Was Too Busy Reading Books Lately to Write About Them

A Burglar’s Guide to the City by Geoff Manaugh: Describes burglars and their relationship to architecture and cities and those who try to foil them (cops, safe makers, architects, etc). I especially liked the chapter in which the author met with members of various lock picking societies. A quick and enlightening read chockablock full of fantastic detail.

Midnight at the Well of Souls by Jack L. Chalker: They just don’t write science fiction like this anymore (or I’m looking in the wrong places). There’s almost too much creativity crammed into this book about an alien world divided into hexagons, each one of which has a completely different environment and set of alien creatures. I suppose that’s why Chalker wrote several more books. I enjoyed this crazy romp through this bizarro alien world and will probably read one or two more of these.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: A book that’s probably a lot more interesting than it sounds. The story of the interpersonal dynamic among a crew of alien races on a long distance space journey. The characters are charming, the alien races are unique and strange, and (in what was something of a relief, I realized) the characters solve their problems without the use of violence. This is one of those science fiction books that you could easily hand to both fans of science fiction and not and still find a receptive audience. I intend to read the sequels.

Neverworld Wake by Misha Pessl: I really enjoyed her first book a lot (Special Topics in Calamity Physics) and was delighted when I realized that she had written a couple new books. This is a YA novel with a time travel/Groundhog Day motif. I liked it a lot and I did not see the twist coming (to be fair, I usually don’t). A quick, enjoyable read (what I’m usually looking for when I pick up a YA novel).

The Doll’s Alphabet by Camilla Grudova: Do you like sewing machines? Because there are a lot of them in this book of short stories. These stories have a real Grimm’s fairy tale sort of vibe to them with an often pretty harsh (but fair) take on contemporary gender relationships. Bordering on the grotesque, Grudova has a real unique voice. I’ll be looking for more of her writing in the future.

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin: If you like Le Guin’s other Earthsea books, you’d be missing out if you didn’t read this collection of Earthsea stories. Fills in some gaps in the novels in real interesting ways.

The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin: The final Earthsea novel doesn’t disappoint. I think this was the only one (apart from the stories) that I hadn’t read before. Heartbreaking at times, this quiet novel was so deeply satisfying as a conclusion to the Earthsea story. Le Guin writes about the nature of power and the role of gender like no one else. I’m glad I read it when I did, because I think I would have got much less of it if I’d read it at a younger age.

Hellboy (Library Edition, v4): The Crooked Man and the Troll Witch by Mike Mignola: I liked the Troll Witch part of this one best, because Mignola’s still doing the art. The rest of it is fine, but Hellboy definitely loses something without Mignola doing the art. Funny thing about the Hellboy comics, I have a very hard time remembering details of the stories, even as the art remains vivid in my mind.

Battle Angel Alita (Deluxe Edition 2) by Yukito Kishiro: I still like this comic, but I don’t remember being as bothered by the grotesquerie of it when I read these the first time about 10 years ago.

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman: If you’re feeling real down about where the world is at, this history of 14th century Europe could be useful cure. It probably really was one of the worst times to be alive. Plague and violence and famine and daft kings were all the rage. Also, they wore really stupid looking shoes. There are incredible, just flabbergasting details in this book.

The Wicked & the Divine: Mothering Invention by Kieron Gillen: Really effective use of wordless panels, repeating almost identical actions over thousands of years really drive the point home about how much of a drag it would be to be immortal (or to experience reincarnation with the full memory of all that had happened before). I like this comic, but all the characters are such tools, I have a hard time loving it. (But then they are all gods/rock stars, so it kind of makes sense.) The art’s fantastic.

Rosewater by Tade Thompson: Science fiction novels about psi powers were all the rage in the 70s and 80s. I haven’t seen any for a while, but this book reminded me of them. Set in a town in Nigeria that’s been infested/visited by some alien thing, this novel’s brimming with ideas. In a fitting touch, the United States has completely cut off all ties and communication with the rest of the world, so much so that no one knows anything about what’s happening there, except for strange rumors from the occasional refugee. The story’s told non-chronologically, which works pretty well in this case.

Empty Set by Verónica Gerber Bicecci: This novel uses Venn (and other) diagrams to show the status of characters’ relationships. I never suspected that a couple circles could be so moving, but it turns out that with the right context, they can be. I picked this one up on a lark at the library and I’m glad I did.

