Winter?

Winter is on it's way. There was more than a flake or two of snow around the area this morning. Winter of course puts us in mind of Christmas, and Christmas stock - which is currently coming in at an alarming rate. It's only the end of October and we're already running into "where the heck am I going to put this?" issues...

So...

Books make great gifts! Shop early for best selection! Insert marketing lines here (grin). Come buy a book or 4!




On a more serious note, I had mentioned a while ago that I was going to read Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson. Well I did. I have now finished Gargoyle and I really really enjoyed it. It was a great love story with little bits of historical fiction woven into a contemporary setting.

As a recap:
The Gargoyle

An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.

On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. She remembers vividly when they met, in another hospital ward at a convent in medieval Germany, when she was a nun and he was a wounded mercenary left to die. If he has forgotten this, he is not to worry: she will prove it to him.

And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he'd never uttered: love.



Man In The Dark
Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget.

What would have happened if the people of America had not let the controversy of the Bush / Gore election blow away in the wind. What if they fought for the president the popular vote elected? What if?

I liked this novel. It's actually the first Paul Auster book I've read although he's been recommended to me forever. He is definitely not a fluff read but if you're looking for something a little more literary but still highly accessible I would recommend him for sure.