I'm not a huge mystery novel reader. Now, I have nothing against the genre and enjoy it when I do read it, it's just not my go-to. But last year, I was bumming around my local Barnes & Noble and saw the rather striking cover to Eliza Jane Brazier's novel about a woman who goes …
Category: books
The Week in Uncollecting, 11/1/21-11/14/21
This is really a multi-week update because I've been "compiling" reviews in my notebook for a few weeks now. Plus, my most recent "weeks in ..." have been horror-themed and war-themed multi-review posts instead of one of my usual ones, so this is making up for that. Despite this piling up, there's not too much …
Books, Trades, and Graphic Novels in Brief, 9/1/21-10/1/21
Aliens: Hive: One of the original Dark Horse series that came out after Earth War, which was the final one I bought. I probably had every intention of keeping Aliens going but didn't have the money, to be honest, because Dark Horse's comics were $2.50 in the early 1990s. Anyway, this was enjoyable but I …
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Working
I suppose there is something appropriate about my finishing Studs Terkel's Working on the last day of the school year when I usually spend my day getting ready to not work for an eight-week stretch. Of course, this could be total coincidence and the bigger factor in my finishing the book is that it's due …
Personal Archaeology 15: The Book of Questions
By the time I was old enough to register who my great Aunt Frances was, she was an "old Italian woman" the way that many of my fellow "Italian-by-way-of-Brooklyn" connazionales would recognize from their own families. Short, bearing and incredible resemblance to both her sister Mimi and my grandfather John, Aunt Frances lived int he …
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The Essential X-Men Vol. 3 and Vol. 4
With John Byrne off the title after the "Days of Future Past" storyline, Chris Claremont begins what will be a long continuous run of writing the X-Men with a rotating lineup of artists with these two volumes featuring the return of Dave Cockrum as well as Paul Smith's short tenure as artist and the first …
Robotech Archives: Robotech II: The Sentinels, Volume One
I was excited and nervous about reading this, to be honest. I'd read through all three of the reprints of the Comico Macross series and knew what to expect, but this book reprints the first portion of the Eternity Comics sequel series, of which I've heard mixed things. My experience with The Sentinels as a …
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Essential X-Men Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Phoenix: The Untold Story, What If …? (Vol. 1) #27
I guess the most obvious thing to say is that the Chris Claremont/John Byrne run is probably the most celebrated run on Uncanny X-Men. Not that there aren't others that are held up in high esteem by readers who are more more experienced X-fans than myself, but the run that encompasses both the Dark Phoenix …
DC Graphic Novel #1: Star Raiders
Graphic novels are ubiquitous these days but back in the early 1980s were a fairly new concept, and something you could only get at one of the few comic book stores that had begun popping up as the direct market began to take hold. Later in the decade and the early 1990s, stores like Waldenbooks …
Shrill
For episode 10 of Required Reading, Stella and I covered biography, autobiography, and memoir as a genre. Had I read Lindy West's Shrill back then, I would have heartily recommended it on that episode. If you're not familiar with Lindy West, she is a writer who was a longtime columnist for Jezebel and currently contributes …
The Uncollecting 