I have been on a bit of a poetry kick lately, and after someone shared one of David Whyte’s poems (“Self-Portrait”) with me I decided to give this collection a try. I’m glad I did, simply because it was a good collection.   Also, I…

Mary Oliver’s poetry has been on the peripheries of my life for the past five years — she attended “the” Ohio State University for a couple of years in the 1950s, so the school I just graduated from has a soft spot for her. In…

  Fables is a really interesting comic — it’s smart, funny, and has lots of strong female protagonists who aren’t oversexualized or objectified in some of the ways that are typical in more conventional comics. The artwork is exciting and nicely done, the characters are…

I only recently started reading comic books again, and one of the first ones I picked up was Robert Kirkman’s series The Walking Dead, published by Image Comics. While I read each comic individually, I figured it’d be most efficient to blog about them as one,…

The second run in DC Comics’ “New 52” of the Wonder Woman series, Guts was another great read. Just as compelling and interesting as the first, just as nicely illustrated, and just as much of a cliffhanger at the end! (Not that that’s surprising, really.) I…

I read the first run of DC Comics’ “New 52” version of Wonder Woman…and I’m hooked now. The illustrations are really nicely done (perfectly suited to one of my preferred styles) and the storyline is pretty interesting. I have to be honest: I never read…

Mindy Kaling’s book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and other concerns) is a great summer read. It’s funny, it’s cute, and it’s broken up into convenient bite-sized morsels. How do I talk about a book like this? It’s so far from my usual reading practices…it’s…

Darth Vader and Son is a fun and imaginative spinoff of the Star Wars characters — most especially Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker (although several others make appearances in the book). It’s a cute little book that humorously explores the father-son relationship. The illustrations really make the…

Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut’s collection magneticrefrain is at once beautiful, lyrical, haunting, and disturbing — a combination of qualities that make it, to me, a very worthwhile read. Throughout the collection, several recurring images (folkloric figures, dolls, “others,” animals, etc.) appear that lend the collection a…

A friend of a friend recommended this book, and I’m so glad she did! What a fun and playful read Maria Semple’s novel turned out to be! Part of the joy of this book is the way the story is told. The young protagonist and…