The Woman in White (Wilkie Collins)

This story was all the rage when it was released, in serial form, back in 1859, and it's easy to see why. Sometimes described as the first mystery novel, there is a lot of mystery here, with mistaken identities, secret assignations, brooding mansions on bleak hills, dastardly villains, and impossible love. A drawing instructor falls in love with one of his pupils, who is engaged to another man, though a mysterious woman in white warns that the marriage will come to a bad end. The plot has enough twists and turns for anyone's taste, and most of the characters are fascinating, larger-than-life individuals, both good and bad. From our modern perspective, though, the central love interest is a nobody: she is lovely, and plays the piano well, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be anyone there. We much preferred her mannish, resourceful sister, and wish he had fallen in love with her instead. Still, this old book holds up well, and I can recommend it.

Native Tongues (Charles Berlitz)

Berlitz knows languages, and this book is a collection of interesting facts about languages. Here are a few examples: After discussing various Chinese ideograms, including the one for "horse" and the one for "door," we learn that the symbol for something surprising is a horse in a door. I love knowing that the Latin word for "seagull" means "noise with feathers."  Berlitz includes the worlds most efficient travel dictionary, based on the claim that knowing eight words in 25 languages will allow you to convey most essential ideas to the vast majority of the people in the world. Language tells a lot about a culture (in traditional Chinese, the word for "wife" is "the person inside") and about history (the Russian word for "train station" is just their version of the name of an English train station, Vauxhall, that early Russian railroad engineers admired). I recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about how we talk to each other, and why.

Skin Game (Jim Butcher)

I started this series (the Dresden Files) quite a while ago, and dropped out after a few books. Recently I picked up this, the most recent entry, and really enjoyed it. Harry is a wizard operating in modern-day Chicago, along with an assorted cast of other wizards, warlocks, witches, demons, faeries, shape-shifters, angels (Fallen and upright), Knights of the Cross, and on and on. In this book he's drafted by Queen Mab, who runs the Seelie Court in Faerie, to pay off a debt she owes to all-around bad-guy Nicodemus, by helping Nicodemus raid the deepest vault in Hades. Harry is not happy about this, partly because he doesn't want to do anything to benefit someone as evil as Nicodemus, and partly because he assumes that Nicodemus will turn on him and kill him as soon as Harry's part of the job is over. How can he arrange things to fulfill his obligation to Queen Mab while undermining Nicodemus's plans and keeping himself and his friends alive? I was a little disappointed by the rabbit Harry pulled out of his hat toward the end (with a first-person story, you don't expect the narrator to keep secrets like that from the reader for so long), but the breathtaking action of the climax more than made up for it. There's a moment that had me, a Star Wars fan, literally cheering aloud in delight. Now I need to go back and read some of the stories I missed before. This world is a fun place to spend time.

Sweet Silver Blues (Glen Cook)

I've heard good things about the Garrett, P.I. series and I'm interested in fantasy, so I thought I'd give it a try, starting with this, the first book of the series. It's a fairly standard noir PI novel, set in a magical world of vampires, pixies, centaurs, witches, and trolls. The writing is solid and the action interesting, but I couldn't get into it. Part of the problem is the breathtaking sexism. Granted, the story is 25 years old, but even in 1990 this should have been too much. There are exactly three female characters that appear in more than one scene. One is a literal witch, complete with haggard face, shrieking cackle, and mysterious omens. One is a figurative bitch, beautiful but stupidly, mindlessly nasty to everyone and everything. The other is a lovely and willing wench with nary a brain. That's it. This spoiled the whole thing for me. If it's not a problem for you, you might well enjoy this start to what is a popular series.