Glacial Period

by Nicolas de Crecy

When I first read about this graphic novel, it was supposed to have been the first in a series of GNs commissioned by/in cooperation with the musée du Louvre, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of any others. (Could just be my library's not getting them.) The author/illustrator is well-known in Europe, apparently, but close to unknown here across the pond.

It tells the story of archaeologists far in the future, during a glacial period, searching across the frozen wastes for evidence of a fabled lost civilization (us). The part that threw me was the talking dogs, who also have the ability to smell traces of the past, brought along on the expedition not quite as equals but certainly not as servants either. (My advice is just to pretend they're not dogs.) Anway, they manage to get into the ruins of the Louvre, where the paintings and what they depict mystify the explorers, who make many bizarre assumptions and speculations about the people who created them. Meanwhile, a bunch of ancient artifacts depicting gods/goddesses of various cultures start talking to each other and one of the talking dogs. And from there it just gets weirder...

Left me a little cold (ha ha), but one of my friends really dug it. (I know, the puns have got to stop.)

Rin! 1
Rin! 2

by Satoru Kannagi

This is a really cute three-book series (and of course my library doesn't have the third book!!!!) about a kid on the high school archery team with a weird sort of crush on his older brother's best friend. See, he gets really nervous and afraid and can't shoot well unless he gets a hug from this older boy, who acts peeved about it but harbors romantic feelings he won't admit to — at least not until another suitor comes a-courtin'. There's some boy-on-boy kissing, but nothing sexier than that. Definitely one of the better non-explicit yaois I've read.

I just ILL'd the third volume.

Corrections to My Memoirs

by Michael Kun

A collection of very-short short stories, most humorous — occasionally laugh-out-loud, other times wince-inducing. I'd probably only recommend it to a connoisseur of the form. It would also make a good toilet book, as the book itself is small and the stories are easily digestible.

Worst things about it are the mock publisher's introductions to each story detailing the fictitious awards not really bestowed upon the author's work. Kind of amusing at first... then cute... then precious... then just plain irritating (rather like an infant).

Best thing about it is the cover, which, along with the title, is a jab at James Frey's A Million Little Pieces:

Oh the Glory of It All

by Sean Wilsey

I don't recall where I heard of this book, but it was pitched as "if you liked Running with Scissors...", and it's by an author who's written for McSweeney's. It lives up to that pitch, having the requisite self-absorbed mother, quirky and precocious child, and distant father, adding an evil step-mother, a series of boarding schools, a dash of juvenile delinquency, and actual verifiable facts. (The author's wealthy and well-known parents went through a drawn-out divorce even after which their relationship laundry regularly was aired on the society pages of San Francisco newspapers.) It isn't as funny as Running with Scissors, but makes up for that with the emotional depth and real pathos that was lacking from Augusten Burroughs' memoir. It could have used a touch more editing, though; I was skimming a bit toward the end.

The Nature of Monsters

by Clare Clark

Another book I read because of reviews. I was intrigued at first, but didn't actually put the book on my list until after a second or third review. It's good, but not great, but definitely good enough to recommend for historical fiction junkies. Reminded me a little of Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson.

I'd like to say there's a strong feminist undercurrent, but the author's handling of it is uneven — a matter of opportunities missed, perhaps. There's a reference to midwifery being supplanted (undermined and sabotaged, in point of fact) by medical "science" at a time when the science was plagued by all sorts of bizarre and mistaken theories, such as the idea that certain experiences or emotions during pregnancy could result in monstrous babies (with dog heads or monkey tails, harelips, birthmarks and the like). But the story ultimately skates over the issues of the vilification and persecution of midwives and the loss of herb lore and "folk remedies" to pin the shortcomings of the emerging culture of male physicians/doctors on the opium-fueled delusions and resentments of a frustrated (and himself disfigured) apothecary.

Ultimately I think this book is more about the way each of us is utterly alone, the challenges of taking care of someone else while struggling with the question of whether anyone will ever take care of us. Rather bleak stuff, but not quite on the level of a Thomas Hardy.

The Baby Jesus Butt Plug: a fairy tale

by Carlton Mellick III

There isn't much I can say about this book. I stumbled across the title somewhere, put a hold on it so I could look at it, wound up reading it just cuz it's pretty short and weird enough to captivate even while it disgusts. (Tries to disgust, I guess, it was too dumb to be truly disgusting.)

It's a punk (not my definition) fairy tale about a future (?) world where people are slaves to corporations run by children, people are copied at Kinko's instead of being born; a world in which some people keep Baby Jesuses as pets (here's a mental image for you: a Baby Jesus with six swollen teats giving suck to a litter of baby Baby Jesuses) and some people use Baby Jesuses as "marital aids" (i.e., sex toys).

