So I went a little overboard, reading this month - but I listened to a lot of audio books due to traveling and some household projects - and some are kid books, which always read fast.

Series Reads
Hunting Badger
The Wailing Wind
Sinister Pig - all by Tony Hillerman - I enjoy this series, although the final books are a little thin.
The Spellman Files
Curse of the Spellmans
Revenge of the Spellmans - Lisa Lutz - this was an amusing series featuring a P.I. family
All Is Swell : Trust in Thelma's Way
Falling For Grace : Trust at the End of the World
Love's Labors Tossed: Trust and the Final Fling - Robert F. Smith - all in the mormon fiction genre, young adult romance & comedy
Omen - star wars book - I always enjoy these

Non-Fiction
A World Lit Only by Fire - read since my son is reading for a history course. A readable look at the Medieval Age & Renaissance
Double Exposure: Fiction Into Film - text book from my college days - read for GRTB club. Great insights into what makes a successful adaptation of a book into a film.
Secrets of a Former Fat Girl - picked up on a whim. No strict diet & exercise plans, but definitely motivating to get out there and make some changes.
Blonde Indian : an Alaska Native memoir - artful writing and interesting look at one woman's experiences as an Alaskan Native

Kids/Youth - most of these I listened to
By the Shores of Silver Lake - classic
The Last Thing I Remember - a thriller for teens
Dorothy Dale's Camping Days - just not that interesting
The BFG - classic Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach - ditto
Girl in Buckskin - historical fiction with a bit of a bite

Other Fiction - some of these I listened to
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted - short stories about women
Open House - I always enjoy books where the main character grows into herself.
Here Be Dragons - historical fiction about Wales - interesting for the history, though not my favorite genre. read for book club.
Prayers for Sale - I love Sandra Dallas and this newest novel did not disappoint
Uncertain Voyage - I read this thinking I would pass it along, but after reading I couldn't do it. Back on the bookshelf.
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - funny mystery with a precocious eleven year old as the "sleuth". Can't wait for the next installment

My favorites: Prayers for Sale and Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

A good month for me too but I'm going to try and cut this down as much as possible. Here's the list:
1 Evil Valley
2 On Bullshit
3 The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
4 How Fat Was Henry VIII?
5 The Other Tudors
6 What the Victorians Got Wrong
7 Life in Victorian Britain
8 The Master of Illusions
9 Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
10 The Secret Scripture
11 The Bloody Chamber
12 The Lost Book of Salem
13 Memoirs of Emma Courtney
14 The Bradshaw Variations
15 The Lost Throne
16 Mutiny On the Bounty
17 Shipwrecks
18 The Last Empress
19 Bonk
20 The Good Thief
21 Julius

In the interests of getting this finished before October starts, just a few brief comments.

Disappointing - The Secret Scripture, The Last Empress, The Other Tudors

Interesting non-fiction - On Bullshit, How Fat was Henry VIII?, What the Victorians Got Wrong, Life in Victorian Britain, The Master of Illusions

Really good reads - Evil Valley, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, The Bloody Chamber, The Lost Book of Salem, Memoirs of Emma Courtney, The Lost Throne, Julius

Early readers - The Bradshaw Variations (short review on review page some time in the next few days- not that impressed)

Something special - Mutiny on the Bounty, Shipwrecks, Bonk.

Bonk is a fascinating but very funny trawl through the science of sex. The hows, whys, whats and wheres of the most fascinating research that has been undertaken into what makes the world go round.

Mutiny and Shipwrecks, my joint books of the month, coincidentally both touch on the world of ships and piracy. Mutiny (by the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) is the best fictional account I have read on the subject. It is told from the point of view of the Captain's assistant, a boy who has been given the chance to serve on board rather than spend a year in jail for picking pockets. As is the case with Boyne's more famous work, the characters are warm and engaging and turn a well-worn tale into a fresh and gripping first-hand account. Unlike many books about the mutiny, this one follows Bligh back to England. I couldn't put it down.

Shipwrecks, on the other hand, is a work of pure fiction and it's a gem. A small coastal society lives from hand to mouth for much of the time, but every few years they are 'blessed' with a shipwreck that brings untold bounty to the community. Shipwrecks is the about the ways in which we reconcile and excuse our worst behaviour in the name of 'survival of the fittest' and what happens when the good things we feel entitled to turn out not to be the blessings we expect. Two great reads for the summer - or any other time of year.

