The Cartographers (Shepherd)

The Cartographers: A Novel
Peng Shepherd (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a Pandemic Book Club selection.

The meeting was last night, according to when this was posted, but I wrote this yesterday, so the meeting hasn't happened yet. I might include an update.

The book starts with the murder of a prestigious reseracher at the Central Branch of the New York Public Library. His estranged daughter, Nell, who used to work with him, is called to the library by the cops and her former coworker. A mystery three decades old starts to unravel at this point and it centers on a old, seemingly worthless, road map that Nell found in what is referred to as "the Junk Box incident."

She was fired for arguing with her father when he was in fact her boss. He coworker Felix, a fellow intern, was fired at the same time. Swann, a kindly uncle-type figure, had always looked out for her and had hoped that she'd be able to come back.

Nell and Felix are both cartographers. Felix ends up working with maps for a big company, while Nell winds up creating fake relicas of old maps (with dragons and sea sprites added) in a cramped office in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Nell follows what clues (and what maps) she has to figure out this mystery, and as she does, she learns about this mysterious group, the Cartographers, that's something of a legend in map-collecting circles. Mild spoiler: they were her parents and five friends from school. They were all together on the day her mother died and Nell suffered burns in a fire in a cabin in upstate New York when Nell was three years old.

Each time she meets one of them, we get a little more of the background of what happened back in those days related to her. And every time, when learn that there were more secrets among the group other than the biggest secret: Agloe, a phantom settlement that only appears if you have the correct map. And it was only on one map. And every copy of that map is missing, stolen by collectors.

It turns out that someone out there would kill for that map. And then have a secret way into and out of the library and other places as well.

Edit: I'll put this here because it seems like a good place. Overall, everyone in the book club seemed to enjoy the book overall, but everyone also had a problem with the ending and with the motives of the villain -- and everyone else's, really, when you get down to it.

End of edit

I enjoyed this book, and I wasn't overly happy with the ending, but I rolled with it. Likewise, when police and murder are involved but there's a fantastical element at work, there's a bit of disbelief suspension at work.

But there was one thing that I did have to call out: for how well researched this book is -- Agloe in particular was a real place at one particular time because of a phantom settlement on a map -- there was a glaring error that someone should have caught. They flee from police and he up to the town through the Lincoln Tunnel and then spend hours on I-95.

I-95 does NOT go to upstate New York! They were on that highway for maybe 20 minutes, unless they secret went through New England.

Now, this should be a quibble. If the author had invented, say, State Road 145, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But not only is I-95 a major thoroughfare -- BUT THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT MAPS!! How do you get something like this wrong? Especially when they're using a road map!

That aside, I enjoyed the book unfolding. I didn't think the stakes were high enough for some of the reactions the characters had or the actions that they took, but by the end, things were explained to not be as they seemed. Still that ending.

Second edit: One of the group members complained about one character morphing into a Bond villain.

I enjoyed this book, and now that the audiobook became available, I might listen to it for the next couple weeks.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

DNF: Moonbase Armstrong (Marks)

Moonbase Armstrong
edited by Robert B. Marks (2026)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a free Advanced Reader Copy from Library Thing. I'm encouraged (but not required) to leave reviews in exchange for the free books.

I left the following review on the Library Thing website:

Moonbase Armstrong started off well enough, introducing the characters at a lunar base as a ship is landing on the Moon. The ship explodes, which sets up the rest of the book.

After that, it fell apart for me. I found it hard to believe that this was a NASA installation or that any of these people possibly worked for NASA. There was no contingency plan for a disaster. Okay, but then you think that every on the Moon and back on Earth would be working around the clock to form a plan, and then present it clearly.

The narrative wasn't going anywhere and little things were starting to bother me. I read about 25-30% of the book before giving up, which is longer than I usually stay with a book that I DNF.

---

More of a breakdown of the stories, which doesn't belong on Library Thing:

Actually, there isn't much more to breakdown. It wasn't good. It didn't hold my interest. And the recovery plan took forever to formulate and at 30% of the way through the book, they haven't set out yet, despite the ship blowing up in the initial pages.

I mention the words "around the clock", and I chose those carefully, instead of Day and Night. Why? Because day and night each last about two weeks each on the Moon. This is, of course, acknowledge. The author isn't a moron. But the characters do keep saying this like "tonight" and "first thing in the morning", which don't make sense, particularly in a NASA setting.

