Delicious New Writers that I've Discovered

The other day I was poking around on the Endicott Studio blog, and several people answered the question "What is the best book you've read this year?" with "The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden". I found this book and it's sequel "In the Cities of Coin and Spice" at the library, and I've been working my way through both for the last week or so. They're by Catherynne M. Valente, and they are fantastic, in both senses of the word. Both books are stories told by a girl with tattoed stories all around her eyes-she looks like a raccoon. She lives in the Sultan's garden, and the Sultan's son finds her there and asks her for stories. The stories are nested inside each other like a Russian matryoshka doll. I haven't been this blown away by a writer in a while. I recommend these books to anyone who enjoys mythic fiction, and I look forward to reading more of Ms. Valente's stories and poems. She's also still in her twenties!

I also found a quite different type of book delightful recently, but in quite a different vein than Ms. Valente's work. I was at Parkplace Books with the boys a few weeks ago and bought a book from the children's section called "Larklight" on a whim. It sounded fun, being about Victorian outer-space pirates ;). It was so delightful! I ran right out and bought the sequel "Starcross" the next day. It was about spies, time travel, and curious hats ;). These are the sort of books I look forward to reading to Alex when he's a little bit older. Wonderful adventure stories. I've had good luck with new discoveries lately!