July's recommendation: The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper.
If there was one beneficial effect from the appalling trailer I recently watched for The Dark Is Rising movie, it's that it made me remember I wanted to re-read this book.
I will refrain from making this a rant about how badly that trailer represents the book, and how much I pray it badly represents the movie itself -- as trailers have been known to do. Instead, I will try to talk about the story.
The Dark Is Rising is, of course, the second novel in the series of that name. This recommendation really is for the entire series, but as I haven't read the others in ages, I'll confine myself to talking about this one. It comes second; I'm pretty sure I read it first, back when I started the series, and I know other people have done the same. The books of the series alternate between two protagonists (or rather, between a group of siblings and Will Stanton), and I'm definitely in the Will Stanton camp, though I know others prefer the Drews. Over Sea, Under Stone didn't draw me in, but this one did, and then I backtracked to read that one later.
These novels are a fantastic demonstration of how familiar tropes don't have to seem tired and worn out. Cooper wrote this more than thirty years ago, of course, before those tropes got quite so overused, but even in light of everything that's come since, they have power and resonance more recent imitators lack. This is a series about the great conflict of the Light against the Dark, and the efforts of the Old Ones who serve the Light to gather the great Things of Power that will help them in that battle.
Familiar stuff, and decorated with capital letters, but it still works, probably because Cooper has mastery of her craft. We don't need twisted monsters to serve the Dark; she can generate quite enough ominous atmosphere out of rooks in a rural wood, oncoming storms, the killing cold of winter. And Will, who is the last and youngest of the Old Ones, "somehow" knows what it is he must do -- but the "somehow" isn't a code word for a convenient plot device, the way it is with lesser writers; it's the gradual awakening of his knowledge and skill as an Old One. He has power, but only learns the wisdom of its proper use piecemeal, and so he does not waltz through his story blasting all challenges out of the way. He makes mistakes, and does so believably.
So what in another author's hands would be a paint-by-numbers Plot Coupon story -- Will must gather the Six Great Signs of the Light, before the Dark can stop him -- carries the mythic weight that makes the familiarity of the structure unimportant. Each of the Signs comes to him in a different manner, and the imagery around many of them is beautiful and vivid, as it must be for this kind of story to work. And the threats he faces from the Dark arise from mistakes and betrayals that create real emotional force. Many people will scream heresy, but I'll take Merriman Lyon over Gandalf any day, precisely because of the things he does wrong.
It's lovely work, and I'll be re-reading the rest of the series just as soon as I can find the time. But given the recent debut of that nauseating trailer, I thought it was a good idea to remind people of why the books are worth reading.