Critical Monkey! Update the half-year gone! Can you handle six more months? How much torture can one person withstand?

Half-way through. Whoooo! Wheeet! Whaat!

Seriously, I am proud of all of you, you have taken up the challenge and run with it. It's not easy confronting one's demons, but there is a certain cleansing that goes along with the experience (of the bowels, if not the soul). And we still have six months to go, and there are two more possible contestants currently girding up their innards with extra fibre to have a go at it. They've got some catching up to do, but if there is one thing I have learned so far from this exercise in masochism, it's that the human mind can take a lot of pain.

So, let's take a look at the big board!

Acceptance (seven reviews)

Depression (six reviews)

Anger (five reviews)

Lori L
Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
Roses of Glory by Mary Pershall
Spock's World by Diane Duane
A Texan's Honor by Leigh Greenwood
Star Wars: Rebel Dawn by A.C. Crispin

Guilt (four reviews)

Corey Redekop
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Justice Riders by Chuck Norris
Jake and the Kid by W.O. Mitchell
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins

Steve Zipp
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Whiteoaks of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

Bargaining (three reviews)

Jeanne
Empire of Lies by Andrew Klaven
A Merry Heart by Wanda E. Brunsetter
A Washington, D.C. by Robert J. Hensler

Denial (two reviews)

Betty
Generation Dead/Generation Dead: Kiss of Life by Daniel Waters
A Bend in the Road by Nicholas Sparks

gypsysmom
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Shock (one review)

Alison
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

As you can plainly see, we have a good, solid mix of highbrow art fare that everyone claims to read and love (Jane Austen and Stephen Hawking), and lowdown dirty bile that we should all be ashamed to have checked out of the library (Andrew Klaven, Chuck Norris(!)). What, you think I liked anyone knowing I was reading Left Behind? I'd much rather sit in a coffee shop perusing the latest issue of Sex Cauldron than have people think I'd willingly read LaHaye.

And now, as promised, a drawing to reward you for all your hard work. This month's prize? A signed copy of Canadian author (and Canada Also Reads longlist candidate) Mark A. Rayner's enjoyably strange sci-fi opus The Amadeus Net.

And the winner is:

Steve Zipp! And Steve is also a longlist contender for his novel Yellowknife! Oh, his cup runneth all over the place!

Steve, I will contact you about your mailing info, and get Mark to send you out a copy post-haste. As for the others? Well, I've got an ARC of Jasper Fforde's new novel Shades of Grey just begging for a home. Next month, all new reviews get entered for the draw.

As for myself, I believe that I am still suffering from post-rapture fatigue, so I'm going in a different direction from the usual punishing fare. Instead, I've tracked down a copy of a novel I've always wanted to read since I was an overly-impressionable teen. The Stainless Steel Rat awaits!

See you in a month!