What I’m reading

I have already read The Map to Everywhere once, and very quickly (I can’t imagine anyone reading it slowly). But now I’m reading it again, to Griffin, at night.

This book has already enjoyed a lot of fully justified praise, so there’s not much to add. Except that on a second reading, with some of the suspense gone, I’m amazed at how finely detailed a world the husband and wife team of Carrie Ryan and John Parke Davis have assembled.
But more than anything else, The Map to Everywhere is a great story, the kind you want to set everything else aside in your life for, the kind you want to bring on a trip or someplace else where you’re unlikely to be interrupted. It has pirates, thieves, boy captains, elderly wizards, talking trees, chases on the high seas, daring escapes, races for the prize, forest fires, fly suits—pretty much everything you’d want in a story, but blended seamlessly and seemingly without any obvious contrivance. It’s a series, of course, and the second book is out, so if you haven’t read it yet, you’ve got some catching up to do.