What can I say? I first asked for a copy of this graphic novel by Shiga since it was set in Oakland, and I'm an old East Bay boy myself. I'm always keen to see how an area so deeply imprinted on a cellular level is represented in other art. Would he get it "right," as viewed through the prism of my own memories (and return trips?)
For starters, Shiga works in a cartoony style that normally isn't my favorite mode for self-reflective graphic memoirs about love gone, well, not awry -- just never getting out of the starting blocks. Subject aside, the style is less "graphic" and more Sunday Funny-ish.
But my objections were quickly assuaged, in no small part because Shiga gets his Oakland right: There's Casper's Hot Dogs! There's Children's Fairyland! There are a bunch of old Victorians which could be right off Telegraph Avenue near MacArthur! Et cetera. But having a definitive sense of place (and given the book's title, you won't be surprised to learn the action switches from the East Bay to New York, after a fateful bus trip) doesn't make the story riveting on its own (just, for some of us, familiar!)
It's Shiga's wry/gentle -- and ultimately kind -- way of writing about his overly-smart, twentysomethingy characters who can joke about Fermi estimations of vaginas and where the McSweeney's is placed on their bookshelves, but who have a hard time -- like the rest of us -- asking for what they really need. Or dream about.
Speaking of which, the real Oakland is on the verge of shuttering its real libraries -- where, in this book, the Shiga character works -- due to the usual apocalyptic transfers of wealth from the public sector to the ultra-rich. It might be interesting to see if Shiga follows up this work on the politics of the heart with his characters facing the politics of politics. I'd certainly trust his eye for observation.
A shorter version of this review appeared in Nexus Graphica
This wonderful graphic novel series by David Petersen begins with Mouse Guard Volume 1: Fall 1152. In trade form, there are two volumes and then a collection of stories from a variety of authors featuring the protectors of the Mouse Territories.
At first glance The Mouse Guard books look like a graphic version of Brian Jacques’ Redwall series of novels. While there are similarities, this is a completely original story. In Fall 1152, mice live in tough and dangerous conditions and the book follows three warrior mice who try to protect the others from predators and other disasters.
The series opens with the Guardsmice searching for a missing merchant. As they stumble upon a plot to destroy the home of the guard, the mice must desperately fight and survive to defend their homeland.
While I would love even more depth to the story, the action and art are incredible. Petersen uses the mice to signify courage and fortitude in the same way J.R.R. Tolkien put his characters in nearly impossible situation after impossible situation.
In Volume 2: Winter 1152, Petersen continues to extend the expansive world of the Mouse Guard, as the brutal elements of winter take even more of a toll on on the mice. Then, late last year Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard was published. In Legends, several characters tell stories of their land and of the Mouse Guard. This is a great device to tell new stories in this series and allow several other graphic novelist to delve into Petersen’s creation. Like most collections, there are a couple of weak stories, but overall, this is also worthwhile.
So, there is your primer to the world of Mouse Guard. Fans of Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet or the graphic novel collection that he edits, Flight, will enjoy Mouse Guard.
I first read Frankenstein the Halloween I was fifteen. My interest piqued by the 1930s Universal films, and in no small part by Young Frankenstein as well, it seemed appropriately seasonal reading. The range of settings and the monster’s eloquent humanity were a surprising departure from the movies. No grunting Karloff or Peter Boyle wheezing his way through “Putting on the Ritz,” Mary Shelley’s monster was given a voice with which to deliver an impassioned statement of the pain he has caused and misery he feels.
Frankenstein was also my first encounter with the Gothic novel. A moody atmosphere, romance entwined with death, formed my conception of the genre. But I was provided another perspective by Philip Pynchon’s essay “Is it OK to be a Luddite?,” in which he identifies an additional element:
If there were such a genre as the Luddite novel, this one, warning of what can happen when technology, and those who practice it, get out of hand, would be the first and among the best…
I read it first 15 years ago. I was impressed with the insight Ms. Davidson shared from her times in Japan. Felt, after the recent earthquake (plus aftermath), it was time to share.
