Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

# Hardcover: 272 pages
# Publisher: Doubleday (September 17, 2002)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0385504470

In a Nutshell: Sulking reporter investigates a little too deep in a SIDS fluff piece and finds out the dangerous cause. He becomes homicidal and enlists the help of a real estate broker who specializes in serial buyings and sellings of haunted houses, her assistant - a nudist wiccan, and her assistant's boyfriend - an irate vegan con-man. Very dark and dank hilarity ensues.

Recommended to: nihilistic fuckheads, those who love their comedy dark and thick, and people who like his other work.

Taboo Subjects Gleefully Exploited: dead babies and necrophilia.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
# Paperback: 336 pages
# Publisher: Harvest Books; Harvest edition (May 1, 2003)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0156027321

In Short: Good, but not mind-blowing. Methinks it had the misfortune of being overpimped, which is a very common fate to otherwise decent books. It's about an (East) Indian boy of multiple religious persuations trapped on a life boat with a bengal tigar.

What I liked: the bits about animals and training tigers and anything with biology.

Recommended to: people who don't read a lot but want to read a book so they can talk about it with people who do, my grandmother, and animal lovers.

Taltos (The Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice

Taltos (The Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice
# Paperback: 576 pages
# Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (March 31, 1996)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0345404319

In Short: Anne Rice redeems herself from the strained Lasher in this third and final installment of the Mayfair Witches. Taltos explains what Lasher is and what he came from and how it ties into the Mayfair Witches. Very satisifying.

What Kicks Serious Ass: a trip to the drowned plantation Fontrevault, which is based on Madewood Plantation, which is not submerged.

Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice

Lasher (Lives of the Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice
# Paperback: 640 pages
# Publisher: Ballantine Books; Reprint edition (August 1, 1995)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0345397819

In short: though four hundred pages shorter, Lasher seems long-winded and loses some momentum and energy from the far more well crafted The Witching Hour. It is still worth reading, but I was a bit disapointed. Lasher the spirit attached to the Mayfair witches finds a way to take physical form.

People might be outraged: that there is a thirteen year-old nympho(?) having sex with older men.

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches) by Anne Rice
# Paperback: 1056 pages
# Publisher: Ballantine Books (March 22, 1993)
# Language: English
# ISBN: 0345384466

In Short: Engaging and lush family saga about a lineage of witches and the spirit bound to them. The present Mayfair witch is a neurosurgeon who moves to New Orleans to discover her past with her lover who has become clairvoyant from a near-death experience.

Much better than: any of Rice's tepid and solipsistic vampire novels

Recommended to: untreated monopolar depressive types, people who like intricate series with books over 1000 pages, and fans of the traditional sense of the word gothic.