Okay, it didn't take me until Christmas to redo my reading page. Because instead of reaching deep down into the pit of my corroded little heart to scrape off a chunk of what I really thought of all this literature I've been hoarding, I took the opposite tack. Mining my love of crossword puzzles and peculiar sonnets, I decided the better route would be to cram every thought I had into five-word reviews. Thus dodging the "sincere opinion" bullet completely. Whew! That was a close one.

Take that, Michiko Kakutani!