John Dee and the Empire of Angels: Enochian Magicking and the Occult Roots of the Modern World by Jason Louv: Fascinating and weird. You don’t need to believe in magic to get a lot out of this book, because it’s clear that many of the people who rule the world do. It’s a weird (wyrd?), oblique take on how and why the world is where it’s at today. Sometimes I find it useful to get a curveball perspective on things.

Restart by Gordon Korman: My kid recommended this one to me, so I read it. The protagonist bonks his head and gets amnesia. Upon returning to school, he slowly learns that he was the school bully terrorizing almost everyone. It’s a kid’s book, but it’s exploring real interesting ideas around memory and identity. Who are we? The memories that we have about ourselves or the memories that other people have about us? Pretty heady stuff disguised as a pretty goofy a kid’s book.

The Dark Side of Innocence: Growing Up Bipolar by Terry Cheney: Pretty intense stuff. I’m still thinking about this one.

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash: It’s about a wrestler who really wants to win at wrestling. I mean REALLY. Another book that suffers from a plot description, because it’s really all about the execution. I like how this guy uses his words.

Fallen Words by Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Charming fables set in medieval Japan. Light and funny.

Black Hammer (v1): Secret Origins by Jeff Lemire: Another round of alternate DC/Marvel heroes complete with decades worth of fictional comics continuity to draw from. These heroes have been forced to retire a farm that seems to be a pocket dimension they can’t escape from and their interpersonal relationships sure do suffer as a result! I’m interested to see where Lemire takes it.

A Hundred Thousand Worlds by Bob Proehl: Speaking of fictional comics continuity, Proehl created an entire fictional comic book industry (complete with characters) to provide the backdrop for this story about this mother and her kid traveling across the country doing comic book conventions. The professional cosplayers form a sort of Greek chorus. The mother’s relationship and concern for her kid I found pretty touching.

The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell: Four barely interconnected short stories set in a world of environmental catastrophe caused by unbridled use of magic. Dark and grim. I wanted the stories to be more interconnected than they were.

Rock Manning Goes for Broke by Charlie Jane Anders: A short (basically novella-length) post-apocalyptic story about a guy who survives for a while by being unconcerned with what happens to his body a la Youtube-style antics. The characters just sort of keep trying to live their lives as the world goes farther and farther down the tubes. Reminded me quite a bit of A Distant Mirror in that way.

Harrow County (Library Edition v1) by Cullen Bunn: She’s a witch! And the whole town’s not what it seems. I sure wasn’t expecting the curveball this book threw. The art’s exactly what this story needs. I’ll check out future collections.

Vita Nostra by Sergey and Marina Dyachenko: What if Hogwarts totally sucked and studying magic was a real drag? That’s basically the premise of this novel. I’m being super reductionist here and maybe unfairly so. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed this book, but I did find it compelling.

The Wild Storm: Michael Cray (v1) by Bryan Hill: I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I feel like it was kind of a rehash of stuff I’ve seen before. Michael Cray fights evil versions of classic DC heroes (Green Arrow, Aquaman, etc).

Battle Angel Alita (Deluxe Edition 3) by Yukito Kishiro: This is where Battle Angel Alita really starts to get weird. This is also where I started enjoying it a lot more when I read it the first time. The same is true this second time.

Some Books What I Read Recently

Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell: The story of one woman’s life. Shows, in harrowing detail, the emptiness and soul-crushing boredom at the heart of the “American dream”. Funny and deeply sad. 

Milk Wars: A crossover comic with DC’s biggest characters and Young Animal’s. Almost worth it just for the Milkman Man gag. Deeply surreal and weird. Riffing on stuff that Alan Moore and Grant Morrison have been doing for decades. It’s great to see someone finally pick up those toys and play with them. 

Shaolin Cowboy: Who’ll Stop the Reign? by Geof Darrow: Astoundingly intricate and ultraviolent martial arts comic. No one does comic action like Darrow does. The mind-controlling crab is pretty great as a villain.

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames: The sequel to Kings of the Wyld, which I liked a lot. These two are probably the best D&Desque novels I’ve ever read, for sheer enjoyment value. The band names are pure delight.

The Farthest Shore by Ursula Le Guin: I thought this was my favorite Earthsea book until I (possibly?) re-read Tehanu shortly after. Reading these books again has been an experience in realizing how little I understood when I read them the first time. Maybe when I read them again in 20 years, I’ll realize how little I understand now. They’re those kinds of books. There’s something about these books that tries to get at what it means to be a man. What it means to be a good man.

Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin: The strangest thing to me is that I think I read this book when I was a kid, but I have almost no memory of having read it. I think I read it, but it was so outside of my frame of reference that I just didn’t get it. I didn’t get it so much, that I remembered almost nothing from it. It’s really, really good. I haven’t read them all yet, but I think this ranks up there as one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Hellboy (Library Edition v2): The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and others by Mike Mignola: Re-reading these Hellboy comics in a larger size really pays off. The art is so great. I can only think of one or two other comic artists whose styles have stuck with me so much. The story is a lot of fun too. 

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh: How is it possible to be a good person? I almost read this book in a single sitting. I found it deeply compelling. Nothing much happens in it, except that a young woman tries to figure out what’s important in life. Moshfegh can write. I didn’t like this as much as her book of short stories, Homesick for Another World, which I can recommend unreservedly. In her writing, I think Moshfegh is really trying to get at how pernicious and destructive the lack of meaning in modern American life is.

Mechanical Failure by Joe Zieja: A goofy military SF story. Good for a quick light-hearted read. I’ll probably read the sequel.

Beren and Lúthien by JRR Tolkien: I didn’t realize how much I missed reading Tolkien’s writing until I read this one again. Worth it just for Tevildo, Prince of Cats.

The 37th Parallel: The Secret Truth Behind America’s UFO Highway by Ben Mezrich: My book club wanted to read it. There’s something super weird about those cattle mutilations, y’all.

Some More Books I Read Recently

Songy of Paradise by Gary Panter: A comic (and comic) retelling of the Temptation of Christ. “Seems to me like you are trying to sign me up for some macho trip.” The devil’s hapless temptations fail utterly in the face of Songy’s simpleminded skepticism and muleheadedness. I’m sure many of the Christian persuasion would find this blasphemous, but this adaptation (or parody) reveals some kind of truth in this biblical story that always just seemed weird. By doubling (quadrupling?) down on the weirdness, Songy gets at something real. The arts grotesque and pretty fantastic. Dig those dragons.

Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin: Like Nabokov’s Bend Sinister, really captures the terror inherent in being a parent. Also, the futility of parental worry in the face of the World. Bleak and post-apocalyptic and spare. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it exactly, but it captures something valuable, I think, some sense of loss and despair and confusion that’s easier for me to read about than to feel myself.

Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman: I would have loved this book if I’d read it as a kid. I still enjoyed it as an adult. I ended up reading it because my kid checked it out from the library and I was curious. Full of puzzles and ciphers and mysteries and a love of books. I recommended it to my kid. We’ll see if he reads it.

You & a Bike & a Road by Eleanor Davis: An autobiographical comic about a woman’s bike trip from Texas to Georgia (am I remembering that right?). Almost a meditation on the value of solitude and of setting goals for oneself. It’s a brave and personal book and it made me (slightly) want to get on a bike and go someplace.

Providence: Act 1 by Alan Moore: I think the Lovecraft thing is mostly played out at this point, but this comic manages to evoke a kind of slow-burning dread that pays off in a fairly unexpected crayon drawing. The writing is, unsurprisingly, exceptional and the art is tops. I found the hand-written text pretty painful to read and mostly skimmed through it. Like other works by Moore, he delights in creating primary source documents from the period that he’s writing about. If you’re still down with the Lovecraft thing, I’d recommend it. Otherwise….

Some Books I Read Recently

Hollywood Dead by Richard Kadrey: I’ve read 9 or 10 of these Sandman Slim books now. Super enjoyable in the same way that eating popcorn is. Salty and greasy and delicious! If you like supernatural, LA noir stories about a flawed hero making his way in the world and fighting monsters and such, you should check this series out. Pretty sure you could read them in any old order, because I quickly lose track of the plots of these. It doesn’t seem to matter too much. Super quick read. My only curiosity is why these haven’t been optioned for a movie series before now. Seems perfect for that kind of adaptation.

The Wicked & The Divine by Kieron Gillen: A bunch of music superstars actually get turned into gods. They only get to live a couple years, though. The art (by Jamie McKelvie) in this comic is beautiful. It’s pretty tough to feel sympathetic for any of these characters, but then I kind of feel similarly re. real world pop superstars. I have no idea where this comic is going and the latest had a (for me, Mr. “I didn’t see that coming!”) pretty unexpected twist.

Battle Angel Alita (Deluxe Edition v1) by Yukito Kushiro: I picked this one up to re-read because my kid saw the trailer for the movie that’s coming out soon. It’s funny what a decade will do, because I enjoyed this comic a lot more when I read it the first time. If you want to read it, definitely get this deluxe edition. The art is pretty incredible. Hugo’s trenchcoat is still as goofy as I remember.

