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@bookblurb A beautiful American works her charms on a succession of wealthy men from both sides of the Atlantic.

From behind the wheel of his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with NOS4A2 vanity plates, Charles Manx III smiles at the children with his mouthful of pointy brown teeth as he takes them to Christmasland. Accessible by roads that only exist in Manx’s mind, Christmasland is a place where it is Christmas every day, unhappiness is forbidden, and children stay forever.

Victoria McQueen has her own special set of wheels. Her favorite birthday gift was the Raleigh Tuff Burner she got when she turned eight. Day-Glo blue with yellow rims, it is one sweet bike. Vic rides it to wherever and whatever she’s looking for — a lost bracelet, a missing cat, answers to impossible questions. Then one day, hurt and angry, Vic hops on her bike and goes looking for trouble, not knowing it will lead her to Charlie Manx.

Their encounter sets off a chain of terrifying events spanning more than a decade. After Manx abducts Vic’s son, she must ride into the most dangerous parts of Manx’s world in order to save him.

Why I picked it up: Unfair as it may seem, I wanted to compare Hill to his father to see how he measured up. For 30 years, Stephen King has affected my reading and writing, so I wondered: how good would a writer be who had grown up in King’s house?

Why I finished it: Pretty damn good, it turns out.

And I’d find it impossible to resist any story featuring a fedora-wearing, purple-haired librarian with an extraordinary bag of prophetic Scrabble tiles.

It’s perfect for: My friend, J.T., who understands and appreciates the difference between horror novels that are in-your-face disturbing and gory, and those (like this one) that quietly crawl under your skin before beginning to fester. By the time you even realize that you’ve let them in, half of these characters have lodged themselves in your subconscious and are poking at your squeamish bits. While you frantically try to throw up defenses, the other half sneak in and break your heart.

@bookblurb Charles Manx III takes children to Christmasland, where unhappiness is forbidden.

Tobias Sartorius, released from prison after serving a decade for murdering two teenaged girls, returns to his home town of Altenhain where the inhabitants make it very clear that he is no longer welcome. Even though Tobias was convicted on circumstantial evidence, the bodies were never found and everyone is certain of his guilt. Now his parents are divorced, his father is in financial ruins, and only one childhood friend and a new neighbor will speak to Tobias, who just wants to move on with his life.

Soon after his return, Tobias’ mother is attacked and left for dead. As police detectives Oliver von Bodenstein and Pia Kirchhoff investigate the crime, they begin to unearth inconsistencies in Tobias’ original case and are met with stony silence when they try to question the townspeople. The village is veiled in secrecy and someone is determined to see Tobias pay for his crimes all over again. 

This is the fourth book in the German author’s von Bodenstein and Kirchhoff series but the first to be published in English.

Why I picked it up: I subscribe to Read-it-First, a free email service that allows you to test-read books. Each weekday, you receive an email with a portion of a book that takes only five minutes to read. After reading five mini-installments of this one, I had to buy my own copy.

Why I finished it: There were so many skeletons in the closets in this creepy village! It was difficult at first to keep the characters and their possible motives straight, but the web of conspiracies, illicit affairs, and misguided loyalties were worth the effort. The pub was my favorite place — where secrets were leaked, plans concocted, and clues dropped.

It’s perfect for: Amanda, who is currently devouring the Inspector Gamache novels by Louise Penny. The detectives’ personal lives affect their working relationship, which reminds me of Gamache and his second in command, Beauvoir.

@bookblurb After a convicted murderer returns home, his mother is attacked.

Novelist Edgerton offers his experiences and advice as a New Old Father, or possibly an Old New Father. Having raised one child to adulthood, he now finds himself in a second marriage as a sixty-something father of three small children. Part parenting manual, part humor column, and part love letter to his kids, the book comprises short chapters on topics such as birth, sleep problems, excretory functions, and noise-making toys sent by the devil. Interspersed are brief letters to his children at various ages, capturing day-to-day details and memories of life with children.

Why I picked it up: Although I will never be a new parent again, my friends and family are still reproducing rapidly. New-baby books, especially ones that promise to be funny, always get my attention.

Why I finished it: I almost didn’t, because at one point (in an otherwise charming section on games to play with your children) he suggests a great father-child singalong would be “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” (No. Just no.) But his so-simple-it’s-genius tradition of watching “sky television” with his kids (Step 1: Lay blanket on lawn. Step 2: Lie on blanket and watch the sky) won me back over.