Hi. Thought I would pop in to get the thread on my homepage. Will post my books soon. I had a good month.

Wow! I think this is my best month of 2009. Several absolutely wonderful books.

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson 07/29/09 08/03/09 **** ½ The second book in a 3-part series published posthumously. I think I even liked it more than the first book because it explained so much about Lisbeth Salander. It had a very cliff-hanger ending and I’m very anxious to read the third book. It was well written, complex, satisfying.

Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter 08/03/09 08/07/09 **1/2 Now this one disappointed me. Earlier this year I read The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn, which is the third book in the Inspector Morse series. I love it and BookMooched all the books in the series. This book was mundane, Inspector Morse over-written and too eccentric. I’m hoping the rest of the series is an improvement.

Death Masks by Jim Butcher 08/08/09 08/11/09 ** Book 5 in the Dresden Files series, about the only wizard in Chicago. This may be my last foray into the increasingly boring world of Harry Dresden. Same problems, same behaviors, weirder and weirder interactions with humans and other beings.

Knowledge of Angels by Jill Paton Walsh 08/12/09 08/16/09 ***1/2 A very good book about the Inquisition, a wolf-child, a nun, and an atheist. It’s hard to explain, and the ending is far from satisfying, but it was well written and evocative of a simpler time.

A Cafe on the Nile by Bartle Bull 08/16/09 08/27/09 **** Fun, fun, fun. Safaris, dwarfs, twins, crocodiles, the Italian invasion of Africa in 1935. A beautiful adventure story that brought to life Egypt and Africa just before World War II. How can any book by someone named Bartle Bull be bad? He's got lots of other books, too. I'm now on a quest.

Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All by Christina Thompson 08/27/09 08/29/09 **** My July ER book. A memoir about a woman from Boston who marries a Maori man. She alternates New Zealand history, the cultural anthropology of Maoris and Polynesians, and her personal life. Here’s my review: Come on Shore Review

The Rapture of Canaan by Sheri Reynolds 08/30/09 09/01/09 (4 a.m.) **** I decided to read this book as a personal challenge from LTer CharlesBoyd. We were each going to read a book we thought we’d hate. He’s reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Here’s our thread about the challenge:

Books We Don't Think We'll Like Challenge

It turns out I loved the book. The thread has a detailed review including spoilers. Here’s my non-spoiler review: Rapture of Canaan Review

Book of the month is terribly difficult because I read so many wonderful books. How do I choose among 4 star books? I guess for sheer fun I’d have to say A Cafe on the Nile, for sheer power The Rapture of Canaan. In any other month I’d probably have to vote for The Girl Who Played with Fire, but timing’s everything and I didn’t even remember reading it this month until I started writing for this thread even though I gave it 4 ½ stars.

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 11:54am.

This month is wonderful i got to read many books

series Fiction books:
Mates, Dates
Truth, Dare, Kiss or Promise
Sweet Valley
What a Week
Harry Potter
Dawson's Creek
Angel
Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Other Fiction books
The Boy of My Dreams
Poppy
Jessica
Summer of Secrets
How could You do this to me, Mum?
Erase Him From My mind
My Best Friend's Boyfriend
My New Teachers Pet
I would Never Believe in Love Again
Love is not a thing To believe
My Wicked Stepmother's Daughter

i liked the Dawson's Creek one of Double Exposure, and Shifting into Overdrive

also I would Never believe in Love Again was so romantic and funny too.
The others were also amazing.

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 11:56am.

Hi loveyoutwins - welcome to the thread and the group.

It sounds like a busy reading month! Good for you.

Which Harry Potter? I've just finished re-listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Message edited by its author, Sep 2, 2009, 11:57am.

Welcome to loveyoutwins! I see you're pretty new-ish to the whole LT thing so we're honoured indeed to have you find this group so quickly. Yet again, so many this month that I've never heard of but especially interesting to hear your thoughts on Knowledge of Angels, karenmarie. It's quite a favourite of mine, despite all the 'spirituality' stuff. I read it years ago and it's rather haunted me ever since - I've tried a few other JPW's books but this is far and away the best. And, although I know next to nothing about it I would definitely read a book called Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All - what a fabulous title!

Second Booksloth's comment - with a title like that, how could one resist come on shore and we will kill and eat you all? I'm now going to read your review!

