Dark Cities Underground, Lisa Goldstein. A book chosen on the basis of cover and cover blurb alone, (thanks to the fantastic bookswapping service Bookmooch), Dark Cities Underground is perhaps my most satisfying blind grab this year.

On the surface, it's a novel about shadowy childhood journeys, and yet another remix on the idea that children's books have some grain of truth to them. The plot concerns a researcher interviewing a reclusive children's book subject, who claims his mother "stole" his stories. Of course the researcher has a daughter of her own who must be recovered, but Goldstein tackles a wide range of more adult topics. Among them is the idea that we can get lost in stories and become them, if we're not careful, and that cyclical stories run on scheduled journies through the underground of human culture. Fans of secret histories, subways, and childrens books should enjoy this one, and older kids familiar with the sort of stories referenced should get a kick out of it as well.

Read February 2006