Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

 

For some reason I ended up picking up two more Japanese books – I had already put the Tanizaki on hold after reading and loving The Makioka Sisters (more about that next week). And then all those lovely comics, although the Wytches looks more scary than I expected!!

Supermarket – Satoshi Azuchi (translated by Paul Warham)

A modern classic of literature in Japan, Supermarket is a novel of the human drama surrounding the management of a supermarket chain at a time when the phenomenon of the supermarket, imported postwar from the US, was just taking hold in Japan.

When Kojima, an elite banker resigns his job to help a cousin manage Ishiei, a supermarket in one of Japan’s provincial cities, a host of problems ensue.  Store employees are stealing products, the books are in disaray, and the workers seem stuck in old ways of thinking.  As Kojima begins to give all his time over to the relentless task of reforming the store’s management, a chance encounter with a woman from his childhood causes him to ask the age-old question: is the all encompassing pursuit of business success really worth it?

Sincere and naive in tone, Supermarket takes us back to a simpler, kinder time, and  skillfully presents the depictions of its characters alongside a wealth of information concerning Japanese post WWII recovery and industrialization.

The Guest Cat – Takahashi Hiraide (translated by Eric Selland)

A bestseller in France and winner of Japan’s Kiyama Shohei Literary Award, The Guest Cat, by the acclaimed poet Takashi Hiraide, is a subtly moving and exceptionally beautiful novel about the transient nature of life and idiosyncratic but deeply felt ways of living. A couple in their thirties live in a small rented cottage in a quiet part of Tokyo; they work at home, freelance copy-editing; they no longer have very much to say to one another. But one day a cat invites itself into their small kitchen. It leaves, but the next day comes again, and then again and again. Soon they are buying treats for the cat and enjoying talks about the animal and all its little ways. Life suddenly seems to have more promise for the husband and wife — the days have more light and color. The novel brims with new small joys and many moments of staggering poetic beauty, but then something happens….

 

Seven Japanese Tales – Junichiro Tanizaki

In these seven stories, the author of The Makioka Sisters explores the territory where love becomes self-annihilation, where the contemplation of beauty gives way to fetishism, and where tradition becomes an instrument of refined cruelty.

Wytches Vol 1 – Scott Snyder ; art, Jock ; colors, Matt Hollingsworth ; letters, Clem Robins ; editor, David Brothers

Everything you thought you knew about witches is wrong. They are much darker, and they are much more horrifying. Wytches takes the mythology of witches to a far creepier, bone-chilling place than readers have dared venture before. When the Rooks family moves to the remote town of Litchfield, NH to escape a haunting trauma, they’re hopeful about starting over. But something evil is waiting for them in the woods just beyond town. Watching from the trees. Ancient…and hungry.

Genius Vol 1: Siege – Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman, writers ; Afua Richardson, artist ;

What if the greatest military mind of our generation was born to a people who are already supremely conditioned to wage war, who know nothing but violence from birth and must continually adapt to new predators in order to survive? This action-packed book contains the full story of a city that declares war on a brilliant young woman pushed to the edge.

The kids’ loot:

  

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

 

 

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

 

 Grabbed plenty of picture books, and even some back issues of kids magazines, this week. And also roamed the comics and graphic novel shelves upstairs for a bit. I’ve decided to jump in and do some Reading this weekend during the #24in48 Readathon! It’s highly unlikely that it will be 24. Or even 12. (Insert excuses here, which include the fact that after recovering from a cough, I now have caught a cold. Plus my kids still are coughing. Oh and did I mention that I have kids? Two little boys whose idea of fun is running around and throwing things. Well sometimes they might sit down and flip through some books for a bit before going back to running and jumping and wrestling. See bottom of post for books  I hope to amuse them with this weekend!)

Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order – Gene Yang

Did not know this was a sequel! Will have to see if it makes sense without reading the first!

In this sequel to Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks, high school sopomore Loyola Chin meets the mysterious Saint Danger in one of her many food induced dreams. The two strike up a friendship which leads to something entirely beyond Loyola’s imagination.

 

Displacement: a travelogue – Lucy Knisley

While I really did like Knisley’s Relish, I wasn’t all that fond of French Milk, so I’m wondering what I’ll think of this one.

In her graphic memoirs, New York Times-best selling cartoonist Lucy Knisley paints a warts-and-all portrait of contemporary, twentysomething womanhood, like writer Lena Dunham (Girls). In the next installment of her graphic travelogue series, Displacement, Knisley volunteers to watch over her ailing grandparents on a cruise. (The book s watercolors evoke the ocean that surrounds them.) In a book that is part graphic memoir, part travelogue, and part family history, Knisley not only tries to connect with her grandparents, but to reconcile their younger and older selves. She is aided in her quest by her grandfather s WWII memoir, which is excerpted. Readers will identify with Knisley s frustration, her fears, her compassion, and her attempts to come to terms with mortality, as she copes with the stress of travel complicated by her grandparents frailty.”

