Son of Stitch 'n Bitch Edited by Debbie Stoller.  As a successor to the highly popular Stitch and Bitch series, Son of Stitch and Bitch disappoints. The premise is a good one, it just falls a bit flat for all the males in my life. Despite being designed by or consulted with men, most of the patterns here are still awfully flashy, and some of them are downright garish. While I find it cute, I don't know a single man who'd actually wear a sweater in bright 'Ernie' stripes, and while some of the other cabled alternatives are more tasteful, they're worked in colors and yarns that only the trendier hipster would find attractive. The hats and scarves are more in keeping with traditional guy schemes, and I like the dress sock pattern offered quite a lot. I just don't know anyone (myself included) who would wear the rest of the entries, which makes this pattern book a pass for me.

Couture Knits by Jean Moss.  One of many new knitting books acquired by the county library system, Couture Knits is the one most likely to appeal to the late twenty-something/professional knitter. Laid out with an emphasis on how each element works with the garment (stitches, shaping, color), Moss clearly presents a collection comprised mostly of cardigan sweaters with classic shapes but less traditional lines. There's also a helpful reference section at the back of the book if you're the sort of knitter who can be found without your laptop handy. Overall, for my own purposes, there's not much that would inspire me to buy this – not from any lack of features, but the plainness of the patterns therein. There's a garter lace cami that would go well with the items in Knitting Lingerie Style, but otherwise I doubt I'll be trying any of the patterns in this one.

  The Somnambulist.  I snagged an early review copy of this via LibraryThing's fantastic signup feature, liking the description of Victorian intrigue and the comparison to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  While it shares similarities of magic and setting with Susanna Clarke's masterpiece, it's a shorter and much less inspired lark, whose second half falls flat for want of more plot.

 Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls by Danielle Wood.  I was supposed to be organizing boxes containing all my worldly possessions, in preparation for a move when I came across a stack of ARCs.  Being the book addict and absentminded creature that I am, I immediately went through them and picked this up, rather than continue my tedious clearing.

Color:: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay. Maybe the most interesting nonfiction book of the year. Simultaneously a travelogue and a history, each chapter chronicles the difficulties in obtaining a different pigment to match the spectrum. Her remarks aren't limited to the dye makers and gatherers themselves, but also include intriguing tidbits about painters' choices, and why some paintings look very different from when they were created.  Recommended for anyone with even a casual interest in art history or color theory.

Top 10: The Forty-Niners, Alan Moore. This is consistent with Moore's other typically excellent work on the series, but its position as a historical seems to be lacking something I can't really pin down. Maybe it's the lack of levity - almost all the other Top Ten stories I can recall had something of the ludicrous in them, while this doesn't. The superhero elements take a backseat to realistic aerial acrobatics, and the gay bildugsroman is sweet, but devoid of any sense of real peril.  Even so, it's a nice addition to the universe, and should appeal to fans of the prior volumes.

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything , Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner.  Pop economics made accessible through anecdote - the only trouble is, I feel like I'd already read it. Levitt's papers have been reported so often that I've become familiar with their substance without having to read this book. It reads at times, more like basic sociology than economics, because there's very little hard data or facts involved. Occasionally, the book presents the result of an undocumented algorithm, but it does so in such a way as to insult the reader. The chapter on parenting looks like a lecture that hasn't even gotten an attempted revision. Levit repeats the same set of variables in three different places, perhaps assuming that the reader is too stupid to turn back a few pages if he forgets them. Highly readable, but also largely fluffy.

Haunted , Kelley Armstrong. The paranormal field is a fast-selling one right now, and Armstrong obviously knows it. The series that began with the startlingly original Bitten has become just another better-than-average big-bad-of the week. Haunted takes the viewpoint of Savannah's mother, a sort-of-ghost, as she's charged by Armstrong's version of TPTB to hunt down an escaped nasty. It's good fun, but it's not original anymore.

From Alien to The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film. A well constructed overview of major SF films since the 90s. The essays are thoughtful, not cluttered with jargon, and fill out an important space in a field that has surprisingly few books for the number of films it's produced. For the sf cinemaphile and casual reader alike.

The Irregulars: in the service of Sherlock Holmes - another monstrous take on Jack the Ripper from the perspective of the Baker Street Irregulars. Watson is charged with murder and it's up to the street urchins to solve the crime. This being a Victorian setting, these are very grown up children and the overall story is quite dark. My only complaint is that the black and white art seems too crowded and busy.