It’s perfect for: Your brother-in-law, or your boss’s husband, or that new couple at church. It’s a great new-baby gift for someone you know fairly well, but not intimately: it’s neither snarky nor prescriptive, but rather a balanced portion of good advice, reassuring war stories, and genuine affection.

@bookblurb A sixty-something novelist raising three kids offers humorous parenting advice.

Leaving Wall Street to begin a startup online bookstore in his garage may not have seemed like a good idea to anyone else, but from the beginning Jeff Bezos wanted to make amazon.com a store with every product available for sale at the lowest possible price. His company has survived many challenges (years of expansion, the economic downturn, competition) to become the company that has defined online selling with features like 1-Click purchasing and free shipping. This is due to Bezos, who actively manages the departments that run his massive website. Each division must report to him on a weekly basis, but some, like Kindle, get closer scrutiny than others. One employee laughingly said, “I don’t even think you can even fart in the Kindle building without Jeff’s approval.”  He also imposes his will via “Jeffisms,” pithy sayings that chart how the company will operate; his 90,000+ employees disobey them at their peril.

Why I picked it up: Jeff Bezos and Amazon are everywhere here in Seattle — billboards, delivery trucks, delivery lockers, and fulfillment centers. Several of my students have parents who work there. Given what I have heard about the difficulty of the work culture, I wanted to understand what they go through.

Why I finished it: There are so many ways to define Jeff Bezos, depending on how you feel about him. He could be accurately described as a visionary. He pioneered using the internet for commerce, streaming video, free shipping, and the dominant e-reader platform. He could also be accurately described as a pompous a**hole known for throwing tantrums, berating his employees, and captaining a cutthroat company. He has said he “abhors social cohesion” and that his business strategy when dealing with competitors can best be described as scorched-earth. When trying to out-compete Diapers.com, a very successful online diaper delivery service, Bezos slashed prices below cost to hamstring the site and force them to sell out to Amazon, a strategy he has used many times.

It’s perfect for: My friend Doug, who owns a jewelry store. He needs to understand (and figure out how to counter) Amazon’s business practices, since they seem to want to compete with everybody, including him. Amazon’s low prices have already driven many mom-and-pop stores out of business. I don’t want Doug to be next.

@bookblurb How Jeff Bezos defined online shopping and manages amazon.com.

Henrik (HP) Petterssen is a street smart slacker with a big ego and impulsive personality. When he finds a cell phone that repeatedly asks him if he wants to play a game, he accepts. The Game is secret, offers big rewards, and has only one rule: he can tell no one he is playing. To earn points and money he must complete a series of tasks which start out as childish pranks but quickly escalate to criminal acts. His most ambitious assignment is to drop a football-sized stone on the Presidential motorcade from an overpass. He does, nearly killing his sister, Becca, a member of an elite government security force, and he is arrested. Believing he is talking to police, he tells them everything only to find out he was set up, and he is ousted from the Game for breaking the rule.

Angry and frustrated, he vows revenge. With the help of a lifelong cybergeek friend, Mange, HP tries to find who is behind the Game. After his apartment is set on fire, and later he is nearly killed after talking to another former player, he realizes he’s in over his head.

Why I picked it up: I read a pre-publication blurb about this high-octane story and the author being an ex-cop and head of a security company. Sounded like my kind of read.

Why I finished it: There is a lot of family baggage woven through the story. While dealing with the violence and alcoholism of her parents, Becca has protected her little brother. When Becca let her abusive lover fall to his death from her balcony, HP took the blame for her and did ten months in jail. Once very close, they now see each other only when HP screws up and Becca has to make things right.

It’s perfect for: Alex, who loves psychological thrillers like A Clockwork Orange, will enjoy both the reckless, obsessive HP, who radiates a dark, amoral edginess much like Burgess’s Alex, and the remorseful, insecure Becca, who is plagued by self doubt that she is determined to overcome. Being a tech guy, he will also delight at the complex, secret infrastructure of the Game and how it uses its own specialized technology.

@bookblurb A slacker plays a secret game that escalates from pranks to crimes.

In 1899 Pete is on his way to Gladback, Montana, with his brother Frank. They’ve just stopped for coffee in the wilderness when a group of men approach their fire and kill Frank. Luckily for Pete, Joe Dunn was nearby. He saves Pete and then delivers him to Gladback.

Shortly after their arrival, an Apache named Red Crow kills a man by cutting off his fingers and genitals and sewing the latter into his mouth. Dunn has hunted Red Crow in the past, and decides to go after him. Pete and several of the rich Mister Morrison’s bodyguards go along.

