Apathy and other small victories, Paul Neilan
Dry, funny, droll, cringe-inducing, slackery, Portlandish, quite fun and with murder mystery, too. Four stars.

jPod, Douglas Coupland
A quite good follow-up to Apathy, and to Microserfs. It was the Vancouveriest book I have ever read, and I liked the characters even as I (and Doug) cringed at what they did. Four stars.

The Deep, Nouvian
Really cool pictures of the bizarre beings of the deep deep ocean. Neat. Four stars.

The invention of Hugo Cabret: a novel in words and pictures, Selznick (Y)
It takes place in France, so I assumed it must be in translation since it seemed so affected. But it isn’t. The pictures are really cool, though. Three stars.