reading notes

Collected Stories & Drawings
by Brian Andreas
ISBN: 0964266008
We have one of Brian Andreas’s Story People sculptures on our living room wall. We picked it up last summer from a funky little gallery in Rockport, when we were on vacation. The whimsical appearance and thoughtful message spoke to me:

Wish for your
deepest desires, she said
& when I [...]

by Mark Waid and Alex Ross with Todd Klein
ISBN: 1563893177
Superheroes — the traditional ones, with capes, such as Superman — usually aren’t my thing. All bulging muscles and unstoppable powers and moral superiority, they tend not to appeal to me, as story line or as visual art. I probably wouldn’t have gone out of my [...]

by Aimee Bender
ISBN: 0385492162
I love weird stories. When I read Willful Creatures back in January, I knew I’d need to track down the rest of Bender’s work.
This story collection came first. There are plastic lips and buried sweaters, a lover’s de-evolution, an imp and a mermaid, thieves and magic (or is it cursed?) rings. [...]

by Karen Russell
ISBN: 9780307276674
This is a book of deep and intricately twisted stories, the kind that made me squirm the way only childhood injustices or impending adolescent disaster can.
Russell is great with titles, too with “Z.Z.’s Sleep-Away Camp for Disordered Dreamers”, “The Star-Gazer’s Log of Summer-Time Crime”, and “Lady Yeti and the Palace of Artificial [...]

by Jeanette Winterson
ISBN: 9780151014910
I read this book pretty much in one go, on a Sunday afternoon. I love (okay, I have a love/bitter disappointment relationship with) Winterson’s books, so it isn’t that surprising I read it at that pace. I couldn’t help it: I wanted to know what was going to happen, if she could [...]