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Book Recs/Comic Recs, 1/5/09
Monday, January 5th, 2009 08:39 pmBooks:
How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier: A very entertaining read, courtesy of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
orichalcum as a Christmas present. Our heroine is a beleaguered teenager in a world where some people are lucky enough to have fairies that bless them to do one particular thing perfectly, or endow them with special powers. All this sounds great (the "never getting in trouble" fairy sounds especially fabulous) if the reality of having one special talent that you're known for weren't so true. Having a parking space fairy would be great except that the heroine 1) has no car, 2) has attracted the attention of the school bully who forces her to get in his car so he'll get the best parking spaces, and 3) always smells faintly of gasoline as a result of having this fairy around, which hasn't helped her dating life any. Her semi-quest to get rid of her fairy, avoid getting detentions at school (which, given the insane number of rules, is a Herculean task at best), and still make the basketball team and get the guy is an engaging story, and this is a book I would gladly hand to any tween reader.
The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things and How to Do Them, by Peter Sagal: This book is all the things I love about NPR. It's earnest (perhaps overly so, given the subject matter), in depth (Sagal speculates that there's some corollary between the number of strippers from the mideast and the winter weather in Michigan), and very intellectual. (I am well aware that these are the qualities that some people despise about NPR, and therefore don't recommend this book to them.) Sagal's theme is that many people are having lots of fun doing things forbidden by polite society (swinging, gambling, consuming conspicuously, etc.) and that these activities bear serious evaluation. So, Sagal, evaluate away! I have to admit I am a pretty ardent fan of his already, given his wonderful hosting of "Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me!" and an essay last year that made my feminist heart go completely atwitter at his discussion of raising two daughters and talking about the movie "Horton Hears a Who" and its political deficiencies. This book doesn't disappoint in terms of intellectual analysis, and applies that analysis in the strangest of situations. I kept imagining Sagal (whose author portrait is entirely mild-mannered) at a strip club, trying to question the dancers about their hometowns amidst the terrible beer and loud music. His account of watching the porn set is equally entertaining for the same reasons. However, beneath all the fish-out-of-water awkwardness, there's a true moral lurking around the edges of the book, never pushy, but thought-provoking and sincere. Well worth reading, especially now that it's in paperback.
Comics:
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 1, by Tom Sidell: I love this webcomic, not only because it updates with awesome regularity (and for a webcomic, that is an achievement in and of itself!), but also because the characters and story are so captivating. Volume 1 captures the early chapters and background of the narrative, and the budding friendship between the heroines Antimony and Kat. Deceptively simple artwork with a grand epic behind it = a rewarding narrative, and collected here without all the annoying pauses between days of the week.
Alan's War: The Memories of G. I. Alan Cope, by Emmanuel Guibert: Emmanuel Guibert reports in the introduction to this beautiful volume that he met Alan Cope randomly on the street one day in France. The two of them fell to talking, and a friendship was born, despite differences in age and nationality. Guibert enjoyed hearing stories of Cope's time in the army during WWII and started drawing comics to go along with the stories. The two of them remained fast friends until Cope's death, and Guibert completed what he could of Cope's story (elements of which Cope always promised to tell him about, but didn't get around to). The finished product is many things: a wonderful graphic novel, a bird's eye view of the wartime experience, and a meditation on war and its effects on the soul. Guibert loves experimenting with negative spaces, black and white; very often, columns of marching soldiers head towards the corner of a white panel, into nothingness, or sheer swathes of black ink. Missed chances to connect with others are often shown in single panels, isolated from other parts of the story, and other people. Throughout the book, Guibert maintains Cope's chatty recollective narration, explaining that he's about to jump ahead in this or that respect, and why that's important. The overall impression is like having a wonderful grandfather with all sorts of fascinating stories, and the actual photos that appear at the end of the book only cement this feeling. If you're at all interested in narrative or history, this is a novel that you can't miss.
