TwentySevenLetters / B

The forgotten book

It was Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, by Ted Naifeh. It was dark and creepy and funny and a lot of fun, and I can't figure out why I forgot all about it. Maybe because I'm brain-dead thanks to a combination of Sudafed and Nyquil?

Anyway, mystery solved. Hooray!

Writings, or Why I Haven’t Been Reading Much

Since the last update to my booklist, I’ve finished the Best American Short Stories 2006 collection. Overall: eh. The stories included seemed so much more … ethereal? than previous collections—airy, emotional, pretty. But not very exciting or interesting, as a whole. I hear next year’s collection is being edited by Stephen King, though. I’m excited already.

I had to pick up a couple of library books to read, despite my efforts to clear off my to-be-read shelf at home before coming back to borrowed books. I couldn’t help it! Extenuating circumstances! Emergency reading required! (I finished the BASS during lunch and didn’t have another book with me.) So I picked up the second book of the Marvel Age series Sentinel (nothing spectacular, but fun enough), and then Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere, about a girl who dies and has to experience the afterlife. Sort of The Lovely Bones without the suck.

I took a sick day yesterday (I hate cold season—I haven’t had the flu thanks to my flu shot, but I’ve had 2 bad colds now that feel a lot like the flu) and stayed on the couch reading all day. I started with Less Than Heroes by David Yurkovich—a superhero spoof graphic novel. I didn’t particularly care for it—I found it to be kind of disjointed, like it was mostly written as an excuse to throw in one-liners here and there, rather than telling a funny story. Alexander enjoyed it, but I guess it just wasn’t for me. Then I spent a few hours curled up with Anne Ursu’s The Shadow Thieves, which I enjoyed a lot more than I expected to. I have no idea why I expected this to be bland and uninteresting, and I apologize to the author for my supposition. Because it was engrossing, exciting, and funny. I enjoyed the characters a lot (particularly the surly Charlotte), and while there were a few little details that I called early on (the cat, for one), it wasn’t the predictable book I’d expected it to be. I’m curious about and eager for the sequel (due out in July, according to Amazon).

There’s one more graphic novel that I read last week. The author’s last name starts with N. I can’t remember anything else about it, but it had been sitting on my shelf for kind of a while. This doesn’t really recommend it, I know. I’ll look at the shelf later and post, but right now—dang, that’s irritating.

So, why haven’t I had a lot of time to read? Because I’ve been busy. My at-home reading time is usually pretty short (owing to things like cooking and errands and the obsessive need to watch Fraggle Rock), and my at-work reading time has been cut short due to a grant application due in about 3 weeks. Working working working. The application alone is 11 pages of essay questions. I’ve gotten through three. Questions, not pages. Eep. So I’m not reading much at work for the time being. Give me three weeks and I’ll see where I’m at—maybe my reading will pick up again!

Comics! Really!

I know that, once upon a time, my stated mission here was librarianship and comics, and I’ve kind of gotten away from that latter part. But! Here! A post about comics! Really-truly!

I suppose it’s partly an update to my reading log. I’m still working on the Best American collection, which is slow going—this year’s guest editor seemed to pick more ethereal, prettier stories, as opposed to the more exciting, entertaining, plot-driven stories of last year’s collection. This year’s edition is good, don’t get me wrong—but it’s taking a lot longer to read than I’d anticipated. In the meantime, though, I’ve been reading comics.

There are two books in the Babymouse series that I hadn’t read yet—Rock Star! and Heartbreaker. I’m not really sure what I can say about these that I haven’t said before—Babymouse is adorable, and the books are a lot of fun. These two are no exceptions. Jennifer and Matthew Holm have done a great job with this series. Kudos!

(Extra kudos to Jennifer Holm, whose latest novel, Penny From Heaven, is a Newbery Honor book for 2007. This is her second Newbery Honor—her first went to Our Only May Amelia in 2002, which was actually far superior to Penny, in my opinion.)

Back in November, I noticed a listing for the first volume of Otis Frampton’s series Oddly Normal. I scribbled out an order card very excitedly—I read the beginning of the series when it was posted on Girlamatic, but then Frampton took it down when he got the print deal. But as time went on, I fully expected the order to be cancelled, with a note about how the distributor couldn’t acquire a copy; so sorry about your luck. But then! Last week, as I picked up all of my newly-arrived-and-processed books, what should top the pile but Oddly Normal, volume 1? To say I was excited doesn’t begin to cover it.

Oddly Normal is a 10-year-old half-witch (her dad’s human; her mom’s a witch) who accidentally wishes her parents away at the end of a lousy birthday. With her parents gone, Oddly goes to live with her great-aunt in her mother’s homeland: Fignation. It’s an adventure, a fantasy, and a great example of how much fun all-ages comics can be. And the art is amazing—I love his coloring in particular. I’m very excited for the next volumes. (Want to know if it’s good before going through the trouble of ordering? Read the first issue online! Free!)

