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Part II!
And herein are the rest of the books I read this year.
Finished in November
Wild Witchcraft — Rebecca Breyer
I paid about two dollars for this on amazon, and that was about the right price point for the product. The initial chapters, in which Breyer recounts how she got started with folk magic and herbalism, are the best, but the quality deteriorates from there. The rest of the book is largely comprised of poorly organized and repetitive bits of herbal lore or recipes regurgitated from other medicinal or folklore herbals. And while her call to "battle cultural appropriation and other harmful beliefs that exclude and erase Black, brown, and Indigenous contributions to a very large body of knowledge" is sincere, it's superficial: her frequent statements that "Native peoples" used such-and-such a plant for XYZ purpose assume "Native peoples" are all one thing—itself a (granted, unintentional) form of colonialism and cultural erasure, particularly given the pains Breyer takes to highlight the specific European groups (Anglo-Saxon, Irish, German, Scandinavian) from which she sources other individual pieces of plant lore. Wild Witchcraft is certainly far from the worst book on the topic, but readers would be far better served by going directly to the herbals Breyer sources from.
The Only Tarot Book You'll Ever Need — Skye Carmichael
You will definitely need another Tarot book, hopefully one much better written than this.
Flint and Mirror — John Crowley
This novelization of the life of 16-17th century Irish chieftain Hugh O'Neill reads like a fever dream, in the best of ways. The plot is almost beside the point, because holy shit can Crowley write a sentence that'll take your breath away. And then he'll write another, and another, and another. This book is phenomenal.
A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem — Manda Collins
Being another empty calorie read from the period when my brain wasn't up to much else. The romance follows the predictable beats along the path of least resistance, and Collins' Victorian era characters think and act in entirely 21th century vocabulary and idiom.
The Squire's Tale — Gerald Morris
This book almost perfectly captures my ideal Arthurian vibe: a not-quite-Celtic, not-quite-Renn-Faire medieval setting with mystical but not religious overtones, and magic that consistently peeks through the margins versus only when the author's stuck. I'm also a huge fan of Gawain, who takes center stage in this book, and really enjoy Morris's take on the character. The humor is fun, the action is good, the dramatic scenes are well-executed, and the whole thing holds up quite well to rereads.
The Squire, the Knight, and His Lady — Gerald Morris
This book is a worthy sequel to The Squire's Tale, and keeps up the elements I like so much about the first. My two quibbles are that Terence is a little OP by this point, and Morris's decision to have Gawain choose when his wife will appear as a beautiful woman and when as a hag, instead of leaving the choice with her, misses the entire point of the story. But it's well worth reading all the same.
The Voynich Manuscript — Stephen Skinner et al.
The Voynich Manuscript has been published online, but I still enjoy having a physical facsimile to look at. The introductory essays are well-written and give a good overview of the manuscript's history and the various failed attempts to decode it. My guess is that it's just a matter of time before someone feeds thing into an AI model that either decodes it or conclusively proves it's gibberish, at which point this volume will become something of a historical document.
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life — Bryan Lee O'Malley
I remember being not too impressed by Scott Pilgrim when it first came out because I already had access to bona fide Japanese manga. Twenty years later the first volume is still a hot mess, but enjoyable as a time capsule look back at that cultural point in time.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — Bryan Lee O'Malley
A little more plot begins to peek through in this volume. The jokes get snappier and the pacing a little more consistent. Wallace continues to emerge as an MVP.
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness — Bryan Lee O'Malley
Envy and Knives may not be the intended good guys in this series, but that's certainly how I view them. The Honest Ed's fight scene remains one of the best things in a western comic.
The Skull — Jon Klassen
Being another delightfully weird and creepy outing told and illustrated in Klassen's inimitable style, this time based on an old Italian folk tale.
The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf — Bryan Lee O'Malley
This was my first introduction to Morris, and perhaps my favorite in the series. He achieves the perfect blend of homage and send-up of Arthurian lore in this volume. The protagonists are wonderfully realized characters, and (taking pains not to spoil anything here) the payoff is well worth the read.
