The Written Nerd

There is a disturbingly large and teetering pile of books on a chair in my kitchen. They are books that I have read in the last couple of months, that I hope to one day get around to writing up for this blog. Many of them deserve lots of thought, ideally before I forget the reading experience. Also, maybe 50% of the pile is comics -- because I read them faster than straight prose, or because my reading is getting decadently image-dependent, or because it's summer and comics are my beach reading, I don't know. Anyway, despite the fact that several of these are serious books that could totally justify their own post, I'm throwing them together in a roundup, in the interest of getting them off the stack and saving the legs of my kitchen chair. Superman: For Tomorrow Volume 1 and Volume 2 By Brian Azzarello (writer), Jim Lee, and Scott Williams (artists) The ALP, a much more serious comics reader than I, is of the opinion that this one-shot Superman story is about how sca...

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day , when fine comic shops nationwide will be giving out samples of the good stuff to all comers. In its honor, today's post is a flying tour of the comics/graphic novels I've been reading in the last few weeks and months. Y: The Last Man, Volume 7: Paper Dolls by Brian K. Vaughan (writer) and Pia Guerra (artist) I've been working my way through Vaughan's magnum opus slowly for a while now. By Volume 7 the plague that killed (almost) every male mammal on earth is old news, and the implications of a women-only society are playing out in unpredictable ways, while Our Hero Yorick Brown tries to find his girlfriend and help find out how to bring back the other half of the species. Despite the occasionally annoying fact that in an all-women world the hero of the comic is still a dude, Vaughan's writing and Guerra's art always make for good adventure storytelling, and a bit of food for thought afterward. Imagine the implications for Is...

Blogging has been, and is likely to remain, sparse... as Greenlight Bookstore prep ramps up, the rest of life ain't going anywhere, and your friendly neighborhood Book Nerd is feeling a bit under the gun. I'll try to get up here once a week or so, but forgive me my semi-absence, okay? Still, there's time for a few links. In e-reader news: The IndieBound iPhone app makes me long even more for that lovely little piece of hardware. Props to the ABA for rolling this out so fast! The IndieBound app means that you can use the iPhone to find bookstores and other indie shops, search books, buy books online -- along with reading books and emailing and making calls (and, as I learned at a delicious early summer barbecue this weekend, mapping the stars ... ) In the meantime, not only does your Kindle become a brick if you lose your Amazon account, but rumors persist that Apple is coming out with a more book-friendly device . E-reader enthusiasts, start your engines! In comics ...

Bloggin' on my break at the bookstore, crammin' it all in... Via Vroman's : The annual Tournament of Books at The Morning News has begun! Click over for an irresistible death match between this year's top works of fiction, judged by the literati with unabashed prejudice and total transparency. Way more fun than the Booker or NBA, if far more tongue-in-cheek. Brownstoner has a post on the borough's newest comic shop : Bergen Street Comics in Park Slope. Ha, scooped -- I blogged about that on Friday ! Had a delightful retailer-to-retailer chat with owner Tom -- and it's totally awesome to have a new comics purveyor in the nabe. Via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn : TheBrooklynInk chronicles Heights Books' move from Brooklyn Heights to Smith Street. Speaking of comics -- our Graphic Novel Book Club discussion of Watchmen on Thursday night was AWESOME. I was so happy with the size and diversity of our group, and the conversation was totally exciting. I saw the mo...

As promised, I'm catching up on reviewing some of the many comics I seem to have been reading lately. This will be Handsell style: just a quick description/pitch. A note on linking: I'm trying something new. I'm using my own images and linking them directly to the IndieBound book info page, rather than using the affiliate links, which require an extra several clicks before you get to the book. It takes a bit longer for me, but seems more likely to be click-through-friendly for you. Let me know what you think. Miss Don't Touch Me by Hubert & Kerascoet (NBM/ComicsLit) This graphic novel is a study in contradictions: it combines a somewhat lighthearted tone - "prudish girl finds herself working in a high-end whorehouse, bring on the sex comedy!" - with some rather grisly plot points, including some pretty dark perversions and more than one bloody murder. The very French drawing style -- quick and flowing, almost sketchy, a la Joann Sfar of The Rabbi...

The lack of posting around here should not be construed as a lack of activity. This has turned out to be a week with high demands from other aspects of my bookish life: Emerging Leaders, McNally Jackson (we -- by which I mean me -- are on Facebook AND Twitter now), a new blogging project (info TK), and mostly, working on Greenlight Bookstore. I've tidied up that other blog of mine (and Rebecca's) to reflect the evolving reality of our project, and in hopes that we'll be seeing some more traffic soon. We've also got a real estate lead that involves so many unknowns I can't even explain it right now, but it's potentially really exciting. So I've been kinda distracted. I do, however, have a pile of recently read graphic novels I want to write about, and not one but TWO thrilling not-yet-published books in my bag: the new Kate Christensen, Trouble (out in June) and the new Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City (out so long from now I don't even know the date ...