I'd recommend this book only to three types of people:

1. those who like to look at blobs of who-knows-what and/or festering wounds
2. those who frequently say, "Omigod, this is so gross — taste it"
3. those who enjoy the smell of their own farts

Just in Case
     and
How I Live Now

by Meg Rosoff

I am an Anglophile. I read young adult fiction. I love Meg Rosoff!

The main character in How I Live Now is a 15- or 16-year-old girl with an eating disorder (which I totally don't remember, but it's in the subject headings) who leaves New York to stay with her auntie and cousins in England. Some sort of unspecified terrorist attack or outbreak of war leaves the kids home alone and auntie stuck wherever she went on some kind of business trip or something. So there's a bit of Swiss Family Robinson element, with the kids trying to feed themselves from the garden and survive without electricity; some Lord of the Flies conflict among them, and some bad stuff that goes down when they leave the relative safety of home to try to find out what's happening only to encounter a band of crazy Mad Max types gone nuts in the seeming apocalypse; and a dash of Blue Lagoon romance. (The anorexic girl bangs her slightly younger cousin, which caused a bit of a stir when the book won the Printz award in 2005, because technically it's incest or something, but, like, whatever, they're cousins, who cares?)

[a few hours later...] Looking back at what I wrote, it doesn't sound like a good book. I don't know why I compared it to so many books/movies when it isn't even very much like any of them. I guess it's hard to explain why it's good. The story is told in retrospect and concludes with the narrator/protagonist returning to see her cousin who was scarred — literally and figuratively — by the same experience from which she emerged more or less unscathed. I don't know what else to say, except that I really liked this book. It's relatively short, so it'd be a good one for teens not that into reading. The shortness also lends itself well to urgent book report needs, and the whole terrorism/apocalypse theme should make it that much easier.

Just in Case is also pretty good. It's a similar teen-friendly length and tells the story of a 15-year-old boy who changes his name and his image in order to try to escape Fate. Not just lower-case fate, and more than his fate per se, because Fate is a character in the book. It's a bizarre conceit to have Fate interjecting threats and heckles here and there, and it's a little annoying, but not too bad because there isn't that much of it. Much more effective and interesting are the parts of the story narrated by Justin's pre-verbal toddler brother, wise beyond his years in a very Zen sort of way. His parents are useless and nearly absent in the way parents often are in young adult books, but Justin gets by with a little help from his friends. More proof that teenagers are temporarily insane.

American Purgatorio

by John Haskell

Reviewers loved this book. Even so, I didn't bite until I'd read several of the glowing reviews. It's been a while since I read it, so maybe that's why I'm having trouble thinking of what to say; but I also remember being a little bored and frustrated with the book, but not enough to stop reading. (At least one review calls the book "mesmerizing," but last time I checked that's not what the word means.) It's kind of gimmicky too.

It must be lifted from the jacket, because several reviews refer to the main character walking out of a gas station convenience store to find that "his life has vanished." Really, it's his wife who's vanished. To the extent that his life vanishes, it's because he can't accept her disappearance and goes off on a cross-country odyssey to find her — a goose chase, in chapters corresponding to the seven deadly sins, on which he ultimately finds himself, so to speak.

******SPOILER ALERT*******
Don't read any more if you think you might read this book, I'm about to ruin the ending...

Alls I got to say is, this guy must have really liked The Sixth Sense.

M or F?
by Lisa Papademetriou and Christopher Tebbetts

Cyrano de Bergerac meets instant messaging — hilarity ensues. That's what was supposed to happen, I guess. Also, this whole gay-boy-and-his-fag-hag-are-into-the-same-guy-and-they-don't-know-if-he's-gay-or-straight thing is getting a little tired. I wanted to like this book, I really did. And it does have a surprise twist at the end. If you haven't read as many gay-themed young adult novels as I have, you might enjoy it, cuz it's not actually that bad.

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear

by Paul Hornschemeier

This is a weirdly constructed book — really two books (Let Us Be and Perfectly Clear) back-to-back and bound together so that it has no back cover but two front covers from which one reads toward the middle of the book. It's a collection of short comic (as in strip, not as in funny) pieces which occasionally overlap but don't have an overarching theme. Some are great, some are stupid, some are very short and deeply unsatisfying, one of them will make you feel a bit nauseated. To some extent these are "art comics" that will be most appreciated by other graphic artists and illustrators. For the rest of us, it might be worth flipping through but it's not really something you'd want to read straight through.

The Invisible

by Mats Wahl

Now a Major Motion Picture! Gosh, I hate when they put that on the cover. In fact, just as this is the English translation of a book written in Sweden, the American movie is remake of a Swedish movie, and of course the American version ups the ante by adding a second invisible character because, as we all know, most Americans are incapable of detecting subtlety or paying attention to a tragedy that isn't also a romance.

