April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Novels/prose books:

Mann, Thomas: The Oxford Guide to Library Research
(not the novelist, the Library of Congress reference librarian and former private detective. He's a cranky sort, and I love him for it. This is basically a reference work, and much of text is devoted to enumerating many of the valuable and important resources still not available in digital formats, or only available through paid subscription databases--or, Why The Internet Has NOT Replaced Libraries, and Why Google Print Won't Either. Enough money and interest could make a lot of the non-digital stuff available digitally, but he's dead right about how keyword searching and ranking algorithms are no replacement for subject classification, subject headings, and value-added descriptors. A nice supplement, yes, but not a replacement for the expensive mental labor of catalogers.

I wish he was less blase about the copyright bit--he's pretty dismissive about the idea that authorship could function without strict copyright control, since we're greedy sots who want our money. That's arguably just realism, but it follows on the heels of a long discussion of the value of Government Documents, and, hello, LIBRARIES, which would be violating fucking copyright out the wazoo if not for the grace of First Sale Doctrine. Never mind that libraries predate copyright. But all that is an argument for another post).


Stout, Rex: Plot it Yourself and Murder by the Book
(Speaking of libraries, these are from my school library's pet "Bibliomystery" collection--a collection of mystery novels prominently featuring books or libraries. They're my first Nero Wolfe mysteries, and I dug them muchly, although they're definitely more along the lines of Agatha Christie, "read once, then toss," rather than Tey or Sayers, where you would keep and reread the books for their brilliant writing and characterization, not just for the mystery).


Wittlinger, Ellen: Hard Love
(A Printz-winning YA novel a friend pressed on me, about zines, first love, and a Boston-area teenage boy who falls in love with his lesbian friend. I was surprised at how engaged I was by this book--it's been a long time since I read a YA book with the power to grab my emotions this way. Recommended if you like good YA, zines, books featuring well-written gay people, or Boston. Me, I fucking love Boston, and everything else was a nice extra).



Graphic novels:

Geary, Rick: The Murder of Lincoln
(how does Geary create an atmosphere of suspense about one of the best-documented murders in American history? Incredible. It's like watching 1776, where historical knowledge does not diminish the power of the storytelling, or reduce the emotional impact--in contrast, the weight of history increases it many times over. I read with a lump in my throat that never went away).

Ka, Oliver, writer, and Alfred, artist: Why I Killed Peter
(I had a feeling disturbingly early on where this was going, but it didn't diminish the impact as it unfolded. This is Ka's autobiographical account of having been molested as a child by the titular Peter, a priest and beloved family friend. It includes Ka's blissful childhood up to that point, and, briefly, his subsequent, troubled teen and adult years. It gets pretty meta at the end, with an account of the adult Ka telling his friend and creative collaborator Alfred about the experience, and the two of them planning the book and visiting Peter. The whole thing was powerful and unsettling, but I can't tell you how much the last part got to me--it didn't feel gimmicky in the slightest, but instead very brave and honest and sad. Some of the last sequence appears in photos of Ka and Alfred, and there's always something about that technique, and the way it strips the sense of fiction away from the cartoon images of real people that really digs into the gut.

NBM ComicsLit).


Straczynski, J. Michael, writer, and Gary Frank, pencils: J. Michael Straczynski's Midnight Nation
(a friend lent this to me, hoping to amend my very negative impression of Straczynski as a writer based on the clusterfuck that was his run on Spider-Man, back when I still gave a crap about superhero comics.

It didn't work. It's so laughably silly and bad. Straczynzki's ponderous explanation of the conceit as having sprung from certain deeply dramatic events in his youth washed out any potential dignity the thing could have had for me--I know he didn't mean it that way, but god, it read as so very silly and flailing a connection--and the horrible, stiff, inappropriately oversexed, unimaginative art killed the rest. I know I liked Frank's pencils on Supergirl, but for whatever reason--because this is not a cape book, and I expect decent anatomy and clothing from non-cape books, or maybe because the inker and colorists failed or something, I don't know--his work is just hideous and lame here. I un-recommend this book).



Manga:

Yazawa Ai: Nana, vol. 14
(GOD.

I've really come to love Hachi, who's gradually growing into a much more mature, centered person than one would have initially anticipated. I wish we saw more of her. But I might have to take back everything I said about only caring about other characters as they pertain to the Nanas--I found myself with my heart in my throat for all the major characters, this time around.

And, oh, Nana O).

Graphic novels:

Talbot, Brian: The Tale of One Bad Rat.


