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Saga, Volume 6
Saga, Volume 6 by Brian K. Vaughan Illustrated by: Fiona Staples Published: 2016 Publisher: Image Comics Length: 152 pages Collects: issues #31–36 Maybe it’s because nearly a year has passed since I read the last volume, but this really felt like a return to form. The last couple of books had characters everywhere, with different objectives, and it felt scattered. New characters were being introduced at an alarming rate, and minor characters were getting lost in the shuffle. Quite a dramatic event happened at the end of the fifth volume, and it took me a while to remember who the character involved was, which was clearly not intended reaction. This…
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The Vegetarian
The Vegetarian by Han Kang Published: 2007 Translated By: Deborah Smith (from Korean in 2015) Length: 192 pages The Vegetarian is this year’s Man Booker International Prize winner, but I’ve seen very mixed reviews since it was awarded the prize last May. I like to watch BookTube videos, and that community seems to be simultaneously obsessed with the Man Booker prize and disapproving of every novel that is shortlisted for it, so I never know what to think. I saw the name so often in the last few months that I picked it up during my Powell’s shopping spree at the end of the summer just to see what the…
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Captain America: Winter Soldier
Captain America: Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker Format: Trade Paperback Illustrated by: Steve Epting / Mike Perkins / Michael Lark Collects: Captain America (vol. 5) #1-9 & 11-14 Publisher: Marvel Comics Published: 2005 (collected in 2010) Length: 304 pages Growing up, I was not the least bit interested in Captain America. I think he always seemed a bit tacky to Canadian readers. We have had a couple of maple leaf clad heroes, one with the embarrassing name of Captain Canuck, but they never really took off. I think by the time I was reading comics, the whole squeaky-clean patriotic leader idea wasn’t really in style. Once I learned a bit…
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Off to Be the Wizard
Off to Be the Wizard by Scott Meyer Published: 2014 Series: Magic 2.0 #1 Narrated by: Luke Daniels Length: 10:15 (372 pages) This has been on my Audible recommended list for quite a while. I happily judge books by their covers when browsing for something to read, and I have to admit, as a life-long lover of video games, I was suckered in by this cover. It’s almost unfair, really. This was written by Scott Meyer, who has a web comic I was unaware of called Basic Instructions. This is about an unhappy programmer named Martin Banks who, out of boredom, spends time digging through random files on random file…
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Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling
Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling by Tony Cliff Format: Original Graphic Novel Illustrated by: Tony Cliff Series: Delilah Dirk #2 Publisher: First Second Published: 2016 Length: 272 pages After I finished the first Delilah Dirk book, I noticed there was a second volume that had just been released. That’s the pleasure of being a few years behind the ball, I suppose. I picked it up at a local comic store soon after, and was pleased to find that it was twice the size of the first. The first book focused more on the story of Selim, the Turkish Lieutenant, while keeping Delilah a super-powered mystery. In this book, we…
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A Prayer for Owen Meany
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving Published: 1989 Length: 617 pages This is the story of two young friends, beginning from their childhood as schoolboys in a New Hampshire classroom and continuing through their adolescence and into adulthood. John Wheelwright, the narrator, is from a wealthy and respected family. He is a surprisingly ordinary and passive character, at least in his younger years, but serves well as a lens from which to view Owen Meany. Owen is a physically underdeveloped but deeply intelligent boy with an unchanged high voice, like one stuck in a permanent scream (and written IN ALL CAPS like Pratchett’s Death). He is from a…
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September in Review
Books Acquired: The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave I Was the Cat by Paul Tobin Kaijumax, Season 1 by Zander Cannon The Sixth Gun, Vol. 1: Cold Dead Fingers by Cullen Bunn Something to Remember You By by Gene Wilder Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman Authority by Jeff VanderMeer The Vegetarian by Han Kang The Bookman’s Tale by Charlie Lovett If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino French Milk by Lucy Knisley Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays by George Orwell On Writing by Charles Bukowski Ballistics: Poems by Billy Collins Laughter in the Dark by…