🦹 Criminal: The Last of the Innocent (2011)
This is volume 6 in the Criminal series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Though great, I can get burnt out on these crime stories. This one was amazing.
📚 Head On (2019) by John Scalzi
I appreciate the things Scalzi is accomplishing in this universe. This one was just a little too procedural for me.
🦹 Ascender (2021)
Ascender is a fascinating series with beautiful watercolor art. I liked its predecessor, Descender, a bit more, but still very entertaining.
The story of Mark Wunderlich’s poem Cuthbert rolls along so well. I didn’t realize until the last stanza that it was a rare poem that I’ve read recently that actually has rhymes! I think it’s pretty clever to include suprising rhymes in a poem about a lamb.
📚 Fish: a tap essay (2012) by Robin Sloan
What an interesting experiment. It has some things to say.
📚 The Obelisk Gate (2016) by N. K. Jemisin
I read this with audio. It’s a book two that found my attention straying, but certainly did well in setting up an exciting conclusion (I hope).
This has been a wild ride. A horror comic with many surprises. Volume 8 found me mostly confused, though. Volume 9 brought it back into focus a bit. I need to get my hands on volume 10.
The poetry books I’m currently reading have quite the titles. Will see if these bring out my angst or if they are just clever irony. 📚
🦹 Eternals (2006)
Neil Gaiman lends his considerable talents to revisit Eternals. The book felt like there was more to come, but I don’t think there was?
📚 The Dream of Reason (2018) by Jenny George
Lots of poems about animals. I didn’t jive with this one so much, but it had it’s moments.
📚 Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox (2003)
I may be 20 years late, but this is a good celebrity memoir. Some interesting stories backing a tale of the metamorphosis of a man.
📚 Prognosis by Jim Moore (2021)
Now this is what I meant when I wrote about mixing with my mind by reading poetry. This is a collection I will come back to, grabbing from the shelf and reading random bits.
🦹 Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon (2013)
This through volume four is roughly the basis for the Marvel Hawkeye show. I’ve read through volume six. Good stuff!
📚 The Maze Runner (2010)
I’ve tried to read along with each of the kids on at least one book series (RE: The Hunger Games and Found), and now it’s time to read with the youngest. This one was a particularly brutal dystopia.
From Jenny George’s collection The Dream of Reason (I could find no place to link to, so this is printed without permission):
Spring
Speckled egg, brown egg, or sky blue with black marks –
Having broken once, the world re-forms
in miniature.
Over and over, in the nest
between two limbs; in the hollow of grass
at a marsh edge.It’s relentless, the way it keeps trying
to return.
Joy
Joy
Joy
🔗 Unsolicited Advice to Minnesota Children by Neil Hilborn
I shouldn’t quote the whole thing because that would be inappropriate, so I’ll do something worse and excerpt a poem:
and you ingrate children of the snow
spend all your time in “classes”
learning about “things” that will teach you
nothing about ice skating on the bones
of your enemies or lighting moose
on fire or felling fir trees
Anyway, I love it!
📚 Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (2021)
I like how Nick Offerman writes. It inspires me to be more playful with my scribbles. Maybe I can be a little janky, leave some words out, and use a fancy phrase or five for fun. There’s definitely a schtick to it and he can spread it too thick at times. One of the themes in the book is “nuance,” which makes it striking when Offerman paints 40% of the American population with a pretty obese brush. The dual focus of describing our beautiful land right next to lamenting our ugly politics doesn’t really do a lot of favors to either discussion.
📚 Dune (1965)
I never read Dune as a kid. I tried to read Dune just out of college, but it didn’t catch. Yes, I’m one who read Dune (1984 movie tie-in edition) after seeing the movie (2021), and for me this worked. The movie, along with a conversation with a friend after the movie, gave me enough background to enjoy the ride.
📚 Homie (2020)
Did not hit me as hard as Don’t Call Us Dead. As with all Danez Smith, watching them read the poems is the best way to take them in.
Postcolonial Love Poem – I didn’t particularly understand anything I was reading. However, there was one bit I highlighted from “Snake-Light”:
When a snake swallows its prey, a row of inner teeth help walk the jaw over the prey’s body—walking like reading.
Walking over a word with the teeth of our mind.
To write is to be eaten. To read, to be full.
That’s vivid!
📚 2022
#Dune #KyleMacLachlan
