Books
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I needed to be told the story to fully appreciate it. I wasn’t a fan of Cassandra Khaw’s Nothing But Blackened Teeth when I first read it. The audiobook changed my mind. Its narrator, Suehyla El Attar gave Cassandra’s words a rhythm and an “oomph” that the voice in my head could not. Listening. I
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I learned a new word: Tsundoku. It’s a portmanteau (another new word I learned) of the Japanese words tsunde-oku (to let things pile up) and dukosho (to read). Tsundoku is the act of buying books and letting them just pile up without reading them. According to Tanner Garrity, it’s supposed to be an expression of
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SPOILERS! There may be spoilers in this post. Do not read further, if it concerns you. It is definitely my age that gives Shintaro Kago’s Dementia 21 a little more bite. A little more darkness. A little more sadness. And a little more humor. A friend once told me that Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf tells an
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PLEASE NOTE – There may be spoilers in this post. Don’t read if this concerns you. MePri’s Otakon panel, “Godzilla: Just A Giant Lizard?” gave me a new perspective on Godzilla. Their presentation suggested that the different portrayals of Godzilla in its movies were a barometer of society’s acceptance of nuclear energy. From a fearful
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POSSIBLE SPOILERS! I worried that my ignorance of Arthurian lore would make it difficult to read Kieron Gillen’s Once and Future* series. Happily, this wasn’t the case. While I’m sure familiarity would make the story even more enjoyable because I’d pick up on nuances specific to the mythology, through Duncan, Gillen’s museum curator hero, I
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Each Kazuo Umezz story has a supernatural or mystery element and ends with a twist. The more provocative stories just end! Like “Combat” in Volume 3. It left me wondering if its “cliffhanger” ending were intentional pun (not sure if “cliffhanger” has the same meaning in Japanese as it does in English) or a conclusion
Vincent Young 