As to the book, subtlety is not in the plot but in the excruciatingly slow unfolding of events. I'm not giving anything away by telling you there's an invisible character — the title does that well enough, and his invisibility becomes apparent early in the story. Really, much of the plot is rather predictable, but, thanks to excellent writing, that doesn't diminish the tense, strangled urgency or the crushing sense of tragedy that permeate the book. It's a pretty quick read, a good recommendation for "reluctant reader" teens and those with a book report due tomorrow.

Also, spend a few moments pondering the book jacket. I didn't see it until I held the book open and looked at the whole image that wraps around from front to back cover.

I Love Led Zeppelin: panty-dropping comics
     and
Monkey Food: the complete I was seven in '75 collection

by Ellen Forney

Hilarious and highly recommended if you like comics. (These are definitely comics, not graphic novels.) Forney's drawing style is well-suited to both the comedic and the erotic themes.

I Love LZ is mostly one-page, one-off comics in the how-to vein: how to be a fag hag, as explained by Margaret Cho; how not to get caught using drugs; how to reattach severed fingers; how to twirl the tassels on your pasties — all a little dirty, subversive, sexy, etc. It also includes a few longer comics, including one written by a gay male friend and illustrated by Forney. Not that everything else is oppressively gynocentric, I just found that one extra interesting, for reasons you should be able to imagine.

Monkey Food is the episodic narrative of the author-illustrator's wonder years. I was only two in '75, but I'm still old enough to appreciate the way bell-bottoms and loud colors can turn the screw on ordinary human foibles.

Happiness: a history

by Darrin M. McMahon

A survey of the evolving definitions of "happiness" in Western thought — not, as you might expect, dealing with psychology, but rather in terms of mythology/religion, philosophy, sociology, a touch of linguistics, and even a bit of zoology (happiness being one of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals). Some examples: in ancient Greece, happiness was a matter of fate or luck; the spread of Judeo-Christian values gave rise to the notion that happiness could be achieved through virtuous living; in modern times people think happiness is mankind's natural state, that we are entitled to happiness, that we simply need to eliminate the physical and/or psychic barriers that are keeping us from being happy.

I found this book intensely interesting, but it was slow reading. I got about halfway through, took a break and read some fluffy teen fiction, then went back and finished. I'd only recommend this book to someone who's certain s/he wants to read philosophy and intellectual history; dabblers should look elsewhere.

Children of Hurin

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Unless you're a nut-case, skip the introductory stuff, which will be especially confusing for those who haven't read The Silmarillion. Otherwise, this is a nice stand-alone novella of Middle Earth. The action takes place well before anything in the trilogy, and it won't add much to the experience if you're planning to read or re-read the trilogy. But like I said, it's a fine story, worth reading even if you're not a hardcore Rings fanatic.

P.S.: Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Busy with other stuff, yadda-yadda-yadda. I'll try harder.

Call Me by Your Name

by André Aciman

The first review of this book that I read made it sound really boring — and I am totally OK with books in which not much happens, so it must have sounded re-e-eally boring. I don't recall what tipped me over the edge, but it may have been the sexy cover:


Interesting, isn't it, how an image can be non-explicit and yet somehow sexier than if it were? But I digress...

I really didn't want to read another book about a teenage queer boy and the older (but not much older) man who changed his life. But I'm glad I did. The writing is just lovely, and the emotions are rendered with an intensity and realism that overshadow the plot's un-originality. The book is mostly about the build-up, the excruciating anticipation; then the short-lived explosiveness of the thing itself; and ultimately the book tries be original by tacking on a completely unnecessary chapter showing how one of the lovers never totally gets over it.

I was about to say the book is slim, so the unnecessary epilogue-y bit doesn't ruin it, but I checked online and it's 248 pages. It sure didn't seem that long, which means I must have been reading it quickly, which is kind of odd for a book that's mostly about anticipation — but maybe it isn't. The author writes about one's sense of time being affected by feelings of anticipation and desire, and I must have had an experience similar to the character's. I guess this book is more original (in quality, if not in content) than I thought. (Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure one of the reviews said something to that effect, which means I'm not being original. It's a vicious, vicious circle, isn't it?)

Twinkie, Deconstructed: my journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats

by Steve Ettlinger

I'm behind on my reading -- again. Luckily I've just cracked Twinkie, Deconstructed, which is nonfiction but reads really fast. It's all about the origins of the ingredients of Twinkies, including a lot of stuff you probably never thought of as "food." Although not as disgusting as Fast Food Nation, it'll still make you think twice before snacking. Also a good recommendation if you enjoyed Garbage Land.

Only thing I'm going to add here is that the author isn't the greatest writer (not a lot of flair), but in a book such as this that isn't a bad thing. The writing is solid, organized, and easily understandable without sacrificing interesting details.

