Monday 20 July 2015

Travels


Look! A cake! Coconut oil instead of butter (there's a shortage, you know), in case you were wondering what made this one different.

Wednesday 15 July 2015

Lumberjanes / East of West

Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Shannon Watters, Brooke Allen, 2015
Jonathan Hickman, Nick Dragotta, Frank Martin, 2015
(June 2015)



Slightly random paring this, created largely through the coincidence of release and delivery schedules. Can I force them together into some kind of awkward thematic union? You betcha. Let’s talk Americana.

Monday 13 July 2015

The King's English

(July 2015)



A style guide, basically. And as with any reasonably well constructed style guide it contain equal parts sage regard for the essential mutability of language and random prescriptivism, particularly on the subject of pronunciation.

Saturday 11 July 2015

The Yellow Birds

(July 2015)
  


Much vaunted, this, and not undeservedly so. I need more time to roll it around my head, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for the deep and meaningful analysis (on which note, I’m definitely not a fan of the increasingly prevalent gimmick of adding book club discussion notes to the back any lit-fic paperback that didn’t tank on initial release).

Wednesday 8 July 2015

The Goddess Chronicle

(July 2015)
  


As I write this it’s mere hours after the Nadeshiko have been rather freakishly drubbed in the World Cup final, so it’s fitting that we return once again to the subject of gender relations in Japan, and especially so that we do it in consideration of a book whose notionally feminist message I am decidedly ambivalent about.

Wednesday 1 July 2015

The Violent Century

(June 2015)
  


Atmospheric. Metatextual. Short sentences. No quotation marks. Evocative of McCarthy. Evocative in general. Europe descends to war. People fight the Nazis. The Nazis fight back. Also Vietnam. Also superheroes.