Allow me to comfort you with failure and sin and escape

.

047) The Natural by Bernard Malamud, finished March 28

Knock another baseball classic off the list! I'm done early enough, maybe I'll fit in a nonfiction baseball book this year as well. We'll see.

This book is exceedingly modern---it's heavy with the Arthur imagery and the time symbolism and the symbolism through sex and the ending is very modern as well. This is stuff that often annoys me---and I'm not about to claim this is one of the greatest novels evah, but this book managed it all in a short 237 pages, so we'll forgive it.

My version included a couple nice intros (only one of which I read before the book) which get into the symbolism of the novel but which, for me, may have been of most interest because they were written thirty years after the novel which was written about that long before the events of the novel---in otherwords, they engaged in recursive nostalgia. They were well written and interesting and incisive, but they assumed a certain sort of lived experience shared between themselves and those who might pick up The Natural and read their introductions.

Obviously, I'm too far removed from Babe Ruth or the Black Sox to even have any inherited nostalgia---it's all book-lernin to me. Which isn't qute the same thing. But I think the novel does just fine without those elements. In fact, having those memories not be personal perhaps allows the book to be even more mythic in its scope.

Could be.

At any rate, it's a tragedy. And somehow I did not expect that.

(Incidentally, I haven't seen the movie since I was a kid, say around eight. I remember very little. But now that I've read the novel I'll have to rewatch it.)

maybe twenty days



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046) Let Me Drown with Moses by James Goldberg, finished March 26

If I make time for it, I hope to write two reviews on two different sites about this poetry collection.

I might say so now, but this is the first book I've read on my Kindle and I can't figure out how to access my notes....

seven months



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045) Kaptara Volume 1: Fear Not, Tiny Alien by Chip Zdarsky and Kagan McLeod, finished March 25

Okay. So imagine a Frazetta imagining of The Princess of Mars + Masters of the Universe + Douglas Adams-lite jokes + Sassy Gay Friend + Xanth + my high-school experience of making up stuff to make each other laugh (minus all the sex jokes because we were remarkably clean kids).

I can see why people talk so highly of the gentlemen who made this volume.

say a week



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044) The Big Book of Exit Strategies by Jamaal May, finished March 22

This is the longest of the single-author collections I've read this year, but it's also one of the strongest. It does have one flaw (some sets of poems are clearly just variations on each other) but it's okay because they do draw out and expand upon each other, even if I doubt they were originally meant to be placed beside each other. (That said, were I May's editor, I would have axed some of them.)

The book is remarkably coherent as a whole considering how long it is (~120pp). Although some of the poems were a bit too obtuse and others needed tightening, I enjoyed this book. Well done.

nineteen days

Previously in 2017

40 – 43

043) Casanova: Acedia Volume 1 by Matt Fraction and Fábio Moon and Michael Chabon and Gabriel Bá, finished March 18
042) Wolfie & Fly by Cary Fagan, finished March 15
041) Cyrus Perkins and the Haunted Taxi Cab by Dave Dwonch and Anna Lencioni, finished March 13
040) An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, finished March 10

36 – 39

039) Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, finished March 9
038) In the Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown by Amy Gary, finished March 5
037) Ritual and Bit by Robert Ostrom, finished March 3
036) Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman, finished March 3

33 – 35

035) Under Brushstrokes by Hedy Habra, finished February 24
034) Rapture by Sjohnna McCray, finished February 20
033) The Destroyer in the Glass by Noah Warren, finished February 19

29 – 32

032) Old Boy, Vol. 8 by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 18
031) Ms. Marvel Vol. 6: Civil War II by G. Willow Wilson et al, finished February 18
030) White Sand by Brandon Sanderson & Rik Hoskin & Julius Gopez, finished February 18
029) Honest Engine by Kyle Dargan, finished February 17

24 – 28

028) Best American Comics 2016 edited by Roz Chast, finished February 16
027) Old Boy, Vol. 7 by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 16
026) Old Boy, Vol. 6 by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 12
025) Old Boy, Vol. 5 by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 11
024) Old Boy, Vol. 4 by Garon Tsuchiya & Nobuaki Minegishi, finished February 10

19 – 23

023) Ms. Marvel Vol. 5: Super Famous by G. Willow Wilson & Takeshi Miyazawa, finished February 9
022) Ms. Marvel Vol. 4: Last Days by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona, finished February 7
021) Ms. Marvel Vol. 3: Crushed by G. Willow Wilson & Takeshi Miyazawa & Elmo Bondoc, finished February 7
020) Ms. Marvel Volume 2: Generation Why by G. Willow Wilson & Jacob Wyatt & Adrian Alphona, finished February 6
019) Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson & Adrian Alphona, finished February 5

14 – 18

018) Curses by Kevin Huizenga, finished February 4
017) Precious Rascals by Anthony Holden, finished January 31
015 & 016) Anthem by Ayn Rand, finished January 31
014) Old Boy, Vol. 3 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 30

9 – 13

013) On Jupiter Place by Nicholas Christopher, finished January 30
012) Old Boy, Vol. 2 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 29
011) Old Boy, Vol. 1 by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, finished January 28
010) Summerlost by Ally Condie, finished January 27
009) Heat Wake by Jason Zuzga, finished January 24

4 – 8

008) How the End Begins by Cynthia Cruz, finished January 19
007) Delinquent Palaces by Danielle Chapman, finished January 19
006) Pilot by pd mallamo, finished January 19
005) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, finished January 16
004) I Hate Fairyland Volume 1: Madly Ever After by Skottie Young et al, finished January 14

1 – 3

003) The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, finished January 12
002) F in Exams: The Very Best Totally Wrong Test Answers by Richard Benson, finished January 10
001) States of Deseret by William Morris, finished January 10

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