How Language Works: how babies babble, words change meaning, and languages live or die

by David Crystal

This is what happens when one doesn't write one's reviews right away: of course I remember what the book is about, but my initial reaction is lost and I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts about it. So, this'll be kind of a short one.

I wound up having to skim parts of this book, especially at the end. I'm really interested in cognitive linguistics, neurophysiology, semiotics... so the creation of language, learning of language, the biology and psychology of language are all subjects I'm jazzed about. Heck, I already knew about Noam Chomsky's universal grammar theory. How Language Works covers a lot of ground, including some stuff I found rather boring, but the parts I liked were super.

It's hard to find nonfiction that strikes the right tone between professional/academic and popular/readable. This particular book was a tad to "approachable" for me, in part because I'm already acquainted with some of the material. Overall, I'd say this book is an OK introduction to a broad range of subjects loosely gathered under the banner of Linguistics, but it's too broad and loose to satisfy more than a passing fancy.

Point to Point Navigation: a Memoir, 1964 to 2006
     and
Palimpsest: a Memoir

by Gore Vidal

Unless you already have some familiarity with Gore Vidal, don't read Point to Point Navigation until you've read Palimpsest, which covers the earlier part of his life. Even having read the earlier memoir, as well as some of his fiction and essays, I still found this latest book a bit erratic and at times full-on confusing. (Give the guy a break, he's getting pretty old.) Anyone who enjoys reading memoirs will enjoy Palimpsest, but P to P is probably only going to appeal to hardcore Vidal-ophiles.

I read Palimpsest ages ago, at a time when I had zero interest in nonfiction. I really only picked it up because it had a picture of G.V.'s extremely handsome boarding-school boyfriend. Turns out Vidal's life is a fascinating mix of politics, old money, and show business. It helps, too, that he has a very sharp wit and isn't shy about speaking his mind. He was also, in his own way, a gay rights pioneer: he wasn't an activist, and he didn't "come out" publicly the way the famous do these days; he simply always was, unapologetically, who he was, one facet of which happened to be that he's gay.

Other books by Vidal that I've read include Myra Breckenridge and The Smithsonian Institution, both trashy-fun fiction (the latter actually has a paperback edition with a romance-style cover); I also read a collection of his essays, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta. I wanna read more of his fiction, but there's so much other stuff to read too. Sigh.

The Effect of Living Backwards

by Heidi Julavits

Although I read it maybe five years ago, this is a book I frequently recommend — in part because it's frequently on the shelf in my library, unlike a lot of other titles I'd like to recommend. Plus it's just a really interesting, weird book with flavors of Douglas Coupland and Haruki Murakami, and even a little Tom Clancy.

What does that get you? Surreal... familial... terrorism... with laughs. Two sisters who hate each other are on a hijacked plane, where they start competing for the romantic attention of their blind captor. Doesn't sound like the kind of story that's capable of providing insight into the human condition, does it? And yet somehow it works, but it's difficult to explain; you just have to trust me. The convoluted plot and psychological screw-turning are kind of reminiscent of an M.C. Escher drawing: there's that quality of convincing realism at war with the subtle (but obvious once you see it) impossibility of it all.

Still not sounding like much of a recommendation? What can I say, it's a tough sell. Best for adventurous readers and risk-takers.

Zine roundup

Yay zines! I've been reading tons, and I just don't have the energy to blog them all individually, so here are a few quick and dirty zine reviews.

The Secret Files of Captain Sissy, No. 5
Kind of a journal-y storytelling zine written by a guy who:
1. Got a real bad concussion when he crashed on his skateboard (sexy)
2. Did an internship with the United Steelworkers (righteous)
3. Traveled with a mobile zine exhibit (kewl)
4. Witnessed the Great West Philadelphia Food Co-op Strike of 2002 (my homie!)
5. Suggested changing the Flaming Hot Cheetos mascot to a flaming hot queer boy (delicious)

Camp Mania
Hilarious recollections from a summer-camp counselor. Occasionally creepy, as summer camp should be. The typos only make it funnier.

Go Fuck Yourself : a mini-zine devoted to D.I.Y. sex toys and gender-bending devices
I only flipped through this one. Like a cookbook, it's not the kind of the thing you read cover to cover. Lots of great ideas if you're crafty and horny.

28 Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine #13
Another journal-y zine with stories about getting a new hybrid car and peeing on campfires after drinking lots and lots of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew. Very well put together — they're not kidding about the "lovingly."

Applicant
Pictures of '70s-era graduate students with phrases culled from their faculty evaluations. Who knew professors were so cruel? And yet it's funny... funny like when people fall down.

Sugar Needle #29
Amusing reviews of strange candies from around the world, reminiscent of McSweeney's Reviews of New Food. Ooh, and the cover is hand-colored!