So I got to read it again! I've been looking forward to this for years! There are too many sections of it I want to quote.
1) The Festival of the Dead. 2) "Toshi, a direct descendant of a famous samurai clan, explained that a samurai's clothes did not even have pockets. No samurai would deign to carry money; that was women's work.
'This is why boys do so poorly in math,' Toshi noted. 'If there weren't lower math standards for boys than girls, our best national universities would be filled with women.'
Other Japanese friends confirmed this. Boys in Japan often have math anxiety. There are special juku courses to overcome this fear.
When a study done in America in 1980 'proved' that girls have lower math scores than boys due to lower testerone levels, I made Xerox copies of the Time magazine article and brought it into my Rhetoric course at Kansai Women's University. I asked them to read the article first, and then to write an in-class essay about it.
It's one of the few times when my students began to laugh spontaneously, without my making it clear that they were 'allowed' to do so.
'Gomen nasai!' one of my students said, working hard to control her mirth. 'We know this article isn't supposed to be funny but it is. We all help our brothers with arithmetic.'
3) Let me know if you'd like one more.
I was not able to find a copy at powells.com. I do apologize.
As a teen all I wanted, all many of us wanted, was a book that would just explain once and for all how the world worked and what we were supposed to do about it. It's said there are answers everywhere, in religion, in nature, in ancient Eastern and Western philosophy, but that all seemed like a lot of work. All that reading and interpreting. Even the "simple" texts like the Tao te Ching required a certain mental dexterity not unlike being forced to parse the meaning of an old poem. Why couldn't there be just a simple little book that explained it all?
Wait, there actually is a simple little book called A Manual for Living? By some old Greek dude whose name begins with the word Epic? Sounds perfect.
In truth, there really is no one-size-fits-all book full of easy answers, no short-cut toward how to go about living in the world, but for a short introduction to Stoic philosophy and the teachings of Epictetus this book is the ticket. Less than 90 pages and full of ethical approaches to life, A Manual for Living enlightens and provokes in simple and direct language.
First, the technical stuff. This book is really well-made. The white hardcover is covered with a gold-hued replica of Sting's handwritten lyrics. On the front, "Message in a Bottle" and "King of Pain"; on the back, bits from "Roxanne", complete with doodles. And covering the hardcover is a tan vellum that allows those bits to peek through a bit. The book contains a foreword and the lyrics from the first Police album, Outlandos D'Amour through Sting's solo, Sacred Love. It has two indices - one by first line, one by song title; the song title stuff includes copyright info, which is cool, but should have added the album titles, I'm thinking. Also in the book? Photographs, as one might expect. And here and there, some clarification from Sting.
You can read the complete foreword over at the Barnes & Nbble site (and probably elsewhere as well). What Sting notes first is that separating lyrics from their music can be a dicey thing, as they are mutually dependent beings.
The two, lyrics and music, have always been mutually dependent, in much the same way as a mannequin and a set of clothes are dependent on each other; separate them, and what remains is a naked dummy and a pile of cloth. . . . I have set out my compositions in the sequence they were wrritten and provided a little background when I thought it might be illuminating. My wares have neither been sorted nor dressed in clothes that do not belong to them; indeed, they have been shorn of the very garments that gave them their shape in the first place. No doubt some of them will perish in the cold cruelty of this new environment, and yet others may prove more resilient and become perhaps more beautiful in their naked state.
In case you've somehow missed the news, Guys Lit Wire is running a Book Fair in support of the Ballou Senior High School library in Washington D.C. At of the time of the original post, Ballou had almost 1,200 books in the library -- not quite one for each student. We're working to change that, and would love some help from you.
If you aren't familiar with the project, please do click through to the link above and check the original post out. I'll wait.
Are we all on the same page now? Excellent.
Behind the cut, I've highlighted a few of my favorite titles on the list that are still waiting for some awesome person to ship them off to D.C. Even if you aren't able to donate at this time, you may get a few book recommendations out of it, right? (But we do hope you'll donate!)