 

SuperMutant Magic Academy – Jillian Tamaki

Ok so I got this for that title. And for Jillian Tamaki, who illustrated This One Summer. 

The New York Times and New Yorker illustrator Jillian Tamaki is best known for co-creating the award-winning young adult graphic novels Skim and This One Summer—moody and atmospheric bestsellers. SuperMutant Magic Academy, which she has been serializing online for the past four years, paints a teenaged world filled with just as much ennui and uncertainty, but also with a sharp dose of humor and irreverence. Tamaki deftly plays superhero and high-school Hollywood tropes against what adolescence is really like: The SuperMutant Magic Academy is a prep school for mutants and witches, but their paranormal abilities take a backseat to everyday teen concerns.

Science experiments go awry, bake sales are upstaged, and the new kid at school is a cat who will determine the course of human destiny. In one strip, lizard-headed Trixie frets about her nonexistent modeling career; in another, the immortal Everlasting Boy tries to escape this mortal coil to no avail. Throughout it all, closeted Marsha obsesses about her unrequited crush, the cat-eared Wendy. Whether the magic is mundane or miraculous, Tamaki’s jokes are precise and devastating.

 

Dial H: Volume 1, Into you – China Mieville, writer ; Mateus Santolouco, David Lapham, Riccardo Burchielli, artists ; Tanya & Richard Horie, colorists ; Steve Wands, letterer ; Brian Bolland, collection & original series cover artist

Hadn’t heard of this before, but when I saw China Mieville, I had to pick it up.

Hugo Award-winning novelist China Miéville breathes new life into a classic DC Comics series as part of the second wave of DC Comics – The New 52.

In the small run-down town of Littleville, CO, a troubled young man stumbles upon the lost H-Dial and all of the secrets and power it possesses. It has been many years since the H-Dial has been seen, though legions of villains have been scouring the globe looking for it and its ability to transform users into a variety of superheros and take on their powers and psyches.

Will our hero be able to harness the power of the H-Dial and protect it from falling into the hands of evil? Will this newfound power plunge our hero to madness? And will we ever discover where the H-Dial came from and its true meaning?

 

Birds of Prey: End Run – Gail Simon, Ed Benes (Illustrator), Adriana Melo (Illustrator), Alvin Lee(Illustrator)

Another one I hadn’t heard of. This one I also picked up upon recognising a name – Gail Simone, whose Red Sonja I read last year.

Soaring out of BRIGHTEST DAY, the Birds of Prey are back!Oracle, Black Canary, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk all return to Gotham City, where they belong – and they’ve brought a couple of new friends (or are they foes?) along with them.

The Birds of Prey are forced to ally themselves with the worst of Gotham City’s mega-criminals while they struggle to save his life from the unspeakable horror that hunts them all. Pursued by an unstoppable killer, the Birds are forced to run a gauntlet of insane gang members and corrupt cops out to kill them while trying to keep a teammate alive

 

The two-year-old immediately declared: “this is MY train book and MY Thomas book!”

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

 

 

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

 

So I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump this past week. And decided that a library trip, one in which I actually get books for myself and not just the kids, was in order. Whee!

Ms Marvel Vol 3: Crushed – G. Willow Wilson, Mark Waid, Takeshi Miyazawa (Artist), Elmo Bondoc (Artist), Humberto Ramos (Illustrator)

Love is in the air in Jersey City as Valentine’s Day arrives! Kamala Khan may not be allowed to go to the school dance, but Ms. Marvel is! Well sort of–by crashing it in an attempt to capture Asgard’s most annoying trickster! Yup, it’s a special Valentine’s Day story featuring Marvel’s favorite charlatan, Loki! And when a mysterious stranger arrives in Jersey City, Ms. Marvel must deal with…a crush! Because this new kid is really, really cute. What are these feelings, Kamala Khan? Prepare for drama! Intrigue! Romance! Suspense! Punching things! All this and more! The fan-favorite, critically acclaimed, amazing new series continues as Kamala Khan proves why she’s the best (and most adorable) new super hero there is! Plus, see what happens when S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jemma Simmons goes undercover at Kamala’s school!

