cerusee: a white redheaded girl in a classroom sitting by the window chewing on a pencil and looking bored (autumn travels)
Romance:

Beverley, Jo: The Rogue's Return
(Better than Dangerous Joy; not as good as The Secret Wedding).


Mystery:

Stout, Rex: Three for the Chair
(includes "A Window for Death," "Immune to Murder," and "Too Many Detectives").


Graphic novels/comics:

Cooke, Darwyn: Parker: The Hunter (based on Richard Stark's prose novel)
(Umm. Great art. Icky, kinda misogynistic story).

Barnes, Bill, and Gene Ambaum: Reader's Advisory : Unshelved 7
(I bought this at ALA Midwinter, along with a truly fabulous "What Would Dewey Do?" shirt. It's autographed by Bill and Gene! The book, not the shirt, that is.

The forecast: scattered humor).


Manga/Manwha:

Azuma Kiyohiko: Yotsuba vol. 7.

KookHwa Huh, writer, and Sujin Kim, artist, Pig Bride vol. 1.

Urasawa Naoki: 20th Century Boys vol. 6.

Yazawa Ai, Nana vol. 20
(Aaaand there's that spoiler omg).

Yoshinaga Fumi, All My Darling Daughters.

Yoshinaga Fumi, Ooku vol. 2
(sob. ...sorry, I can't help it. For some reasons, the stories in this series make me want to cry my eyes out and keep me from sleeping at night. Frickin' Yoshinaga).
cerusee: a white redheaded girl in a classroom sitting by the window chewing on a pencil and looking bored (woman with hamster)
Novels/prose books:

Heyer, Georgette: Envious Casca, The Unfinished Clue
(Heyer's Handy Tips!, aka, Things I Have Learned from Georgette Heyer's Mystery Novels:
--Never throw a house party if you're a mean old bastard; you're sure to be murdered within a hundred pages.
--But! If you're an attractive, clever, forthright, and self-possessed single woman, the police investigations following these inevitable murders are a great place to pick up a worthwhile spouse).


Graphic novels:

Ware, Chris: Jimmy Corrigan, or, The Smartest Kid on Earth.

Appollo, writer, and Lewis Trondheim, writer and artist: Bourbon Island 1730.


Cooke, Darwyn, et al: Will Eisner's The Spirit vol. 2
(No, I'm not planning to see the Miller film adaptation. Yes, Kyle Baker was very funny on that subject. No, it didn't change my mind about Frank Miller being a poor match for the material.

Recent movie adaptations of comic books I haven't seen and have no interest in: The Spirit, The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Hellboy 2, The Hulk.

Forthcoming movie adaptations of graphic novels/comics I will have no interest in when they come out: Astro Boy, Captain America, The Avengers, Watchmen, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Thor, any further entries in the Superman, Spider-Man and Batman franchises, any adaptation that falls short of the standard set by, say, Persepolis.

The best film adaptations of comic books tend to be no better than okay, and the worst are painful or outright insulting. I'm done with them, and I'm at peace with that).



Manga:

Ninomiya Tomoko: Nodame Cantabile vols. 13-14
(speaking of adaptations, I curse Hollywood's evil and unscrupulous money-grubbing use of DRM to create and enforce regional coding, which makes it impractical for me to import DVDs of the brilliant, hilarious live-action adaptations of this comic, even though no one in North America has any financial investment in or motivation to distribute it in this market, and this rarity, a truly worthy adaptation, is thus almost totally inaccessible to me in any legally sanctioned format. Stupid fuckers).
cerusee: a white redheaded girl in a classroom sitting by the window chewing on a pencil and looking bored (Default)
Novels/prose books:

Gillespie, Tarleton: Wired Shut: copyright and the shape of digital culture
(I read this for a paper, but it's worth reading for its own sake: this is the most insightful book about DRM, aka Digital Rights Management, that I've ever read, and I've read a few. Gillespie's a scholar of communications, which means the whole model is right up my alley, but I think it's quite readable even if you didn't major in communications).


Graphic novels/comics:

Bechdel, Alison: The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
(the fantastic review in the NYT that prompted me to go out and buy this the very day I read it, described this as "Doonesbury with more references to sex toys." I think that this is not inaccurate. I'm at a loss as how to expand on that review, so I'll settle for endorsing this as an excellent trade for $25. Every single time I read something--anything--by Bechdel, I'm ever more impressed with her as a creator).

Cooke, Darwyn: The Spirit, vol. 1
(Cooke is one of the only comics creators around right now who evidently gets it. Cooke's distinctive retro style--in both tone and art--is the perfect match for Eisner's creation, without being any kind of aping of Eisner.).

Simmonds, Posy: Tamara Drewe
(this has a lot in common with Gemma Bovary, and that's not a complaint. I love Simmonds' books; they're beautifully written, and she really makes that prose/illustration/comics panels mix work. It's so smooth that it never even occurs to me how easily it could go awry).

Towle, Ben: Midnight Sun
(unspectacular, but a good read).


Manga:

Hayashi Seiichi: Red-Colored Elegy
(Dammit, I was all set to lift my eyebrows at this being considered a classic work of its era, but somewhere after page 85 or so, it got to me. Semi-coherent, yes, dated, yes, but oh my god, those double-page spreads stunned me, and I had to stop and stare at them. I didn't entirely connect with it, but I want prints of those pages on my wall anyway.).

Mizushiro Setona: After School Nightmare vols. 5-7
(captivating, as usual. The gorgeous art, the weird atmosphere, the premise, which feels strange and unsettling even for manga--yes, manga, the holy source of pure cracktastic oddity--the touching moments of human connection).

Takahashi Rumiko: One Pound Gospel vols. 3-4
(this must be the most concise romance Takahashi's ever written. There's nothing particularly about the formula that begs a quick resolution--she could easily have stretched this out for another eight or twelve volumes, and it would have been no worse the wear for it than my beloved Maison Ikkoku--so I'm guessing that it just got canceled. I would have been happy to read more, but this is fine, too; it doesn't come across as unduly rushed).

Tezuka Osamu: Black Jack vol. 1
(Christ, this is awesome. I knew it would be, because Shaenon Garrity said so, and she's always right about this kind of thing.).

September 2012

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