The Green Hand and Other Stories by Nicole Claveloux: Wild, surreal comics from the 1970s. Claveloux is a French comics artist. Her work is super strange, but in a deeply charming sort of way. 

The Nine by Tracy Townsend: I had this book checked out for so long that I couldn’t remember why I’d checked it out in the first place. And then I remembered. The central plot point was inspired by Borges’ book Dictionary of Imaginary Creatures–a fantastic book–and I’ll read anything by a Borges enthusiast. It’s less of a heist story than I was expecting based on what I’d read about it (cover jacket) but I liked it pretty well. I’ll probably read the sequel when it comes out.

The Strange Bird: A Borne Story by Jeff VanderMeer

Not like any bird I’ve ever seen…

It’s not really a sequel or a prequel, but a story sort of told obliquely to the excellent novel Borne. It’s a story about a truly alien creature in a strange and ruined (at least from a human perspective) world.

Short and heart-breaking, it provides an insight or another way of thinking about Borne, even though I think it could stand along on its own merits. Ultimately, a meditation on the cruelties human beings inflict on non-humans, simply by being unable to imagine the value of non-human perspective. It’s not a nice book, but it did get me thinking about the value of compassion toward all of the wondrous variety of living things in our world, not because of what they can do for us, but simply because they’re alive.

I’ll read pretty much anything that VanderMeer writes, I think because he really gets at a certain weirdness and emotional intensity that I really dig. I think this short book stands as one of his strongest works.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris

The art is just stunning.

Wow. 

If you liked Harriet the Spy, you’d probably like this one. But it’s no kids book, even though it’s about a kid.

The comic is laid out like it’s drawn on a notebook of lined paper, complete with binder holes drawn in. The art is wildly varied, sometimes intricately detailed and sometimes dashed off in quick scribbles. Like a kid might draw. It’s a powerful artistic technique for telling a story that might otherwise feel a little worn.

It’s the kind of comic book that non-comics readers would probably go for (and comics readers too). Just amazing stuff. The kind of thing where I don’t really know how someone could make it. I can’t visualize the process that went into making this book. I can’t say enough good things about it.

An amazing work of art.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin

This is the cover of the edition I read when I was a kid. It’s strange, because it’s depicting what’s written on the very last page of the book.

When I first tried to read The Tombs of Atuan I bounced off it hard. I was something of a completionist reader at the time and it took a lot for me to stop reading a book. But I stopped reading this one. I only picked it up again a couple of years later and I don’t really remember liking it much. It was too slow and quiet. Not enough wizards and dragons. Very little magic.

Re-reading it as an adult, I was taken by its rich emotional subtlety. Subtlety that, I think, was completely lost on me as a child. There’s a tenderness and a kindness that Ged shows towards Arha that is probably more magical than anything he does in the previous book. There’s something really powerful in the way that Le Guin depicts this growing relationship between a man and a woman, each trapped in their own particular way. 

As a child, I read A Wizard of Earthsea, and I could relate to the raw emotional displays of jealousy and anger and pride. Even though those things cost Ged quite a bit, they also led him to the kind of adventure that I craved, full of magic and wonder and mystery. The kind of adventures that wizards have.

It’s only now that I realize the wizardry of wisdom and kindness and how powerfully Le Guin shows them here. She snuck some powerful stuff into this “children’s book”. I’m probably a better person for having read it as a child, even though I think I missed most of what was going on.

I’m happy I read it again as an adult.

Demian by Hermann Hesse

I took me a while to figure out that’s an egg and not just a decorative thingy.

I think I liked Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund more. (I’ve been meaning to read The Glass Bead Game for years. I read this on the recommendation of a coworker.

I think if I’d read this as a teenager it would’ve blown my mind. It captures a kind of anxious thinking that beset me as a child. I thought the first 2/3s of the book were exceptionally strong, but the magical mysticism of the last 1/3 sort of left me a little cold, even though that’s probably what would’ve entranced me the most had I read it 20-25 years ago. It’s a young man’s book, I feel. 

Some Trick: Thirteen Stories by Helen DeWitt

There are thirteen of them, all right! 

There’s a precision and specificity to Helen DeWitt’s writing that I find utterly charming and disarming. If you like getting your toes wet before jumping in the deep end with a novel, these stories are an excellent intro to her writing.

Many of the stories seem to focus on the difficulty of dealing with the world when you care about things that most people don’t care about that much. Like precision in language or hearing foreign language books read by native speakers who also need to have an aesthetically appropriate name. (“Entourage” is a pretty searing indictment of billionaires.)