You can read my (somewhat abridged) report from New York Comic Con in today's Shelf Awareness. I had a great time, but I know I only saw a tiny "swath" of what was going on over the weekend, and some of the other 77,000 fans who attended have been reporting back as well. Douglas Wolk & crew report on Scott Pilgrim #5 and other "big books" that were selling at NYCC in the fabulously titled Publishers Weekly piece " Scott Pilgrim Wins the Convention! " MediaBistro's GalleyCat blog asks " Can You Sell Comic Books In This Economy? " -- and the answer from the Con seems to be yes. (Great wookie picture, too.) They've also got a video interview about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with an editor from Quirk Books, and some other vids from the Con. Show director Lance Fensterman has, of course, tons of good links on his blog. (I got a kick out of running into Lance on Thursday and giving him a big hug, though he was deep in se...

Guess what comes out in comic shops today? SCOTT PILGRIM NUMBER FIVE!! As you may have noticed, I am somewhat obsessed with this Canadian comic book series by Bryan Lee O'Malley . It's got everything you could want in a comic, or any book really: rock and roll, hapless hero, true love, kung fu, running gags, mysterious backstories, you name it. I've been one of the legions waiting breathlessly for the 5th and second-to-last installment, and early reports indicate that the wait has been worthwhile -- Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe delivers the goods. I wasn't able to make it to last night's midnight release party with O'Malley at Jim Hanley's Universe , nor will I be able to attend this evening's book party with the author at Rocketship (I blame "making a living", which often interferes with my comic book reading.) But you can bet I'm jetting over to Rocketship as soon as they open this morning to pick up the copy the supernice owne...

* As the world of indie booksellers knows, this coming weekend is the eagerly awaited Fourth Annual Winter Institute ! Due to the uncertainty of my own plans months ago during registration, I won't be there in person... but I'll be jealously following the schedule of every educational session, party and rep picks meal throughout the weekend. If anyone is live blogging, let me know... * And if you're at WI and of the under-40 persuasion, don't miss the Emerging Leaders Reception, Friday night at 9 PM in the charmingly titled Deer Valley room. Your intrepid Emerging Leaders Council will be meeting throughout the weekend to plan upcoming projects and programming, but on Friday night they'll do what they do best: drinking. I mean, networking with fellow booksellers, of course. The event is hosted by Unbridled Books , an emerging up-and-coming publisher itself, and will feature two of their promising new authors. The winners of the Emerging Leaders scholarships fr...

Shop Indie Bookstores Life Sucks by Jessica Abel (First Second Books) (Bonus: not Twilight !) Far be it from me to knock the biggest moneymaker since Harry Potter , but I guess I prefer my vampires a little less beautiful and a little more clever. Why should vampires, if they existed in the modern world, look like Gothic lotharios? Why couldn't they look like, for example, a hapless all-night convenience store clerk in California, hopelessly infatuated with a non-vampire Goth chick, who's swept away in turn by a surfer jerk (who is also a vampire)? "Buffy meets Clerks" is a pretty good description of this book, which is smart and funny enough to satisfy the smart-ass teen (with a heart of gold) in all of us. The clever Jessica Abel and the talented Warren Pleece make this one of my favorite comics of the year, and a go-to recommendation for YA readers and adults alike.

Shop Indie Bookstores Incognegro by Mat Johnson (Bonus: December is National Buy a Book by a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month ! ) My favorite kind of book is one that both moves and challenges me, taking me on a thrill ride of story and character. Mat Johnon’s new graphic novel rides that dangerous edge between heavy issues and heavy-hitting action, with the story of a black man passing for white in the lynching-plagued 1930s South. It pulls it off in the way only a comic can (and a black and white comic at that), and manages to work gender politics, family dynamics, and some darned funny dialogue into a suspenseful mystery. An important (and enjoyable) moment in the history of literary comics. And then there's the bonus: African American author Carleen Brice is hoping to use this month of gift giving to start a movement to get some classics and new favorites out of the "African American Literature" section and into the hands of non-black readers. ...

