The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories

Written by: Etgar Keret

First line: This is the story about a bus driver who would never open the door of the bus for people who were late.

Why you should read this book: Minor miracles, unremarkable afterlives, heroes who are less than heroic, and imperfect relationships fill the pages of this short story collection, creating a world like a disconcerting dream that never quite reaches the level of nightmare but leaves you scratching your head in the morning, wondering where the heck you've been. There are dashed hopes, strange confrontations between Jews and Arabs, and a fascination with death and near-death experiences: sometimes the world seems utterly bleak and hopeless, and other times, a thin ray of hope penetrates the dark shroud of characters' disappointments. These stories are short, fast reads, two of which were made into feature-length films, all of which force the reader to examine their own notions of morality and self-determination.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You just can't imagine what would drive another human being to take their own life.

On Second Thought: Outsmarting Your Mind's Hard-Wired Habits

Written by: Wray Herbert

First line: On February 12, 1995, a party of three seasoned backcountry skiers set out for a day on the pristine slopes of Utah’s Wasatch Mountain Range.

Why you should read this book: Brimming over with current research to demonstrate the complexities of the human mind, this book is an introduction to heuristics, the mental shortcuts that allow us to make fast decisions about our world and how we respond to it. Demonstrating both ways in which heuristic decisions effectively help us navigate a sea of snap decisions as well as how these hardwired prejudices can lead us astray when we really ought to know better, it’s a dazzling series of fast essays designed to force the reader to confront their own psychological response. Whether you feel as if your life is one deep rut, you want to analyze your own poor choices, or you just need to understand other people’s poor decisions, this eye-opening book provides proof of how many of our conscious decisions are shaped by unconscious forces.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: Skeptical of change. Content not to know.

Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories

Written by: Isaac Bashevis Singer

First line: Children are as puzzled by passing time as grownups.

Why you should read this book: Seven delightful tales of shtetl life, clever fools, vindictive devils, and brave children comprise this collection from an award-winning writer whose work transports the reader to another time, and a world long-gone. Three of the stories tell about the wondrous village of Chelm, where everyone is an utter fool, given to hysterical, grandiose misconceptions and deeply flawed reasoning. The title story is a lovely tale of the love a small boy can hold for a small animal, demonstrating how miracles may appear in real life.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're already surrounded by hysterical idiots and you've just slaughtered a goat or otherwise killed an animal beloved to your children.

Bootsie Barker Bites

Written by: Barbara Bottner

First line: My mother and Bootsie Barker's mother are best friends.

Why you should read this book: The child narrator is repeatedly terrorized by pint-size bully, Bootsie Barker, whose violent aggression destroys her favorite possessions and leaves her in constant fear for her physical safety. Her mother urges her to "get along" and at night she dreams of various scenarios in which Bootsie Barker might be permanently removed from her life, until the day her mother announces the wonderful surprise: that Bootsie will be sleeping over. With zero support from the adults in preserving her health, the narrator invents a new game, one that will turn the tables on Bootsie, teach her the meaning of fear, and cause her to refuse to spend another minute in the house.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are a carnivorous dinosaur.

Holiday Tales of Sholom Aleichem: Stories of Chanuka, Passover, & Other Jewish Holidays

Translated by: Aliza Shevrin

First line: There are people who have never learned anything but who can do everything, who have never been anywhere but who know everything, who have never given a thought to anything yet understand everything.

Why you should read this book: Although best known for his character Tevye the Milkman, popularized in Fiddle on the Roof, Sholom Aleichem's genius brings to life a wide range of characters, rich and poor, scholarly and uneducated, pious and mischievous. In this collection of seven short stories, a variety of young boys describe the atmosphere surrounding their families' celebration of different Jewish holidays with nostalgia, whimsy, and ironic regard. Painting his pictures of the long-gone shtetl world, the author demonstrates a pure grasp of storytelling that shines through even in translation.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You take religion very seriously.

The Rough-Face Girl

Written by: Rafe Martin

First line: Once, long ago, there was a village by the shores of Lake Ontario

Why you should read this book: Part of a longer story cycle, this tale, billed as an Algonquin Cinderella, tells of three sisters who wish to marry the Invisible Being, but must first pass the Being's sister's test: Only the one who can see him can marry him. Mistreated by her older sisters, the Rough-Face Girl has had her hair and complexion ruined by years of hard work, but her isolation gives her space to contemplate the world and know the true face of the Invisible Being, providing an edge over her well-dressed, smooth-skinned sisters. Rich, textured, detailed illustrations by David Shannon bring this story to life.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're teaching your children to point at ugly people and call out their shortcomings.