Hi everyone, glad to see everyone has had a good reading August.

My August reads:

Touch by Francine Prose

Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Misconduct by Bridget Van der Zijpp

The Piano Teacher by Janice YK Lee

Probable Future by Alice Hoffman

The Woman who Walked into Doors by Roddy Doyle

Made in Heaven by Adele Geras

Of Woman Born by Gilda O'Neill

Trouble by Jesse Kellerman

The Screaming Tree by Phil Lovesey

The Blue Lawn by William Taylor

Best reads for the month Probable Future by Alice Hoffman and Life as we knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Rest of the reads average. Hopefully September will be a better reading month.

Tardy as always.

I had a very good month. Lots of good books.

1. Vicious Circle by Mike Carey, Urban Fantasy, Completed 8/1/09, Stars: 3.5
This is the 2nd book in the Felix Castor series. It is set in modern day London in which the dead refuse to stay put. There are zombies, ghosts, weres, and demons who wander the city and cause various problems to the human inhabitants. Felix is an exorcist, but has some issues with power and control. He welded a demon to a friend of his, and he has a retired succubus who is using him as a human behavior source.

In this book the parents of a dean girl ask Felix to find her ghost. She was kidnapped by another exorcist who was romantically spurned by the wife. Felix takes them at their word, only to find out later they are not the parents but the killer of the girl, and they want her soul to sacrifice to a demon. Felix finds out he knows the demon and in the end had a terrible choice to make.

I enjoyed the book, but it was again too long (over 500 pages) and a bit slow. I will give him one more book to get his act together. If the 3rd isn't tighter, I may have to give him a pass. Its not bad, but I lose interest and want it to end. I also don't care much about the characters. I also have so many other books to read that I can't really waste my time on something that doesn't grab me.

2. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, World Fiction, Completed 8/5/09, Stars: 3.5
Interesting story set in Nigeria in the tribe of the Ibo people just before white men arrive. The main character is the head of his clan. He is a strong, mean, heartless man. He is reacting against his weak,drunken lying father, whom he does not wish to emulate. He has 3 wives and multiple children and he wants to be thought of as a big man in the village. The story tells of the life of the village and the POV's family. Eventually his nature wins out and he kills another during a celebration. Because the village judges it an accident he is only exiled for 7 years.

He and his family go to the village of his mother for the 7 years. While he is gone the White men arrive and infiltrate slowly. They pay for what the villagers gather in the forest, and they introduce Christianity, which upsets the clans, because their social system is set up on a hierarchical system. Because they accept the bounty of the white man, they are unable to expel or fight them when they begin enforcing their laws on the Ibo. The whites use non-Ibo natives as their enforcers and to keep them in line. Eventually the main character can't take the shame and the loss of freedom, and tragedy ensues.

It was interesting, and sad. The writing was very simple, but had a lot of foreign words, sometimes not explained. Showed the bad of the Ibo on their own, and well as the bad the whites did once they took them over.

3. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, YA -Fantasy, Completed 8/6/09, Stars: 3
YA Fantasy that was for a RL book group. It is about 3 sisters who lose their father, and their comfortable life and have to leave school and go to work. It is set in a magical realm. The book follows the oldest sister whose fate was to stay and work in the family hat shop with her step mother. She runs afoul of a witch who curses her to become an old woman, and to be unable to tell anyone. Prior to the curse she was a small grey mouse of a person. Once cursed she leaves the hat shop to search for a way to reverse the curse.

She ends up with the Wizard Howl in his moving castle. All is not what it seems to be. They have adventures and eventually everything comes out right.

It was OK in terms of writing, but it was much too basic in terms of story and characters, almost grade school level. I have read DWJ before and enjoyed The Dark Lord of Derkholm, but this is not in the same class. It seemed to be a Disneyfied fairy tale and a romance in fantasy clothes.

4. Raven Black by Ann Cleeves, Mystery, Completed 8/7/09, Stars: 4
Book 1 in the Shetland Island Quartet . It is a mystery series set on the main island of the Shetlands in the modern day. The setting and the characters are interesting, and the back story of all the characters is just as good as the main story. This story is set in winter with the cold, snow and almost constant dark. This series was a read for a RL book group.

