Every now and then I get a crazy idea. This particular crazy idea arose when, quite by chance, I read three straight short novels in a row at the beginning of February. A light bulb went off over my head: February, shortest month, short novels! Why not see if I can read one short novel a day for the entire month?

I can't say I'm keeping up with the one-a-day goal, but hey, I didn't have this brainwave until about the 10th of the month. I've read nine books so far and expect to finish at least two more today, actual paying work permitting. Maybe I'll be able to catch up. The best part of this is that I'm reading books, old and new, that I might not have picked up for years except for this self-challenge. The only criterion for the books I'm choosing is that they must have fewer than 200 pages; subject matter is irrelevant. In fact, I've roamed the house deliberately looking for books in all categories.

Here are my short reviews of five of the books I've read so far.

Steps Through the Mist by Zoran Zivkovic (Aio Publishing Company, 2007, $23.95). Zivkovic refers to this as a "mosaic novel," a series of short stories that are related to one another with a short short up front that weaves them all together. The initial conceit here is that each of a number of schoolgirls, and their teacher, has had a dream the night before, and one girl knows them all. Each of the succeeding stories is the story of the dream of one of them, each skewed from what one would expect a schoolgirl's (or a schoolteacher's) dream to be. Each story deals with an ability of someone or something to manipulate time and events, whether deliberately or not, whether knowingly or not. The stories are told simply and elegantly, with a sense of mystery pervading the norm in a way that is almost unnoticeable until it suddenly can't be ignored by the characters. Zivkovic has been compared to Borges and Kafka, and the comparison is apt. I do not think this book measures up to, say, Zivkovic's 12 Collections & The Teashop, it is still well worth reading.

Silk by Alessandro Baricco (Vintage International, 2007, $12.95). This lovely little romance, translated from the Italian, is about a Frenchman in the 19th century who travels to Japan to find silkworms. In those days, it was a six-month round trip by train, horseback and ship, and a foreigner had to be smuggled into Japan. The sale of silkworms was illegal in Japan, so -- travel aside -- the trip was fraught with danger. It becomes more so when the Frenchman becomes obsessed with a woman who clearly belongs in some fashion to the rich man who sells him the silkworms, a woman who never speaks to him. And the deeper question of this book is: is it a romance about this mysterious woman, or is it a romance about the wife who faithfully waits in France for those six months while her husband is risking his life for silkworms? The clear, easy language of this book, the repeated sentences and passages, the rhythms of it, tell a moving story that very nearly reduced me to tears.

Book Of Lost Souls Volume 1: Introductions All Around, written by J. Michael Straczynski and drawn by Colleen Doran (Marvel, 2006, $16.99). It's a shame that this graphic novel apparently only consists of this single volume, because it was highly enjoyable. While clearly derivative of both Mike Carey's Lucifer and Neil Gaiman's Sandman, this tale of a 19th century suicide named Jonathan who rescues lost souls is as entertaining as both of those series were. Being a cat lover myself, I was particularly entertained by Jonathan sidekick, Mystery, a large black and white talking cat. (I've always wished my cat could talk.) The stories in this volume deal with several souls who are on the verge of death through their own actions. Jonathan chooses to save them, or not, encouraged or discouraged by an entity who appears to be Satan. The drawing is generally dark and detailed, making the occasional bright pictures shockingly beautiful. I would love to read more about Jonathan and Mystery, if only there were more to read.

Vow of Silence by Robert Laughlin (Trytium Publishing, 2008, $11.95). A first novel by Laughlin, Vow of Silence is the story of a society in which all knowledge is contained within the brains of trained Datists, people who remember in every detail everything they see, hear, taste, feel, smell and learn. The protagonist, Karal Evender, is chosen to become a Datist as a young teen because of his prodigious memory, which is carefully trained over several years. He ultimately learns that his field of endeavor is to be toxicology, and it is only then that he realizes the horror that is to be his life: to know, with absolute detail and the inability to forget, precisely what poisons do to living organisms. This is an imaginative tale of an evolved civilization without a written language. It contains many flaws common to first novels; for instance, the language does not flow as easily as it should, and the development of the characters, aside from the protagonist, is lacking. But the idea carries the day and makes this first effort worth reading. I look forward to what Laughlin comes up with as he gains more experience.

Crossing Midnight Vol. 1: Cut Here, written by Mike Carey and penciled by Jim Fern (DC Comics, 2007, $9.99). This graphic novel, loosely based on Japanese folklore of kami and yokai, tells the tale of a pair of twins, one born before midnight and one born afterwards. The first is under the protection of a kami, a spirit that lives within ordinary objects -- here, sharp objects like knives or anything with a point. Nothing will pierce her skin. But the kami demands her service when she grows older based on a prayer her parents offered when her mother was pregnant, and gives her no choice about whether to obey. Can her twin brother save her? That question is not answered in this first volume, but the premise is beautifully set forth. I do not care for the artwork; I find the faces to be badly drawn and backgrounds to be generally over-simplified. Fortunately, I'm far more interested in the story than the art, and I will definitely seek out the final two volumes of this series.

More on my crazy experiment soon.