 

Fates and Furies – Lauren Groff

I had been hemming and hawing over borrowing this e-book, but eventually joined the library queue for it. Then I went to the library and spotted it among the “It’s Your Lucky Day” shelves, where popular books are set out, just no renewals and whatnot. So it was indeed my lucky day. And I better get started on reading this one soon!

Fates and Furies is a literary masterpiece that defies expectation. A dazzling examination of a marriage, it is also a portrait of creative partnership written by one of the best writers of her generation.

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. At the core of this rich, expansive, layered novel, Lauren Groff presents the story of one such marriage over the course of twenty-four years.

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

The Book of Phoenix – Nnedi Okorafor

I don’t really read many of the latest books but hey it’s Nnedi Okorafor!

A fiery spirit dances from the pages of the Great Book. She brings the aroma of scorched sand and ozone. She has a story to tell…. 

The Book of Phoenix is a unique work of magical futurism. A prequel to the highly acclaimed, World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death, it features the rise of another of Nnedi Okorafor’s powerful, memorable, superhuman women.

Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading e-books, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7.

Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison, and she becomes desperate to escape.

But Phoenix’s escape, and her destruction of Tower 7, is just the beginning of her story. Before her story ends, Phoenix will travel from the United States to Africa and back, changing the entire course of humanity’s future

Here – Richard McGuire

Here is Richard McGuire’s unique graphic novel based on the legendary 1989 comic strip of the same name.

Richard McGuire’s groundbreaking comic strip Here was published under Art Spiegelman’s editorship at RAW in 1989.

Built in six pages of interlocking panels, dated by year, it collapsed time and space to tell the story of the corner of a room – and its inhabitants – between the years 500,957,406,073 BC and 2033 AD.

The strip remains one of the most influential and widely discussed contributions to the medium, and it has now been developed, expanded and reimagined by the artist into this full-length, full-colour graphic novel – a must for any fan of the genre

 

I love trouble – Kel Symons

Felicia Castillo is a small-time grifter on the run from a nasty New Orleans gangster she just ripped off when she discovers she has the amazing ability to teleport. This lands her in the crosshairs of the nefarious Mars Corporation, which exploits supernatural gifts of people like Felicia. They make her an offer she can’t refuse: use her unique talent to become an assassin that can get close to anyone, anywhere. However, Felicia soon learns that no matter how long or how far you run, your troubles always catch up to you.

 

Kids’ loot:

 

  
Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

 

 

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

 

In April, Wee Reader (age 2) started at his new bilingual (English-Mandarin) preschool, and in August, Wee-er Reader (age 2) started attending school there too. Some might say that 2 (and 4 months) is too young for preschool but I wanted him to get started on the Mandarin-learning (we don’t really speak it at home), as well as the whole socialization thing, and also to just get a bit of a break for myself, if only for a few hours each weekday morning!

Anyway, one of the best parts about school – besides both of them liking it! – is that it is near the main library! As in, I park the car, I get out and I can hear the kids in the school playground. Unfortunately though, the library only opens early enough on just two weekdays for me to drop by before picking the kids up at noon. Yeah the library has odd opening hours, like 1-9pm on Mon and Tues, 12-6pm on Wed, 11-6pm on Thurs and Fri. But hey, at least they’ve started opening on Sundays again! And also, requesting holds, both within the library system and as inter-library loans, is free! (tell that to the Singapore library system).

Anyway, I love being able to spend time wandering among the library shelves in the morning. It’s quiet and relatively peaceful. And since school is back on again, the children’s section is full of books.

Our Lady of the Nile – Scholastique Mukasonga (translated from the French)

We had a little time before having to pick up the kids, so I wandered around and saw this shelf of suggested reads. The theme seemed to be school-related books, and included some fiction and non-fiction and some that seemed more like teaching aids even. Interesting.

Anyway, this little book caught my eye. I hadn’t heard of it or its author before so I was rather intrigued.

For her most recent work and first novel – Notre-Dame du Nil, originally published in March 2012 with Gallimard in French – Mukasonga immerses us in a school for young girls, called “Notre-Dame du Nil.” The girls are sent to this high school perched on the ridge of the Nile in order to become the feminine elite of the country and to escape the dangers of the outside world. The book is a prelude to the Rwandan genocide and unfolds behind the closed doors of the school, in the interminable rainy season. Friendships, desires, hatred, political fights, incitation to racial violence, persecutions… The school soon becomes a fascinating existential microcosm of the true 1970s Rwanda.

The Moor’s Account – Laila Lalami

In this stunning work of historical fiction, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America—a Moroccan slave whose testimony was left out of the official record.

In 1527, the conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda with a crew of six hundred men and nearly a hundred horses. His goal was to claim what is now the Gulf Coast of the United States for the Spanish crown and, in the process, become as wealthy and famous as Hernán Cortés.

