Threadnsong Accepts Reading Challenges

I'm stepping out into something new for 2021. As always, I have books I want to read each month and I like having two categories. Feels balanced and feeds my need to read more than one book at a time.

This year, I will have as my second category a CAT or Kit Challenge from LibraryThing. I'm getting the feel of these challenges and it seems that I can go into and out of different CATs as the year progresses.

So, here's to 2021's books lists:

January series - Maria Doria Russell's voyage into the unknown, this time with the second book. And because The Sparrow is just an incredibly wonderful book.
February series - Children of God - finished Russell's space series in February instead of January, and it was worth the wait.
March series - Esther Friesner's series about Maeve of Connacht.
April series - Hillary Mantel's Cromwell series - have already started Bring Up the Bodies but will spend April reading this series instead.
May series - best intentions for a series, but instead the goal of reading 2 biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine for a challenge.
June series - Moving Hillary Mantel to June, because Big Books took up May.
July series - And, well, I began Hillary Mantel in June, but it may be July or even August before I finish it. This book is huge!
August series - Moving Hillary Mantel down to September.
September series - Finished The Mirror and the Light. Finally finally! Read Empire of Ivory for both a SFF challenge and as part of this month's series list.
October - Yes, choosing to put Grave Measures by R.R. Virdi into both lists. It is intended as part of a series so it works here.
November - It's cold, and my intention was to finish Katherine Arden's series with The Winter of the Witch. But I didn't, because other challenges called.
December - So I found a book that had been languishing on my shelves for years, and finished The Hunter's Moon by O. R. Melling. It is the first in the "Chronicles of Faerie" series so it counts.

Second Category - LibraryThing's CATs and KITs

I have only explored the SFFKit and read along with the monthly challenges. And since I have a whole lot of books in a whole lot of categories (geographically interesting, murder/mystery, historical fiction), I'm going to jump into some of these other challenges and see where they lead me.

January Challenge - SFFKit: Leftovers from 2020: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness cuz I pulled it off my shelves to read in December but never even started it.
February Challenge - GeoKit Challenge: Europe: Katherine Arden's series which I began last year. I moved it here as a Kit challenge (yay, go me!) because it's set in Russia and because it's February. When I should read books set in cold climates, sez my OCD nature!
March Challenge - GenreCat Challenge: Action and Adventure: reading A Perfect Spy (which I've been meaning to read for a while).
April Challenge - SFFKit: Series: Guardian of Freedom by Irene Radford to finish this series (see how neatly I adjusted my reading list??). Also, GeoKit Challenge: Europe Poetic Edda because it's short and fits the challenge.
May Challenge - GeoKIT Challenge: The Americas: The March by E.L. Doctorow (another book I've had for a while and need to read). Also 2 biographies of Eleanor of Aquitaine for the May HistoryCAT: the first (translated) by Regine Pernoud, the second by Alison Weir. Note: they will instead become GeoKIT challenge for Europe, since I will continue reading them into June.
June Challenge - I think it's high time to read Neil Gaiman's American Gods this year. June has always been my go-to month for big books (and I can't lie), and this book fits into the June SFFKit challenge: Journeys.
July Challenge - Nope, this book too big for June. Moving instead to July and hope to finish it now. At least the Challenges have kept me moving and focused!
August Challenge - Some very good KITs and Challenges for this month, and I decided on the SFFKit Challenge for August - women authors. I read (in less than a week) A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle. And I finished American Gods earlier this month, go me.
September Challenge - The Tragedy of the Templars for the September History Challenge (history + religion).
October Challenge - For this month's SFFKit, changed from The Demon in Business Class to Grave Measures by R.R. Virdi. Which is also a part of a series so maybe will work in both places.
November Challenge - Two challenges this month: November HistoryCAT - 24 Days about the fall of Enron (Challenge is Event) and The Monster Hunter Files edited by Larry Correia and Bryan Thomas Schmidt for the SFFKit short story Challenge.
December Challenge - While it does in no way fit the season, I'm stubbornly going to finish The Terror by David Andress for the KITatrosphe Challenge (Riots/Uprisings/Sieges).

Hope you have a great year of reading!

Great plan! Have a wonderful reading year :)

Good luck with your reading in 2021!

Have fun with the CATs and KITs! I used them as my categories a couple of years ago--it worked really well!

Good luck with your 2021 reading!

Dipping in and out of the Cat Challenges is something I am going to try for this year as well as well as trying to catch up on my many series.

