“Look! A monster breakfast bans romance!”

“Young fry of treachery!”

.

101) The Glass Looker by Mark Elwood, finished on October 3

Perhaps I knew this when I purchased the book from the author, but I was surprised to get not only the book, but also a couple bookmarks and a numbered print as well. Moves the $35 I spent from a tad pricey to a fine deal indeed.

The concept of the book (and the coming series) is that Elwood collects all the contemporary accounts of Joseph Smith's early years (or, more accurately, accounts by contemporaries) and puts them in chronological order without judging their likely accuracy or how pleasant (or not) they are. So you end up with a Joseph Smith who is the strongest and hardest working kid and a Joseph Smith who is so crippled he's essentially farm-worthless. An honest child and a conniving child. And lots of seerstones.

At times, certain pieces of art were too pencilly for my tastes, but in the end I was won over. The art is effective. Which is necessary for a comic to work—it can't be all words and research. It's the marriage of art and word that makes comics comics. I look forward to watching the art refine in coming issues.

Speaking as someone who has above average knowledge of Mormon arcana, this book is still filled with stuff I didn't know. Sally Chase, for instance. How did I not know about her?

This book seems like a must-have-around for any collection. It touches on any interest in lit, comics, and history. A fascinating work.

threeish reads


102) A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness after Siobhan Dowd, finished on October 6

Dowd began this story featuring terminal cancer while she had terminal cancer. The cancer got her before she'd written very much and Ness accepted the task of taking her concept and beginning and making it so.

I had no idea this was a book when the movie came out in 2016, five years after the book. And when I found the book in a Little Free Library, from the look of it (shape and Jim Kay's illustrations) I assumed it was a midcentury classic.

Behold, my ignorance!

Anyway, it's a good book. And it moved me. And I suspect the movie will be even better. I look forward to finding out. But I suspect that the strengths of film will work particularly well here if executed from boldness, which, from reviews I read at the time, I suspect will be the case.

Anyway: boy, monster, mother. Plus supporting characters.

a few days
 

103) Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket, finished on October 12

Do you realize it has been 22 years since the first Lemony Snicket book was released? That's a lot of years.

I bring it up because whether Poison for Breakfast is a betrayal of the Lemony Snicket brand or its ultimate expression depends a lot on who you are.

If you started with his first book, new when you were in first grade, you are 29 years old today. That's a lot of years.

But have you grown in those years? I suspect you have. But have your desires of Mr Snicket also grown in these years? Or do you yet desire from him maudlin tales of woeful (but scrappy) orphans?

As I began this book, just before it first claimed to be a work of philosophy, I realized it reminded me of another book I had read recently, by which I mean six years ago. So perhaps not so recently after all.

Anyway, do you reread for pleasure or read for new challenges? Do you want a work of philosophy? An essentially plotless book? Man wakes up. A mystery arises. He fails to solve it and fails to solve it. Until he discovers that the solution to the mystery is that there is no mystery. Or, more accurately, that it is not more mysterious than everything else. Which is a lot mysterious.

At first, I felt we were spinning in the sand and getting nowhere. But by the end, I was won over. This is a book of negative epistemology. Not to say that reading it will make you more susceptible to QAnon—quite the opposite in fact—but that it will inspire more humility in your own epistemology.

Also, if you are like me, you will also laugh a goodly number of times. And the notes charm as well.

Have some poison for breakfast.

going on a week
 

104) Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook, Ko Hyung-Ju, Ryan Estrada; finished on October 13

I really wanted to like this book. And I suppose I did, sort of. It was a frustrating read, though. It really needed another good edit before going to press. It has a few problems with the storytelling which get in the way of more fully appreciating the history and the characters living it.

That said, largely, it worked. One emotional beat hit well.

I just...wish it had been better.

afternoon and early night
 

105) Romance or The End. by Elaine Kahn, finished on October 14

Here we have poetry of sex (of the cumming variety as well as the metaphorical variety) and violence (usually of the sexual kind [by which I mean physical, sure, but especially the emotional variety]). It is largely excellent although some of the poems work in the collection but could not stand alone. So if that annoys you, now you know.

There's a spread near the end of the book that struck me as a sort of thesis for the whole—even before I realized it coincides with the collection's title (click to enlarge):

since october fourth


106 & 107) Macbeth by William Shakespeare, finished on October 18

It was a slow read as not every day is Macbeth day but we made it through.

Some class reads are great. Some are terrible. This was subpar but not abysmal.

Hard to get conversation going in masks. Even with microphones.

about three weeks