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I was delighted to find that my students loved this as much as I do. I confessed to someone after class that it’s on the syllabus in large part because I love it so much and want more people to read it, but the fact is that it’s also just a brilliant story about aContinueContinue reading “A Bintel Brief, Liana Finck”

The site formerly known as twitter has its flaws, but one things I will be forever grateful to it for is that it pushed me to finally undertake the project of reading Cavell’s Pursuits of Happiness and watching all of the movies he writes about. There was a lively thread where people ranked the differentContinueContinue reading “Pursuits of Happiness, Stanley Cavell”

I was talking to a colleague about how I felt a little weird about teaching Palestine, because although it’s important in the history of graphic novels and the kinds of stories they can tell, it’s also 30 years old. Many of my students don’t really have a sense what has been happening in the conflictContinueContinue reading “How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Sarah Glidden”

Fernandes was part of the New Voices Festival here in the Spring, and her readings were terrific, and she was so smart and interesting in the panel discussions. The poems were so deeply relatable that I almost couldn’t recognize them as poems, except that they were also formally playful in wonderful ways. I especially enjoyedContinueContinue reading “I Do Everything I’m Told, Megan Fernandes”

This works so well as a follow-up to Watchmen, because it’s such a forceful contrast — totally different style of art, completely different layout, documentary instead of fiction, etc. But there are unexpected resemblances: both investigate political conflict and situations that seem hopeless; both feature multiple storylines in a kaleidoscopic sort of way (though WatchmenContinueContinue reading “Palestine, Joe Sacco”

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve gotten older, or more sensitive, or the world has gotten scarier, or what, but ooooof, this was a tougher read than I remembered, mostly because the depictions of a society falling apart under the threat of nuclear war felt distressingly resonant, albeit highly caricaturish and stylized. Actually, inContinueContinue reading “Watchmen, Alan Moore”

I’m still seeking out absorbing page-turners rather than slower meditative reads, I think because summer is drawing to an end and meanwhile we still have boxes to unpack from the move, and I just need something easy and pleasurable. I thought this would serve my needs well, because I really liked Matrix, and at firstContinueContinue reading “Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff”

Buffalo Street Books asked if I’d lead one of the conversations in their Read Widely bookclub, and suggested this as a potential pick. I was glad to have the opportunity to re-read it, this time in English (in a really excellent translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones!), because it’s a novel where the last few chapters reallyContinueContinue reading “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones”

Felled by a summer cold, I wanted something that would pull me along, and this was just right. Described on the back as a “French Huckleberry Finn,” this is a pleasant fairy-tale like story (with mysterious Gypsies, because it’s French, though these are perhaps more than usually cruel) about a boy who goes on anContinueContinue reading “The Child and the River, Henri Bosco”

I checked this out of the library to read to my 6-year-old, because I’m a NYRB stan, and because the first line of the introduction (by Philip Pullman) said that it’s the funniest children’s book ever. And it is quite funny, but in a very Victorian British sort of way. Here’s a taste of theContinueContinue reading “The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay”