possibly below-average, freckly 11-year-old with tragic flatulence and a passive-aggressive hamster. But a couple of batty old ladies, in collusion with her monobrowed school secretary, apparently deem Anastasia worthy of kidnapping. They lure her out of school with a crazy story about her parents being gravely injured in a freak vacuum-cleaner mishap, then lock her up in Room 11 of St. Agatha's Asylum for the Criminally Insane - a moldy Victorian institution, full of portraits of monobrowed women wearing the same eyeball-styled pinky ring as her kidnappers. They feed her a miserable diet of Mystery Lumps, force her to collect leeches in the adjacent bog, and warn her to avoid the teenager she has seen digging holes on the grounds with a birdcage padlocked to his head. They claim he's their gardener, and a biting lunatic.

Actually, the boy with the birdcage turns out to be even stranger than that. As weird happenings follow Anastasia around the creepy corridors of St. Agatha's, she gradually learns that the so-called gardener is a Shadowboy named Quentin, who was caught trying to rescue his younger brother Ollie from the old biddies' clutches. Prim and Prude belong to a secret society that calls itself the Watchers, and they have evil plans for any child they catch who exhibits abnormal powers - such as the Shadowchildren, who can umbrate (turn into shadows), and who also have a poisonous bite. Their weaknesses are silver and mirrors. The hags, armed with plenty of both, are just waiting for Ollie to shed a layer of skin that can be used to make a kind of invisibility cloak. But the three children don't have even that long to plan their escape.

Using only the items conveniently left lying around by the previous tenants of the asylum, Anastasia and her new friends must figure out how to get out of the asylum. Besides locks, mirrors, a remote-controlled gate, and an electrified fence, they will have to sneak past the old ladies' sharp-eyed vigil, a pack of vicious guard poodles, and (gulp!) some kind of Creature that supposedly enjoys the taste of children's hearts. With help coming from an unexpected quarter, the escape may be both easier and more complicated than they first planned - but Anastasia will be left facing the big question: What is so special about her? What would the Watchers want with her?

This debut book, richly illustrated by Josie Portillo, is Book 1 of a series that continues, so far, with The Dastardly Deed. It has a good deal of the vocabulary-building, fourth-wall breaking, omniscient-third-person-narrator-who-occasionally-speaks-in-the-first-person business that came in with Lemony Snicket and Pseudonymous Bosch and, at least in children's fiction, seems to be here to stay. The writing sparkles with offbeat word choices, inventive names for persons and books, chilling atmospheres, and a sense of humor ranging from black comedy to cheesy gags. As story structure goes, the moving pieces are so strange and whimsical that at times its progress is unpredictable, delivering a satisfying blend of what-must-inevitably-happen with entertaining surprises. The fact that it leaves a lot of threads untied is, of course, a necessary evil, since there needs to be a reason to keep reading the series. The book is well enough stocked with the laughs, shivers, puzzles, and reasons to care about its main characters, to ensure that you read on.

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye
by Raymond Chandler
Recommended Ages: 15+

This 1953 novel is the sixth of Chandler's seven completed novels about Los Angeles private detective Philip Marlowe, who was introduced in 1939 in The Big Sleep. Now in his 40s and starting to show a little gray, Marlowe knows he can't go on forever, but otherwise hasn't changed much, and even when he thinks about how his life might have been different, he wouldn't want to change. The world around him has moved ahead into the Cold War era. Technology, politics, and the law enforcement culture of L.A. have marched forward somewhat. But there are still shady millionaires, crooked cops, too-powerful gangsters and their hired heavies, and men and women who do murder for the reasons people have always done murder. It's still a dark, ugly world where a lone operator with a strong sense of honor and duty, of right and wrong, is sometimes the only man you can count on.

