Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books I'd Recommend To Someone Who Doesn't Read Graphic Novels

Hosted by: The Broke and the Bookish

1. MAUS: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman- I'm not recommending it because of the acclaim this book garnered, but for the subject matter: the holocaust. After a page or two you simply forget that the characters are mice and cats and pigs, you get pulled in. This was the first truly adult graphic novel I ever read and I've made sure to keep a copy on hand since I turned 13. It's powerful stuff.

2. Abarat by Clive Barker- Incredible. While certainly not graphic novels, the glossy trade paperback versions are so heavily illustrated(with paintings by the author!) that it's basically a test drive of the terrain, a good introductory course without fluency in sequential art required. And what beautiful art, dark and fantastic, perfect for firing the imagination of it's YA audience and beyond.

3. The Sandman: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman- Though I recommend reading the whole series, in order, I have to say that this little story arc got pulled off my shelf so much more than some others. Maybe because it's an easy-to-follow quest, in format. But the mortality meditations are deeper than a comic book has any right to be, the characters layered and nuanced. And Delirium at center stage is a treat. Great for fans of Terry Pratchett and Charles de Lint.

4. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman- Okay, all you Umberto Eco/Mark Z. Danielewski fans, this is where the postmodern shit really hits a high note. It works just fine as a stand-alone book and is so finely plotted that it's difficult to set down. If that tv show Lost had wrapped up their loose ends like this, everyone might've gone away happy.

5. Bone by Jeff Smith- Deceptively sweet. It's like someone snuck The Odyssey into Steamboat Willie. This book touches all those same places as the important bits of philosophy and spirituality and epic poetry, inspiring greatness. This sounds like overhyped bullshit but it's true. Timeless.

6. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi- A great read if for no other reason than to acknowledge and even recognize the human face of all those lumped in the "enemy" category. Marjane's account of growing up in as mangled a place as Iran in the 80's is insanely compelling.

7. Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison- Okay, it might be difficult for a first time graphic novel reader, but McKean's art showcases every strength the medium offers. Plus the writing is, of course, perfect. Thank you, Mister Morrison. Spooky and sad and lyrical.

8. Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh- Not necessarily YA, but will definitely hold their interest. I love Courtney, and Naifeh's art is, like Smith's, beautifully simple. (And if you check those out and love the style, go dig on some Paul Pope!) Quick, easy, and good reading.

9. Domu: A Child's Dream by Katsuhiro Otomo- You know why we got that influx of creepy Asian kids choking on hair in our movies? Because Japan knows how to get it's horror on. And this tale does The Shining psychic kid thing a solid: it does it better.

10. Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman- I really hate playing favorites. I love this book so very very much, love the old idea treated this way, love Death's enthusiasm for life, however brief. Because even the tiniest snippet is worth the price.

Review: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

Hansel & Gretel & Gators

From Amazon's description:

A New York Times Best Book of the Year
One of Granta's Best Young American Novelists
Selected for the New Yorker's 20 Under 40
Nominated for the Orange Prize 


Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her family’s island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Ava’s mother, the park’s indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness. As Ava sets out on a mission through the magical swamps to save them all, we are drawn into a lush and bravely imagined debut that takes us to the shimmering edge of reality.

     Oh. My. God. I just finished this book at about 3 in the morning last night and my head is still swimming in this other, richer, stranger world. This is what a fairy tale is at it's core, something dark and lonely and true and still somehow hopeful.  If the brothers Grimm had their MFA in Creative Writing and lived in Florida's wetlands, this is what they'd be churning out. I really want to read the author's book of short stories now, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. I have the feeling she could usurp someone on my fave authors list if she keeps up the craft.
     I have nothing bad to say about this novel: it sucked me in and ruined the reading experience I was trying to have with the nonfiction books i was attempting to juggle. Which is quite a feat. I find most books mutable, easy to put down and start back up when I'm free. Swamplandia! kept calling me. It's the difference between normal canned soups and the thick and hearty varieties, only for books. The writing is, Lord, sublime. Even if the story had been lackluster, the language alone could carry it. I love you, Karen Russell. And I love the Bigtree Tribe.
     A note: while this is labelled as Award Winning, that's a misnomer, but so near the truth as to be indistinguishable from it. READ THIS BOOK. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Authors I Wish Would Write Another Book

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

1. Jane Austen- I know she's dead, but this about wish fulfillment, right? Think what her dry wit could do with this world of ours as fodder. Until the second coming, when I'm certain Miss Austen will return from her retirement, I'll have to make do with the wonderful mash-ups Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters or Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in lieu of new material.

2. Margaret Atwood- I'm a new convert and haven't even read everything of hers, but I know I want more. I don't even care what the subject matter is, her words are like crack to me. The only reason I haven't picked up the rest of her titles is that they're rarely in the thrift shops. Hard to part with, I'd wager. But if pressed, I'd demand something paranormal, just to see what she'd do with the genre.

3. Jennifer Crusie- Okay, I know she's probably working on another collaboration with Bob Mayer, but what I want is highly specific: a sequel to Faking It, the single best contemporary romance book I've ever read. Seriously, it's worth breaking down the preconceived notions about the genre to read that book. I heart the Goodnight family more than words could express.

4. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.- What a loss to the world! I love his work, even when it makes me cry over the awfulness of human nature. Because it always showcases our strange, superstitious beauty with the same ink.

5. Neil Gaiman- I love you, Neil. My life would be so much bleaker without this man's golden prose. As it is, my life has been pretty bleak since his last release. So get writing! Something big!