Wishing you a wonderful year filled with good books!

Have a great new year and some really fun reading.

Happy reading! I especially hope you enjoy the Mary Doria Russell and the Katherine Arden!

Enjoy your reading!

Thank you for all of your for your reading well-wishes! I just finished my first book of the year that was the SFFKit challenge, so I'm on my way to a successful 2021.

January Challenge - A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
3 1/2 ***

I had no idea what to expect from this book, even what its plot was, when I put it on my list to read at the end of last year (began it this year instead). There were parts where I decided I had wasted my money, especially as what had been the fascinating descriptions of Oxford's Bodleian library became way more detailed and less and less plot. The action went from "Diana is researching these cool alchemical texts" and instead became "Diana is being watched by this group in this area, then that group in that area." Also, the only witches in this book are those who are descended from other witches, not humans interested in the neo-pagan religion. It was like the adulthood of Harry Potter's world: creatures vs. humans.

Still, I'm reading a book about witches who can start fires with their fingertips, vampires, and daemons. Somehow, it just seemed best to suspend disbelief (or maybe discontent?) and just get caught up in the story. And Harkness shows her stuff in the different periods in history and the world-building and weaves them together well.

Once the inclusion of Matthew Clairmont as a main character comes into the story, the storytelling strengthens and we are dealing less with Diana Bishop's personal angst and more with a real plotline. It is heavy on the romance side of things but Harkness also decides that in her world, pretty much anything can happen. And it does. Diana's avoidance of her magical abilities becomes a frustrating, repetitive bit of angst, lending only a little bit of insight into the origin of witches. In fact, both the vampire origins and histories as well as the explanations of the daemons are much better prepared than those of the witches. Maybe the latter will be explained better in her later books? Or maybe Harkness is making a point about earlier times?

I'll eventually pick up the second and third in this series, maybe from the library, just to see how everything works out.

January series - Mary Doria Russell's science fiction series

Well, I was able to finish a re-read of The Sparrow which is not a bad thing. "Discovery" set me back in my reading timeline, so I'll start Children of God in a couple of days. And OMG this book just keeps getting better as I read it! This is the third time I've read it, the first time not in a book group strangely enough. This time I gained a deeper understanding of the actions between the characters and the foreshadowing of what was to come. I was especially struck by the beautiful exploration of the nature of humanity and faith, both their gain and their loss.

And yes, >10 christina_reads:, I so cannot wait to start "Children" probably Tuesday after work!

February series - Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

So I was not able to read both of these in January, which is why I love being able to adjust my timeline!

Oh. My. I had some trepidation about reading this sequel, and while holding back for a while was a wise decision, eventually I had to know what happened to Emilio and the Jesuit-led expedition to Rakhat.

Like its predecessor, there are separate timelines (three this time). This book still remains in the head of Emilio and also deals with the second Jesuit voyage to Rakhat to put things right. Emilio serves as a linguist to teach the new group the languages and customs, and he also specifies the language proficiency he needs to be able to teach within a framework that will stand. He begins to heal his heart and falls for a young woman in Naples who has a young daughter. And then he is kidnapped.

Meanwhile, on Rakhat, Sophia Mendes has survived the attack on the Runa town that took away Emilio and Fr. Robineaux, and she gives birth to her and Jimmy's son. Time passes, the Runa form an enclave where they can live separate from the predations of the Jana'ata, and they begin to revolutionize their society. And Supaari finds that his new status is not what he thought it would be upon the birth of his daughter. So he leaves. And Hlavin Kitheri plots more intricately, and soon the entire Jana'ata culture is changed.

There are subtle twists and turns and plotlines, all of which lead to unexpected places. Some are beautiful, some are tragic, and all are heart-tugging in a way that I did not think a sequel could achieve.

February Challenge - The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

I was so pleasantly surprised that this successor was as good as its predecessor! It is pleasant to read about a young woman who learns to fight, who pushes back against a male suitor, and who overcomes some, but not all, odds against her.

Vasilisa starts in the Winter King's dwelling with her stallion, Solovey, who is as loyal as he is strong. Vasya wants to see the world, much against the advice of Morozko, the Winter King, who still arms her with a sword and teaches her to use it. And gold and some provisions for her journey. Concurrent with her journey are reports of village raiders who burn the villages and steal all the young women. And yes, our Vasya, disguised as a boy, manages to rescue three girls from the most recently-raided village.