One year when Marlowe happens to have a whole house to himself, he strikes up a casual friendship with a well-heeled alcoholic named Terry Lennox - a 30-ish war veteran with prematurely white hair and distinctive scars on one side of his face, who has twice married the randy, red-haired daughter of a newspaper magnate. Lennox, who has had all the character beaten out of him by life's disappointments, no longer seems to care about his wife's amorous adventures. Then, one day, it seems he does. He shows up at Marlowe's house asking for a ride to the Tijuana airport, intending to fly away to destination unknown. Whatever Marlowe suspects, he only learns afterward Lennox's wife has been found in her love nest with her face battered in by a brass monkey. Marlowe spends a few days in jail, on suspicion of being an accessory after the fact, but then Lennox turns up in a small-town Mexican hotel with a self-inflicted bullet wound to the head and a signed confession to his wife's murder, and that's that. The magnate daddy wants it all hushed up, the police close the case, Marlowe gets his walking papers, end of story. Right? Well, no. That's just the beginning.

There follows an at first seemingly unconnected case involving a popular romance novelist named Roger Wade, who is having trouble staying sober long enough to finish his 13th bestseller. First the man's publisher, then his dreamboat wife, and finally Wade himself appeal to Marlowe - now famous for being true to a friend in a tight spot - to help the writer get over his block. Clearly, something is eating him, but when sober he doesn't seem to remember what it was. Dragged once too often into their business, Marlowe finally falls into the familiar role of discovering the corpse that sets off another cascade of intrigues and betrayals. Meanwhile, Marlowe increasingly suspects that more than coincidence lies behind his involvement in both cases. By the end, two men are found to have committed suicide after confessing to the same murder - and isn't it just typical that neither of them really killed the redhead, or himself!

In the ultimate case of "If I had only asked so-and-so about such-and-such at the very beginning, I could have saved multiple lives," Marlowe will have to live with the burden of what he learns in this case - but only as long as some very powerful people, who have warned him to keep his nose out of their business, let him. And that's where I'll leave it. The synopsis is complex enough; the actual story has many layers more. It also features such amazing Easter eggs as a passage of tortured stream-of-consciousness writing by Wade, a 100-times-over millionaire's diagnosis of everything wrong in the world that reads like a Donald Trump campaign speech, and the unprecedented spectacle of Marlowe hiring another detective to get information he needs to solve his case. There's a lot packed into this book.

In this sixth Marlowe installment, Chandler writes with the same deep psychological insight into what makes people do what they do, the same eye for scenic detail and ear for dialogue, the same nose for the secret layers within characters and relationships as ever, and just a little more freedom to discuss sex and quote profane language than in the past. He writes his usual tale packed with action and intrigue, yet paced to allow plenty of room for atmospherics, for philosophical musings, for characters to launch into diatribes about their pet problems with society, and for the slow smolder of Marlowe's tightly controlled despair. His previously non-stop flow of wisecracks and lyrically quirky similes is not seen so much, but he remains a straight shooter who gets under everyone's skin, male or female, cop or crook, just by sticking to his principles. Some of his scenes bristle with dialogue honed to razor sharpness. Some of them hang heavy with meaningful silence.

Overall, however, the pacing seems a little less tight than in the previous books, and the dramatic structure is sometimes a little obscure; and there were several times when I thought the end of the chapter was going to be the end of the book (albeit a somewhat anticlimactic ending), only to realize there were several more chapters to come. False resolutions are followed by further revelations that prove even more devastating than previously guessed, along with the unexpected payoff of plot lines left hanging many pages earlier. Multiple wrongdoers come to some sort of comeuppance or other; lines of friendship and enmity, blame and innocence blur and sharpen again in different places; and the last mind-blowing revelation leaves you marveling at the chain of cause and effect that ties it all together. In style and content, Chandler delivers an undeniably great American novel, lightly disguised as a detective thriller. It isn't his most powerful example of either, but it's right up there with an admittedly hard-to-beat handful of magnificent books.

For your information, this book was made into a film in 1973, starring Elliott Gould and directed by Robert Altman. Judging by the synopsis I just read, it isn't particularly faithful to the book. Just so you know.

Pennyroyal Academy

Pennyroyal Academy
by M.A. Larson
Recommended Ages: 14+

When we first meet Evie, she is a girl with no name. The first human being she has ever met is a boy named Remington, who has been waylaid by a witch on his way to a school for knights and princesses. The pair of them escape together, and Evie enrolls in the school without even knowing that princesses are supposed to fight witches. She hasn't even heard a fairy tale before. The staff at Pennyroyal Academy come close to kicking her out, even allowing for the theory that she is under a memory curse. But it's a good thing they don't, because she turns out to be the most likely cadet to fulfill a (relatively) good witch's prophecy that one student in her year will be the fabled Warrior Princess, destined to turn the tide of the war against the witches.

