Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

What do you do when you're a second grader who is scared of pretty much everything? You pack up your PDK (short for Personal Disaster Kit) and carry it with you everywhere. You try to stay away from things that are creepy, creaky, or sticky. You ask your older brother for advice (he's NINE, which makes him incredibly wise!) and occasionally hang out with your four-year-old little sister, even though she's little and she's a girl, because she's the sweetest, happiest person you know. But what do you do when you're a second-grade boy and you get invited to your classmate's party -- and that classmate is a GIRL, and your brother tells you that you're the ONLY BOY who was invited???

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Growing up I hated science. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that growing up I was oblivious to science. How tragic is it that we can be so unaware to something that is all around us, that is fundamental to life, from the oxygen we breathe to the ants crawling on the sidewalk to the water boiling on the stove for tonight’s pasta? And school did nothing to help me out of my scientific ignorance and apathy; in fact, it did the complete opposite -- as school is so very good at doing -- it made me see no value in science and taught me that science is irrelevant to my life. My story of science is not unique; our nation is drowning in scientific illiteracy.

It does not need to be this way. School should help us to see the wonder and power and limits of science. Going to science class should be an experience of fascination and understanding and insight and some humility. But if school science failed you, like it failed me – or if you just love science as I do now -- the good news is that there is some terrific reading on science, and one of them is Sam Kean’s new book on the periodic table of the elements, The Disappearing Spoon.

A werewolf addicted to laudanum, a usurper for the throne, some high fashion, drunken pop stars and arm ripping with abandon. Seriously.

Martin Millar successfully returns to the world of werewolves, mayhem and fashion crises in Curse of the Wolf Girl, a sequel to his earlier title, Lonely Werewolf Girl. Readers must -- must -- read the books in order to have a clue what is going on, but with that caveat, you can sit back and enjoy the ongoing trials and tribulations of the MacRinnach werewolf clan with glee. There is also a lot here about remedial college, comic books, opera, pop music, and how to get your fashion line reviewed by very popular couture bloggers. That all these disparate storylines are cohesively held together is something any writer would find difficult to accomplish, but Millar does it, and he provides a very powerful narrative that never strays from its thriller roots.

And guys don’t let the fashion bits scare you -- this is a werewolf story where people get their arms torn off with abandon, promise.

Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror edited by R.L. Stine

Looking for something fast-paced, twisty, and suspenseful, just in time for Halloween? Try Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense and Horror. You've probably heard of many of the contributors:

• Jennifer Allison
  
• Heather Brewer
  
• Ryan Brown
  
• Meg Cabot
  
• Alane Ferguson
  
• Heather Graham
  
• Peg Kehret
  
• Tim Maleeny
  
• James Rollins
  
• Walter Sorrells
  
• R.L. Stine
  
• Suzanne Weyn
  
• F. Paul Wilson

All the stories in this collection edited by R.L. Stine are short—the longest is James Rollins' "Tagged," at 33 pages—yet the majority are sufficiently intriguing and satisfying. Additionally, there is a nice variety to the stories. Suzanne Weyn's "Suckers" is set in the year 2060 on a planet called Lectus. The fear in some stories comes from supernatural creature or powers, like the boy who discovers that there really are dangerous creatures lurking in shadows or the babysitter whose new charge sees terrifying beasts. In others, there are only humans committing crimes providing the tension.

The Lies That Are Our Lives: Patricia Highsmith's This Sweet Sickness

In AMC's television show Mad Men, Don Draper lives in a world of precarious reality. It is his job to manufacture the consumer culture of the 1960s through his work in advertising, and his identity as a husband and father proves to be as flimsy and artificial as the slick ad copy he writes.

As he cracks under the strain of his secrets (affairs and alternate identities just for starters), Don Draper struggles with the idea of authentic identity. Is it something we find within ourselves or something we create? Is it permanent or malleable? What about us is real? What if it's nothing?

Don Draper has a dangerously psychotic and delusional ancestor in David Kelsey, the hero of Patricia Highsmith's novel This Sweet Sickness. Like Don Draper, David is living a life of appearances in the early 60s. He buys a beautiful home in the country for his wife Annabelle, he maintains a prestigious job to keep them in a well-appointed lifestyle, and he enjoys quiet dinners of steak and wine by candlelight with her on the weekends.

Unfortunately, there's a problem: Annabelle turned down his marriage proposal over a year ago, but David has chosen to pretend that she accepted -- to pretend he's leading the life he really wants.

David must carefully balance his comfortable delusion (Annabelle and their house in the country, which he's actually purchased) with a grim reality (living in a boarding house during the week while working for a chemical company), and the pressures of two lives prove to be more than he can withstand. Finally he must turn to fraud and violence to maintain the delicate illusion of happiness.

What's wonderful about This Sweet Sickness is that David Kelsey's imaginary life -- the house in the country, the pleasant job, the marriage to Annabelle -- is only slightly more imaginary than lots of middle class lives of the 50s and 60s...or 2010. He has chosen to see certain things around him and not see others despite all evidence, and it is terrifying to watch what he has to do to keep reality at bay. This novel is considered a thriller, and the source of its tension isn't just David's conflicts with other people, but his conflict with his own mental house of cards. Add one more lie or take one away, and everything collapses.

Patricia Highsmith is also the author of the Tom Ripley novels, including The Talented Mr. Ripley. Both David Kelsey and Tom Ripley possess an extraordinary talent for rationalization, Ripley for his sociopathic behavior and Kelsey for his delusions.