I didn't like science in high school . Chemistry was unbalanced equations and disappoint lab results; physics seemed like an unneeded headache; biology was smelly dissections and a lot of Latinate memorization. But away from the classroom, I can't get enough of science books written for lay audiences. Here are three recent books that messed with my brain in a good way.
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
Brian Greene explores ideas, all based on established theories of physics, that there may, in fact, be more than one universe, or that our universe is part of a larger collection of universes called the "multiverse." If that weren't mind-blowing enough, Greene explores seven different varieties of multiverses, each depending on a different theory or set of starting conditions for the development of the multiverse. From the "patchwork" multiverse, in which a universe that's sufficiently large (infinite or nearly so) will eventually repeat itself or come close to repeating itself, creating exact duplicates of all of us, to the holographic multiverse, which uses theories relating to black holes to describe your reality as merely a holographic projection of another reality taking place at the edges of the universe. In between the patchwork multiverse and the holographic multiverse are several other possible multiverses born out of quantum theory, general relativity, and string theory.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to problems with blogger last week we are extending the fair through Friday, May 20th!
It is with an enormous amount of excitement that I can announce this year’s Guys Lit Wire Book Fair! We will be working with Powells Books again, this time to send books to the east coast to Ballou Senior High School in Washington D.C. Ballou is very special to me as school librarian Melissa Jackson made such an eloquent case for her students’ need for more books. Her video, which shows so many empty shelves, really gave me reason to pause. There are probably more books in my house then Ballou has in this video and that is wrong in so many ways that I don’t even know where to begin.
At the time the video was made early this year there were just over 1,150 books on the shelves at Ballou; there are over 1,200 students in the school. So there was barely one book for each student (the ALA standard is 11:1). The WaPo ran an article about Ballou in January and I have seen a few follow-ups here and there (National Geographic sent over a bunch of books) but what struck me in all the efforts to help is what always hits me - people send books they have (publishers do the same) which is lovely, but not necessarily the books that the school needs or, most importantly of all, the students want. That’s where we come in and why we keep doing this, and loving it, every single year.
Melissa and I have exchanged many emails and spoken on the phone and the message is clear - they need many different types of books, many specific titles and many different versions of any given story. For example, HAMLET, a high school staple, is on the wish list, but you will find it in its original form, in the “No Fear Shakespeare” edition which includes a modern translation and in manga form for reluctant readers. Both versions of OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA are here as well as FAST FOOD NATION and THE WEATHERMAKERS. Very nearly every book in the Scientists in the Field series is listed as well as SAT study guides. Ballou has students who read on a fifth grade level and those who are in college prep courses. The range is wide, the interests varied and the need is tremendous. They want street lit and manga as well as nonfiction on nutrition, geography, history and more. They want a ton of poetry and drama with very specific authors in mind. They want graphic novels. They want Arthur C. Clark, Douglas Adams and Ray Bradbury. They want Neil Gaiman, Sherman Alexie, Nikki Grimes and John Green; vampires and romance and humor. Hundreds of books to fill empty shelves; they want hundreds and hundreds of books.
We’re going to make that happen.
For those of you who have been with us before, the drill has been streamlined a bit (thanks to Greg Pincus!) Here is the direct link to the wish list at Powells. (And if you want to share it: http://bit.ly/GLWBookFair)
The Ballou Sr High School list will open with 900 books to choose from. You can view them by title or author (don’t be afraid if it looks like a series book is missing - sometimes they have co-authors listed by the publisher - this happens with Neil Gaiman a lot - but I promise they are all there or will show up as the series is purchased). We have a mix of paper and hardcover for a reason - obviously hardcovers will last the longest in a library but we wanted to be sure that folks with any size budget can contribute. There are books ranging in price from $2.98 to $60 - and many many titles with excellent sale prices. Many of the paperbacks will be used in classrooms or could even end up as awards for worthy students. Regardless, all will be read, all will be appreciated and all will be valued and we really can’t ask for more than that.
