Travels

Look! A cake! Coconut oil instead of butter (there's a shortage, you know), in case you were wondering what made this one different.

Lumberjanes / East of West

Lumberjanes vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy

Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, Brooke Allen, 2015

East of West vol. 4: Who Wants War?

Jonathan Hickman, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, 2015

(June 2015)

Slightly random paring this, created largely through the coincidence of release and delivery schedules. Can I force them together into some kind of awkward thematic union? You betcha. Let’s talk Americana.

The King's English

Kingsley Amis, 1997

(July 2015)

A style guide, basically. And as with any reasonably well constructed style guide it contain equal parts sage regard for the essential mutability of language and random prescriptivism, particularly on the subject of pronunciation.

The Yellow Birds

Kevin Powers, 2012

(July 2015)

  

Much vaunted, this, and not undeservedly so. I need more time to roll it around my head, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for the deep and meaningful analysis (on which note, I’m definitely not a fan of the increasingly prevalent gimmick of adding book club discussion notes to the back any lit-fic paperback that didn’t tank on initial release).

The Goddess Chronicle

Natsuo Kirino, 2008 [Rebecca Copeland, 2012]

(July 2015)

  

As I write this it’s mere hours after the Nadeshiko have been rather freakishly drubbed in the World Cup final, so it’s fitting that we return once again to the subject of gender relations in Japan, and especially so that we do it in consideration of a book whose notionally feminist message I am decidedly ambivalent about.

The Violent Century

Lavie Tidhar, 2013

(June 2015)

  

Atmospheric. Metatextual. Short sentences. No quotation marks. Evocative of McCarthy. Evocative in general. Europe descends to war. People fight the Nazis. The Nazis fight back. Also Vietnam. Also superheroes.