Leela added a quote:
"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." — Madeleine L'Engle

Leela added a quote:
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be some kind of library." — Jorge Luis Borges

Leela read and liked Nikki's review of The Dark Is Rising (Dark is Rising, #2):

"I suspect that the books of this sequence are among the most beautiful I've read. I get that feeling especially with this book. The tone here has changed already from the Blyton-esque kids-on-a-great-adventure of the first book, and the character is ...more I suspect that the books of this sequence are among the most beautiful I've read. I get that feeling especially with this book. The tone here has changed already from the Blyton-esque kids-on-a-great-adventure of the first book, and the character is different accordingly. It's almost a bildungsroman, for all that we only see less than a month of an eleven year old boy's life.

One of the main things I love about this sequence, particularly from this book on, is the characterisation. Where Simon, Jane and Barney were simplistic but also realistic in the first book, Will is now much more layered. Literally. There's a part of him that's a boy, and there's a part of him that's ancient and ageless, and in this book he's got to learn to balance the two, use the two, keep them separate where he can. In my opinion, this is beautifully done. One minute he's standing with the Lady and Merriman, fighting back the dark -- the next, boy like, he's making mistakes through over-enthusiasm. At first he cannot accept that he's not just an ordinary boy, and then he's playing tricks with his new-found powers. At the end, he acknowledges that sometimes he wishes he could just be an ordinary boy, but not always.

It's not just Will, though. Despite it being a short book, you catch glimpses of so many characters who are worth thinking about, and yet Susan Cooper never loses focus either. The Stanton family are particularly well-drawn, in my opinion. There's so many of them that you can't get a fully-rounded picture of any of them, but you still feel as if maybe you've been to tea with them a couple of times -- or I do, anyway. I feel like I'd like to date Paul, I'd want to hit Mary, I'd antagonise James, I'd... It's wonderful how Susan Cooper shows us so many characters and makes us care about them, so briefly and succinctly.

The writing, of course, I think is lovely. I whisper it aloud to myself. There are some beautiful images and scenes -- the Doors, for example, and the appearance of the ship, the signs... I love the way Susan Cooper writes.

I've read reviews where people felt that nothing happened in these books. I find that hard to understand -- there's moments of real brooding menace, real magic, but I think people who are expecting swordfights and high fantasy in that sense are going to be disappointed. Ultimately, the sequence concludes that the battle against the Dark is fought in men's hearts. That, in some ways, is not a "satisfying" conclusion -- yet it's a realistic one, and that's something I like.
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Leela read and liked Cindy's review of Fool: A Novel:

"OMG! This is Moore's funniest book ever. (I may have said that after "You Suck", too) Chris Moore is the literary equivelant of a Mel Brooks movie times 10. We are driving to West Chester, PA next week to get his autograph on this one. ...more OMG! This is Moore's funniest book ever. (I may have said that after "You Suck", too) Chris Moore is the literary equivelant of a Mel Brooks movie times 10. We are driving to West Chester, PA next week to get his autograph on this one. (Doubt he'll come to Detroit - no one else is . . .)
France, Shakespeare, the Pope and Jesus all take their fare share of abuse from Moore as he recreates King Lear's story as told by his jester, Pocket, the Fool. As always, the "heinous fuckery" is "most foul" if not his foulest ever. Even the footnotes had me laughing out loud.
Moore said he got the idea for this story while witnessing the political climate in the US. We were being ruled by idiots and charlatans and only the comedians were speaking truth to power. Moore is one of the best humorists writing today and is the very best kind of twisted . . .(less) "