The princess cadets at Pennyroyal Academy are being trained in the arts of combating witches - which mostly consist of the princessly virtues of courage, compassion, kindness, and discipline. Believe it or not, these are the only things that can defeat a witch's power to create chaos and fear. Witches like to do wicked things like turning knights into stone, turning people into animals, and mixing the hearts of princesses and dragons together in a cauldron to brew more witches. Evie, who has a secret sympathy with dragons (although knights are supposed to slay them), has a double motive to fight them - but, at the same time, she is terrified and confused. Among the most confusing things in her life, besides the fact one of her princess-cadet classmates is a boy named Basil, or her feelings for Remington, or the way she inadvertently turns a bewitched pig back into the annoying boy he originally was, is the fact her most antagonistic classmate - her Draco Malfoy, if you will - turns out to be her stepsister.

Evie's confusion grows even further when meeting her human mother triggers memories that create a seemingly irreparable conflict between her birth family and the family that raised her. But in order to make it to her second year at the academy, she has to look past her personal turmoil and focus on her studies. Winning a ballroom dancing contest would be an easy way to make it to her second year at the academy, but the way things go for Evie, it's no surprise she'll have to survive a terrible ordeal called the Helpless Maiden - a test of which cadets have the right stuff to lead the fight against the witches. The surprise is how personal the war becomes for her before she even makes it to the end of her first year.

This debut novel is only the first of what promises to be at least a three-book series; its sequel, The Shadow Cadets of Pennyroyal Academy, came out in June 2016. You may be surprised to learn the author is a dude - a big, hairy, married-with-kids type dude, even - who is a hero to a fan community whose existence I only learned about while researching this review: "bronies" - adult male fans of the cult animated series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, for which M.A. Larson was a writer. He also wrote for the animated shows Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, Gravity Falls, and Littlest Pet Shop.

Meanwhile, this book is being developed for the screen by Reese Witherspoon's film production company. My research also informs me it was originally conceived as a comedy-spoof targeting a younger age group, with the working title Princess Boot Camp - which I think would still be a cool idea; though if anyone actually wrote it, they would be seriously ripping this book off. The final product is darker than you would expect, with a lot of in-depth exploration into the troubled emotions and buried memories of young adults making their way through a seriously messed-up world. It has a lot of girl-power stuff, some spiffy (and mildly spoofy) fairy-tale elements, some giddy romance, and a lot of magic, danger, and action; but besides these blockbuster ingredients, it also has challenging moral dilemmas, inspiring examples of compassion and courage, touching displays of friendship, and a harmlessly puzzling gender-role phenomenon in the form of Princess Basil, who (you might be surprised to learn) wears trousers, sleeps in his own quarters (not the girls' barracks), and shows no overt inclination to act like a girl, other than his ambition to qualify as a princess. If you think that's weird, let the fact that this book's author is an apparently straight adult male who enthuses over rainbow-colored magical ponies remind you that the real world is equally full of surprises.

It's not, thank goodness, a knockoff of Harry Potter. It isn't even accidentally very similar to the Harry Potter series. But broadly speaking, it has some points in common, such as a castle where boys and girls train to be part of a battle between good and evil in a world that happens to contain dragons and witches. If living in a castle full of pubescent witches and wizards sounds like it might be challenging, let this book enlighten you about the ever-so-non-sparkly prospect of spending up to three years in a barracks crammed with wanna-be princesses, being harangued by a (no kidding) Fairy Drillsergeant, and knowing that right outside the school's protective shield are creatures that will eat you as soon as look at you, or sooner. It's a school where the teachers include a troll named Rumpledshirtsleeves, where the expectations are unforgivingly high, and where the hopes of an entire civilization with a long, noble history rest on the shoulders of a girl who isn't sure where she belongs. There's deep stuff under the blockbuster trappings. And that's the stuff that will make me decide to read the sequel.