House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleski – $13.57 on Amazon.com, £16.49 on Amazon.co.uk, £16.48 on Book Depository

I got my brother this book last year and it’s pretty amazing. I still have to read it, but my brother was addicted to it the moment he laid eyes on it.

Here’s the description from Amazon:

Johnny Truant, a wild and troubled sometime employee in a LA tattoo parlour, finds a notebook kept by Zampano, a reclusive old man found dead in a cluttered apartment. Herein is the heavily annotated story of the Navidson Report. Will Navidson, a photojournalist, and his family move into a new house. What happens next is recorded on videotapes and in interviews. Now the Navidsons are household names. Zampano, writing on loose sheets, stained napkins, crammed notebooks, has compiled what must be the definitive work on the events on Ash Tree Lane. But Johnny Truant has never heard of the Navidson Record. Nor has anyone else he knows. And the more he reads about Will Navidson’s house, the more frightened he becomes.

From what I understand it’s a story within a story. You get to read Johnny’s experiences as he tries to uncover what happened, yet at the same time you’re reading the actual Navidson Report that Johnny is reading.

Besides that though the book is full of interesting elements to make the reading experience unique. For starters, the words in the book are arranged to echo the feeling of the what is written. When characters are navigating a claustrophobic maze-like sections of the house’s interior, the text is dense, confusingly packed into small corners of each page. Later, when a character is running desperately from something, there are only a few words on each page for almost 25 pages, causing the reader to flip quickly through the pages to frantically figure out what happened next.

Another example is the font choices. Each narrative of each separate person has a different font, with the main character in Courier, another in Times, and two others in Bookman and Dante. Also the colour of certain words are changed, although this depends on which version of the book you have (there are 4 versions: black/white, blue, red, and full colour).

What intrigued me the most though was that there are also secret hidden messages in the book. Stuff like taking the first letters from sentences to form a secret message. I still haven’t read it myself, so I have no idea how much of these codes are in there, but I love the idea behind it.

If you’re looking for something unique to give at Christmas, this is a great book. It’s perfect for the person who likes complex stories and figuring out things. Also: cool for the designer in your life, or anyone who likes typography.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danieleski – $13.57 on Amazon.com, £16.49 on Amazon.co.uk, £16.48 on Book Depository

Sometimes it’s weird how some memories can just stick by you. I exactly remember when I picked up this book for the first time. It was during my second visit to London and I was browsing the books in the basement at Murder One. In the secondhand section I came across the second part of this series, and was annoyed to find out it was a second part. No way I was going to buy a second part first! Of course, some moments later I found the first one too, and I bought both books.

The Banned and The Banished series is one of those series that not many people have read. And it’s a shame cause it’s one my favourites. It’s being offered for free at the moment on Suvudu as a pdf, so it’s a great chance to check it out and see if you like it. Here’s the description:

On a fateful night five centuries ago, three mages made a desperate last stand, sacrificing everything to preserve the only hope of goodness in the beautiful, doomed land of Alasea. Now, on the anniversary of that ominous night, a girl-child ripens into the heritage of lost power. But before she can even comprehend her terrible new gift, the Dark Lord dispatches his winged monsters to capture her and bring him the embryonic magic she embodies.

Fleeing the minions of darkness, Elena is swept toward certain doom—and into the company of unexpected allies. There she forms a band of the hunted and the cursed, the outcasts and the outlaws, to battle the unstoppable forces of evil and rescue a once-glorious empire…

Elena the main character has a form of blood magic, unlike any I’ve seen in other books. Besides that there are a slew of other characters each with their own element of power; you have the wood nymph, the wind elf, etc. It seems pretty standard at first, but you slowly discover how much story and world building has gone into this. As the story progresses, the relationships and background stories get more and more complex, which I loved.

I enjoyed the first and the second books, but it’s the third one that completely got me hooked. Before that it was just one of the many enjoyable books I read. With the third one it became addictive to read. I read that one in almost one sitting, only stopping for food and sleep. And then I had to wait half a year for the fourth book… and had the same experience. Same with the final fifth book.

Of some writers I love the books as long as the series continues, but the moment it ends I’m frustrated with the conclusion. Not with The Banned and the Banished. It’s one of the most satisfying fantasy series I’ve read, where the world building, cliffhangers and mysteries don’t disappoint.

I hope I haven’t hyped up this book too much, but it really is one of my favourite series. Check it out on Suvudu.