Four years in the making

Four years and a couple of months ago, historian and blogger (and versifier on things gargoyle-related) Jeff Sypeck undertook to review all of Lloyd Alexander’s books outside his celebrated series The Chronicles of Prydain. All I knew of Alexander’s work was the Prydain sequence, based on Welsh mythology — superb all, though I still prefer Evangeline Walton’s four novels from the same source — and Time Cat, which we both consider subpar, so Sypeck’s writeups have been a revelation. I’d never heard of the Westmark books, which Sypeck considers Alexander’s masterwork, or My Love Affair with Music, which may be his most beguiling nonfiction book. Mind you, these are real reviews, not blurbs or capsules, and an excellent checklist for anyone looking for the next book to put in front of someone who’s burned through Harry Potter and the Hunger Games series.