It is winter and a teenage school girl is found strangled near the house of the island outcast. He is an older man, slightly retarded and once thought to have killed a much younger girl who disappeared after she visited him and his mother. The body was never found, so he was never charged, but in the minds of the islanders he is a child-killer and so guilty of this murder too.

The policeman in charge of the investigation must try to keep an open mind, to keep the islanders clam, and to make sure that the forensic team from Inverness works well with the Island force. The back stories are used to show that everyone knows all the secrets and details of each other in such a small place.

Very well done and I enjoyed it very much.

5. White Nights by Ann Cleeves, Mystery, Completed 8/8/09, Stars: 4
2nd book in the Shetland Island Quartet . This book is set in summer when they have almost constant daylight. It also moves to a small village out of the main town. The policeman and several characters continue from the first book, but it is a different story. A tourist has a breakdown at an art gallery opening and then later is found hanged. Turns out to be staged, and the man was actually murdered. They have to try to find some connection between the man and the Island, which means the pasts of those in the village are sifted through. More murders happen/ are discovered.

It was also well written, and very interesting. I enjoyed it, though not as much as book1. Will read book 3 when it goes into paper.

6. The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay, Fiction, Completed 8/14/09, Stars: 3
This was a read for a RL book group. I really didn't like it until the end. Had it not been for the last part of the book I would have rated it lower, but I can't recommend anyone read it. It was mostly bland and boring.

The story was about a young teen from Tasmania who arrives in NYC after her mother dies. She instantly gets a job in a bookstore called The Arcade (read the Strand). The story is of her life in the city and at work, with all the odd characters who work and frequent the store. She is mostly a clueless doormat and the odd characters are also rather plain and boring. Eventually she get sucked into a swindle about a lost book of Melville's which ahs tragic consequences.

It was bland, boring, and even at only around 300 pages, too long. I though of it at times as The Secret of Lost the Will to Live. Oddly, I found I did care about the characters at the end, but didn't enjoy spending time with them.

7. Tsotsi by Athol Fugard, World Fiction, Completed 8/15/09, Stars: 4.5
Another RL Book Group read. It was made into a movie, which I haven't seen, but according to one in our group who had, they are not similar. The book is set in the black township of Sophiatown (destroyed in the 50s to make room for expansion of the white city) outside Johannesburg, during apartheid.

Tsotsi is the name for the black street thugs who prey on the blacks in the townships. The main character is a street child who has no family, no memories and no name. He is in his 20s, and a criminal and calls himself Tsotsi. Several events start him on the path to change, and he tries to give up his criminal ways. The story shows how hard life is for the blacks. The terrible rules, and police who treat them like animals. As Tsotsi changes, his memories return and we see how he was made into a thug. The ending is quite devastating.

Very well written, very spare, but searing.

8. And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander, Historical Mystery, Completed 8/15/09, Stars: 4
This was the first of the Lady Emily Ashton series set in Victorian London. I enjoyed it very much. It is about a young widow who doesn't really know her dead husband. It was a marriage of convenience and he went off on safari after they married, where he died. She begins to find out about him from his letters, journals and friends. It turns out he was in love with her. He also loved the ancient Greeks and she takes up his hobby and begins to study them as well. During her poking around, she finds evidence that he might have been involved in art theft and swindling. She has now fallen in love with him, and is heartbroken.

Throughout the story she has to fight off her mother who is still trying to control her, and plotting to get her re-married, though Emily has no plans to marry again and give up the freedom she now enjoys as a well off widow.

Very well written, interesting characters, great setting. I found the series on LT, and have books 2-3 still to read.

9. The Corpse in the Koryo by James Church, Mystery, Completed 8/22/09, Stars: 3

This is a mystery set in modern day North Korea. It is also the start of the Inspector O series. I really wanted to like it more than I did. The setting intrigues me,

The writing was good, it flowed well and made as much sense as the story allowed. That was my biggest problem with the book. There were a lot of cryptic comments, a lot of aimless wandering around, and a lot of verbal fencing - talking about a car wreck and 2 murders as if they didn't happen, then ignoring them. There were power players that didn't have explanations as to why they were there and how they all connected together.

I think the author did it to emulate trying to work and live under a dictatorship. And it was effective, it just detracted from the story.

The corpse of the title didn't show up until about page 136. Then his murder was a minor plot point, and the killer and the truth about the murder was never really presented. It was all swallowed in politics, and conjecture.