She is reunited with her brother, Sasha the Priest, and her sister Olga, who is a lord's wife and pregnant with her second child. These are not happy reunions, however, as they must all grapple with Vasya's choice to turn away from her two paths: convent and marriage, and seek her own way in the world. And when she meets the Grand Prince of Moscow, who treats her as a boy, she also begins to put together the pieces of the puzzle of who the kingdom raiders are.

These dangers do grow as they did in the first book, and not always happily. But the events are logical and brave and tragic and full of twists, and it all comes to a stunning series of events. As in, I finished most of this book in a weekend since it was so well-paced and the events were so interwoven. And the title character? I'll leave that for the next reader to decide!

Part of the GeoKit challenge - Europe

March series - Deception's Princess by Esther Friesner
2**

Oh. Oh my. I really think this book and its successor fell waaaay short of what it could have been.

It is a meandering tale of young Maeve of Connacht, about whom the historical record is sketchy, as she grows up in her father's household, he being the High King of Ireland and she his "spark." She is the youngest of the daughters and early on gained a lot of bardic tales when she managed to escape from her father's prized black bull. As she grows and her sisters go into fosterage, she becomes a prize to be won for any young man as she will inherit a worthy dowry.

It sounds like it would be a great book for young women, as Maeve rules her own kingdom according to "The Castle Raid of Cooley" written by early Christian monks. And I liked Esther Friesner's treatment of Helen of Troy in two previous books I read of her. And maybe it is for women whose male relatives let them down repeatedly? Or keep them under a constant, watchful eye whilst making promises only to undo them in devious ways? Maybe that was the audience? But if so, why does not Maeve learn from her experiences; why is this learning not part of the teaching tool of YA lit for this book?

This tale contains far too many events to try to prove a point, rather than tell a tale, causing it to be extremely scattered and unfocused. And there is one incident towards the end of the book that is horrendously cruel and could have been re-worked with similar results; the characters would wind up going on their separate journeys without such needless destruction.

Any author can make her characters' actions different, and I wish Friesner had done so with her dominant characters, and created a more substantial plotline.

March series - Deception's Pawn by Esther Friesner
2 1/2 **

Picking up with Maeve now living in fosterage, she must navigate the petty jealousies of the young women also living in the castle. And she is no longer under her father's eye and the eyes of all the young men who came to pay their respects to the High King. She is still living with other people's expectations of her and it is a burden.

Still, I found Maeve's scattered nature one that I don't really enjoy in the heroines, of adult and young adult literature both. I had to continually ask myself how she is going to manage her own kingdom and its machinations. Several of the plotlines are resolved from the previous book, and its depiction of the times and customs are probably valid.

March Challenge - A Perfect Spy by John le Carre
5*****

I never in my life would have thought I would enjoy this book as much as I did. It is a classic of spy literature and rightfully so. And it's also not so much the cloak and dagger type of thing, the "I saw my contact across the street with a newspaper and we had a conversation about such-and-such country" but rather what it takes for someone to become a perfect spy.

The events happen and are explained, and then referred back to again and again until the entire narrative and its missing parts come together. The mastery of writing that this takes is not to be overestimated; I've recently left reviews of books that seem to jump all over the place without a firm plotline. But this book is different.

It starts with the grandfather, a notable MP, then Rick the father establishing himself as a good talker, and Pym taking in the adoration of his father while painting a fuller picture of a con-man. What is another constant theme are the people who get caught up in plots and cons and who really pays the price.

Pym's life is haphazard at best, teaching him that nothing is stable and to believe no one. His first love, Lippsie, is one of Rick's chief assistants and probably his mistress, who is his bright and shining light in Pym's horrible boarding school. Through overheard conversations between her and Rick, Pym begins to learn that words like "thief" belong to his dad.

While I wanted to results of the central investigation that are the central plot of this book to play out differently, le Carre creates a shattered soul who reaches out to a kindred spirit. The human costs of con artists become front and center with Pym and Axel and the countries they serve.

Part of the GenreCAT for March - Action and Adventure

April Series - Bring Up the Bodies by Hillary Mantel

Still an incredible book, with Mantel's style and re-telling of the downfall of Anne Boleyn from the point-of-view of Thomas Cromwell.

I read this as a prelude to the final book in the series, "Mirror and the Light" so that I could feel more detailed in the events and intrigue. And because Hillary Mantel's narrator voice just gets into my head and stays there, in a delicious way.