It is perfectly fine to purchase used copies of a book (more bang for your buck) but please check and make sure the book is in “standard” used condition and not “student owned” (you will have to click on the title and leave the wish list to check this). The “student owned” copies are very cheap for a reason - they are written in and thus not a good choice for this effort.
Once you have made your selections head to “checkout” and you will be prompted to inform Powells if the books were indeed bought from the wishlist. This lets the store know to mark them as “purchased” on the list. After that you need to provide your credit card info and also fill in the shipping address. Here is where the books are going to:
Melissa Jackson, LIBRARIAN Ballou Senior High School 3401 Fourth Street SE Washington DC 20032 (202) 645-3400
It’s very important that you get Melissa’s name and title in there - she is not the only Jackson (or Melissa) at the school and we want to make sure the books get to the library.
After all that you buy the books and you’re done! Please head back over here when you get a chance though and leave a comment letting us know who you are, where you’re from and what you bought. Starting tomorrow I will have a continuously updated post listing everyone’s purchases so we can see the books flying their way to our nation’s capitol. I’ll be in constant touch with Melissa too so I can let you all know how things go on her end. The book fair will run until Friday, May 20th and we'll keep you updated on things even after it shuts down. (Hopefully as a sellout.)
As always, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all your dollars spent on books and your time spent blogging, tweeting and emailing about the book fair. This is a labor of love for all of us - it’s a way to give back to the world some of what books and libraries have given to each of us. This is how we make our mark, one kid at a time, one book at a time, one tiny miracle when it all comes together.
You guys are awesome; now please help us show Ballou Senior High just how powerful the written word can be.
What do you do when you realize your parents are people - people who make mistakes, people who had lives before you were born? What happens in that moment - and what happens afterwards?
Ask Nick Brandt, the main character in Alyssa B. Sheinmel's new novel The Lucky Kind. Nick's a junior at a private school in New York and, up until now, his life has been pretty solid. He's not the best student, but he's not the worst. He's the only child of two attentive parents. He's got a crush on a girl named Eden who is as intriguing as her name suggests. Nick and his best friend Stevie are as thick as thieves. Almost like brothers.
Then Nick discovers that he has a brother. A flesh-and-blood brother, born to his father's college girlfriend twenty-nine years ago and given up for adoption. His father's always known about his first son, and though he told his wife about his firstborn years ago, he didn't tell Nick. But now that Nick knows the truth, there's no way for him to forget it - and he can't see his parents the same way anymore. In the light of his father's lifelong lie - or omission of truth - Nick's home, his childhood memories, and his family's routines all seem tainted somehow.
I don't want to reveal too much here; I actually didn't want to tell you gentle readers about Nick's brother, but if I hadn't, this would have been an extremely vague, short, and unsatisfying review. To discover the circumstances under which Nick discovers the existence of his older brother and what happens to his family - which includes Stevie and Eden just as much as his blood relatives - check out The Lucky Kind. Make sure you also pick up The Beautiful Between, Alyssa B. Sheinmel's memorable debut novel.
For starters, Shiga works in a cartoony style that normally isn't my favorite mode for self-reflective graphic memoirs about love gone, well, not awry -- just never getting out of the starting blocks. Subject aside, the style is less "graphic" and more Sunday Funny-ish.
First, the technical stuff. This book is really well-made. The white hardcover is covered with a gold-hued replica of Sting's handwritten lyrics. On the front, "Message in a Bottle" and "King of Pain"; on the back, bits from "Roxanne", complete with doodles. And covering the hardcover is a tan vellum that allows those bits to peek through a bit. The book contains a foreword and the lyrics from the first Police album, Outlandos D'Amour through Sting's solo, Sacred Love. It has two indices - one by first line, one by song title; the song title stuff includes copyright info, which is cool, but should have added the album titles, I'm thinking. Also in the book? Photographs, as one might expect. And here and there, some clarification from Sting.
