The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon – Highly Recommended! Chabon is a wonderful wordsmith. He comes up with some of the most fantastic turns of phrase, which made this book a delight to read, despite the setting, theme and depressed lead character.

This book is set in an alternate timeline where the Nazis won WWII and Jews had a rough time finding places in the world where they could live. Some of them landed in Alaska. The main story is set in this community in the modern day, and the lead character is a divorced, depressed, alcoholic police detective investigating the death of a junkie, which he believes was murder. As everyone tells him to stop looking into what’s obviously just an overdose, he gets more determined that he’s right. It’s an incredibly engaging story, and as I mentioned his very sentences can be a delight to read.

Farewell Summer, by Ray Bradbury – Terrible book. I flat out hated it. To be clear, I like Bradbury, and I loved the book Dandelion Wine, which this is supposed to be a sequel to. This is more like a collection of notes and rambling surreal ideas jammed together in a effort to force a book out of them. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t make any sense. Oh and I calculated that it was only about the equizalent of 50 normal book pages (based on my reading speed) stretched very loosely on the pages so that it was printed across 150+ pages. Really aggravating all around.

Krampus: The Yule Lord, by Brom – 5 stars – Highly Recommended!

     “Santa Claus, my dear old friend, you are a thief, a traitor, a slanderer, a murder, a liar, but worst of all you are a mockery of everything for which I stood. You have sung your last ho, ho, ho, for I am coming to take your head. I am coming to take back what is mine, to take back Yuletide…” — Krampus

This is a fantasy story in a modern setting. A young man, down on his lucky and verging on suicidal, crosses paths with an ancient pagan god, getting sucked into the battle between Krampus and the man who betrayed him: Santa Claus. We get the very human story of Jessie in parallel with the history and ongoing tale of Krampus, his belsnickels, and their goal to return yuletide to it’s old glory.