I have the 2nd book to read and hope it will be a better story and more coherent.

10. The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley, Historical Fiction, Completed 8/23/09, Stars: 4

I received this book from the LT ER program. It is historical fiction with a psychological bent. I liked the writing and I enjoyed the story. The main character was interesting if not always likable. Her main focus was her enjoyment, safety and needs. Too often historical fiction is little better than a romance in old clothes. This is not your typical 'long-suffering women overcomes trials with womanly virtues, and finds happiness in the end' story. People who want that type of sentimentality or who object to sex, especially a women who initiates and enjoys sex with no interest in marriage will not find this a satisfactory read.

The book is fiction, but based on the true life story of the real person, Eastern Jewel (EJ). She was a Manchu Princess who was shipped off to Japan by her father when she was 8 years old. She came from a Chinese society that didn't value females, and used them without consultation. She was sent to an important family in Japan, who treated women similarly. She was told she was being sent away for bad behavior, but it is likely the Japanese man, Kawashima (her father's blood brother) asked for her. Since she was only the daughter of the 3rd concubine and one of 13 girls she was considered expendable

The book follows her adventures as she defies traditions and society and tries to live for herself and her own pleasure. She is also seeking the love of a family which she lost at 8. Unfortunately her actions allow her to be used by the men in her life, even as she thinks she is being outrageous on her own. She goes from Japan to Mongolia, to Japan and then to China. Her story is about her sex life, her partying and drug taking, her spying and betrayals of friends. She actively works for the Japanese against the Chinese during WWII and is left on her own when they lose. She is hunted and captured and sentenced to die. The book ends before we find out if she accepts her fate or uses another to suffer in her place.

Very interesting, if sad. The writing was good and the setting was well done.

11. Principles of Angels by Jaine Fenn, Dystopian SF, Completed 8/26/09, Stars: 4

This is a dystopian SF story set on a domed habitat above a dead planet. It had 2 of my favorite things: Domes and Angels ( no relation to heaven or religion).

The wealthy citizens live above the plate in Khesh City, and the poor, non-citizens live underneath in what they call Undertow. It is a warren of vanes, small rooms, and gaps for water condensation traps, where people have to move carefully or fall to their deaths. The underclass is run by gangs, and like Renaissance Italy the territory and the people wear colors to designate which gang they belong to, and where they are allowed to go.

Khesh City is full of wonders and attracts tourists from all over. They come to see the only Democracy run by assassination. People not only vote politicians into office, but vote to assassinate those who are in disfavor or who get caught breaking the rules. Regular people can be killed also, because murder is not against the law. The agents of the city who police the rules and do the assassinations are called Angels. They are altered humans who have built-in weapons, faster reflexes, better senses and the ability to hover and fly (no wings). The Minister who rules the city elevates them from the local population.

The story is of a local downsider, Taro, who was related to an Angel - and that link guaranteed his future, but she is illegally killed, and he loses his place in society. He must now kowtow to an underside gang to find shelter, water, food and safety. He is a teen whose job is prostitution.

Elarn Reen is an off-world visitor, and famous musician who chants ancient religious plainsongs. She is normally reclusive but has organized a tour that stops in Khesh City. While there she searches for a young woman lost to her, Lia Reen. But all is not what it seems. Elarn is not acting of her own will, and is an agent for a secret alien power, long thought dead. The dead aliens are the builders of the ancient, self-perpetuating city, and the former masters of humanity.

Another group who are playing games. and not what they seem to be are a politician, Consul Vidoran who was marked for assassination, (the angel missed due to Taro) and his bodyguard Scarrion- an off-world assassin called a Screamer who should not be mixing into the affairs of the city. They become mixed up with Elarn, while lying to her about what they want.

Tario is after the bodyguard Scarrion because he killed his aunt Malia the Angel and stole her weapon.

Complications ensue and the city itself becomes threatened.

I found the story to be a very amusing allegory of where society is heading. Loved the idea of voting for the death of politicians (probably just after televised executions become old hat). Characters were interesting, story was good if a bit standard. The writing was good. Lite on the explanation of the Angels, but still a fun read.

12. Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, Modern Fiction, Completed 8/29/09, Stars: 2.5

I saw this book on LT and it was well praised. The blurb on the back about being marooned in a hotel with its strange occupants, sold me. I was expecting something different. What I wasn't expecting was a 9/11 story. I avoid them like the plague. Its too soon to have anything meaningful to say, and frankly I am tired of wallowing in the tragedy. I also was not expecting to get a tome on Cricket, most of which I found extremely boring.