“My Heart Belongs to Bertie”, “Brutto”, “Improvisation is the Heart of Music” were three that I especially liked.


Some Books I Read Recently

(It’s a smorgasbord! Sometimes I think, I haven’t been reading that much, and then I go back over my list of recently read books…)

The Wild Storm v1 & 2 by Warren Ellis: Back in the Noughties, I read pretty much all of Warren Ellis’ comics. He’s really tops when writing team books (see also: Planetary, Nextwave, Injection, and others) and this series sees a return to form. Deeply mysterious, witty banter, and the art’s gorgeous. I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Clean Room v1-3 by Gail Simone: Bright, vibrant colors make the creepiness and horror muchly more so. If you’re prone to nightmares, definitely stay away from this one. 

Real Magic: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, and a Guide to the Secret Power of the Universe by Dean Radin: This book’s got the most succinct and thorough overview of the history of Western occult practices and movements that I’ve ever read. Worth it, just for that. Unlike much occult writing, extremely readable.

All-New Wolverine Vol. 1: The Four Sisters by Tom Taylor: Absolutely injected new life into the whole Wolverine thing which–at this point–is feeling pretty tired. (See also: Old Man Logan.) A nice balance of humor and high stakes.

The Mighty Thor Vol. 5: The Death of the Mighty Thor by Jason Aaron: I’ll read pretty much anything Jason Aaron does at this point. Brings the Jane Foster/Thor story to an excellent conclusion. I look forward to seeing what he does next.

Lady Killer by Jamie S. Rich and Joelle Jones: A showcase of Joelle Jones’ excellent artwork. I don’t have much stomach for gore these days or I might’ve enjoyed it more. ’50s housewife is secretly an assassin. Very Mad Men-y. She’s doing a new Catwoman series. Could be good! Regardless, the art will be great.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith: Read this one for my book club. I’ve been seeing this book displayed prominently in bookstores for what feels like years and years. It had a definitively mixed reception from my book club, but I quite liked it. “Hysterical realism” is a phrase I ran across on the internet related to this book and I think it’s extremely on the nose. I wasn’t sure about this book until about the mid-point, but then it really gets cranking and I was very much onboard at that point, thoroughly enjoying the ride. Some useful insight about the immigrant experience, I’m thinking. At the sentence level, the writing is swooping and fantastically exuberant.

Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente: Perhaps the most worthy successor to Douglas Adams, re funny science fiction. Boundlessly creative, it really is almost too much at times. It’s hard to imagine one brain coming up with all this stuff. But then one only has to read her other books to realize this isn’t just a one-off kind of thing. Me, I just imagine painstaking and painful wordsmithing. Still, a joy to read if you love to see words bouncing around all over the place. Eurovision in Space! Brilliant!

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins: A book about magical “librarians”. (Apart from getting their magical powers from books, I didn’t find them very librarian-y. A minor quibble.) I kind of had to read it. Sometimes you want to just eat some popcorn, you know? Gonzo, bonkers, magical weirdness. I dug it.

Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle: (I liked Universal Harvester more.) (Yes, it’s that John Darnielle. Of Mountain Goats fame.) Captures, in a way that’s harrowing, that dangerous time of life from about 15-22 years old. The protagonist has an adventure-game-by-mail business that’s quite alluring, although I wanted it to be more fantastical. The image of the “wolf in white van” definitely sticks. This book has the kind of eye for detail that makes me think “boy, I really haven’t been paying attention to the world around me…”

Equinoxes by Cyril Pedrosa: It’s the details that stuck with me, even as the “plot” of the thing eludes me. The small ways that people are decent (or indecent) to one another. The weight of history. The ways in which people relate to art, photography and painting. The small moments that heap together to make a life. It’s a beautiful book.

My Pretty Vampire by Katie Skelly: A silly comic about a vampire. Kinda sexy, in a campy vampire sort of way. Reminded me a bit of Mac Wellman’s Dracula play.

If Found…Please Return to Elise Gravel by Elise Gravel: One of the most charming and delightful books I’ve seen all year. On its face, just a bunch of doodles. But so endearing and heartwarming.

Hellboy (Library Edition, Volume 1): Seed of Destruction and Wake the Devil by Mike Mignola: When the Hellboy comic first started coming up, it was a recurring topic of conversation among my friends and I. (We were so excited for that movie!) I wanted to see if 1) my kid would like it, and 2) if I’d still like it. No to 1 and yes to 2. The art is so great. Worth picking up, for sure, if you’ve never read it.