What Am I Reading Wednesday - January 4

It's the first WAIRW of 2023 and I'm off to a good start.

What I Finished Reading This Week

The Three Billy Goats Gruff – Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen
This was a delightful (and delightfully illustrated) take on the traditional folk tale, with a different twist to the end than the version I remember from childhood. The little details in the illustrations reward careful attention.

Poorlier Drawn Lines – Reza Farazmand
I found this volume funnier than Farazmand’s first (I can’t say anything about the second because I read according to titles and didn’t realize there is an additional book between Poorly and Poorlier). The bare bones style is fun and there’s a little more to the jokes here, if that makes sense, but the humor is largely predicated on the particular neuroses people develop from massive social media consumption, and because I’m not a massive social media consumer, it’s less immediate to me.

The Rock From The Sky – Jon Klassen
Being the first book I read in 2023 and oh, that was the right call. THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANT OUT OF A JON KLASSEN BOOK. There is stunning art. There is humor. There is the joy of turning the page and going, Oh my god, what the fuck is happening? This was an immediate favorite.

Shirtless Bear Fighter – Jody LeHeup, Sebastian Grirner, Nil Vendrell, et al.
Imagine my surprise and delight when I learned that there is now a Shirtless Bear Fighter 2! In preparation, I reread this volume (which I have has individual issues). It still holds up. The humor— sly word play, even slier visual puns, and wry commentary—combines with the action and drama to make the whole punch above its weight. This is irreverence done right, and I have high hopes for the second outing.

Run – John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, L. Fury, and Nate Powell
This book is excellent—better even than Run. The art is top notch and works beautifully with the narration and dialogue to convey the events leading up to John Lewis’s departure from SNCC, and the volume does an excellent job of introducing the many personalities and situations involved, and the backdrop against which the events in Run occurred..and it’s horrifying how much of that cultural backdrop remains in play today. The text states that the majority of the work was completed at the time of Congressman Lewis’s passing, and while I’d hoped that statement encompassed the planned second and third volumes of the series, that sadly doesn’t seem to be the case. But even as a standalone volume, this is well worth reading.

The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
I mean, it’s the end of the Lord of the Rings. I think my favorite elements of this book aren’t the epic battles or dynastic triumphs, but the extended denouement where we return to Bilbo, and the Shire, and see just how kickass Merry and Pippin have become. I suspect I may like the earlier books better, with their focus on worldbuilding at the human (or hobbit)-eye level, and because the danger is looming but undefined at that point. But even with its grander scope, this book is still a satisfying conclusion.


What I Am Currently Reading

Astro Poets – Alex Dimitrov & Dorothea Lasky
There are elements of this book that disagree with me (I'll expand upon that statement once I'm done with the whole thing) but it's pretty readable all the same.

Sandworm – Andy Greenberg
Greenberg’s writing is dense with information, but so smooth you don’t even notice it. Would that all nonfiction books could read like this.

Arkham Dreams – Sam Keith
I bought this title at the same time as Shirtless Bear Fighter, which is why I decided to reread it now.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System vol. 2 – Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
I knocked out the copypasta appendices and two pages of the story proper.

Paladin’s Grace – T. Kingfisher
Knowing nothing about this book beyond the fact that Kingfisher wrote it and much of the Internet seemed to like it, I was not expecting this to be a fantasy meet-cute. There’s more focus on the “oh, s/he is so attractive and I am not attractive at all, so s/he couldn’t possibly be interested in me” elements than the “what happens to a paladin when their deity dies” angle than I’d prefer, but as the former is pretty well done, I’m still enjoying the ride.


What I’m Reading Next

This week I acquired Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land and Jeremy Wallace’s Seeking Truth And Hiding Facts.


これで以上です。