April Challenge - Guardian of the Freedom by irene Radford

The final volume in Irene Radford's "Merlin's Descendants" series accomplishes a lot. It ends in a good spot in her storyline, incorporating as it does the political machinations of King George III and his Ministers, and the primary movers of the American Revolution. There is also the Demon of Chaos who attaches itself to one of the central characters, and a sort of splitting of the line of the Pendragon among two female heirs of the line.

In the mid-1700's young girls do what they are told, even if they are descended from lines of magicians and don't wish to wear skirts. Young Georgina, sister to the current Pendragon, decides she will seek her own fortune. She uses her swordfighting skills and moves to the Continent, where she meets with Casanova. And before you start thinking of "hot and steamy" with that name, be assured that her encounters with the great swordsman and lover take place mainly off-stage and in the past. Georgie, the mercenary (whose batman is also a woman disguised as a man!) is able to use her magickal powers during several battles in Austro-Hungary.

There is some repetitive-ness that does happen in Radford's books, mainly Dr. Marlowe who wants to re-animate his dead son by using books from the Pendragon archives and will stop at very little to access them. Including using his medicine to drug Georgina's brother Drake into senselessness for several years, and also uses arcane powers to summon the above demon.

In the Colonies, Radford's ability to weave history with storytelling moves to the forefront, and we see from Georgina's eyes (and other characters' to some extent) the conditions of slaves, women, and the desire for a Revolution. The events leading up to it, including those that are barely hinted at in schoolbooks, are well told.

Again, I'm glad she ended her series where (and when) she did, and I'm glad she wrote them as well.

Part of the SFFKit for April - Series

What a nice set of reviews! The Mary Doria Russell reviews make me think I'd enjoy reading the sequel but know that I need to reread The Sparrow first. It seem to pick up a lot of plotlines whose threads I've lost in the intervening years.

Your Katherine Arden series also sounds excellent, and it seems like she may be a famous author I haven't encountered, so I'll need to make a note to look her up.

The last few sound like great English culture/histories.

>22 pammab: Thank you so much! Yes, I found that I needed to re-read The Sparrow before I read the sequel. And it took me years to get up the courage to read it because the original is so . . . magnificent? Awe-inspiring? Joyful and tragic all at once?

And yes, I was so blown away by Katherine Arden and her story-telling prowess. I highly recommend her.

Hillary Mantel - I can't say enough about her. Such a new and well done writing style. The sub-title should be "how to deal with an egotistical boss."

April Challenge - The Poetic Edda, trans. by Henry Adams Bellows

This is a fantastic book on so many levels. The explanation of the translations of the poems is well done, the translations are well-crafted and follow the meter of the original, and the footnotes are more important than I first thought. In other words, it was not a quick read through ancient Icelandic poetry! It was worth reading to gain an understanding in this work that is important to music, Tolkien, and mythology in general.

All that said, this translation is from 1926, long before Wagner became problematic. But it's also from 1926, so there were few (if any) women writing about this subject matter and comparative mythology was in its infancy. Bellows compares his translation of the material with other translators, and gives justification for why he chose to include a line or change the order in a stanza. He also gives detailed notes of the movement of a poem's final written format, gathering information about whether it originated in Northern Germany (mentions of the Burgundians and Attila the Hun are key here) or whether it came from more northern countries. All of that information is necessary to a greater understanding of these poems.

What I would like to see now is women's research on this same subject matter, especially since the oldest poem in the cycle, Guthrun's Lament, involves the repeated telling in the other poems of Guthrun's life. She is wife, sister, mother; in one cycle she is originally married to Attila the Hun (yes, really, that Attila) while in another he is a later marriage and it is he, and not her brothers, who betray her beloved Sigrun (Siegfried). Is she one of many betrayed women? Or was she a famous queen in her own right about whom tales have sprung no matter their original subject matter (think: King Arthur)?

Worth reading, though, especially for those with an interest in Tolkien, or early poetry, or Scandinavian/Icelandic history.

Part of the GeoKIT challenge - Europe

>24 threadnsong: Great review! I have wanted to reread this for a long time.

>24 threadnsong: Thank you! It's worth reading, and while it only took me a couple of weeks, it also took a lot of thinking and pondering. I hope you enjoy it!

>26 threadnsong: I think that is why I'm putting it off - I want to really take the time to dive into it, ponder it, look things up... I feel like the time has to be right for such a project!

May Challenge - The March by E. L. Doctorow

This is overall a good book. Growing up in Atlanta I heard, from as far back as I remember, the telling of Sherman's March to the Sea. From schoolteachers and older adults as well as from my Savannah relatives, who told that Sherman gave Savannah to Lincoln as a Christmas present. And this well-researched book fills in many of the gaps.

