reading notes

by Craig Thompson
ISBN: 1891830090
I loved this book; I loved “the green kid,” Chunky Rice (who is a turtle) and his beautiful, round-eyed mouse friend Dandel.
Not to say the other characters in this story weren’t interesting–because that isn’t true, the appearance of self-described Siamese twin sisters is definitely interesting–it is just that I loved the two [...]

by Gary Spencer Millidge
ISBN: 0946790043
This book brings together the first six issues of the Strangehaven comic, but this is the first time I have read it.
The story seems to center on a just-divorced man who gets lost on holiday and winds up in the weird little town of the title. There is a lot going [...]

by James Kochalka
ISBN: 18918830295
Pinky & Stinky are pigs in space. They are also really cute. They know they are cute–in fact, they have felt persecuted for being so damn cute.
In this book (it is one story, not a collection of strips) the pigs are on a mission to Pluto. They run into problems, though. [...]

by James Kochalka
ISBN: 18918830155
Its got monkeys and robots in it, what’s not to like?
This book is a single story, not a collection of strips. lt has very few words in it, as these monkeys don’t actually talk and the robots have little to say. The story, such as it is, is a nature [...]

by Alastair Reynolds
ISBN: 0441009425
This debut novel is best described in two words: space opera.
It weighs in at nearly 600 pages, and is almost entirely plot-propelled (versus character-driven.) It covers the requisite vast distances and time periods. At times elements reminded me of Vernor Vinge’s last two books, but the characters in Revelation Space were not [...]

by Scott McCloud
ISBN: 006097625X
Comics has always been on the periphery of my interest, so I’ve never gotten around to reading them. But I felt compelled to read this book for two reasons: reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay stoked my interest in comics, and there has been some buzz about this book from [...]

by Greg Hollingshead
ISBN: 0156005840
This is the kind of book you think you are going to like, you try to like, but in the end you don’t like the way you thought you would.
The characters were quirky, sometimes even kinky, but for the most part I just didn’t connect with these stories. Perhaps the comparisons with [...]

by Denis Guedj
ISBN: 0810928450
This book isn’t meant to be a deep scholarly text. It is set up more in the manner of those Freud for Beginners types of books (though not part of that series.)
Using copious illustrations and sidebar notes, this book explains the basic ideas in the history of numbers. It looks [...]

by Yann Martel
ISBN: 0151008116
I often have a difficult time writing about books I love. I feel like I won’t do them justice, or that I won’t be able to explain well enough why a person should go read this book right now. I feel that way about this book. It is an amazing novel.
So, how [...]

by Oliver Sacks
ISBN: 0679756973
Sacks has more feel for narrative flow in this latest collection of case studies. I felt that medical jargon was intrusive in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, but not so with this book. His concern here is in capturing the personhood as well as the pathology.
There are seven [...]