Also, an important mission wouldn't happen "first thing in the morning". It would happen at, say, 0600 hours. This is another thing -- there is no reference (so far as I got) to military time despite it being a government orgazination site. It's little things like this I notice, particularly when the author goes out of the way to mention other little things to let us know that he knows them (and you wonder if the characters did when they get informed, because they should.)

One thing that bothered me was the overuse of the words "Three seconds passed" during every exchange with video calls from the Moon to Earth. Every. Time. And yet --

The head of the moonbase, whose wife just died back on Earth, decides to stay on until the investigation is over. He says, "Just take 'yes' for an answer."

"Three seconds passed. Jim said nothing."

Seriously? Here was a great writing opportunity -- He could've written. "Three seconds passed. Four. Five. Six... Ten. Jim said nothing."

At least then, all the repetition would've had a payoff.

The only other note I'll make (because I stopped soon after this) was there was a very odd medical checkup for two people who are being sent to the Moon. One of them (the non-POV character) is named Ike. I think Ike is male since Ike wasn't asked about pregnancy. Then, the very next section has a POV character named AIKO, who I initially assumed was the same Ike, except this Aiko was definitely female, and was already on the Moon. Not the same character, check.

Also Aiko is introduced in the middle of a ridiculous, almost embarrassly so, sex scene that served no purpose and was a differnt tone from the rent of the book, so far. Not how you want to introduce this character. Also, if you can't write these scenes, DON'T TRY. Gloss over it the way you gloss over so many other things.

I'll have to make a note not to request any more of Robert Marks in the same way that I don't request any more bigfoot. They might think I have a problem with them with poor reviews. Marks also wrote The Fairy Godmother's Tale, which I'd forgotten about when I requested this one. I asked for this one simple for the lunar base story, not that I saw much of the base.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Audio: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Riggs)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Ransom Riggs (2011)

[Audiobook]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I enjoyed this book, but I probably would've liked it had I listened to it in longer, uninterrupted sessions. I started listening as I walked to the train in the mornings and when I run errands, and that interrupted the flow a bit.

The children in Miss Peregrine's home are peculiar in the way that the children in Prof Xavier's home are peculiar. They all have some kind of mutant ability. Miss Peregrine herself is peculiar as she can turn into a bird, a peregrine, naturally, which is helpful because birds are time travelers.

The protagonist is Jacob Magellan Portman, whose late grandfather Abraham used to tell him fantastic stories running from man-eating monsters, and living with peculiar children in a secret home guarded by "a wise old bird." Jacob has nightmares about fantastic creatures and sees a psychiatrist who eventually convinces the father to take Jacob to the Welsh island of Cairnholm, so he can explore the orphanage and maybe get some answers about some letters his grandfather left.

Unfortunately, the orphanage didn't survive the war and everyone is long gone.

But, really, it isn't. The orphanage is in a loop maintained by Miss Peregrine that repeats the same 24-hour period. If you go into town from the orphanage, you'll always experience the same day (and no one there will remember the events from the previous iteration). However, if you exit by the path that Jacob entered, you will appear modern day. And of the children who leave will sooner or later revert to their actual age, which would be in their 70s.

There are dangers in the past as well as in the present, and Jacob's father doesn't believe any of it ... at first.

This was an enjoyable book to listen to. It's listed as a young adult fantasy, while the movie is listed as a dark fantasy. I guess that Tim Burton heavily accented the dangers of the villains in the story.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Audio: Heir to the Empire (Zahn)

Heir to the Empire
Timothy Zahn (1991)

[Audiobook]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I looked for a science fiction book to listen to and the Libby app suggested Heir to the Empire. Oddly enough, for all the Star Trek books that I've read, I've not read any Star Wars books, not even Splinter of the Mind's Eye, which I had a copy of way back when. (I read a couple of juveniles that I found at a school I subbed at, but that's not really the same thing.)

And then I had to listen to it in installments because after all this time Heir to the Empire is still in demand. It introduced characters, such as Thrawn, which were picked up by the Disney franchise, even if so much else of the Expanded Universe was tossed out. This stuff existed for so many years. Had Lucas down the movies, he might've adapted it, but Disney was in charge and I guess they didn't want to credit Zahn for anything. The idea that Leia was learning to use the Force back then and that she was having twins would've made for great movies.