Leo — Mac Barnett & Christian Robinson
A delightful story about a boy who can see ghosts, told with Barnett's trademark off-kilter humor.
Icelandic Magic — Stephen Flowers
Meh. Flowers talks big game and maybe he really is as well-versed on the topic as he presents himself, but if so he's not skilled at conveying it. The chapter of translated excerpts from various sagas is worth reading, but most of the other content is available on Wikipedia.
Finished in December
Snow, Glass, Apples — Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
Doran's artwork is stunning, and it's worth reading this volume on the strength of that alone. I'm much less enamored of Gaiman's contribution, which retells the story of Snow White from the "evil" queen's perspective, with Snow White reimagined as a vampiric menace (for which Gaiman probably owes an unacknowledged debt of inspiration to Interview with the Vampire's Claudia). It's a neat premise that doesn't live up to its promise, because Gaiman takes the easiest way to the ending: having a character inexplicably fail to do the obvious thing and use their knowledge and power to save the day. To wit: once the queen saved herself from the vampire child's predations by putting iron bars on her bedroom windows, why didn't she put them on the king's? And advise the kingdom's subjects to do the same? Or have the king sleep in her room? Or bother to tell the king that his daughter is a fucking vampire? The "why she didn't" could have been explained with a little creativity, but in the end Gaiman didn't bother.
Winters in the World — Eleanor Parker
Subtitled "A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year," I bought this book sight unseen based on the strength of its rave reviews, and while it's not bad, it's certainly more superficial than I was expecting. I had the impression Parker would discuss more poetry (and in greater depth) than she does, which, to be fair, is a failure of my erroneous expectations versus the book itself (but there you have it). More troublesome, Parker is rather subjective in how she interprets evidence, choosing elements and framings to fit her preferred conclusion rather than considering them objectively (the chapter on Lammas being a particularly glaring example). All this said, I plan to revisit this book to see how my opinion might change when I can consider it solely on the merits of its strengths and weaknesses, versus what reviews led me to believe the volume would be.
Children of the Northlights — Ingri & Edward Parin D'Aulaire
Originally published in the 30s, this is very much an old school picture book in the best way. Beautifully illustrated, it tells the story of two young Sami children, where "story" means slice-of-life scenes from their day-to-day existence. There's no plot, no social commentary, no existential threat to be overcome, no life lesson for readers to absorb. We just accompany the book's characters for a little bit, and when we reach the last page, we say goodbye.
Where Is Saint George? — Bob Stewart
Written to explore the origins of pagan imagery in English folksong, reading this book is the equivalent of jumping into a lively reddit thread at the 67th reply: Stewart starts in the middle of the conversation, and assumes that his readers are already familiar with the discussion to date and will understand the context behind his references to The Golden Bough, or The White Goddess, or Margaret Murray, or Qabalistic theory, or contemporary (i.e. mid-1970s) debates about the survival of pre-Christian beliefs in modern-day England. Readers who are familiar with those things will be able to follow along at home, but may still find themselves frustrated by the lack of an explicitly stated thesis and orderly structured argument. That said, it was fascinating and horrifying to see how the cultural trends that appalled Stewart in 1977—environmental destruction, blind commercialism, exploitative socio-economic structures, and vacuous pop culture consumerism—are even more pronounced today. ("The grip of expert manipulator upon the mass mind reaches its peak in [terrestrial broadcast] television" you say?! That isn't even its final form!)
Parzifal's Page — Gerald Morris
This retelling, while often quite good, isn't as strong as the books that proceeded it. The way Morris plays (neurodivergence-coded) naivety for laughs leaves me a little uneasy. Likewise, the volume's female characters are largely superficial airheads; while Morris can certainly write well-rounded female characters, there aren't really any here, and the story suffers for it. This is also the novel where Morris starts to give more weight to philosophizing at the expense of storytelling. While not actively bad, it's not as subtle or skillfully written as as the earlier volumes.
Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me — Harvey Pekar & JT Waldman
As this was published about a decade ago and Pekar died before he could finish the narrative, I'm not going to comment on that aspect of the volume. As with American Splendor, the draw for me here is nostalgia. I grew up in houses that looked just like that. My entire family lived in houses that looked just like that. We got our groceries from that market just about weekly. It's both weird and fun to see it all portrayed on the pages of a graphic novel.
Chip War — Chris Miller
This generally well-written book does a stellar job of explaining what semiconductors are, how they're developed, and why they're critical to modern civilization. The quality takes a precipitous nose-dive 4/5th of the way in, when Miller suddenly starts repeating the same information mere paragraphs, or even sentences, after he's first introduced it. That said, Chip War takes a complex subject and makes it approachable and interesting, and I'm glad I read this.
How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney — Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen
While it doesn't achieve the comedic absurdity of other Barnett/Klassen collaborations, this is still very cute.
The Dark Is Rising — Susan Cooper
This is one of my traditional seasonal reads, and while I still love its atmospheric language and dreamworld blend of traditional winter folklore motifs, the story no longer satisfies, largely due to the way the overpowered "good guys" make a pawn of a certain character and then discard them for no greater sin than being human.
The Korean Vegan — Joanne Lee Molinaro
The photographs are beautiful and Molinaro's family history vignettes are good reading despite sometimes straying into purple prose. I'll try making almost every recipe in this book at least once, but I suspect I'll eventually reverse engineer animal products back into some of them.
Tread of Angels — Rebecca Roanhorse
This novella about a hard-luck woman trying to protect her younger sister from a murder accusation takes the Western and noir genres and skews a few of their main beats (which I won't spoil here as they're the best part of the plot). Roanhorse substitutes angels and demons for the standard racial categories, and instead of gold, the frontier townspeople are mining "divinity" from the body of a fallen angel. But these fantasy elements don't add anything to the story: you could contrl+H them with the standard elements without any loss of fidelity, which ultimately left me wanting more. That said, unlike similar Tor fare, this book was actually edited: pacing, spelling, and grammar are flawless, so it's pleasant to read on that front.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin — Robert Browning and Kate Greenaway
Browning's poem—which defined the story for generations of English speakers—is fine, but Greenaway's illustrations absolutely make this book. They're stunning, and I wish modern picture books were still illustrated like this.
Tales from the Hinterland — Melissa Albert
I was hesitant to read this book—a collection of the fairytales only hinted at in Albert's The Hazel Wood and The Night Country—because oftentimes things hinted at sometimes lose their attraction when they're fully fleshed out. With a few exceptions (Alice Three Times will always be better as an intimation than a plot) I needn't have worried. This collection is everything I want fairytales to be: atmospheric, grim, phantasmagoric, and subtle. Albert is a master and I will read anything she writes.
Odin — Diana L. Paxson
I started this book in 2016 but never finished because someone stole it from the library after I returned it. I was able to pick up a copy last month on the cheap. While it's not bad per se, Paxson is very much into the "bestest-at-everything-he-does-irresistible-ladies'-man-and-stern-disciplinarian-daddy-figure-who secretly-cares-behind-his-macho-facade" male archetype, and I am very much...not.
The Ballad of Sir Dinadan — Gerald Morris
Boy did Morris jump the shark with this book. Gone is the gently humorous poking at Arthurian myth, to be replaced with a cast of petty, conniving, cartoonish characters in which the ostensible protagonists are as snide and unlikable as the villains. A retelling of Tristan and Iseult with Morris's original deft insight and compassion would have been lovely; unfortunately, they're conspicuously lacking here.
Thousand Autumns vol. 1 - Meng Xi Shi
Hey, look, I squeezed one final volume in before the new year. I really enjoyed this one. The romance is so far all set-up, but the set-up is my ideal mixture of history, action, philosophy, and fantasy. In that way it's very reminiscent of Akizuki Koh's Oucho Romanse or Yukimura-dono En nite Soro series. Typographical errors are kept to a minimum, he translation is among the smoothest I've encountered, and the translator has done a fine job of conveying honorifics and pronoun use from the original. All-in-all, a very good read.
And with that, 良いお年を迎えて, everyone!