Why I picked it up: I recently met a young woman named Caitlin, who talked about how much she loves Garth Ennis’s graphic novels. She even talked about Preacher in detail. I saw this on the shelf at the library the following day. It was fate.

Why I finished it: Ennis’s comics are almost always brutal, and this one is no exception. When Joe Dunn saves Pete, the blood flies. His first rifle shot hits a man in the mouth, tearing off his jaw but not killing him. (The man gropes around for his jaw and seems to be trying to put it back in place when Dunn puts him out of his misery.)

You don’t read a Garth Ennis book if you’re in the mood for a gentle fairy tale.

It’s perfect for: My friend Dan, who likes Tarantino’s movies. He’d love the cinematic sequence when Red Crow ambushes the men on his trail and the speed with which he dispatches most of them. He’d also find sick humor in the situation of the man who is scalped but survives the experience. Back in town he’s quite a sight at the saloon where the other patrons discuss whether or not to chip in and buy him a hat.

@bookblurb Famed gunfighter Joe Dunn takes on outlaws and an Apache named Red Crow.

Space exploration has come a long way since the first Sputnik satellite was launched in the 1957. Now that we have the ability to travel to other worlds and have established a colony in another galaxy, it is important to learn the history of how we got to this point. Here is the story of man’s exploration of space, complete with details about the ships and robots that helped get us to other worlds.

Why I picked it up: I have loved LEGOs, especially the space-related sets, since I was a kid. I thought this would be a book about how to make lots of different models and that it would have neat pictures to admire.

Why I finished it: It was so much more than that. Reid and Goddard start out telling the history of the Space Race from Sputnik to the Moon Landing. And then they continue, moving through the mid-21st century, the establishment of the first Moon base, the colonization of Mars, and onward to the discovery of how to travel intergalactically. Along the way they teach readers about the real history of space exploration and its ties to the development of robots and scientific breakthroughs. Just at the point where readers might be bored with the faux nonfiction format, the creators add in alien space worms with mind-control powers. And they do so without completely giving up the “history of the future” tone. To top it all off, everything is illustrated with lavish color photographs — with captions — of spaceships and settings made completely from LEGOs. Interspersed throughout are instructions on how to build spaceships, robots, and more. The familiar wordless LEGO building instructions fit in perfectly here, as they look even more blueprint-ish than usual. And I was pleased, as a female science fiction fan, that the characters were a nice mix of male and female, including one character in a wheelchair whose disability is simply a feature of her character, not a plot point.

Readalikes: Readers wanting more space adventures should look no further than two top-notch graphic novel series. Missile Mouse by Jake Parker is part-Star Trek, part-Star Wars. Its hero is not the most well-behaved member of the Galactic Security Agency, but he does manage to get into the most trouble! If you want a human character, then pick up Ben Hatke’s Zita the Spacegirl books, the third of which comes out in 2014. Zita has beautifully illustrated adventures as she travels across the galaxy trying to get back to Earth. And those who’d like a middle-grade prose series that is more steampunk, but still has a lot of space action, should pick up Philip Reeve’s Larklight, the first in a trilogy featuring pirates, space spiders, and the Victorian Empire.

@bookblurb The history of space exploration from Sputnik to intergalactic travel told in LEGOs.

During a troubled voyage in the age of sail, supplies are running low. The newest hands, Xavier and Warren, are set adrift in a dinghy so that the rest of the crew can survive. Xavier doesn’t last long. But after sharks start circling, Warren is visited by a mermaid.

Why I picked it up: High on my impending purchase of the massive and beautiful L’art de la bande dessinée at the Fantagraphics Store, I asked Larry to recommend a few new books and bought them, too. This was the best of the bunch.

Why I finished it: During the solemn moment when Warren and Xavier climb down into the dinghy, one of the crew waves. Warren gives him the finger. It’s hilarious because it’s totally unexpected, particularly with the beautiful yet somber-seeming old school inking. It’s a beautiful joke and a beautiful comic.

It’s perfect for: Leann, who has hated Disney’s The Little Mermaid ever since she was a little kid. The merfolk in this book are cruel. The one visiting Warren is somewhat nasty but also comforting, and a group of them gossip as they impatiently watch the larger ship begin to sink in a storm.

@bookblurb Warren, put adrift in a dinghy during a troubled sea voyage, is visited by a mermaid.