The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (N. K. Jemisin)

This was a very interesting fantasy story, with a unique view of religion and gods. They remind me of the Greek gods - extravagant powers but with curious limitations, and personalities much like humans with their petty ambitions, rivalries, and jealousies. I liked the central character, a warrior woman thrown way out of her comfort zone who gives her all to save the whole world. She turns out to be the unlikely heir to the throne of the most powerful family in the world, a family that enslaves some of the gods themselves, but her role is that of human sacrifice, until she turns the tables. I enjoyed the story, especially when things started moving more quickly at the end.

Just My Type (Simon Garfield)

A whole book just about fonts - their history, their politics, their design, and their psychology. Why does everybody hate Comic Sans? Will Helvetica take over the universe? Why is Steve Jobs almost as important in the history of type as Guttenberg? Which font should I choose for my course materials? I loved it, and learned a vast amount of quirky, fun information. I'm never going to be a font geek, the kind of person who, when watching a movie set in the 1940s, is thrown off by a store sign in a font that was invented in 1972. Still, I loved the whole thing. And yes, after reading this, I was moved to do some research and change my standard font from Century Gothic to Verdana. Read the book if design is something you are interested in.

Rule 34 (Charles Stross)

I've liked Charles Stross's  work, but I would have picked this one up for the title alone! Rule 34 is one of the supposed rules of the Internet: If it exists, there is pornography of it. In the Scotland of the future, there is a special police unit that monitors the Internet to try to separate people's fantasies from actual crimes. An unusual attracts attention, and proves to be just the tip of a very strange iceberg. I enjoyed the story, with its exotic twists and turns and Stross's usual dropping of pop-culture references at every opportunity. The writing was odd, though. It was in present tense, which is fine, but I didn't love the fact that it was written in second person. If immediacy is what you're after, why not use first person? Still, it was a fun ride.

Father of the Rain (Lily King)

This is the story of the rocky, frustrating, heartbreaking relationship between a father and daughter. It begins when the daughter is 11 and her parents get divorced, and she spends the next years of her life visiting him every weekend. He is never abusive, but he is often an inappropriate, angry, outrageous drunk. The book then moves on to her as a young adult, with loving relationship and a tenure-track professorship at Berkley, but her father's health issues drag her back to his home as she tries to help him climb up from rock bottom. The third part of the story deals with her life years after that. In the middle of the book I became frustrated with her, but at the end the story was uplifting and satisfying as a clear portrait of a deeply flawed man.