I think readers find the persistence of David's delusion so disturbing because it isn't all that different from the ones by which we all lead our lives. "If I do the right things, someone will love me," we think. "If I work hard, I'll have a good job," or so we hope. There's a certain fakery required for our modern existence, and the only difference between David and us is that he's not as adaptable. This failure to adapt eventually crushes David Kelsey's mind.

Reading this novel gives us cause to think of the reality we take for granted. Every time I read it, I find myself suffering a little of the sweetly sickness of the title: what are I imagining that just isn't true? How much of my life is a lie? How would I know?

David Kelsey finds out, and as we watching him finding out, we get both the thrill of his downfall and a sneaking worry about our own.

The Politics of Reading and Recommending

(UPDATE: Corrected for errors)

In the past, once or twice a year, I've proposed my own ad-hoc short story collection, creating links to stories out there online that are great in one way or another. Recently, I thought it was a good time to do another. One of my go-to places for good short fiction is the winner of the Caine Prize, and this year's winner is Olufemi Terry's Stickfighting Days. What a great story this is!

It's epic, and speaks to how, even in our most cruel acts we often envision ourselves as heroes. It also speaks to a kind of brutality born of innocence. It's clean and crisp, and awesome.

Go to the link and read it now--skip the rest of what I have to say. But then, maybe, come back, because what is left is something that crushed my original impulse and forced me to question why some people, including myself, select the books, comics, and stories we recommend. And why I am only recommending this one story this month.

"But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."

It's hard to wrap your head around the facts and figures of Johnny Cash's career: He got his start at Sun Records with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the birth of modern popular music. He was the youngest inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame. He racked up eleven gold and platinum records, won his first grammy in 1968, and his seventeenth posthumously in 2008. Through the years in between, Cash stood at the heart of popular American music while remaining one of it's great innovators.

Two books explore his incredible career and stormy personal life: Johnny Cash's own autobiography, Cash and Reinhard Kleist's graphic novel, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness.

American Vampire

American Vampire by Scott Snyder and Stephen King (writers) and Rafael Albuquerque (art) (Vertigo), arrives as a near-antitode to much of the current vampire lit, as Halloween comes just around the corner.

I hadn't caught up with this Vertigo title until its recent five-issue collection here. Those a bit weary of "lovelorn Southern gentlemen, anorexic teenage girls (and) boy-toys with big dewy eyes" (as King's intro has it) in their vampire books (and shows) might enjoy this parallel tale set in both the Old West and silent-movie era Los Angeles, as Snyder (with a scripting assist from King in the "western" parts) seek to create a uniquely "American" take on this particular night creature.

Which they do in the form of gunslinger Skinner Sweet, who -- in finest American fashion -- is both bloodthirsty and psychotic, in both living an undead incarnations. Though there's also a certain method to his madness as he takes on a cartel of "ruling class" vampires, themselves from "Old Europe," who see perfect bloodsucking opportunities (literal and otherwise) in America's nascent corporate plutocracy.

And hey, the Hollywood parts -- with its tales of "B-girls gone bad" -- almost get you thinking that Nathanael West must've written a vampire tale right before he tackled that all-time Hollywood novel (which also gave us the name "Homer Simpson"), Day of the Locust.

The traffic in the denouement(s) gets a tad cluttered, but it's a compelling ride all the way through, leaving you with a nice set-up for the next arc, when a teen girl comes calling for vengeance of her own -- just as the twenties give way to the depression-era 30's.

Good reading for Halloween in any decade!

(A different version of this review appeared on Nexus Graphica)

Friend is not a Verb by Daniel Ehrenhaft

I have a special place in heart for books that break a run of terrible or mediocre books that I'm reading. For me the latest book like that is Friend is not a Verb by Daniel Ehernhaft.

Hen is justifiably angry. His sister, Sarah, disappeared over a year ago without telling him why. His parents know, but won't tell him. His girlfriend, Petra, just kicked him out of her band and dumped him. He is barely processing that when he finds out that his sister is coming home. He doesn't know how he feels about all of this, especially the fact that Sarah is hiding from the law and still won't tell him anything.

Ehrenhaft does a wonderful job portraying Hen's anger and disappointment in a realistic way. As the story progresses Hen is able to grow through his friendly relationship with his neighbor, Emma, and bass lessons with his sister's fellow fugitive, Gabriel.

Hen humorously uses the style of VH1's Behind the Music to describe his life. Nothing comes easy, however. His parents are crazy and unpredictable, his sister is mysterious and he is driven to thievery in order to figure out what is going on with Sarah and Gabriel.

This is a good funny novel about a teenager growing among odd circumstances. I wasn't a big fan of Ehrenhaft's Dirty Laundry, but now I looking forward to more offerings from the author. This would be good for fans of As Easy as Falling off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins and Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray.

Half Brother

Kenneth Oppel's latest offering, Half Brother, is an affecting and thought-provoking look at how humans and animals interact, specifically humans and chimpanzees. It's the story of Ben Tomlin and his family, and what happens when Ben's father, a behavioural scientist, begins a high-profile experiment to test whether chimps can learn human sign language and use it to communicate. The family brings a baby chimp right into their home and starts to work with him, teaching him language and tracking his progress. It isn't long before Zan becomes far more than a research subject. As he takes a place in the family, more a child and a brother than a chimp, the scientific endeavour becomes infinitely more complicated and ethically suspect. When Project Zan loses funding, Zan's future quickly turns towards dark possibilities and Ben must face the question the family has tried to ignore for months: just how are they meant to feel about Zan, and what do they owe him?