The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer)

In this story we follow the lives of six young people who bonded together in a summer art camp in 1975 and who called themselves, with pretentious teen irony, The Interestings. As they progress to adulthood and middle age we see them grow and change in unexpected ways. Each of the characters is clearly drawn and engaging, and I was always eager to know what happened next in their very different lives. The events that happened to them and their reactions to them were not always entirely believable, but I was willing to suspend disbelief to stay with the story. In the end, it's not clear what point the author was making in this story, beyond "Look at these people - aren't they interesting?" Each moment was well done, but I wanted them to add up to more of a story and less of a picture of a life, or rather several lives. All that aside, though, it was good and I'm very glad to have read it.

The Kindred of Darkness (Barbara Hambly)

I love how Hambly writes: the lush, sensuous language, the strong sense of place and character, the intensity of emotion. I have enjoyed all the stories in this vampire series, though non as much as the first one, Those Who Hunt the Night. This story fits well into the series and is better, in my mind, than the last one. Here it gets personal, when Lydia and Jamie's daughter is kidnapped by the vampire master of London to force their cooperation in his battle with an interloper. Lydia and Jamie are, of course, nearly superhuman in their determination and cleverness, and so is tiny Miranda, but others are a too-human mix of good and evil, anchored firmly in a world you can touch and smell. Highly recommended for action and adventure.

You (Austin Grossman)

A team of eccentric young geniuses work for a small video game company, developing games based on the vision of the most eccentric, most brilliant of them all. Buried in the code, ported from system to system, is a bug that crops up occasionally and wreaks havoc before the game completely crashes. This is the story of where that bug came from and how it can be found and fixed. Even more, though, it is the story of what video games are and how they become so important. In each game there are characters and worlds to choose from, but at the core you are still you, and that core of you-ness can never got away. Do we want it to? What, after all, is the ultimate game? I liked this story, but didn't get as engaged in it as much as in Grossman's original novel (Soon I Will Be Invincible) which is much less realistic but somehow more real.

The Magic Mountain (Thomas Mann)

I confess: I skimmed this book. I'm just not cut out for speeches on philosophy and reality that go on for pages and pages without a break. It's a classic, though, so I stuck to the end, all 854 pages. In the years before WWI, a young German engineer, Hans, goes to a sanitarium high in the Swiss Alps to visit with his cousin who is being treated there for TB. His visit is meant to last three weeks, but shortly after his arrival he is himself diagnosed with TB and winds up staying for seven years. During his time there other patients arrive and leave, some via cure, some via death, some via simply being fed up with the routine of the place. And routine it is, with patients spending hours each day in mandatory rest cures, constantly taking and tracking their temperatures, and indulging in five hearty meals each day. There are numerous interesting incidents--romantic infatuations, seances, blizzards, duels--but none of it seems to add up to much, at least not for me. I suppose it has given me an insight into the life and times of pre-war Europe, but that doesn't seem enough to counterbalance those 854 pages.

Teaching With Your Mouth Shut (Donald Finkel)

This slim book presents the author's philosophy about education and learning. He is passionate about teachers doing things other than lecture and other things he calls Telling - presenting information to students with the idea that this will cause them to learn. Instead, he says, teachers need ton craft experiences and situations in which students will actively engage in creating their own understanding. Some of his specific ideas I find exciting and will try myself, at least in modified form, such as conceptual workshops (very similar to the in-class activities I do in some classes) and responding to student papers with an actual letter (similar to what I already do in my Honors class). Others strike me as unworkable and frankly appalling. He holds up as a model a teacher who tells students on day one (a Monday) that on Tuesdays the class will be entirely run by students as a discussion of the assigned Shakespeare play, and he won't tell them what to do. The next day he sits at one seat in a circle, silently, reading his copy of the play and jotting in a notebook. If nobody else has said anything after 5 minutes he sighs and says, "Remember, I won't tell you what to do. Discuss the play." He is then silent for the rest of the two-hour class. This is to encourage independence in the students and a democratic environment in the class, but all I can imagine is fruitless struggle and resentment. I am apparently not as enlightened as Dr. Finkel.

Parasite ( Mira Grant)

In the near future, most people carry genetically engineered tapeworms in their gut that provide all kinds of medical benefits against diabetes, infections, autoimmune disease, allergy, and much more. Sally Mitchell is alive because one of these implants brought her back from a coma after a car accident six years ago, and SymboGen, the company that makes the implants, is helping her recover her memory and deal with numerous health issues in the aftermath. But something is going wrong, and this technology might not be as benign as it seems, and Sally has to figure out who to trust, what's really going on, and who she is. I devoured this book in a day, mesmerized by the action, the questions, and Sally's struggles. The big reveal at the end was no surprise to anyone but Sally, who for some reason refused to consider the most obvious possibility, but I enjoyed the ride so much this didn't bother me. My only frustration is to come to the end and find To be continued...! The next book won't be out for months, and the final book in the trilogy for probably another year. Rats!

Thanks, but This Isn't for Us (Jessica Page Morrell)

Excellent advice from a developmental editor (one who works with authors to get their projects ready to submit to publishers or agents) on how to avoid many of the problems that leads to rejection. I found useful tips here about things like balancing plots and subplots and structuring scenes, and a good plan for the many stages of revision. Recommended for people who want to write fiction or memoir.