The Third Reich of Dreams The Nightmares of a Nation by Charlotte Beradt translated by Damion Searls Princeton University Press 1966, reprinted 2025 The Third Reich of Dreams is a work of social science by the German journalist Charlotte Beradt. Between 1933, when Hitler came to power, and 1939, when Beradt fled the country for refuge abroad, she collected over 300 accounts of people's dreams that…
Paintings of Portugal by Angela Pan self-published 2024 Paintings of Italy by Angela Pan self-published 2024 Paintings of Portugal and Paintings of Italy are a pair of self-published art books by Canadian artist Angela Pan. They're similar to Pan's earlier Paintings of Japan books that I read previously, though longer - the "Japan" books were about 40 pages each, while Portugal and Italy are about…
DIE 4 Bleed by Kieron Gillen art by Stephanie Hans Image Comics 2021 From the start, I've found myself drawn to the high-concept worldbuilding of Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans' comic series DIE, but (especially after the first volume ) I've been less impressed by the plot and storytelling going on there. The comic is at its best when introducing a character or idea and letting admire all the…
The Anthropologists by Aysegul Savas Bloomsbury 2024 Asya, the narrator of The Anthropologists , isn't literally a social scientist, but she is metaphorically like an anthropologist as she closely observes her friends' lives and her own, trying to discern new rules for living as she seeks to make her life 'sturdier' and more settled. Asya and her husband Manu met in college, both foreign students…
The Princess in Black and the Prince in Pink by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale art by LeUyen Pham Candlewick Press 2024 I visited some family recently, which included a chance to see my niece. Since my last visit, she's gotten a preference for longer books and series, as well as for princesses and other trappings of fantasy. She's especially fond of the Princess in Black series, so I decided to read…
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2002 edited by David Eggers Mariner Press 2002 I enjoyed working my way through the Best American Comic series. It was a nice way to see a selection of good works from the years it ran, and I learned the names of several artists to add to my list. There are a couple earlier comics anthologies I want to check out too, ones the BAC editors named as inspirations…
In the Half Room by Carson Ellis Candlewick Press 2020 In the Half Room is a children's picture book by Carson Ellis about an odd but still cozy cottage, that seems well-suited for a bedtime story. In the author's note at the end, Ellis says the idea for the book came from one of her children (though the child is somewhat unsettled by the way Ellis implemented it) . The half room is a place for…
The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe Orb 1982, reprinted 1994 The Sword of the Lictor is the third book in Gene Wolfe's quartet, The Book of the New Sun . It's the most episodic of the books so far, basically a picaresque, as Severian leaves the city of Thrax and journeys north through the mountains until he arrives at a very high lake nestled among them, meeting potential allies and enemies all…
The Council of Frogs by Matt Emmons Second at Best Press 2023 The Council of Frogs is a fantasy comic by Matt Emmons. It's set in the wastelands of a post-apocalyptic future, but events are unquestionably guided by magic, rather than science. A tiny little frog goes out into a hostile world to deliver a message to a warlock for the sake of his community. Generations ago, a war-mage died in battle,…
Stages of Rot by Linnea Sterte Peow 2017, reprinted 2023 Stages of Rot is a deeply enigmatic comic that depicts the decomposition of a dead whale, not at the bottom of one of Earth's oceans, but on an alien world where all manner of sea life fly through the air instead, the undersea biome coexisting with and layered on top of the surface. And because the whalefall is on the surface, humans are now…
Shadowlands A Journey through Britain's Lost Cities and Vanished Villages by Matthew Green WW Norton & Company 2022 In Shadowlands , author Matthew Green takes us to 8 sites around Great Britain where people used to live and now do not. These aren't small places that got absorbed by a bigger neighbor. A couple were replaced by public works, a couple were subsumed by the sea. The others were…
Tower Dungeon 3 by Tustomu Nihei Kodansha 2025 The previous volume of Tower Dungeon ended on a cliffhanger, with a party of rival adventurers ambushing our heroes. In the brief, losing fight, Yuva (our audience viewpoint character) got knocked off a ledge, guaranteeing a 10 meter fall and a hard landing on the stone floor of the story below. The whole mission had been a mess from the start. The…
Fantasy Sports 1 by Sam Bosma Nobrow 2015 Fantasy Sports is a fun little graphic novel by Sam Bosma about a pair of adventurers who must defeat the mummy and win his treasure by ... beating him at basketball? I've been looking for a term to describe fantasy stories like this one, where the worldbuilding is based on conventions derived from Dungeons & Dragons , but where the world doesn't…
