Once again, the Summer slipped away too quickly and September is here. The weather has continued to be warm but they say there's a front coming in that will change that. And, of course, Autumn starts this week.
This month, I've started baby-sitting my new Granddaughter while her parents are at work. Our daily schedule depends on when she gets up, when she's hungry, etc., so I haven't been reading as much as usual but I did manage to finish a couple.
Miscellaneous
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman ($6.99/$.25, copyright 1996, 370 pages, Paperback)
I mentioned last month how much I enjoyed Neil Gaiman's work so you can imagine how happy I was to come across this. Richard Mayhew is an average man with a boring life. One night, he finds a girl bleeding on the street and takes her home so she can rest up and get better. This girl, Door, is the only surviving member of her family, and a denizen of the world under London. Her presence drags Richard into this strange place and, along with some new companions, he sets out to return to the life he had before. Gaiman has created some fully-fleshed out, three-dimensional characters and a world that is well thought out and had me wishing that such a place could actually exist beneath every great city of the world. I enjoyed it.
Series
The Gods of Gotham - Lyndsay Faye ($16.00/$5.98, copyright 2012, 434 pages, Trade Paperback)
This is the first book in a trilogy. Timothy Wilde was a bartender who was doing well by the standards of 1845 but a devastating fire leaves him homeless, unemployed, and disfigured. Tim’s brother, Valentine, gets them both jobs on the newly formed New York police department. When Tim comes across a female child prostitute covered in blood, it leads to the discovery of other dead children who were killed in a similar way. The Wilde brothers have to quickly solve the crime before the bloody deaths are used as propaganda that could tear New York apart. Faye does a great job of depicting the New York of 1845 including the anti-Irish, anti-Catholic sentiment of the time. Still, I found myself skimming through some of Faye's descriptive passages and I thought that she made Tim too self-centered. I hope that the sequels might change my opinion. It was OK.
That's it for this month.
October is up next which means that the Holidays are on the way (and, sadly, are already in the stores.) Till then, enjoy and ...
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