Lastly, I skimmed the first collection of J. Torres’ Love as a Foreign Language. It’s a fairly typical story, I think—a young man teaching English in Korea is on the verge of a burnout; he’s homesick and hates everything about Korea, wants to quit and move back to Canada, etc, etc. But then meets the hot new secretary of the school and is conflicted re: quitting and moving. Though he can’t work up the nerve to talk to her about anything other than making photocopies for his classes. Woo. It’s no great shakes, but it’s not bad. It’s circulated 4 times since September, possibly more than that (it disappeared from the shelf for about 3 weeks while saying it was checked in, but then mysteriously reappeared with a bunch of other books, so I think it just didn’t get checked out properly), so I’ll probably order the next volume of this (frankly) mediocre manga-esque romantic comedy.

Last bit of goodness: The ALA announced all their award winners this morning. This year’s Printz (which goes to YA literature) Honor books were not all that surprising: MT Anderson’s Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines, Markus Zusak’s Book Thief, and Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender. (Okay, I don’t know Surrender from Adam, as it were, but one of her other books—Thursday’s Child—was amazing.) But the really fantastic bit of news? The winner of this year’s Printz medal went to Gene Yang for American Born Chinese. I thought it as pretty good when ABC was a finalist for the National Book Award, but now it’s won the highest honor for YA literature. Congratulations to Gene Yang! (And yay to the ALA for recognizing a graphic novel’s greatness when selecting Printz candidates.)

Reading Log

Every year, I intend to follow a friend’s example and keep a log of what I’ve read. And every year, I have the best of intentions, but suddenly we’re halfway through January and I haven’t logged a single title and I’ve already forgotten what I’ve read this year as opposed to last year and it’s all a big mess.

This year is different! This year I can remember things! I make no promises that I’ll add reviews of any of these, but even just listing the titles is a start Sometimes I’ll comment on them, but likely nothing long and drawn-out. If you have any recommendations, please comment and tell me! (Yup, you still have to click on the timestamp. Nope, I still have no idea why.) I can add them to my Amazon list (or my Amazon library list). My goal for this year: 100% turnover of my To-Be-Read shelf. Meaning, nothing that’s on there right now will still be there in December.

I thought about putting this book log as a separate thing, probably as a LiveJournal thing (I have an account to comment on friends’ postings, but my LJ remains empty). But then I figured that’s TWO blogs to neglect instead of just one. So, without further ado, my book (b)logging!

Mysterious Benedict Society / Trenton Lee Stewart: due out in March; I read an advance review copy. My review, so I can stop feeling guilty: this probably isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s a fun read, and interesting. A little on the long side given the grade level it seems written for (5^th-7^th?), but definitely one we can push on kids next year when the Everyone-Has-To-Read-a-Mystery assignment comes around again.

Forever in Blue / Ann Brashares: thank god this is the last Traveling Pants book. I’m tired of these characters. I’m tired of them doing random things that I really don’t think they’d actually do, and being okay with it. The only one I really believe is Tibby—I think she has her little (and big) freak-outs in a very realistic way, over very realistic situations. The others? I don’t think I’ve ever believed any of their issues. Anyway, it’s over now, and hooray.

Automated Alice / Jeff Noon: I was really enjoying this book at the beginning. It’s funny! It’s a take on Alice in Wonderland! It has math puns! But the closer I got to the end, the happier I was that I was almost done. When the author (Noon—remember that; it’s important) inserted himself into the story as Mr. Zenith O’Clock, I almost walked away. But it’s a quick read, and fun, but there’s not much plot to hold the wordplay together. A good chilly afternoon read when you’re not up to something strenuous.

User Unfriendly / Vivian Vande Velde: Like Heir Apparent. Only with a group of boys, instead of one girl. Not entirely sure which of the two trapped-in-a-virtual-reality-game books I liked better.

Watcher in the Woods / Florence Engel Randall: Wow. Just… wow. This is a creepy children’s/teen book written in 1976, and was turned into a Disney movie that bore little resemblance to the source material. Yes, the movie was still creepy, but the movie involved a séance and a group of then-teens and supernatural intervention and flashes of light and a creepy old woman rescuing the girl who will eventually rescue her daughter. The book had a lone girl who apparently stumbled through an open door and getting trapped in another dimension. There was no séance during a solar eclipse. No group of teens. No dramatic rescue from the creepy old woman, because there was no dramatic flash of light flinging the rescuee into the pond or anything like that. I really wish I’d read the book before having watched the movie forty-eleven times as a kid, because it was creepy in its own right. I’ve requested a copy of the movie, though, because the DVD apparently has 3 alternate endings, and I’m curious. My favorite part of the book? Probably page 23, where someone made huge, dark swirls of in black pen and scrawled “CUNT” at the bottom.

I’m currently working on the 2006 edition of Best American Short Stories. I really liked the guest editor’s introduction—she had some really interesting things to say about the short story form and its virtues—but I just haven’t been able to get into the stories yet. I think my brain just wants more candy like I’ve been reading, instead of something meaty and protein-rich like the BASS collection.