Manga:
Nightmare Inspector, Volume 5, by Shin Mashiba: This volume was certainly heavy on the horror stories, but I didn't mind in the slightest. It's in the dream stories that Mashiba's work shines, and there is a lot of shining in this installment, just shining in terms of nightmares. Like the title says. :)
How to Ditch Your Fairy, by Justine Larbalestier: A very entertaining read, courtesy of
orichalcum as a Christmas present. Our heroine is a beleaguered teenager in a world where some people are lucky enough to have fairies that bless them to do one particular thing perfectly, or endow them with special powers. All this sounds great (the "never getting in trouble" fairy sounds especially fabulous) if the reality of having one special talent that you're known for weren't so true. Having a parking space fairy would be great except that the heroine 1) has no car, 2) has attracted the attention of the school bully who forces her to get in his car so he'll get the best parking spaces, and 3) always smells faintly of gasoline as a result of having this fairy around, which hasn't helped her dating life any. Her semi-quest to get rid of her fairy, avoid getting detentions at school (which, given the insane number of rules, is a Herculean task at best), and still make the basketball team and get the guy is an engaging story, and this is a book I would gladly hand to any tween reader.The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things and How to Do Them, by Peter Sagal: This book is all the things I love about NPR. It's earnest (perhaps overly so, given the subject matter), in depth (Sagal speculates that there's some corollary between the number of strippers from the mideast and the winter weather in Michigan), and very intellectual. (I am well aware that these are the qualities that some people despise about NPR, and therefore don't recommend this book to them.) Sagal's theme is that many people are having lots of fun doing things forbidden by polite society (swinging, gambling, consuming conspicuously, etc.) and that these activities bear serious evaluation. So, Sagal, evaluate away! I have to admit I am a pretty ardent fan of his already, given his wonderful hosting of "Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me!" and an essay last year that made my feminist heart go completely atwitter at his discussion of raising two daughters and talking about the movie "Horton Hears a Who" and its political deficiencies. This book doesn't disappoint in terms of intellectual analysis, and applies that analysis in the strangest of situations. I kept imagining Sagal (whose author portrait is entirely mild-mannered) at a strip club, trying to question the dancers about their hometowns amidst the terrible beer and loud music. His account of watching the porn set is equally entertaining for the same reasons. However, beneath all the fish-out-of-water awkwardness, there's a true moral lurking around the edges of the book, never pushy, but thought-provoking and sincere. Well worth reading, especially now that it's in paperback.
Comics:
Gunnerkrigg Court, Volume 1, by Tom Sidell: I love this webcomic, not only because it updates with awesome regularity (and for a webcomic, that is an achievement in and of itself!), but also because the characters and story are so captivating. Volume 1 captures the early chapters and background of the narrative, and the budding friendship between the heroines Antimony and Kat. Deceptively simple artwork with a grand epic behind it = a rewarding narrative, and collected here without all the annoying pauses between days of the week.
Alan's War: The Memories of G. I. Alan Cope, by Emmanuel Guibert: Emmanuel Guibert reports in the introduction to this beautiful volume that he met Alan Cope randomly on the street one day in France. The two of them fell to talking, and a friendship was born, despite differences in age and nationality. Guibert enjoyed hearing stories of Cope's time in the army during WWII and started drawing comics to go along with the stories. The two of them remained fast friends until Cope's death, and Guibert completed what he could of Cope's story (elements of which Cope always promised to tell him about, but didn't get around to). The finished product is many things: a wonderful graphic novel, a bird's eye view of the wartime experience, and a meditation on war and its effects on the soul. Guibert loves experimenting with negative spaces, black and white; very often, columns of marching soldiers head towards the corner of a white panel, into nothingness, or sheer swathes of black ink. Missed chances to connect with others are often shown in single panels, isolated from other parts of the story, and other people. Throughout the book, Guibert maintains Cope's chatty recollective narration, explaining that he's about to jump ahead in this or that respect, and why that's important. The overall impression is like having a wonderful grandfather with all sorts of fascinating stories, and the actual photos that appear at the end of the book only cement this feeling. If you're at all interested in narrative or history, this is a novel that you can't miss.
Manga:
Nightmare Inspector, Volume 5, by Shin Mashiba: This volume was certainly heavy on the horror stories, but I didn't mind in the slightest. It's in the dream stories that Mashiba's work shines, and there is a lot of shining in this installment, just shining in terms of nightmares. Like the title says. :)