But from the moment the Narváez expedition landed in Florida, it faced peril—navigational errors, disease, starvation, as well as resistance from indigenous tribes. Within a year there were only four survivors: the expedition’s treasurer, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca; a Spanish nobleman named Alonso del Castillo Maldonado; a young explorer named Andrés Dorantes de Carranza; and Dorantes’s Moroccan slave, Mustafa al-Zamori, whom the three Spaniards called Estebanico. These four survivors would go on to make a journey across America that would transform them from proud conquis-tadores to humble servants, from fearful outcasts to faith healers.

The Moor’s Account brilliantly captures Estebanico’s voice and vision, giving us an alternate narrative for this famed expedition. As the dramatic chronicle unfolds, we come to understand that, contrary to popular belief, black men played a significant part in New World exploration and Native American men and women were not merely silent witnesses to it. In Laila Lalami’s deft hands, Estebanico’s memoir illuminates the ways in which stories can transmigrate into history, even as storytelling can offer a chance for redemption and survival.

 

 

 

The Hunter: a Detective Takako Otomichi mystery – Asa Nonami (translated from the Japanese)

Another read for Diversiverse/RIPX.

In The Hunter, the first English translation of the atmospheric, gritty and character-driven work of prize-winning, bestselling Japanese writer Asa Nonami, American readers are introduced to Takako Otomichi, a strong, complex female detective reminiscent of Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski and Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone.
Takako is a former motorbike patrolwoman-turned-detective who is partnered with an older, seasoned, misogynist detective in a murder investigation. Their search reveals that the victim ran a dating club for men to meet high-school girls, and had previously been involved in the nightclub underworld of Roppongi. Before long, the case is linked to another death, this time apparently the result of an attack by a large dog. As Takako and Takizawa question experts in kennel clubs and police dog training centers, the dog strikes again. They soon realize that the animal responsible is actually half-dog, half-wolf. The trail leads to Kasahara, a former police dog handler; his deeply troubled daughter; and the shocking revelation that Kasahara had owned and trained a wolf-dog called Hayate to kill on command. But Hayate has escaped and is killing on his own. As Takako becomes increasingly fascinated with this highly intelligent, dangerous creature, she must use all her wits and insight to track down and stop Hayate before he strikes again.

 

Saga Volume 4 – Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist)

Whee! More Saga!

From the Eisner Award-winning duo of Brian K. Vaughan (The Private Eye, Pride of Baghdad) and Fiona Staples (Mystery Society, Thor, SAGA is the sweeping tale of one young family fighting to find their place in the universe. As they visit a strange new world and encounter even more adversaries, baby Hazel finally becomes a toddler, while her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana struggle to stay on their feet.

 

Ms Marvel Vol 2: Generation Why – by G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona (Artist), Jacob Wyatt(Artist)

Ok so I am more excited to get hold of this one than Saga….

Who is the Inventor, and what does he want with the all-new Ms. Marvel and all her friends? Maybe Wolverine can help! If Kamala can stop fan-girding out about meeting her favorite super hero, that is. Then, Kamala crosses paths with Inhumanity — by meeting the royal dog, Lockjaw! But why is Lockjaw really with Kamala? As Ms. Marvel discovers more about her past, the Inventor continues to threaten her future. Kamala bands together with some unlikely heroes to stop the maniacal villain before he does real damage, but has she taken on more than she can handle? And how much longer can Ms. Marvel’s life take over Kamala Khan’s? Kamala Khan continues to prove why she’s the best (and most adorable) new super hero there is!

 

Oh and plenty of e-book holds came in too!

Beauty is a wound – Eka Kumiawan
Yay! A translated work from an Indonesian writer. The only other Indonesian writer whose works I’ve read is Pramoedya Ananta Toer (whose Girl from the Coast is a brilliant read), so I’m looking forward to this.

The epic novel Beauty Is a Wound combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. The beautiful Indo prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan’s gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation’s troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million “Communists,” followed by three decades of Suharto’s despotic rule.

Beauty Is a Wound astonishes from its opening line: “One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years…” Drawing on local sources—folk tales and the all-night shadow puppet plays, with their bawdy wit and epic scope—and inspired by Melville and Gogol, Kurniawan’s distinctive voice brings something luscious yet astringent to contemporary literature.

 

His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire #1) – Naomi Novik

So after reading and loving Uprooted, I immediately placed a hold on this series!

Aerial combat brings a thrilling new dimension to the Napoleonic Wars as valiant warriors ride mighty fighting dragons, bred for size or speed. When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes the precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Captain Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France’s own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte’s boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.