これで以上です。
And herein are the rest of the books I read this year.
Finished in November
Wild Witchcraft — Rebecca Breyer
I paid about two dollars for this on amazon, and that was about the right price point for the product. The initial chapters, in which Breyer recounts how she got started with folk magic and herbalism, are the best, but the quality deteriorates from there. The rest of the book is largely comprised of poorly organized and repetitive bits of herbal lore or recipes regurgitated from other medicinal or folklore herbals. And while her call to "battle cultural appropriation and other harmful beliefs that exclude and erase Black, brown, and Indigenous contributions to a very large body of knowledge" is sincere, it's superficial: her frequent statements that "Native peoples" used such-and-such a plant for XYZ purpose assume "Native peoples" are all one thing—itself a (granted, unintentional) form of colonialism and cultural erasure, particularly given the pains Breyer takes to highlight the specific European groups (Anglo-Saxon, Irish, German, Scandinavian) from which she sources other individual pieces of plant lore. Wild Witchcraft is certainly far from the worst book on the topic, but readers would be far better served by going directly to the herbals Breyer sources from.
The Only Tarot Book You'll Ever Need — Skye Carmichael
You will definitely need another Tarot book, hopefully one much better written than this.
Flint and Mirror — John Crowley
This novelization of the life of 16-17th century Irish chieftain Hugh O'Neill reads like a fever dream, in the best of ways. The plot is almost beside the point, because holy shit can Crowley write a sentence that'll take your breath away. And then he'll write another, and another, and another. This book is phenomenal.
A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem — Manda Collins
Being another empty calorie read from the period when my brain wasn't up to much else. The romance follows the predictable beats along the path of least resistance, and Collins' Victorian era characters think and act in entirely 21th century vocabulary and idiom.
The Squire's Tale — Gerald Morris
This book almost perfectly captures my ideal Arthurian vibe: a not-quite-Celtic, not-quite-Renn-Faire medieval setting with mystical but not religious overtones, and magic that consistently peeks through the margins versus only when the author's stuck. I'm also a huge fan of Gawain, who takes center stage in this book, and really enjoy Morris's take on the character. The humor is fun, the action is good, the dramatic scenes are well-executed, and the whole thing holds up quite well to rereads.
The Squire, the Knight, and His Lady — Gerald Morris
This book is a worthy sequel to The Squire's Tale, and keeps up the elements I like so much about the first. My two quibbles are that Terence is a little OP by this point, and Morris's decision to have Gawain choose when his wife will appear as a beautiful woman and when as a hag, instead of leaving the choice with her, misses the entire point of the story. But it's well worth reading all the same.
The Voynich Manuscript — Stephen Skinner et al.
The Voynich Manuscript has been published online, but I still enjoy having a physical facsimile to look at. The introductory essays are well-written and give a good overview of the manuscript's history and the various failed attempts to decode it. My guess is that it's just a matter of time before someone feeds thing into an AI model that either decodes it or conclusively proves it's gibberish, at which point this volume will become something of a historical document.
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life — Bryan Lee O'Malley
I remember being not too impressed by Scott Pilgrim when it first came out because I already had access to bona fide Japanese manga. Twenty years later the first volume is still a hot mess, but enjoyable as a time capsule look back at that cultural point in time.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — Bryan Lee O'Malley
A little more plot begins to peek through in this volume. The jokes get snappier and the pacing a little more consistent. Wallace continues to emerge as an MVP.
Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness — Bryan Lee O'Malley
Envy and Knives may not be the intended good guys in this series, but that's certainly how I view them. The Honest Ed's fight scene remains one of the best things in a western comic.
The Skull — Jon Klassen
Being another delightfully weird and creepy outing told and illustrated in Klassen's inimitable style, this time based on an old Italian folk tale.
The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf — Bryan Lee O'Malley
This was my first introduction to Morris, and perhaps my favorite in the series. He achieves the perfect blend of homage and send-up of Arthurian lore in this volume. The protagonists are wonderfully realized characters, and (taking pains not to spoil anything here) the payoff is well worth the read.
