An Interesting Comfort Book

I've had The Dark by Daniel Handler writing as Lemony Snicket, with illustrations by Jon Klassen. floating around the house for a little while because, quite honestly, I didn't quite get the first volume of A Series of Unfortunate Incidents by L.Snicket. Life is short, time is limited. Should I spend any of it reading another Snicket book?

Why, yes, I should.
 
What I particularly liked about The Dark was its coherence. It both seems to lead you astray, suggesting this is going to be a creepy piece of fluff or a clever joke, and then with that same material makes clear that all this time this was a very straight story. Anthropomorphizing the dark could mean turning it into a monster or it could mean turning it into a logical, calming follow.

Which way did Handler/Snicket go?

The Dark is a Cybils nominee this year in the fiction picture book category.

Daniel Handler Does Essays

I forgot to mention in my party post that among the YA (or YAish) books my friends discussed Friday evening was the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. Two people didn't like the books, one person loved them, and I didn't get them. I loved the idea behind the series, I just didn't quite get the joke.

I was reminded of all that today when I read MONEY TALES
Author Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket talks about the last taboo, an article about Handler's essay, Wining, in an anthology called Money Changes Everything.

Since I enjoy reading about Daniel Handler, I very much regret that I didn't get into his kids' books more than I did. And now I've found out he writes essays, which makes him even more attractive as far as I'm concerned. If you can't get hold of Money Changes Everything, you can check out another of Handler's essays,Adjusted Income, a variation on the same subject as it turns out.