The lives of everyone who were in the path of this march were affected: slaves, plantation owners, townspeople, and soldiers on both sides of the war. Doctorow makes each affected group live through individuals, into whom he breathes a history and a life, decisions and thoughts and dreams. There is a wide-ranging cast of characters and he melds them well.

What I didn't know growing up was that the March did not stop in Savannah: it continued up the eastern seaboard to through Charleston and ended at Raleigh. While it is hard to visualize without maps where the battles and skirmishes were fought, there is great detail in the struggles of human and horse and mule, wagon and cavalry and foot soldier that lends humanity to the history.

August Challenge - A Wind in the Door by Madeline L'Engle

What a phenomenal book that still holds up, even decades later. This was the first Madeline L'Engle book I read and it is still my favorite. Written in the mid-70's with a teenage woman as the protagonist, and a scientist as a mother, and the family doctor as a woman, it was as revolutionary in its characters as it was in its concepts. Cellular biology was getting a boost, and along comes the idea that the powerhouses of our cells, mitochondria, have something that powers THEM, called farandolae.

And then there's the kything with a cherubim! What a cool concept and something that fit right in with the ventures into the paranormal that were also so prevalent in the 1970s. A lot of the thinking got transformed into the New Age movement, but the idea of mind-speaking at a level beyond mental telepathy was fascinating to my 11 year old brain. And I loved Progo as much as Meg does and liked how the two of them have to work to find their connection to one another. Me, I just thought he was cool.

There were a surprising amount of adult-level conversations that Meg has to have with the adults around her: Mr. Jenkins, Progo, and Blajeny. I probably skimmed over them when I was younger, but now I am suitably impressed that no one talks down to Meg or to her brother, Charles Wallace, or even to the twins.

Glad I re-read this classic after all this time.

September series - The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel
4****

Maybe on the re-read I'll appreciate this book more. And I am so sad to say that - it is a beautifully written work, full of court intrigues and Thomas Cromwell's musings and a whole lotta history. But there was a point at which the political machinations and the conversations just became too much. Too much to keep up with, the enormous cast of characters at the front was overwhelming, and because people are addressed with one title and referenced by another name, it became slow going.

But, I'm sure I'll re-read it in years to come and maybe that will make all the difference. I loved her first two volumes and hope to love this one more.

30 Oh, that's a shame, I hate it when a book that I have looked forward to doesn't quite live up to my expectations. Hopefully in the future it will be exactly what you are looking for.

31> Thank you so much, DeltaQueen!

September series - Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik
5*****

You know, just when I hesitate to start a book in this series because how can it possibly top the last one, I read it anyway. And am still blown away by the breadth and depth of Novik's research and insight into her time period!

Of course, reading it post-2020 is a bit, well, relevant? Is that the right word? Because as the book begins, we find that there is a mysterious, contagious pandemic occurring among the dragons in the British Empire. It broke out while the events of Book 3 were taking place, so of course there are no warning signs until Laurence and Temeraire and their crews and dragons land. And Novik describes the conditions of lockdown and isolation, and the effects of the dragons' deaths both on the defense of Britain and on the dragons' handlers.

But since Temeraire does not catch this virus, events and travels become a timeline and the pieces are connected to see how it was that his previous year's journey brought him around the Horn of Africa and to a probable cure. So off to Cape Town go a crew of sailors and less-sick dragons and a ship's captain whose beliefs in the slave trade do not match with Laurence's own. Remember the time that this book takes place, and yes, Wilberforce plays a part in the pre-voyage action of the book.

Events lead everyone to the Dutch settlements in Cape Town, a cure is uncovered, but so is a dragon-centered culture in the midst of Africa who are determined to end the depredations of the slave trade on their villages and people.

And the adventures continue . . .

>33 threadnsong: I've never seen this series - how is that possible?! I will definitely be looking for the Temeraire books.

>34 JayneCM: These are fun! And I really need to get to the next instalment myself...

Thank you both for popping in! Hope you enjoy the series, >34 JayneCM: and thanks for the confirmation >35 MissWatson:. I've asked for the next one as well for this year's Christmas present.

September Challenge The Tragedy of the Templars by Michael Haag
4 1/2 ****

For the scope of its work and its reach into history, this is a deeply informative book on what forces created the Knights Templar. It does not begin in 1119; rather, it begins with the spread of Christianity, in Year 1 C.E., throughout the Middle East. It incorporates the scope of invasions that took place from outlying regions, especially the Seljuk Turks, as well as the creations of the different divisions in the burgeoning Islamic faith.