It was an interesting plot, and the beginning of a trilogy. There's a character that isn't used as much as he should have, so I assumed he'll be in the next book, which I might listen to.

I had to get used to hearing the voice of Han Solo speaking, but that didn't take too long. What was a problem was the Wookiee named Ralrra who had a speech impediment that allowed him to speak English (or rather, Galactic standard). His voice, with the growls, was like nails on a chalkboard. It wouldn't have been a problem reading it -- but it might be for now because it'll spur the memories.

Anyway, this was fun to listen to, and I'm glad that I did.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Crazy Food Truck #1 (Ogaki)

Crazy Food Truck #1
Rokurou Ogaki (2024)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a graphic novel (manga) that I found in a Little Free Library. I'll bring it back to another one.

I look for graphic novels to bring into my classroom for my high school students to read in a Graphic Novel class (because few, if any, bring in their own). However, withing three pages, there was a naked lady (a young woman, age unknown, actually) in an open sleeping bag. Everything was obscured by fog and whatnot, but I could imagine the reaction. That, in itself, was borderline. However, within a few pages, she was buck naked and fully visible. It's not too much for my students, but it's too much for me as the adult in the room to bring it into the class.

Okay, then...

In some fanciful post-apocalyptic wasteland, Gordon runs a food truck. He sets up shop and starts cooking depsite there not being any people around. While he's driving, he sees a sleeping bag in middle of the road. He goes to yell at the owner when he discovers Arisa who is sleeping naked in the bag. When she wakes up, she eats everything in the truck with her ridiculous appetite.

We later find that the military is looking for Arisa and that she's escaped from some government institution or whatever. We also later learn that Gordon is former military who now just wants to drive his truck.

There isn't much to this. Looking online, I see that the entire run of comics was collected into three volumes, so I could read it but only if one of my libraries picks it up. It's not something I'm going to go looking for -- and definitely not something I'd pay for another volume of. But if volume 2 shows up in a LFL, I'll grab it.

This one is definitely going back somewhere. I'm not leaving it in my classroom or my basement.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

No Man's Land (McPhail)

No Man's Land
edited by Mike McPhail (2025)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a free Advanced Reader Copy from Library Thing. I'm encouraged (but not required) to leave reviews in exchange for the free books.

Also of note: I have been published by eSpec Books, which also published this book.

If this wasn't an ARC, it might've stayed on my electronic TBR pile for a while because I haven't read a lot of military science fiction. I have read novels by certain authors, and I have read stories that appeared in anthologies where military scifi wasn't the overall theme.

This isn't my first M SF anthology, but it's the first one I finished. Not that I didn't like the previous one, but anthologies are easy to put aside when a book club book comes along.

I left the following review on the Library Thing website:

The title "No Man's Land" refers to both the military aspect of the book as well as the fact that the protagonists of all the stories are female. This is the fourth book in the Defending the Future series, but it's not a shared universe. All the stories stand alone. The stories take place in a near future with more realistic science.

There are a dozen stories in this anthology. Some of them take place on battlefields in the middle of war zones while other have dangers in more unexpected places. There are ambushes, traitors, set-ups, double-crosses, and even training exercises that get real, with the stories turning faster than the military equipment they're piloting.

If I were to pick a couple of favorites, I'd start with "Godzilla Warfare" by Maria V. Snyder where Sgt. Val Harris's mission to defuse a bomb on a colony planet that Earth is at war with becomes more than it seems. In "Live Fire" by Deborah Teramis Christian, Simikan Amisano has been cybernetically synched with her weapon and with the techs of her tactical weapons crew becomes the human interface of the ship's armament -- but danger can still come from within.

You don't need to have read the previous books to enjoy this one. However, after reading it, you might want to go back for the other volumes in the series.

---

More of a breakdown of the stories, which doesn't belong on Library Thing:

I did want to get more into each individual story, but it's been a couple of weeks now since I read the book and started this post. The first story was the ambush for a goal that was deemed more important than the individual lives of the surviving soldiers, and a good place to start the anthology. Set the tone. The double-cross bomb defusing story was well done and as mentioned above, a favorite.

A couple of clunkers, for me, included the traitor on board sabotaging the ship with the POV character running down all the suspects including the robot and I knew I'd be disappointed in the ending if I'd guessed correctly, which I had. Another one had the sole male character who could best be described as ignorant and worst as misogynistic who seemed to be a living straw man argument or someone channeling a time several hundred years in the past. Except that the ladies seemed to think this was somewhat typical behavior. Anyway, for me, the story got lost in the commentary on human nature.

