October total: 62
Year to date: 341
Fiction
Shadow of the Giant (Ender's Shadow, #4) Card, Orson Scott
Shadows in Flight (Ender's Shadow, #5) Card, Orson Scott
Alvin Journeyman (Tales of Alvin Maker, #4) Card, Orson Scott
Heartfire (Tales of Alvin Maker, #5) Card, Orson Scott
The Crystal City (Tales of Alvin Maker, #6) Card, Orson Scott
The Book of Esther Barton, Emily
The Angelus Guns Gladstone, Max
Nonfiction
Last Night, a Superhero Saved My Life Mignogna, Liesa
How to Be Drawn Hayes, Terrance
A Popular Dictionary of Sikhism Cole, W. Owen
Comics
Wonder Woman, Volume 2: Guts Azzarello, Brian
Wonder Woman, Volume 3: Iron Azzarello, Brian
Wonder Woman, Volume 4: War Azzarello, Brian
Wonder Woman, Volume 5: Flesh Azzarello, Brian
Wonder Woman, Volume 6: Bones Azzarello, Brian
Lumberjanes #21 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #20 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #19 Stevenson, Noelle
Lumberjanes #18 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #26 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #27 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #25 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #22 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #23 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #24 Watters, Shannon
Lumberjanes #28 Watters, Shannon
Giant Days #2 Allison, John
Giant Days #3 Allison, John
Giant Days #4 Allison, John
Giant Days #5 Allison, John
Giant Days #6 Allison, John
Giant Days #7 Allison, John
Giant Days #8 Allison, John
The Only Living Boy #1: Prisoner of the Patchwork Planet Gallaher, David
Lost & Found Tan, Shaun
Bird Cat Dog Nordling, Lee
#1 Freedom! (Miss Annie) Le Gall, Frank
Little Robot Hatke, Ben
The Only Living Boy #2: Beyond Sea and Sky Gallaher, David
Aquaman, Vol. 1: The Trench Johns, Geoff
Avatar: The Last Airbender (The Rift, #1) Yang, Gene Luen
Avatar: The Last Airbender (The Promise, #3) Yang, Gene Luen
Picture Books
This Bridge Will Not Be Gray Eggers, Dave
Matisse's Garden Friedman, Samantha
Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin Byrd, Robert
Draw What You See: The Life and Art of Benny Andrews Haskins, Kathleen Benson
Neville Juster, Norton
The Hello, Goodbye Window Juster, Norton
The Devil You Know Hale, Nathan
New York is English, Chattanooga is Creek Raschka, Chris
Everyone can Learn to Ride a Bicycle Raschka, Chris
Arlene Sardine Raschka, Chris
Hip Hop Dog Raschka, Chris
Like Likes Like Raschka, Chris
Give and Take Raschka, Chris
The Genie in the Jar Giovanni, Nikki
The Other Side Banyai, Istvan
Night Shift Hartland, Jessie
Tell the Truth, B.B. Wolf Sierra, Judy
A Day with Wilbur Robinson Joyce, William
Five Creatures Jenkins, Emily
The Fun Book of Scary Stuff Jenkins, Emily
Quick Takes
Reading the Alvin Maker books touched off a general Orson Scott Card kick for me this month. I really like that man's myth-making. And reading them together let me see interesting parallels-- while their methods are somewhat different, both Alvin and Bean are working to repair the world, and yet any project of creating peace is always tenuous, and hard won progress can be undone.
For comics fans, I highly recommend "Last Night, A Superhero Saved My Life" which includes essays about the many ways comics can change-- and save-- a life. This is in many places a serious collection, with discussions of loneliness, trauma, and depression. But ultimately it is about how shared stories can help us find hope, direction, and community.
I've enjoyed how the Azzarello run on Wonder Woman plays with Greek myth, but I'm disappointed by the weak character development of most secondary characters. This review I found captures a lot of my feelings about the run as a whole. Good parts: It captures Diana's compassion and intelligence well, and does interesting things with the soap-opera of Olympus. Bad: It undercuts the Amazons in some weird ways and surrounds Diana with a lot of men who aren't even well-developed or interesting characters.
"How to be Drawn" is a very interesting collection of poetry, especially in its adoption of technical writing forms such as architectural descriptions, worksheets, legal briefs, police paperwork, interview transcripts, etc. This is poetry for the modern world, and poetry for a black America that struggles against the boxes it is forces into, against the rules it is told it must follow to survive.Poems that especially struck me include "How to be Drawn to Trouble", "Gentle Measures", "Who are the Tribes", "Black Confederate Ghost Story", "The Rose has Teeth" and "Model Prison Model"
"How to be Drawn" is a very interesting collection of poetry, especially in its adoption of technical writing forms such as architectural descriptions, worksheets, legal briefs, police paperwork, interview transcripts, etc. This is poetry for the modern world, and poetry for a black America that struggles against the boxes it is forces into, against the rules it is told it must follow to survive.Poems that especially struck me include "How to be Drawn to Trouble", "Gentle Measures", "Who are the Tribes", "Black Confederate Ghost Story", "The Rose has Teeth" and "Model Prison Model"
"The Book of Esther" is a massive waste of potential. The core concept is brilliant-- an alternate history in which a Jewish state of Khazaria is the heir of the Khazar khaganate, and which after years of accepting Ashkenazi refugees now faces invasion by Hitler's Reich. Yet the execution majorly stumbles, more interested in navel-gazing explorations of the main character's self-doubt and excursions into kabbalistic arcana than in development of the alternate world. There are some interesting developments-- such as the presence of Muslim and animist Uighurs as the business class of the Khazar state-- but there's not much to make this genuinely feel like a story set in the 1940's instead of 2016, and the Nazi's never materialize as a real threat worth caring about, even during the book's climactic battle. Still, I'd love someone else to take a crack at the concept.
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