bookblogging: why I don't blog books

[cerusee]

This everything I can remember reading since...oh, March or maybe a little before? Probably no earlier than February. I jogged my memory by looking at my bookshelves; if it was from a library, or elsewhere borrowed, I may have forgotten about it. I borrow more novels/prose/nonfiction than I buy, so this list is a little slanted towards comics and graphic novels, which I buy more often, because less of what I want to read is available from the library in a regular and timely fashion.

It's also slanted towards comics and graphic novels because I read a lot more of them.

School-related/academic reading: uncounted multitudes.
Poetry: like you care.

Novels/prose books:

Kipling, Rudyard: Kim (reread), The Jungle Book.

Eddings, David & Leigh: The Belgariad, The Mallorean (rereads).

Stephenson, Neal The Diamond Age, Zodiac.

Can't remember the author: Keturah and Lord Death.

Alexander, Llyod: The Golden Dream of Carlo Chuchio.



Comic strip collections/comic book collections/graphic novels:

Various: The Big Book of Hoaxes.

Eisner, Will: The Spirit Archives vol 1, The Building.

Ishida Tatsuya: Sinfest, Sinfest: Life is My Bitch (all the Sinfest is technically a reread, since I read the strip online).

Warren, Adam: Empowered vol. 3 (damn! just...damn. Adam Warren's obscenely talented. I am interested in his ideas, and would like to subscribe to his newsletter).

Buja's Diary.

Geary, Rick: I cannot remember their damn names, but the Jack the Ripper book, and the Lizzie Borden book. Which reminds me,

Graphic Classics: the O Henry, the Lovecraft, and the Stoker.

Moore, Alan and Rick Veitch, Swamp Thing (whatever that first Moore volume is titled).



Manga: (I'm not going to look up authors I can't remember. Sorry; it's too much)

Saijyo Shinji: Iron Wok Jan vols. 2-6 (best goddamn cooking manga ever).

Yeh-Ri Na: 50 Rules for Teenagers vol. 1.

Ikegami Ryoichi: Mai the Psychic Girl vol. 2 (I haven't read volume 1, but it flows pretty well).

Ito Junji: Uzumaki vols. 2-3 (ditto).

Akino Matsuri: Petshop of Horrors Tokyo vol. 1 (reread; I read it in scanlation).

Anno Moyoco: Happy Mania vols 2-8 (GUYS, GUYS, THIS IS THE GOOD CRACK GUYS. It's like Nana if Hachi were even more insane and all the soap opera pathos was replaced by more entertainingly poor life choices).

Ariyoshi Kyoko: Swan vol 2

Endo Hiroki: Tanpenshu vol. 1.

Fujisawa Yuki: Metro Survive vol. 1
(I'm a big sucker for "we're trapped after a major natural disaster and don't know what's going on outside" stories, especially if, like this, they exploit the fascinating possibilities of an urban/human-created environment warped horribly into a forbidding death trap. See also King of Thorn. And seventeen million Hollywood movies, but I like reading comics more than watching movies. Which reminds me, I need to catch up on Dragon Head).

Usumaru Furuya: Short Cuts vol. 1-2
(this is a very loaded kind of work, and I winced a lot. I also laughed. I am also always impressed by a comics artist who can construct a visual pun or joke, or otherwise really exploit the visual aspect of comics, and Short Cuts is rich with that sort of thing).

Higuri You: Cantarella vol 9

Kobayashi Makoto: Club 9 vol .1
(same author as What's Michael?. Kobayashi, maybe? This has fewer cats and more panty-related humor. It's vintage flipped manga by Dark Horse, with one of those translations that tries to convey a particular geographical Japanese dialect by phonetically writing out an American Southern accent. And, I dunno, I loved it and thought it was hilarious. But I think YMMV).

Mizushiro Setona: X-Day vols. 1-2.

Mizuno Junko: Cinderella
(Mizuno. She's...just look at it; it's educational. You'll be educated. Scarred, but educated).

Mori Kaoru: Emma vol. 7.

Nakamura Yoshiki: Skip Beat vol. 11.

Ninomiya Tomoko: Nodame Cantabile vol. 12 (contains smooching! finally!).

Ohtsuka Eiji, story, Yamazaki Hosui, art: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vol. 6.

Takuya Natsuki: Fruits Basket vol. 19.

Tamura Yumi: Wild Com.

Tamaki Chihiro: Walkin' Butterfly vol. 1.

Tanaka Meca: Omukae Desu vol. 3, Pearl Pink vo.l 2
(Kawy, I recognized that "I'm not a breakable doll!" bit you posted from the bonus story! Were I to worship household gods, Tanaka might be one of them. I would burn incense scented with citrus and cloves and pray for understated but sincere emotional support in my career of choice).

Tobe Keiko: With the Light vol. 2.

Tsukaba Sakura: Penguin Revolution vols. 2-4
(how does Tsukaba write characters so goddamn sweet and affecting without making them boring? how? how? I now love this series as much or more than Land of the Blindfolded, and that was my previous canon of shoujo sweet, yes, even more than Fruits Basket, because that has all that unsettling family dysfunction. Tsukaba would be another of my household gods; I would offer her honeyed rose petals and pray for domestic harmony, or at least roommates who wash their dishes in a timely fashion and put the toilet seat down).

Urushibara Yuki: Mushishi vol. 2.

Yagami Yu: Dokkoida vol. 1
(this is the shit. Total alien superhero secret identity sitcom shenanigans crack. However, I will examine volume 2 carefully prior to buying it, because it's possible the harem setup assembled by the end of volume 1 doesn't exist for the sole purpose of being lampooned, and I will not read a harem manga unless it's at least a little deconstructionist).

Aoike Yasuko: From Eroica With Love vol. 3
(someone's got a cruuuuuush! Someone besides me, too).

Yazawa Ai: Nana vol. 9
(BAWL).


And yes, this is typical.

Comments

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Ringu scared the fuck out of me, but I watch horror so little, and am so suggestible to it that it's hard to rank the scare-factor (I did think it was scarier than the American remake, but the Japanese original benefited both from my having seen it first and also just generally being a little more restrained, which usually helps with the scary). In the past few years, my reading has been very skewed towards manga, and I've read a fair number of horror manga that upset me so much I actually had to go lie down for awhile and tuck my feet under the blanket. (Check out Ito's Museum of Terror: Tomie. It's utterly terrifying--also, virulently misogynistic, which is only slightly alleviated by the fact that all the men are pretty loathsome as well, and that's deliberate--and artistically interesting to me as horror that works by being totally weird and over the top and unrelentingly icky. I thought it was much scarier than Uzumaki, and Uzumaki did scare me.) I've also read classic horror manga (a lot of Umezu) that I found at most mildly shocking, although again, sort of artistically interesting, and had fun trying to pinpoint precisely what audience, what age, what mindset would react to this with the proper sense of fear that makes horror successful.