Hernandez, Gilbert: Luba: Three Daughters
(I was initially freaked out by the big boobs, but eventually I realized that it was a deliberate choice of character designs, and the boob size is thematically meaningful. Stop laughing at me, you fucker, it is!

I've put off reading any of the Hernandez brothers' work because I knew it was going to be like jumping into the deep end of a pool: you shouldn't do it unless you're prepared to swim. Like swimming in the deep end, though, it's a lot of fun if you're ready. I look forward to more).


Richardson, Mike, and Rick Geary, authors, Rick Geary, artist: Cravan: Mystery Man of the the Twentieth Century
(Rick Geary work is fun even when there are no horrible murders!).

Eisner, Will: The Name of the Game.

Van Lente, Fred, author, Ryan Dunlavery, artist: Action Philosophers vol. 3
(I've nothing at all against popularizations of complicated subjects, but some of these feel uncomfortably pat. Maybe I just don't entirely agree with some of the characterizations of the persons under discussion).


Manga:

Otomo Katsuhiro: Akira vol. 2.

Novels/prose books:

Klein, Naomi: The Shock Doctrine
(when my dad recommended this to me, he said, "I'm sure you don't have much time for reading these days." Honesty compelled me to reply, "I have nothing BUT time for reading these days."

This book chillingly and persuasively draws the lines between the dots of torture, mental and economic shock, and the radical end of the ideology of the totally unregulated free market. I wouldn't have drawn the line myself, but when I see it, I believe it. Generally, I have no interest in bringing politics into this blog, but I will say this: I have no use for social liberalism if it's coupled with economic conservatism, or: it means nothing to blandly smile on people's right to be gay and alive and not jailed, be anything other than white, and alive and not jailed, or to be a woman, and alive and not jailedl, if you don't also believe in the rights of human beings to be able to have food, shelter, and employment. Economics are politics. Wealth and poverty are political. I've noticed that there is a remarkable consistency on this: it's not considered impolite to talk about money unless you have it when other people don't.

The Dispossessed is still radical when The Left Hand of Darkness has come within hailing distance of the norm. That means a great deal).


Graphic novels:

Geary, Rick: A Treasury of Victorian Murder: The Case of Madeleine Smith
(This reminded me rather of Strong Poison. I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility that Sayers could have been referencing it, although considering how many people must have been murdered with poison over the course of history, and how many of those cases might have been reported and covered in newspapers, there's no particular reason to think that she would have been referencing this one.

This is a less mysterious sort of mystery than most of the books in the Treasury, since it's clearly rather unlikely that Smith didn't murder her lover, but very interesting anyway, as Smith went on to become part of the social sphere of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood).


Van Meter, Jen, author, Christie Norrie and Ross Campbell, artists: Hopeless Savages vol. 3.


Manga:

Oda Eiichiro: One Piece vols. 1-2
(I can see the appeal, but I really don't love it).

Graphic novels:

Rolston, Steve: One Bad Day
(note: this is Oni Press; as was Past Lies. I've noticed their logo on a lot of titles I've never heard of, and I'm attempting to read through as much of their catalog as I can borrow from libraries; I am interested in their niche and have theories.

It's not a terribly ambitious story, and almost jarring in how it just stops, but it's pretty well told otherwise, with the art supporting the story. I kind of like the cigarette subplot).

Geary, Rick: J. Edgar Hoover
(Man, Geary's good at this graphic biography/graphic NF stuff. He makes it so very readable. Great art, great sense of pacing. I would read his artistic adaptation of his grocery list, if he drew one; I'm sure it would end up being an insightful portrait of his home and his inner life).

Murphy, Sean: Off Road
(another Oni Press. This book is probably not more than a hundred pages, but I gave up after ten. The art is excellent--cartoony, expressive, dynamic and sharp--but the story revolves around testosterone-drenched twenty-something guys Having An Adventure with their Badass Jeep. Worse, the story kicks off with the artist protagonist getting dumped by his girlfriend because she's dissatisfied with their relationship. He calls her a whore. Shortly thereafter, she "returns" a pair of boxers to him with another man's name written on the label, which is possibly what the author had in mind when our hero called his girlfriend a whore for dumping him, but since that's not the actual sequence, it makes me just think that she broke up with him and revealed/pretended she'd been cheating on him because he's the kind of self-satisfied asshole who tells women they're whores when they do things he doesn't like. I have twenty-nine books out from three different libraries right now, and I think I could be making better use of my time).