**Some spoilers follow.**In A Loyal Character Dancer
, Chief Inspector Chen Cao tackles a case with international implications. The title character, Wen Liping, has gone missing just as an attractive U.S. Marshal arrives in China to escort her to the United States. Wen's husband, Feng, was caught as an illegal immigrant in the U.S. and has agreed to testify against the human trafficker who organized his travel, but only if his wife is there by the time of the trial.Chen is assigned to the marshal, Catherine Rohn, with instructions to entertain her, keep her safe, and investigate the case only as a secondary concern. He sends his colleague, Detective Yu, to the town where Wen and Feng lived but pursues his own inquiries in Shanghai. The investigation exposes him to political corruption, triad members, and suspicions about whether some of his own superiors have gang ties.
Wen emerges as a tragic character, the victim of international politics and a sense of justice that sacrifices one person's happiness to potentially save other lives. A photo of Wen as a teenager captures her in the loyal character dance, the only dance permitted by Chairman Mao--a beautiful, devoted Communist. She voluntarily traveled to the countryside for reeducation with the peasants, and within a year she was married to the much older Feng, with whom she soon had a child. Twenty years later, her son has died, she has no contact with her friends and family in Shanghai, and she continues to labor at a factory. As the investigation proceeds, Chen learns that Feng, who was head of the local Communist party, assigned the teenaged Wen an isolated room, which he was easily able to break into and rape her. After learning she was pregnant, he divorced his wife and married her. He continued to abuse her and blamed her when his political fortunes changed. After their son died, she again became pregnant. On learning she was expecting a boy, Feng decided to leave for the United States. His demand to the American authorities that his wife join him reflects no concern for her, but rather interest in the son she is carrying.
Complicating the investigation and the choice Wen must make is the interest various triad gangs have taken in the case. If she decides to remain in China--with the result that Feng refuses to testify--the police can't offer her protection against gangsters who are searching for her and want her dead. Chen himself struggles with the conflicts between his conscience, his sense of duty, and his political future.
Overall, this is a good but troubling read.
is a highly original (and thus sometimes challenging for me to comprehend/ follow) work of steampunk. This is also a difficult book for me to evaluate, because I struggled with the first half (300 pages) and nearly put it down multiple times. But I became engrossed at some point after that and ended up enjoying it very much.
to my not-quite-2-year-old nephew, so I snagged the book later and read it myself. It's a cute, sweet story about Llama Llama Red Pajama, who panics after his mama llama tucks him into bed and doesn't immediately answer his request for a glass of water. He imagines all kinds of horrifying reasons for his mama's delay in returning to him, but when she finally comes, she gives him a comforting kiss and reassures him that she's never far away. And enough of this "llama drama"!
, a late-80s horrorfest about a "too-perfect" company town hiding a dark secret. Having written one well-received but thus-far-unpublished creature story set in the Colorado mountains, I'm obviously intrigued by the premise. Creature is a fast read, a little too fast--the characters are sketches, and the plot develops too quickly. Saul goes for the jugular on the horror without spending the time Stephen King does in building characters and suspense. But his horror is more consistent than King's, which I find hit-or-miss.
, because it's essentially the same book. I don't say that in a derogatory way, but many of the core elements are the same: beleaguered scientists; a creature that's an "evolutionary aberration," a killing machine, loose in a vast facility to which no one has a comprehensive map; subterranean layers; and ruthless individuals determined to capitalize on the publicity factor, regardless of the lives at stake. 
is the fourth entry in Craig Johnson's series about Wyoming (yeah, I'm picking up on a theme here, too) sheriff Walt Longmire, and the second I've read. I do not intend for it to be the last. Johnson has an easy, spare style that suits the open country he writes about. His sense of landscape, awareness of history, and incorporation of Native American traditions remind me of the late Tony Hillerman, a longtime favorite of mine. 
by Jerry Smath before, but it turned out to be a fun read with cute illustrations.
, which I made my father reread so many times that he can still recite most of it from memory.)
, chronicling her first year with Charlie.
takes place not in the village of Three Pines, but at the nearby, secluded Manoir Bellechasse.
, the final screenplay in Tennessee Williams' eponymous compilation, is bitter and brutal--at least I thought so. Williams, in his preface (which I don't advise reading until after after you finish the screenplay, because it contains a major spoiler), seems to differ, at least to an extent.
. But my mom and I were at Goodwill last week, and there was a copy of the book--the trade paper edition, not the mass-market movie tie-in with Kristen Stewart's snooty pout--that looked as it if had never been opened, for a ridiculously cheap price. 
brings back a lot of memories from my childhood. I remember, especially, my dad reading this book and 
(containing the unforgettable Zizzerzazzerzuzz) to my younger brother and sister. I remember his feigned alarm at the suggestion to "hop on pop." I don't even know how else to describe the memories--I haven't looked at this book in years, and I didn't remember much of the content, but when I read the text and saw the photos they were immediately familiar from many, many readings in my childhood.
. 
is a personal dream come true. Yes, sometimes I'm easily pleased. I recall loving this book--several teachers read it to us in school, I think--and begging, pleading for a copy of my own, but my mom steadfastly refused. "We can't buy every book you like," she told me. I'd say this lesson fell on deaf ears except that somewhere deep in my subconscious, the opposite compulsion lodged: to buy every single book I might possibly, conceivably, if I'm ever stranded on a desert island without anything else, want to read. Sam-I-Am, maybe it was you who planted the first seed of my bibliomania....
, which I read several years ago to my friend Nora in Savannah, is not a book to read silently, but if you do, it'll twist your brain as much as the alliteration tricks your tongue.
, perhaps Dr. Seuss' most iconic creation, was never one of my favorite characters. Having reread the book--which I'm sure I'd read or had read to me as a child, but which I don't recall nearly as well as the first three titles in this entry--I still don't quite understand the allure. Sure, the Cat is naughty and fun, but subversive mischief resonates throughout Dr. Seuss' universe. I find many of his other titles and inventions far more appealing.