Flesh & Blood So Cheap: the Triangle Fire and Its Legacy, Marrin
The Triangle fire is a fascinating historical event that had wide-ranging effects on labor and safety in the US, but this book is so cliche ridden and oversimplified that I had to stop at chapter one. Since the time I gave a negative review of a book on the blog and had a defensive message come in from the author, I’m skittish about posting negative reviews. But, honestly! I’m sure you’re a good person, mister author, but please read through your work and ask yourself if the tone would sound condescending, reduce the repetition of cliche, or at least THE SAME CLICHE RE-USED WITHIN 2 PAGES, and ask yourself if it isn’t better to just leave things out if you have to simplify to the point of inaccuracy. No stars.
Saturn Apartments. 2, Hisae Iwaoka
The story continues, still fairly thoughtful in its pace, and yet again the artwork is entirely stunning in how it conveys open and closed spaces. Four stars.
Unraveling Freedom: the Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I, Ann Bausum
A really well-researched and engaging book on the harsh limits on freedom of speech and assembly that were enacted during WWI and how the evaluation and (sometimes) overturn of cases led to the better delineation of US civil liberties. The layout is really nice, the photos are well chosen to add to the text and even the captions add to the overall story. Pretty great. Five stars.
The Guild, Day
A fun graphic-novel prequel to the web series that keeps its tone even though the medium is quite different. Four stars.
Bludzee, Trondheim
This was my souvenir from my trip to Paris to visit their comic book stores. I am a big Trondheim fan, but not until I was trying to find out if the comic strips in the book originally ran in a publication did I find out that they were from a yearlong daily strip offered through a cell phone application! And offered in a variety of languages, no less. So apparently advertising doesn’t work. The strips are funny and utterly gorgeous, with surprising twists in the storyline befitting a serial. Four stars and I hope the book is released in the US.
Player One: What Is To Become of Us: A Novel in Five Hours, Coupland
Something that I didn’t bring up in my review for another publication (where I enthused about how it is a disaster novel that does more than the usual musing on the nature of humanity and mercy to touch on brain structure, evolution, and the nature of story) is that it covers a lot of the same philosophical ground as Generation A, but with a different disaster and a different generation of protagonists. I felt like it was a well-done cover version of the other novel (or vice versa). Something more complex than a cover version. Not even another story in the same universe, but another way of expressing similar feelings. Four stars. In tribute to this site’s other reviewer, I will bring up a couple of inaccuracies that took me out of the story: the limit of fluid you can take in a bottle on an airplane is 3 oz, not 1.5 oz, and cell phones don’t have dial tones. And I was so wrapped up in the story’s world that those were the only things that distracted.
Irredeemable Volume 1, Irredeemable Volume 2, Incorruptible Volume 2, Incorruptible Volume 3, all by Mark Waid
In my review of volume 1 of Incorruptible, I apologized for not previously acknowledging the vital part that the artist in a graphic novel has in conveying the story effectively. In these volumes I was at least able to tell who a character was from panel to panel (mostly), but the story still far outstripped the ability of the artists to convey with feeling and subtlety. Which is too bad, because these stories have a lot to say about character and motivation. I like Incorruptible better than Irredeemable, but they’re both certainly worth a short afternoon. Stars for writing but not art.
Contraband, Taryn Simon
Simon spent 5 days photographing all of the things confiscated from the mails and from air travelers at JFK. WOW! It’s a pretty neat cross-section of crime and protecting agriculture. I like it. Three stars.
The affected provincial’s companion: a bounteous selection of essays, philosophical diagrams, poetry and other Arcadian follies concerning the art of curious living and the reintroduction of ancient charm into this vale of mud and tears known heretofore as the modern life / written and designed by Breaulove Swells Whimsy.
1. I like that the fact that the title page title = official title means that this book has a crazily long entry in the library catalog.
2. I like Whimsy’s emphasis on dandyism being a dedication to being a living poem and ambassador of paradise
3. Good diagrams
Unfortunately, I ran out of steam partway through. Three stars for three points of goodness, but I didn’t finish it.
Extraordinary chickens, Stephen Green-Armytage
Extra extraordinary chickens, Stephen Green-Armytage
An assortment of portraits of show chickens, all fairly unusual and pretty (except their feet, and some of the feet are even more unsettling and dinosaur-like than usual). I may have to attend a chicken show someday. Three stars.
Elmer, written & illustrated by Gerry Alanguilan
It’s about the years after chickens became intelligent and self-aware, but it’s also about the journey from being seen as less than human and how that changes from the first to second generation. Good story, great art and pretty darn Filipino. Four stars.