Leo — Mac Barnett & Christian Robinson
A delightful story about a boy who can see ghosts, told with Barnett's trademark off-kilter humor.
Icelandic Magic — Stephen Flowers
Meh. Flowers talks big game and maybe he really is as well-versed on the topic as he presents himself, but if so he's not skilled at conveying it. The chapter of translated excerpts from various sagas is worth reading, but most of the other content is available on Wikipedia.
Finished in December
Snow, Glass, Apples — Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran
Doran's artwork is stunning, and it's worth reading this volume on the strength of that alone. I'm much less enamored of Gaiman's contribution, which retells the story of Snow White from the "evil" queen's perspective, with Snow White reimagined as a vampiric menace (for which Gaiman probably owes an unacknowledged debt of inspiration to Interview with the Vampire's Claudia). It's a neat premise that doesn't live up to its promise, because Gaiman takes the easiest way to the ending: having a character inexplicably fail to do the obvious thing and use their knowledge and power to save the day. To wit: once the queen saved herself from the vampire child's predations by putting iron bars on her bedroom windows, why didn't she put them on the king's? And advise the kingdom's subjects to do the same? Or have the king sleep in her room? Or bother to tell the king that his daughter is a fucking vampire? The "why she didn't" could have been explained with a little creativity, but in the end Gaiman didn't bother.
Winters in the World — Eleanor Parker
Subtitled "A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year," I bought this book sight unseen based on the strength of its rave reviews, and while it's not bad, it's certainly more superficial than I was expecting. I had the impression Parker would discuss more poetry (and in greater depth) than she does, which, to be fair, is a failure of my erroneous expectations versus the book itself (but there you have it). More troublesome, Parker is rather subjective in how she interprets evidence, choosing elements and framings to fit her preferred conclusion rather than considering them objectively (the chapter on Lammas being a particularly glaring example). All this said, I plan to revisit this book to see how my opinion might change when I can consider it solely on the merits of its strengths and weaknesses, versus what reviews led me to believe the volume would be.
Children of the Northlights — Ingri & Edward Parin D'Aulaire
Originally published in the 30s, this is very much an old school picture book in the best way. Beautifully illustrated, it tells the story of two young Sami children, where "story" means slice-of-life scenes from their day-to-day existence. There's no plot, no social commentary, no existential threat to be overcome, no life lesson for readers to absorb. We just accompany the book's characters for a little bit, and when we reach the last page, we say goodbye.
Where Is Saint George? — Bob Stewart
Written to explore the origins of pagan imagery in English folksong, reading this book is the equivalent of jumping into a lively reddit thread at the 67th reply: Stewart starts in the middle of the conversation, and assumes that his readers are already familiar with the discussion to date and will understand the context behind his references to The Golden Bough, or The White Goddess, or Margaret Murray, or Qabalistic theory, or contemporary (i.e. mid-1970s) debates about the survival of pre-Christian beliefs in modern-day England. Readers who are familiar with those things will be able to follow along at home, but may still find themselves frustrated by the lack of an explicitly stated thesis and orderly structured argument. That said, it was fascinating and horrifying to see how the cultural trends that appalled Stewart in 1977—environmental destruction, blind commercialism, exploitative socio-economic structures, and vacuous pop culture consumerism—are even more pronounced today. ("The grip of expert manipulator upon the mass mind reaches its peak in [terrestrial broadcast] television" you say?! That isn't even its final form!)
Parzifal's Page — Gerald Morris
This retelling, while often quite good, isn't as strong as the books that proceeded it. The way Morris plays (neurodivergence-coded) naivety for laughs leaves me a little uneasy. Likewise, the volume's female characters are largely superficial airheads; while Morris can certainly write well-rounded female characters, there aren't really any here, and the story suffers for it. This is also the novel where Morris starts to give more weight to philosophizing at the expense of storytelling. While not actively bad, it's not as subtle or skillfully written as as the earlier volumes.
Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me — Harvey Pekar & JT Waldman
As this was published about a decade ago and Pekar died before he could finish the narrative, I'm not going to comment on that aspect of the volume. As with American Splendor, the draw for me here is nostalgia. I grew up in houses that looked just like that. My entire family lived in houses that looked just like that. We got our groceries from that market just about weekly. It's both weird and fun to see it all portrayed on the pages of a graphic novel.
Chip War — Chris Miller
This generally well-written book does a stellar job of explaining what semiconductors are, how they're developed, and why they're critical to modern civilization. The quality takes a precipitous nose-dive 4/5th of the way in, when Miller suddenly starts repeating the same information mere paragraphs, or even sentences, after he's first introduced it. That said, Chip War takes a complex subject and makes it approachable and interesting, and I'm glad I read this.
How Does Santa Go Down the Chimney — Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen
While it doesn't achieve the comedic absurdity of other Barnett/Klassen collaborations, this is still very cute.
The Dark Is Rising — Susan Cooper
This is one of my traditional seasonal reads, and while I still love its atmospheric language and dreamworld blend of traditional winter folklore motifs, the story no longer satisfies, largely due to the way the overpowered "good guys" make a pawn of a certain character and then discard them for no greater sin than being human.
The Korean Vegan — Joanne Lee Molinaro
The photographs are beautiful and Molinaro's family history vignettes are good reading despite sometimes straying into purple prose. I'll try making almost every recipe in this book at least once, but I suspect I'll eventually reverse engineer animal products back into some of them.
Tread of Angels — Rebecca Roanhorse
This novella about a hard-luck woman trying to protect her younger sister from a murder accusation takes the Western and noir genres and skews a few of their main beats (which I won't spoil here as they're the best part of the plot). Roanhorse substitutes angels and demons for the standard racial categories, and instead of gold, the frontier townspeople are mining "divinity" from the body of a fallen angel. But these fantasy elements don't add anything to the story: you could contrl+H them with the standard elements without any loss of fidelity, which ultimately left me wanting more. That said, unlike similar Tor fare, this book was actually edited: pacing, spelling, and grammar are flawless, so it's pleasant to read on that front.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin — Robert Browning and Kate Greenaway
Browning's poem—which defined the story for generations of English speakers—is fine, but Greenaway's illustrations absolutely make this book. They're stunning, and I wish modern picture books were still illustrated like this.
Tales from the Hinterland — Melissa Albert
I was hesitant to read this book—a collection of the fairytales only hinted at in Albert's The Hazel Wood and The Night Country—because oftentimes things hinted at sometimes lose their attraction when they're fully fleshed out. With a few exceptions (Alice Three Times will always be better as an intimation than a plot) I needn't have worried. This collection is everything I want fairytales to be: atmospheric, grim, phantasmagoric, and subtle. Albert is a master and I will read anything she writes.
Odin — Diana L. Paxson
I started this book in 2016 but never finished because someone stole it from the library after I returned it. I was able to pick up a copy last month on the cheap. While it's not bad per se, Paxson is very much into the "bestest-at-everything-he-does-irresistible-ladies'-man-and-stern-disciplinarian-daddy-figure-who secretly-cares-behind-his-macho-facade" male archetype, and I am very much...not.
The Ballad of Sir Dinadan — Gerald Morris
Boy did Morris jump the shark with this book. Gone is the gently humorous poking at Arthurian myth, to be replaced with a cast of petty, conniving, cartoonish characters in which the ostensible protagonists are as snide and unlikable as the villains. A retelling of Tristan and Iseult with Morris's original deft insight and compassion would have been lovely; unfortunately, they're conspicuously lacking here.
Thousand Autumns vol. 1 - Meng Xi Shi
Hey, look, I squeezed one final volume in before the new year. I really enjoyed this one. The romance is so far all set-up, but the set-up is my ideal mixture of history, action, philosophy, and fantasy. In that way it's very reminiscent of Akizuki Koh's Oucho Romanse or Yukimura-dono En nite Soro series. Typographical errors are kept to a minimum, he translation is among the smoothest I've encountered, and the translator has done a fine job of conveying honorifics and pronoun use from the original. All-in-all, a very good read.
And with that, 良いお年を迎えて, everyone!
これで以上です。
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