I may edit this as the week progresses, but I wanted to get this post up already because I have a manga and two audiobooks that need posting.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

2025 Year in Review

This is a summary of the books that I read in 2025. Most have been recorded as blog entries. Some entries are not published yet.

There were more than last year, thanks to my Pandemic Book Club, Library Thing, and my Graphic Novel class.

There were 49 blog entries last year. One of those was the 2024 review, and two of them were for the same book because I listened to it on audio and then months later I read it with my book club. I read another book that I listened to, but in that case, I updated the previous post because it wasn't as long before. (I don't have a hard and fast rule about this.)

I don't remember any books that I DNF'ed last year. I didn't make any blog entries. It could be because I just didn't have time for too many books that I didn't have to read.

On the other hand, there were at least two books, one hardcover and one ebook, that had to go back to the library, and I had to wait for them to be available. One is Dungeon Crawler Carl, which I currently have until Friday and will likely not finish before then, and the other I won't mention until I decide to Unsuspend or Delete my hold. I'm "next" to read it whenever I unsuspend, but I have other obligations, and it was a little outside my usual fare.

I downloaded a couple of Christmas books, but the only one I listened to (didn't read any) was Krampus. I just didn't have time. Also, I think I'll stick to the paranormal Christmas books because the cozy ones are all murder mysteries and that's not how I want to "get into the spirit".

This year I broke the list up by categories instead of going by the calendar. They aren't likely to be in the order they were read. I'm not linking to individual blog entries. If anyone finds this page and is interested, check the calendar for 2025 until you find the entry you're looking for!

Audo Books

• Krampus: The Yule Lord (Brom) - paperback wasn't available
• A Natural History of Dragons (Brennan) - a book for walking; no plans to read it
• Cast the First Stone (Warren) - reread with the Book Club
• New Beginnings (Masters) - another book for walking; no plans to read more in the series

Graphic Novels

• Understanding Comics (McCloud) - nonfiction
• Skim (Tamaki / Tamaki)
• Waverider: A Graphic Novel (Amulet #9) (Kibuishi)
• The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam: An Illustrated Memoir (Fleming) - nonfiction
• Kiss Number 8 (Venable)
• Yes, I'm Hot in This (Fahmy)

Manga

• Spy Classroom 2nd Period: Daughter Dearest, Vol. 1 (Tomari / Takemachi)
• Eden: It's an Endless World! Volume 1 (Endo)
• My Hero Academia Volume 40
• My Hero Academia Volume 41 -- I didn't make a blog entry, apparently, but I only have the final book to go!

Books

• Cast the First Stone (Warren)
• Selene: The Time Traveling A.I. G.F. (Gottfred)
• An Artsy Girl's Guide to Football (Taylor-Hart)
• Slewfoot (Brom)
• Dream Sweet in a Minor Sea (De Beer)
• Children of the Fire Moon (Bigfoot)
• The Sorrow Road (Dunstan)
• Cold Sassy Tree (Burns)
• The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (Córdova)
• The Bee Sting (Murray)
• The Bartender Between Worlds (Steuernagel)
• Write Something (Levenberg)
• The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (Hughes)
• In the Margins: They found their place by not fitting in (Shea)
• Trial by Moonlight (Hanford)
• Dork Diaries: Tales from a Not-so-popular Party Girl (Russell)
• Renegades (Burton)
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch (Galchen)
• Beyond the Ocean Door (Sathi)
• The Silent Patient (Michaelides)
• Flume (Bigfoot)
• Fall Into Temptation (Score)
• Suburban Hell (Kilmer)
• I Know What UFO Did Last Summer (Garone)
• Starter Villain (Scalzi)
• The Fairy Godmother's Tale (Marks)
• A Peppermint Mocha to Die For (Valentine)
• Christmas, Pursued by a Bear (2020)
• Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Fabulous Life (Russell)
• The Full Moon Coffee Shop: A Novel (Mochizuki)
• Auto-Phobia (Spiegelman)
• Leo the Elf Saves Christmas (Doxon)

Finally, I noted one "random short story or novella", which was "Mud and Brass" by Andrew Knighton (2014), probably read around June.

