Things I've read lately:

• David Mitchell - Ghostwritten. It's one of those books where a bunch of seemingly-unrelated stories all end up being related, by the end. I'm really tired of those kinds of stories, unfortunately. But, this is ultimately saved by the clever mechanisms he uses to tie those stories together (which I won't divulge). B.
• David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas. I could write the same thing about this that I just wrote about "Ghostwritten". Instead, I'll just refer you to it. And I'll add: I liked the actual stories in this one better than those in "Ghostwritten". Mitchell is a good writer: clever, funny, deft with writing different periods and genres. So, even if the mosaic style bugs me, he's still a good read.B+.
• Jo Walton - Among Others. The story, in diary form, of a Welsh schoolgirl who has an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction books; mostly set in an English public school in the late 1970s; and magic is real. But, this magic it's not the flashy stuff of Harry Potter's world. There are no wand fights, sentient plants, spell classes, or wizarding contests. This magic is subtle, just barely distinguishable from active imagination and confirmation bias. It's so subtle that it took a bit of effort for me to believe that the magic in the story is real and isn't actually all in the narrator's head - which wouldn't be surprising, given how steeped in sci-fi/fantasy the narrator is. Even she can't seem to tell, sometimes what's magic and what's just a wish that accidentally comes true. It was a good read, either way, but I'm rooting for the magic to be real. Otherwise, it's a story about a schoolgirl who can't tell fantasy from reality. And that's kindof sad. B.
• Jesse ball & Thórdís Björnsdóttir - Vera & Linus. This is an odd little book. It's not quite a story, it's more of a set of vignettes, mini-vignettes and micro-vignettes about a couple, Vera and Linus, who live in a surreal, whimsical and dangerous world. The bulk of the danger in the book comes from Vera & Linus themselves, who are murderers, abductors, torturers, robbers and vandals. They kidnap children, kill passers-by, make a career of robbing travelers, etc.. But it's more Edward Gorey than Jason Vorhees. They kill and kidnap for absurd reasons, for magical reasons. Yes, they're monsters, but you get the feeling that they live in a world where the rules aren't quite the same as ours. They also go for walks, and make plans, and grow plants. But there's no chronology to it, every page is a new adventure, completely unrelated and independent of anything that came before.

  The text itself straddles the line between prose and poetry. It's not always as lean and concise as poetry, but it's often more abstract and rhythmic than prose. The page numbers are cryptic, and knowing what I know about Jesse Ball's other work, I suspect there's a meaning in them, but I couldn't decipher it. Here's a sample. B