I did not enjoy the book, and mostly couldn't wait for it to end. I gave it 3 stars, but then downgraded to 2.5.

The story is about a European couple (English & Dutch) who move from England to NYC. They arrive before 9/11. They are close enough to Ground Zero that they have to move out of their loft when the attack happens. It is why they are in the odd hotel with the wacky people. It is a residential hotel, so the odd people live there permanently.

The POV character is the Dutch husband, Hans. He is weak, wishy-washy, and doesn't know what he wants or how to say it. His marriage falls apart after 9/11, and his wife takes their son and returns to England. He can't really identify the problem, so he has no clue what to do about it. Since he is on his own, Hans starts to hang around with the odd characters in the hotel. He also becomes obsessed with his childhood game of Cricket. He ends up befriending an umpire named Chuck, a man from Trinidad who turns out to have criminal tendencies and who comes to a very bad end once Hans returns to the UK.

Unfortunately Hans is not interesting as a character, his wife is vile and the rest of the cast are not very interesting either. They are small sketches, but not really people. They aren't that odd either - except for the Angel, but he gets very little stage time. Chuck seems to be a stereotypical non-white immigrant. The book in fact is filled almost exclusively with non-white immigrants. Perhaps that is what modern NYC is like, but its not my experience as a visitor to the city, though to be fair I don't wander off the tourist track. I think it is just the sphere Hans hangs out in. He or the author has a need to be the only white man in the group ?

Which brings up the other issue about Hans. He is supposed to be Dutch, but in his life he talks and often thinks as though he were actually English. There are Dutch references, but also English that seem to include him in the group. The narrative also jumps around from far past (childhood), near past (college), and then it hops into the future, when Hans and his wife are reconciled and living in the UK. He will say he hardly spent any time with Chuck, but then spend an entire paragraph describing his thoughts, actions, and motivations; Information that could only have been gained by the end of their relationship, but being applied at the start.

There was a lot of minutiae about Cricket from famous players, to grass type, its care, maintenance, and field construction. Then he went on about different batting, and pitching techniques, and Han's childhood memories of the games. We also got the history of Cricket in the US, and descriptions of games and venues. Even if Cricket was a metaphor for life, its massively boring if you aren't into Cricket or if you know nothing about it. Much of it has a lingo of its own and is incomprehensible.

The final problem was the actual writing itself. The sentence structure is so long, and convoluted, it should have drawn jail time. The story jumps forward and backward, and other than Cricket there is no real focus.

13. The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, Gay Male Porn, Completed 8/29/09, Stars: 4
I saw this book on LT. I was intrigued by the extreme nature of the topics. They were extreme and are likely to be offensive.

The story is told in an epistolary style: a series of emails, though there is a section that could be a chat. The premise is that men are writing in to a web site to rate their dates with male escorts. I don't know if the web sites for men actually exist, but I saw a documentary on high end female sex workers, and they do actually exist for them.

When they write in they use a screen name so its never clear who is who, and some comments could be from the same person using multiple names. The stories could be true, fantasies or complete lies.

The stories about one escort fuel the board, and he becomes the topic of conversation and speculation. Those in California try to 'date' him. The webmaster often steps in to referee, and point out what he has confirmed as true and what isn't. Then dueling customers post different reports and start calling others' reports lies. Everyone in the book is an unreliable narrator. The story follows the escort through real life events, there is a possible murder and investigation, but even that may not be true. One of the 'Customers' hooks up with the escort and begins offering his services, and there are reports that the escort is an impostor. The customer also becomes a topic of speculation.

The book is like a giant game of telephone, except some are deliberately lying. The motivations are never clear, and there are even people who post 'honest retractions' but its not clear if those are any more honest than the 'lies'.

The book looks at the group dynamics of a small number of people who are in a forum that allows them to expand and fuel their sexual fantasies. Some of the fantasies are sick, evil and even illegal. It is to be hoped that people who express their fantasies are not acting on them, and not engendering them in those who had no idea they existed before reading about them. It is well written, interesting, a bit sad, and often gross.

My favorites would be Raven Black, Principles of Angels, And Only to Deceive, The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel, Tsotsi. A very good month.