In my recent reading, it’s been as much about how the story is told as it’s been about the story itself. This certainly isn’t a new idea—these examples span three decades—but sometimes the phenomenon is more prevalent in my stacks. Maybe you’ve read some of these, or maybe
In which I discuss the skinny books that slip into my bookbag while the heavier, cumbersome volumes (like Ian Urbina’s The Outlaw Ocean and Flannery O’Connor’s letters) stay home. Thirty-eight chapters and under 200 pages: Didier Leclair’s This Country of Mine (2003; Trans. Elaine Kennedy, 2018) issues an
In which I discuss recent reading which deserves particular attention: two novels, spanning an African immigrant’s contemporary experience in London and a trio of English sisters’ experience of the interwar years, and a graphic memoir spanning a young boy’s experiences in Syria, France and Libya. In Harare North (2009), Brian
A child's experience of war is strangely pure and slanted. The impact is wholly dramatic at times. Its inconsequence just as overwhelming at other times. Sharing his experiences growing up in a French-Vietnamese family in Saigon, between 1961 and 1963, Marcelino Truong's graphic memoir is vibrant and informative. Some
Rereading the Saga comics is definitely worthwhile. On first-reading, I was a little off-kilter, so engrossed in some panels that I missed others completely, only occasionally remembering to retrace my steps. Discovering wings or horns on characters who appeared humanoid at first glance was delightfully but consistently distracting. Readers are aware
