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.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J. K. Rowling)

This fourth volume in the Harry Potter series takes a decided turn toward a darker narrative, as Harry has to deal not only with the dangers of the Triwizard Tournament, with events that killed champions in the past, and the increasingly dire threats of the evil  wizards, but the more mundane but equally painful challenges of asking a girl to the big dance. In this story, various wizards pay the ultimate price in the war between good and evil, including one of the young wizards. I'm not convinced the elaborate plot for  Harry's life was justified, but the book is definitely worth it for its creativity and its staunch celebration of courage, loyalty, and friendship.

Nightwatch (Sergei Lukyanenko)

This contemporary vampire story, by a Russian author, is interesting but not fully engaging, perhaps because of the cultural differences. Walking among us are Others, humans who have magical powers that make them more than human. These Others take sides in an eternal battle between Light and Dark, in which the agents of the Night Watch represent Light and agents of the Day Watch represent Dark. An ancient treaty constrains their battle, but still they struggle for the souls of the humans who surround them, oblivious to their powers. In this book, which is the first of a series, a powerful new Other arises and the opposing forces struggle for his soul. I enjoyed it to a mild degree, but won't be following more books in the series.

The Tiger (John Vaillant)

This carefully researched true story about the hunt for a man-eating tiger in far-eastern Russia is engrossing and moving. Woven in with the story of what made this tiger stand out and how it was hunted is the history of Russia and particularly its far East rim, the natural history of tigers, and the complex and changing relationship between humans and tigers in the ancient forests. What was most amazing, aside from the sheer nail-biting adventure of it, was that the author managed to portray all sides in the story with even-handed empathy. Highly recommended.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (J. K. Rowling)

The next installment of the Harry Potter series, which I am reading through again. I am constantly in awe of Rowling's imagination: the spells she thinks of, the names she gives things, the complex ways her plots unfold. She also seems to get the reality of adolescents, including their tendency to obsess with one thing (Quidditch!) and block out other things (Marked for death!) that might seem more important. I also love the things she emphasizes again and again, not through words but through the very essence of the stories. Things like bravery, honesty, loyalty, and love. This is what the series is really all about, as Harry grows into the kind of person we can all admire.

Skippy Dies (Paul Murray)

This is the story of a private Catholic boys' school in Ireland and various people connected with it: the boys, their teachers, their girl friends, and their neighbors. Skippy does indeed die in the first pages. Two-thirds of the book describe the events leading up to his death, and the remaining third describes the aftermath. This book is excruciatingly well-written; the dialogue, the settings, the events, the interactions--all are drawn with precision and clarity. This makes the book even harder to take, as the events described are painful in the extreme. The story is saturated with drugs, sexual abuse, lies, betrayal, cruelty both casual and sadistic, and the utter futility of trying to oppose any of this. Nothing in this story is uplifting or ennobling. I found it gloomy, depressing, and infuriating. Not recommended.