There were no eSpec Books short stories because I've read all the smaller stuff I have from them. Barring obtaining more freebies as stretch goals in Kickstarter campaigns, I mostly have books of lengths that merit their own entries.

No Sue Grafton this year. I need to finish that series.

If I had to pick a favorite book of the year (leaving out the other categories), I'd probably pick Cast the First Stone (which ends on a cliffhanger/intro to book 2) or The Full Moon Coffee Shop, which was just a little different and ties itself up with a neat little bow.

Many of the others I could find fault with -- or are young adult books, which I won't label my best book of the year. Your mileage may vary.

Audio: Krampus: The Yule Lord (Brom)

Krampus: The Yule Lord
Brom (2012)

[Audiobook]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This book was a Pandemic Book Club selection.

The meeting was pushed back because of the holidays and because some members had trouble getting a hold of the book.

We just read Slewfoot, and this book was recommended. I wasn't looking forward to it because I'm not a fan of Christmas horror stories (scary, sure, but not outright horror).

The book wasn't bad in that regard although there was one torture scene (with only humans) that was a little too intense for me. The rest was calm by comparision.

The audiobook got off to a rough start because the voice of Krampus was a little loud and irritating. (It got better, or I got used to it.) The next chapter had Jesse, the main human character, contemplating suicide, and I contemplated bailing on the book.

Krampus has been imprisoned for 500 years and is now free. He wants to get revenge on the one who imprisoned him, which is the Norse god Baldr who later took on the guise of Santa Claus. Along the way, Jesse gets hold of Santa's sack which produces any toy he thinks of, or toy versions of anything else he thinks of.

Jesse is mixed up with the drug market in his town and wants to get out of it. The General tells him he's going to keep doing his job or he'll kill his estranged wife and child. Things later go sideways when bellsnickels show up and the outlaws think that Jesse set them up with a rival gang from another town. This leads to the aforementioned torture scene.

Jesse winds up in the service of Krampus, which has the side benefit of his body healing. Krampus promises to help Jesse with his problems but he first has to help Krampus bring joy to children first and regain his title as Yule Lord.

The pace picks up as Jesse and Krampus have their redemption arcs, but Baldr gets his revenge with the help of a pair of angels.

I enjoyed the book more than I expected to, and I liked the ending better than Slewfoot. I have to say, given the previous book, I thought the ending could go another way.

I don't think I'll read the acutal book, but if I remember to reserve it at the library around October 2026, maybe I'll have it in time for Christmas.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Audio: A Natural History of Dragons (Brennan)

A Natural History of Dragons
The Memoirs of Lady Trent #1
Marie Brennan (2013)

[Audiobook]

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

A random audiobook to listen to while walking. It had a slow start (but then, I find most audiobooks have a "slow start" to get my attention, and I often listen to the first chapter a second time). It was enjoyable.

In this alternate history Victorian novel, dragons exist and usually keep to isolated mountains. Isabella (the Lady Trent of the subtitle) has already had a fascination with them and read any book that she could get access to, which would've been frowned upon. After Isabella meets Jacob Camherst, he courts her mostly because of her fascination with dragons instead of his wealth.

This is also the reason she manages to work her way into an expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana to study them, where she proves vital in discovering why the dragons have turned on the human population that they usually avoid.

This was a good audiobook, but, for once, I wonder if I would've enjoyed the printed version (or the ebook) because parts of the science might've been a slog to read through but a pleasure to listen to a voice reciting it. Granted, I don't know how much of it that I recall.

The book is told as a memoir of an older woman who became the foremost authority on dragons at a time that few women had such august positions. That does tell you that she will survive a long time and that there may be many more books to come.

On the other hand, this book is from 2013, and I hadn't heard of it before the library suggested it to me.

Just for giggles, I'll include what Google AI said about the book when I was looking up the publication date:

A Natural History of Dragons is the first book in Marie Brennan's Lady Trent Memoirs, a Victorian-era fantasy series about a woman who defies convention to become a renowned dragon naturalist, blending adventure, science, and fantasy as she recounts her early expeditions. The story follows the young, bookish Isabella as she pursues her passion for studying dragons, a pursuit that leads her on perilous journeys and ultimately to a career that brings the study of dragons out of myth and into modern science.

Key aspects of the book:

Genre: Science fantasy, with a tone reminiscent of Victorian natural history writing.

Protagonist: Isabella, Lady Trent, a strong-willed and intelligent woman who challenges societal expectations for women of her time.