Mainly in Moonlight Ten Stories of Sorcery and the Supernatural by Nicholas Gray Meredith Press 1965, reprinted 1967 Mainly in Moonlight is a collection of fantasy stories from the 1960s by Nicholas Gray. The stories are meant for older kids or younger teens. They're structured like fairy tales or bedtime stories. Each one begins "Once, not so very long ago," but they subvert the usual plotlines…
Super Late Bloomer My Early Days in Transition An Up and Out Collection by Julia Kaye Andrews McMeel 2018 Super Late Bloomer is a collection of autobiographical comics by Julia Kay, drawn in the 4 panel cartoon style of a daily newspaper comic. For Kaye, these comics functioned like a diary, helping her keep track of moods and events during her first summer living openly as a trans woman. Kaye was…
Paper Girls 4 by Brian Vaughan art by Cliff Chiang Image Comics 2018 In volume 4 of Paper Girls , I think we finally start getting some clear information about what's been happening across the previous volumes, thanks to a helpful true believer who tries to indoctrinate the girls to her side. The new info helps make sense of what we've seen up to this point. Til now, we've mostly been along for…
Destined for Greatness Passions, Dreams, and Aspirations in a College Music Town by Michael Ramirez photos by Mike White Rutgers University Press 2018 Destined for Greatness is a sociological study of rock musicians in Athens, Georgia. Ramirez interviewed 48 musicians across 22 bands about how they got started in music, what their music career has been like, how they imagine their future. His…
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo by Drew Weing First Second 2016 The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo is a kids' comic about a boy who moves to the city, discovers it's full of monsters, then learns that monsters aren't as scary as he thought. Our viewpoint character is Charles, an aspiring journalist whose parents have just moved into a fixer-upper apartment in a former hotel. Echo City is on…
Witch Hat Atelier 12 by Kamome Shirahama Kodansha 2024 The previous several volumes of Witch Hat Atelier set up all the pieces of a comprehensive disaster. Now they've been set in motion, and everything's in chaos. The girls have traveled to the annual Silver Eve festival, attended by witches from all over the countryside and by even more onlookers. The festival is a chance for witches to show off…
Gnomon by Nick Harkaway Knopf 2018 Gnomon is a very literary scifi mystery novel set in a dystopian near-future Britain. We follow Inspector Neith as she tries to determine responsibility for a death in custody of an elderly privacy advocate. Was she simply too old, stubborn, and frail? Or were her interrogators at fault for pushing her too hard, beyond what anyone could endure? To find the…
Quiet City directed by Aaron Katz written by Erin Fisher, Aaron Katz, and Cris Lankenau Benten Films 2007 Quiet City is another early mumblecore film, about young people not long out of college, struggling to find their way, and looking for an authentic emotional connection. This one is almost like a fable, a serendipitous encounter between two lonely people, who spend time together, and surprise…
The Art of Memory Collecting 15 Scrapbook, Collage, Trinket, and Zine Projects for Crafting Treasured Moments by Martina Calvi photos by Petrina Tinslay Quadrille 2024 The Art of Memory Collecting is a craft book with advice for contemporary scrapbookers and other mementos, emphasizing collage and ephemera. Martina Calvi has a second book about 'junk journaling' , and I feel like you can see her…
The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All 1 by Sumiko Arai translated by Ajani Oloye Yen Press 2024 The cover of The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All stands out for its eye-catching electric green background, and while most manga are black and white inside, cartoonist Sumiko Arai deploys the same neon green in the interior, often in the background or between panels, but also…
The Waste Land by TS Eliot Liveright 1922, reprinted I thought I was rereading TS Eliot's The Waste Land , but after finishing it, I'm certain of a couple things. First, I'm sure I never read it before (it must've been Four Quartets before) . And second, I'm so far removed from the context Eliot wrote this in that it's nearly impossible for me to experience it the way readers in 1922 would have.…
Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre by Tom Scioli IDW 2025 Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre collects a 3-issue comic miniseries by Tom Scioli. Taking advantage of some very recent additions to the public domain to unleash the city-destroying might of Godzilla on the unsuspecting party-goers of Long Island during the Jazz Age. That's right, Godzilla wrecks West Egg and makes an implacable enemy of the…