At so many sections of this book I thought, "Wow, I didn't know that." I certainly had not put together the pieces of how intact Outremer was as a region, how long that had gone back throughout history. The Crusades were an attempt to right what Christianized Europe saw as historic wrongs (and the invaders into the region slashed and burned and killed, no question about it), and even the Crusades themselves are presented with full backstory.

Then we get into the Templars and their training, controversies, and intrigues. They were a disciplined body who faced strong methods from within to rush into danger and not surrender unless a call was given. Haag also gives insight into their building, the difference between the Templars and the Knights Hospitaller, and the loss of so many records on the island of Cyprus. I highly recommend this book for the curious and interested in this region, period, and topic.

October Challenge and Series Grave Measures by R.R. Virdi
3 1/2 ***

This is a novel concept for a detective/mystery theme, and Virdi's creativity using the idea of a ghost who shares the body of a deceased person to find out "whodunit" gets it 4 stars. Where it loses half a star is the over-emphasis on hard-bitten, gritty detective tropes. A bit of help with the editor's pen may have made all the difference.

The detective wakes up in an insane asylum where the inmates have been dying unexpectedly. Vincent has to assess his new body, and he also finds that his boss, Church, has put him on this case for no reason he can understand. Which is fine - the noir detective always has that bit of grit.

Vince finds his former FBI partner from the previous book, Camilla Ortiz, an inmate in this asylum, too, and they are quickly partnering up to solve this case. And there are plenty of asides for the "geek" community in Vince's descriptions of his whereabouts that kept me highly amused and grinning.

The chaotic diety Lyshae makes an appearance here; my knowledge of Japanese mythos is sadly lacking to know if she is a real member of the ancient Japanese pantheon or simply an invented one. Either way, the idea of a chaotic neutral goddess is spot on, and the realizations that Vince has to make to ask for her help in solving this mystery are very well done.

November Challenge The Monster Hunter Files ed. by Larry Correia and Bryan Thomas Schmidt
3***

While there were some stories written by favorite authors, and others by authors I have always intended to read, there was much that turned me off of this collection. I think the over-emphasis on heavy guns and ammo in several, including teenagers with assault rifles, were too over the top for me.

I appreciated the variety of what are considered monsters by the authors: not just gangs of trolls living underground and nasty werewolves, but also Imhotep and an encounter with Dippel's Oil by Benjamin Franklin. The Monster Hunters International (MHI) Organization is kept intact by all of the authors, although there do seem to be competing factions within the monster hunting world.

But, I will steer clear of this series. The idea of blowing away "Others" by great firepower is just not my thing.

November Challenge 24 Days by Rebecca Smith and John Emshwiller
4****

A really good book that covers the stories written by these two Wall Street Journal reports over the course of October through December 2001. I did enjoy "The Smartest Guys in the Room" and when I saw this one, that describes the fall of Enron as happening in only 24 days, I realized I had to have it.

There is a lot of business talk in this book. I was not a business major, nor do I fully grasp how debt is anything but something to get rid of as quickly as possible. The idea of "leveraged debt" is an oxymoron in my (many) books! But all kidding aside, the fact that Enron created such complicated balance sheets and explanations for what they did was part of the problem. So was the complicity of rating agencies - they fell for guys in power who charmed their way through quarterly stock updates instead of asking the tough questions.

This book is along the lines of "All the President's Men," in that it involves the lives of the journalists who uncovered the lies and asked the right questions. And it is fascinating to remember that a couple of tough questions, and a couple of tips shared, began the questioning process that led to the collapse of this industry behemoth. In only 24 days.

December Series The Hunter's Moon by O. R. Melling
5*****

This is one of the best Young Adult novels I think I have ever read. It discusses the Land of Faerie in all its amoral glory, and introduces us to the King of the Fae, Finvarra. And let's not forget the many fairy rings and hills and legends in modern Ireland, even today.

In good storytelling, there is a pair of cousins, one daring and one not so much, who decide to take the summer to travel Ireland. And the daring one chooses that they sleep in a Fairy Mound, and yes, she gets taken by the King as his next paramour.

What makes this book especially interesting are all the ways in which the Fae of Ireland provide hints of themselves. It is up to young Gwen to learn the ways of her helpers and trust her encounters to lead her to her goal: that of returning her cousin to the modern world.