Plot: The book details Isabella's early life, her forbidden passion for dragons, and her first expedition to study them in the wild, which is fraught with danger and discovery.

Series: It is the first book in The Lady Trent Memoirs, a series that chronicles her life and adventures.

Themes: The novel explores themes of scientific inquiry, adventure, and a woman's place in a restrictive society, all through the lens of dragon biology and behavior.


If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Understanding Comics (McCloud)

Understanding Comics
Scott McCloud (1993)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

Every source, from TED Talks to web pages to actual comic people that I know, tells me that Scott McCloud literally wrote the book on Understanding Comics. He's actually written a few. And he will reference Will Eisner as the guy who wrote the book before him.

Understanding Comics is a book I would've bought back in August if I knew I was going to be teaching two classes in Graphic Novels. I was told on the first day of school and wasn't given any curriculum or guidelines to work with. For the record, I'm a math teacher (and still teach math the rest of the day). I'm neither an English teacher nor art teacher. However, the administration knows that I like to write so this idea occurred to them.

Note that I write prose, not comics. I do (did?) have a webcomic for many years, but that was a joke per day, not a continuing story, and it wasn't anything artistically special. It was loaded with bad puns, and you can't teach that. Maybe you can teach timing for it ... but that's another story. And, let's face it, they weren't aware of the comic.

The book is nonfiction but it's written as a graphic novel or just a giant comic. McCloud illustrates himself and plays with the surrounding to take about what makes comic books work and what makes them "art". He includes reproductions of many old comics and paintings to make his points.

I did get a bit more understanding and comprehension (just to use a different word) of the topics within the subject, so that was good. And if I'm giving this class next fall, I'd juggle some of the earlier vocabulary lessons. This is, I was stumbling in the dark. However, several comments he made make more sense in the order he mentioned them. So maybe I should go that way next time.

If nothing else, the topic of Sequential Art should've come in the first week.

I may buy this paperback as an ebook just so I can take screenshots.

This was a fun read, and I got to read it in my classroom during Free Read Fridays where I allow my students to read graphic novels ... most of which I had to provide, with the help of Little Free Libraries and a couple of nice donations.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.

Cast the First Stone (Warren) -- repost

Cast the First Stone
David James Warren (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book club selection. I decided to make a separate entry rather than update the entry from June. That's the blog biz for you. And there was so much time between the two readings that this make sense. The last time (that I recall) reading after listening, it was closer in time and there were no other grand revelations to discuss.

I listed Cast the First Stone as one of my three picks for the book club. My other choices were Sea of Tranquility, which I read after, and Gods of Manhattan, which I haven't read. Gods was rejected mostly for being a kids book.

Overall, the book was well-received. A couple of people would be interested in the second book, or at least hearing about what happens next. It was a pretty straightforward book, so there weren't a lot of questions for discussion. Mostly, what did we think of the plot, characters, and situation. What do you think will come next?

We did compare it to other time travel books that we've read previously.

Also of interest is that David James Warren doesn't exist. There are three authors for this book: Susan May Warren, James L. Rubart, and David Curtis Warren. So I each of the three supplied one name even though Susan and David have the same last name.

It was just as enjoyable the second time around, and it's eassier to review what I missed or what happened while I was falling asleep, as opposed to rewinding when a loud truck or train passes by.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. The fourth book will be available by the time you see this!

Yes, I'm Hot in This (Fahmy)

Yes, I'm Hot in This
The Hilarious Truth about Life in a Hijab
Huda Fahmy (2018)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

I was glancing at some titles among the grpahic novels at the libary and I saw Huda F Cares, which caught my attention. Huda Fahmy had several books there with similar titles that caught my interest.

Since I have too many physical books out that I haven't read yet, I figured I'd see if these were available electronically. That's where I saw that her first book was "Yes, I'm Hot in This".

I checked it out.

I reads like a comic strip that has been collected and worked into a book with chapters. Irreverent humor and poignant criticism and commentary, a little repetitive and sometimes preachy, but that's her life and the situations that arise.

Basically, the parts that resonated with me were the parts I could identify with, which were things relating to her loving but sometimes clueless husband.

Hilarious? no, but amusing.

It was an interesting read. Will I request the next book? Maybe after I've returned some of the outstanding books I have and caught up a bit with my TBR pile and book clubs.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs. A fantastical foursome of flash fiction and short stories.