Hello, friends.  I am one of the newest additions to the Lemuria staff, and this is my first time to ever post on our lovely blog. I thought I’d start out with a little introductory post about some of my current favorite reads.

At the top of my list is Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This book is the story of  precocious nine year old Oskar Schnell who,after the death of his father in the September 11th attacks, searches the five boroughs of New York City to find the purpose of a key that his father left behind.  I laughed, I cried, and then I promptly started giving this book out as a gift to all of my friends who hadn’t read it.  If you’ve never read anything by Jonathan Safran Foer, give this one a try.  He has, after all, recently been named one of The New Yorker’s writers to watch in their “20 Under 40” summer fiction issue.

Besides quirky contemporary fiction, I also have a love for science fiction.  Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, and even C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy all have their places on my bookshelf.  My most recent venture into the science fiction genre has been Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves. The story is about a young family,who after moving into a new house, finds that it is bigger on the inside than the outside. It is completely without boundaries.  The fun of this book though is just flipping through it.  Danielewski’s composition, like the mysterious house, is unconventional and completely without boundaries.  Throughout the novel readers are given several narrators,  photographs, codes, and references to mysterious books that don’t exist.  I’m still working my way through it all, but if you’ve got some spare time on your hands, I’d definitely recommend picking up a copy and going along for the ride.

And finally I have to mention my adoration of children’s literature.  I may be  22 years old and a recent college graduate, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t still enjoy Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. One of my favorites since elementary school, The Phantom Tollbooth is the story of young Milo who finds himself magically transported to an unusual land in which he learns the importance of letters and numbers.  This book is witty, fun, and illustrated by the wonderful Jules Feiffer.

-Kaycie

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