6. H.P. Lovecraft- Why? Because I want him to describe the unspeakable horror, for once, for all. And I'd like to see what he'd write novel-wise, given the chance.

7. Charles Fort- I'm really on a roll, commanding so many of the dead to rise and write! And to him, well, I'm sure it'd be nothing he hadn't seen before. I'd love to see what he'd make of all the weirdness in our proof- and logic-hungry times.

8. Susanna Clarke- She made an epic seem cozy! Who does that? Who can? I want more, more, more!

9. Clive Barker- Even though he's written books I've been iffy about, he's never made a total wrong turn.

10. Caitlin R. Kiernan- Pleeeeeeease?! I heart Emmie and am desperate for more ghoul shenanigans! 

Review: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

Piss off, Nancy Drew

From Amazon's description:

It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath.

For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

     What a remarkably fun book! I was deathly afraid Flavia was going to be some "plucky" Anne of Green Gables type, all... earnest and well-meaning. No such typecasting. Flavia's not necessarily a sociopath, but she sure is delightfully manipulative and treacherous. And shrewd. Sometimes her dialogue as an eleven year old is a bit hard to swallow, but her narrative is all hook. Well-written stuff. Anyone who loves quirky, non-twee English fare will love this Anglophile's whodunit.

     This book gets off to a mildly disjointed start, but quickly trots along once it sheds the husk of exposition. Really, promise yourself you'll read the first two chapters and you won't notice when you pass that turnoff and keep sailing on through the rest of the story. But that's just my often-wrong opinion: the first 15 pages won Mr. Bradley the Dagger award, so obviously somebody saw a lot of promise in what I'm shrugging at.

     The real weakness in any mystery is the denouement, the "Miss White, in the ballroom, with the lead pipe" moment. It's difficult to uncover the how of a crime gracefully, organically. I mean, that Jessica Fletcher broad did it every episode of "Murder, She Wrote" and it still seemed wooden and implausible. And like any other mystery there's a bit that's just a little too convenient. You know, like when someone stumbles upon a secret passageway, or an overheard confession, or the clue that puts it all into perspective. Thankfully, there's not as much of that sort of thing here. What little stumbling there is in this first installment I fully expect to be ironed out in the further adventures of Miss de Luce. I really fell hard for these characters and look forward to reading the other titles in this series.

Book Club Review: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Que?

From Amazon's description:

The most talked about—and praised—first novel of 2007, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

"Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ-the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim."

 

     Before I can even begin my review, I feel the need to vent about books so heavily peppered with a language other than English that they require a separate guide. Seriously, take a gander at this: annotated-oscar-wao.com. Read the stated reasons for making such a resource in the first place: because without it one runs the risk of missing out on half the story. And this from a fan. Diaz's writing is effing amazing, there's no argument here. But I'm not blindly enraptured. 

     Do you remember listening to that Snow song "Informer", bobbing your head to the beat, amazed dude was able to rap so fast, and completely in the dark about what he was singing? That's what reading this book felt like. And like my nose was being rubbed in the author's smug, self-proclaimed "otaku" status. I mean, unless you're a very specific kind of person the book seems a bit... inaccessible. And the footnotes the book is crammed with were far more jarring and derailing to my reading experience than helpful.

     HOWEVER- They don't hand out Pulitzers to just anyone. There's a reason Diaz walked away with one, along with a National Book Critics Circle Award. I'm just not the person to tell you. The narrative was a parade of my pet peeves as a reader, but sung in a voice I couldn't help but love. The story is great, the characters(except Oscar and his grandfather) are compelling, likable, and familiar. And the portrait of this culture seems fair and, as far as I know, accurate. There's beauty and ugliness, both in spades. I dunno, this  book won't ever be on my list of favorites, but I understand why others might cherish it. 

     

Review: The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Coming to a bookburning near you.

 

     

From Scholastic Press’ synopsis of the first book:

     "In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

     Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love."


     When the boxed set of this trilogy showed up under the tree Christmas morning(thank you Dennise!), I was elated, but I really didn't know what to expect. I was just happy to have the opportunity to get through these before the movie comes out this March. Anyway I guess I predicted a three-book-long "Goblet of Fire/Brave New World" mash-up, your standard adventure tale set in the relatively near future. And yes, the books do contain my favorite elements of the young adult and dystopian genres. What I wasn't expecting was a gripping tale of survival, spin, and sedition. I'm willing to defend that use of "gripping", by the way. I spent three solid days absorbed in this world and was loathe the part with it. It's that addictive. Be prepared to sacrifice days of your free time and attention.
     "Panem et circenses(bread and circuses)". I'm sure that phrase was drilled into my head by some history teacher back in high school, but it took me a long time to recall it while I was reading. It's the main thread of the books, an examination of Panem's governmental exploitation of it's citizens through the Hunger Games and the state-run media frenzy that surrounds them. There are many reasons to read and many further developments in Katniss' tale, but I'm not one for spoilers. Just try reading the first few chapters and before you know it there's a hook through your cheek and you're being reeled in. Willingly.
     Make no mistake, these books are deeper than your typical action-packed young adult fare, loaded with many uncomfortable, thought-provoking passages relevant to life in our artificial, war-torn and distraction-hungry age. The pace is brisk, the (first-person)narrative is clear-voiced and convincing, the characters and their world seem heartbreakingly real. This isn't hard sci-fi or a literary love affair with language: this is first and foremost a story, a damned good one. There is no other series I'd hand to an adolescent with hope that it might deepen their understanding of our world. I encourage everyone to read, and gift, these wonderful, incendiary books.