I had a hard time with this book. It has an interesting premise- the main character is a ghost who does not remember who she is and must throughout the book search for clues to her identity and to her death- but the ghost's constant state of confusion means the reader is often confused as well. The ghost ends up haunting a melancholic English boys school, which seems to be where her three surviving sisters live. Even the strangeness of her bizarre family doesn't do much to lighten what was clearly a dreary life, and it makes for dreary reading.

This long and detailed biography of Jim Henson, expressively read by Kirby Heyborne in the audiobook version, gave me a much deeper appreciation both of Henson's lasting legacy and whimsical passing silliness. What a man with a head full of stories, creator and co-creator of so many lasting characters. If you enjoy stories of artistic people growing into their own abilities and succeeding beyond what anyone would have expected, you will enjoy this book.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and highly recommend that you do as well. Tina Fey has a lovely reading voice and the book includes the audio of her first SNL skit as Sarah Palin opposite Amy Poehler as Hilary Clinton. I was expecting this book to be more of an autobiography than it turned out to be. A better description would be "Set of humorous anecdotes in roughly chronological order". For example, she tells the story of her rather disastrous honeymoon but includes no mention of how she met or married her husband (who is referred to by at least 4 or 5 different names over the course of one chapter "for copyright reasons"). Very enjoyable all the way through.

One of my absolute favorite short story/ multicultural fairy tale books as a child.

A collection of three previously self-published short comics, "Wolves", "The Mire" and "Demeter". This book is a beautiful example of what an author will come up with when throwing everything they most enjoy drawing and writing about all into one book. Cloonan excels at portraying foreboding castles, sensual ghostly women, bruised and blooded knights and tangles of dark forest. Her stories are dark tales of curses and revenges with bitter endings.

This Star Wars extended universe novel is from the old pre-Disney canon, so if you are looking for hints about the latest set, you will not find them here. What you will find is a silly but highly entertaining adventure set shortly after the end of Return of the Jedi. Luke is exploring the galaxy, searching for records of the old Jedi Masters. Han is a General in the New Republic Army, still mopping up various hold outs of the Empire. Leia is a key member of the New Republic Government and naturally this means she gets a marriage proposal from the blond-haired, blue-eyed, attractive princes of Hapes. It's an offer she can hardly afford to refuse, so naturally Han Solo does everything in his power to prevent her from accepting- including kidnapping her and taking her to the remote world of Dathomir. Meanwhile, Luke has heard hints about the same planet in a fragmented recording in which Yoda warned of "the witches of Dathomir". Before long, all of the key players- yes, Artoo, Threepio and Chewy too- have crash landed on Dathomir into the middle of a witches war. Look at the title of this book, do not take it very seriously, and you will likely enjoy it.

I finished reading this book for the second time and enjoyed it just as much as the first time around. I read it out loud to my travel companions on a 16 hour road trip and it fit in perfectly. It was especially fun to read out Mark Watney's drive from the Hab in Acidalia Planitia to Schiaparelli while driving through Southern California.

This book packs a pretty big punch of heavy sci-fi into a short 88 pages of comics. Aria is stranded on an earth of warring tribes. She and her cat Jelly Bean dodge hunters and vicious dogs as they scavenge food and tinker with their broken mecha. Aria, inexplicably, has tools of a modern age- toothpaste, electricity, a motocycle, a wrist tracker- though the hunters roaming the ravaged city are dressed in rags and skins. There's a lot more going on here than first meets the eye. Beautifully drawn, if somewhat abrupt in the pacing and ending.

I read and greatly enjoyed this book many years ago, but this most recent listen of the audio-book reminded me both how clever and also how dreamy it is. Roughly half the book takes place in a malleable dream-filled fairy land, which is an interesting contrast to Tiffany's groundedness.

Continuing my re-listen through of the Tiffany Aching books, this one is just as good as the first. Tiffany, now 11, leaves home to become an apprentice-witch to Mrs Level. But she is being pursued by a terrible enemy, the Hiver, which doesn't live and so can't die. What it can do is take over the bodies and minds of others and it's hunting Tiffany.