Taking the train to Seattle for the weekend is a way to get a lot more reading done than a usual weekend away from home. On the way up Friday I read, in its entirety, Lisa Goldstein's Dark Cities Underground . While in Seattle, I bought and started Nancy Pearl's Book Lust . I finished it and Naguib Mahfouz's The Search on the way home. Before bed last night I finished Stephen King's Song of Susannah . I recommend all of them.

Dark Cities Underground was recommended on the Jonathan Carroll mailing list (rondua), though I think I'd already picked it up after reading The Red Magician. It fits in the sub-genre of fantasy that I quite like, but don't really know the name for, where the story takes place in the modern real world, yet strange things happen.

Nancy Pearl's Book Lust is a book full of book recommendations. I ended up taking a bunch of notes on other books I should check out.

The Search made me want to track down his longer Cairo Trilogy.

I was a bit disappointed by one aspect of Song of Susannah but I don't really want to mention it for fear of spoiling part of the story for those of you who haven't gotten that far in the series yet. King is still a fantastic storyteller, and this series is definitely his best work.
posted by Kristin Buxton at 10:39 AM