Lord of Misrule

Written by: Jaimy Gordon

First line: Inside the back gate of Indian Mound Downs, a hot-walking machine creaked round and round.

Why you should read this book: The winner of the 2010 National Book Award reveals the seedy world of broken-down horse racing at a track where the horses, the trainers, the owners, and the gamblers are all on their last legs. Enter young fool, Tommy Hansel, and his slightly less foolish girlfriend, Maggie Koderer, with four horses and plan to make a fast buck and a fast getaway. Trouble is, everyone, from the old groom, Medicine Ed, to the old mobster Two-Tie can see they're up to something, and at Indian Mound Downs, everyone's looking for an angle, a score, or a way out.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Like all of Gordon's work, there is a huge burden on the reader to figure out what's going on. Shifting points of view, lack of quotation marks, dialog and exposition written in dialect and jargon (which shifts with the point of view) are only some of the literary devices that make this book somewhat difficult to follow.

An entire year?

Man, another year has gone by, which means it's time for another year in review at Dragon's Library!

Although I beat my count (barely) from last year, it still felt like a lot of stuff prevented me from reading all I wanted. There are *piles* of unread books on my desk, and I'm still plowing through Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule along with the massive Natural History of the Sonoran Desert and some other stuff as well. However, this was the year that I first sold a short story (available this January in Bards and Sages, which you can purchase at Barnes and Noble, I've been told. Also the year that my leveled reader, Rosalind Franklin's Beautiful Twist was made available from Reading A-Z. Also this year, I was invited to review books at Steve Barancik's Best Children's Books. And, of course, I continue to make bank as a freelance writer.

My categories here leave something to be desired, I guess. Should Confessions of an Economic Hit Man go under "memoir" or "non-fiction"? Where do I draw the line between adult novels and YA novels? Ah, it's all arbitrary. Books are books. Here's a rough accounting.

Picture books: 48
Adult novels: 7
Nonfiction: 12
YA/juvie fiction: 40
Memoir/biography: 4
Short story collections: 4
Reference: 1
Myth/fairy tale collection: 4
Graphic novel: 2
Poetry: 1

Total Books Reviewed: 123

Happy New Year

The Nature of Arizona

Edited by: James Kavanagh

First line: James C. Rettie wrote the following essay while working for the National Forest Service in 1948. In a flash of brilliance, he converted the statistics from an existing government pamphlet on soil erosion into an analogy for the ages.

Why you should read this book: A handy little overview, this guide begins with a great description of the history of life in earth, then discusses evolution in general before delving into the specifics of the region's land and climate. The bulk of the book is color coded and divided by groups: mammals; birds; reptiles and amphibians; fishes; invertebrates; trees, shrubs, and cacti; and wildflowers, with short descriptive blurbs and color drawings of each species. Multiple appendices list attractions by region of the state, popular hikes, desert survival information, and more, making it a useful reference for tourists or newcomers to the state.

Why you shouldn't read this book: The size and scope of this book means that there is no depth to any entry, and that many species are omitted entirely.

Foreskin's Lament

Written by: Shalom Auslander

First line: When I was a child, my parents and teachers told me about a man who was very strong.

Why you should read this book: Although he has left the values of his ultra-orthodox Jewish upbringing far behind him, the author still believes in god: to wit, he believes that god is a colossal asshole just lying in wait to screw with him, and the occasion of his wife's pregnancy leaves him vulnerable to a wide variety of painful retribution by this vindictive deity. Integrating the story of his childhood, trapped by the restraining rituals of his community, his father's violent anger, his mother's impossible expectations; and the increasing dilemma that he faces as he determines whether or not to circumcise his unborn son to appease a family from which he is largely estranged, this memoir covers all the personal and painful ground that draws him forward. Guilt over sins real and imagined, an obsession with sex, pornography, masturbation, drugs, non-kosher food, and pretty much everything forbidden to him in his childhood forges an angry and humorous retrospective of the author's journey toward fatherhood and professional success.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You always know the right brachot.