The Quick – Lauren Owen

For RIPX

London, 1892: James Norbury, a shy would-be poet newly down from Oxford, finds lodging with a charming young aristocrat. Through this new friendship, he is introduced to the drawing-rooms of high society, and finds love in an unexpected quarter. Then, suddenly, he vanishes without a trace. Unnerved, his sister, Charlotte, sets out from their crumbling country estate determined to find him. In the sinister, labyrinthine city that greets her, she uncovers a secret world at the margins populated by unforgettable characters: a female rope walker turned vigilante, a street urchin with a deadly secret, and the chilling “Doctor Knife.” But the answer to her brother’s disappearance ultimately lies within the doors of one of the country’s preeminent and mysterious institutions: The Aegolius Club, whose members include the most ambitious, and most dangerous, men in England.

In her first novel, Lauren Owen has created a fantastical world that is both beguiling and terrifying. The Quick will establish her as one of fiction’s most dazzling talents

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Today I set out to borrow books that looked like they may not have been borrowed for a while. It’s guesswork, but I was just going for older titles, books that aren’t well known, that kind of thing!

   

Italian Girl – Iris Murdoch

Edmund has escaped from his family into a lonely life. Returning for his mother’s funeral he rediscovers the eternal family servant, the ever-changing Italian girl, who was always “a second mother.”

 

In Nueva York – Nicholasa Mohr

Nicholasa Mohr’s short stories give a glimpse at life in a Puerto Rican community of New York City. Each story intertwines with another as they tell about the life and hardships of different people in Nueva York.

I didn’t mention some of my other loot last week.

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant (Delilah Dirk #1) – Tony Cliff

Hadn’t heard of this before I spotted it on the ‘teen comics’ shelves, but sounds fun enough. Actually I hadn’t been looking for any specific comics/graphic novels that library visit, but picked up whatever looked and sounded interesting.

Lovable ne’er-do-well Delilah Dirk has travelled to Japan, Indonesia, France, and even the New World. Using the skills she’s picked up on the way, Delilah’s adventures continue as she plots to rob a rich and corrupt Sultan in Constantinople. With the aid of her flying boat and her newfound friend, Selim, she evades the Sultan’s guards, leaves angry pirates in the dust, and fights her way through the countryside. For Delilah, one adventure leads to the next in this thrilling and funny installment in her exciting life.

A little bit Tintin, a little bit Indiana Jones, Delilah Dirk is a great pick for any reader looking for a smart and foolhardy heroine…and globetrotting adventures.

Creatures of the night – Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli

From the New York Times best-selling author Neil Gaiman comes this collection, featuring two magical and disturbing stories lushly adapted to comics by veteran painter Michael Zulli (The Last Temptation). Rewritten by Gaiman for this graphic novel, these two ominous stories from the author’s award-winning prose work Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions feature animals and people not being quite what they seem. In “The Price,” a black cat like a small panther arrives at a country home and is soon beset by mysterious and vicious wounds. What is he fighting every night that could do this, and why does he persist? “The Daughter of Owls” recounts an eerie old tale of a foundling girl who was left with an owl pellet as a newborn on the steps of the Dymton Church. She was soon cloistered away in a local convent, but by her fourteenth year word of her beauty had spread—and those who would prey upon her faced unforeseen consequences.

Nowhere Men Vol 1: Fates Worse Than Death – Eric Stephenson (Writer), Nate Bellegarde (Illustrator), Jordie Bellaire (colorist)

“SCIENCE IS THE NEW ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!”

So said Dade Ellis, Simon Grimshaw, Emerson Strange, and Thomas Walker at the dawn of a new age of enlightenment that ushered in a boom in scientific advancement. As the research supergroup World Corp., they became the most celebrated scientists of all time.

They changed the world – and we loved them for it.

But where did it all go wrong?

And when progress is made at any and all cost, who ultimately pays the price?

Collects Nowhere Men #1-6.

Also an e-book hold just came in!

The Invasion of the Tearling – Erika Johansen

With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling. By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighboring kingdom of Mortmesne, she crossed the Red Queen, a brutal ruler whose power derives from dark magic, who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.

But as the Mort army draws ever closer, Kelsea develops a mysterious connection to a time before the Crossing, and she finds herself relying on a strange and possibly dangerous ally: a woman named Lily, fighting for her life in a world where being female can feel like a crime. The fate of the Tearling —and that of Kelsea’s own soul—may rest with Lily and her story, but Kelsea may not have enough time to find out

 

 

Kids’ loot

  

Have you read any of these? What did you think of them?