After a deliciously long Fourth of July weekend (barbecue with friends, watching fireworks from a rooftop, spending a long Sunday shopping, browsing and drinking in Brooklyn), it's back to the working week. I'm way behind on link posting, so here's a sampling of the best I've come across from the last month or so -- pretty unrelated. - Thanks to the ALP for pointing out the Salon article on the books that have influenced Barack Obama, from fiction to philosophy to politics. Fascinating stuff. Key quotes: "If Obama is elected, he'll be one of the most literary presidents in recent memory." "All presidential candidates would like to be seen as resembling Lincoln -- even those who aren't gangly master orators from Illinois." "Obama the reader and writer has already shown an affinity for pragmatism, whether it's the Cabinet-level maneuverings of Lincoln or the "Let's make a deal" activism of Alinsky or the "a man...

Lots of fascinating book news in the world today... of which the below is but a tiny, arbitrarily selected portion. AM New York has an article on a new Brooklyn bookstore I have not yet visited: Babbo's Books , a few blocks away from me in south Park Slope. Despite the article's incredulity about an indie bookstore opening and staying open, the shop seems to be doing well on a small scale, and proprietor Leonora Stein has ideas for making it better. A field trip seems in order! In the indie-bookstore-makes-good category, a coalition led by ABA president Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Books has been influential in keeping Wal-Mart out of their Hamilton, Montana community . After watching the documentary The High Cost of Low Price I'm even more impressed by their efforts, especially since they admit not everyone in town was convinced Wal-Mart was a bad thing. But check out the Wal-Mart exec's explanation of the pullback for classic villain-retreating-while-proclaiming...

I've had graphic novels even more on the brain than usual since last weekend's SPLAT! symposium at the New York Center for Independent Publishing . Not only did I get to speak on a panel with some of my book industry heroes -- Rocketship owner Alex Cox, Diamond rep John Shableski, PW Comics Week editor Calvin Reid, Jim Killen, the graphic novels buyer for Barnes & Noble, and freelancer/friend/fellow geek Evan Narcisse -- I also got to listen to Scott McCloud wax poetic with guys from the superhero and manga worlds, AND sit in on Brian Wood 's session on place in graphic novels (where he talked about, among other things, using Park Slope in his Local series). Favorite quote from Scott McCloud: "For years it was like we were beating a dead horse with this comics thing, just beating it and insisting 'no, there's life in that horse!' And then one day the horse opened its eyes and got up! And then SEVEN THOUSAND HORSES came running over the hill!...

My occasional column in Shelf Awareness on "graphic lit" ('cause they're not all comics, and they're not all novels... but I'm pretty okay with all terms, interchangeably) ran yesterday, with my suggestions for gift-worthy graphic lit . There's an abundance of delicious new and collected comics out there this season, and this is just a small sampling. One of the titles I didn't get to include is the first and second collection of Moomin , the comic strip by Tove Jansson featuring an endearing hippo-like creature and friends. Whimsical and surreal, childlike and socially conscious, bizarre and totally intuitive, the strip has tremendous appeal -- but since I've only read it in bits and pieces (while I probably should have been doing other things) on the sales floor, I can't say I've experienced the whole thing. It's one of the gifty new collectios that works for kids and adults, so I thought I'd throw it in as a bonus for you blog...

Man, I've been hitting the graphic novels hard lately. Here's a rundown on recent reading. Flight, Volume 1 edited by Kazuo Kibuishi (Villard, April 2007) Don't let the publication date fool you -- the Flight project is one that has been building and gathering steam for a long time, and just recently burst unavoidably into the consciousness of folks like me (i.e. "mainstream" readers). The anthology, first published by Image Comics in 2004, gathers short works by dozens of young (sometimes VERY young) independent comic artists and writers. Many relate, more or less, to the "theme" of flight, whether it's a boy and his dog building a dirigible to traverse a fantasy world, a nerd and a popular girl bonding over kite flying, or a penguin who finds a way to transcend the whole flightless bird thing. As with any collection, it can be a bit uneven -- some of these artists were in their late teens when they did this work, and a few feel a bit teen ang...

Folks, let's not forget tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day ! Click on the link and enter your zip code to find a shop giving out yummy cartoon goodies near you. And in honor of that (and because I've had an astonishingly good run of comics reading lately), I'd like to present my take on three great recent graphic novels. (Please note I'm starting a new convention of linking to the publisher pages for books I review. That way you can take a look and find out more about the book, and you don't even have to go to Amazon. If you want to get yourself one AND make me happy, I recommend clicking over to Booksense.com to find your local indie bookstore.) American Elf: Book Two by James Kochalka (Top Shelf Productions, February 2007) At the panel on comics and interstitiality at MoCCA the other day, the question of web comics came up (they do kind of fall between your traditional publishing categories, yeah?) and I realized that two of my favorite comics of the last year st...