Two of the books I have read recently. I'll avoid spoilers (I haven't worked out what to do with them on here anyway). On to the superficial mini-reviews!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I won't say too much here, other than I've read this and I'm unsurprised. You've either read all the rest, so you're going to read this, or you've not and you won't, so there's little point going into the details.

The Grapes of Wrath

I approached this in the "let's read a classic" mindset, but wow, really a powerful book.

The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size.

It is perhaps somewhat dogmatic (and this essay suggests that the 'dust bowl' and resultant migration wasn't as it is portrayed in the book), but the story itself is sad and stirring.

Sabriel / Lirael / Abhorsen

Okay, not going to stop at two books.

Garth Nix seems rather a blatent k3wl kiddie-fantasy pen-name, but I actually found the above trilogy rather interesting and engrossing. His world pushes all the right fantasy buttons, so I found it a good piece of necromantic escapism.

The Big Over Easy

I'll never finish this post if I keep reading more books rather than writing about the ones I've read.

A Jasper Fforde book without Thursday Next! Oh no! This is a murder-mystery in a Ffordian style, where the Nursery Crimes Department are trying to solve the death of Humpty Dumpty. The ending is amusing in its satirical complexity, but I'm not sure whether this matches up to his earlier work.