bookshelves of doom

Peanuts, Crackerjacks, and BRAINS: Two Stories about Baseball Players Battling Zombies.

Frankly, I'm surprised I couldn't come up with more.

Zombie Baseball Beatdown, by Paolo Bacigalupi

If you've got readers clamoring for the gruesome, then look no further: This book is so gross! SO GROSS! Lots of gore, lots of poop, lots of hideous goings-on at the local slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant. I wouldn't be surprised to see a few young omnivores go vegetarian after reading it.

What would you do if the zombie apocalypse started in your own town? Middle school baseball players Rabi, Miguel, and Joe don't just fight for their lives, they try to follow in the footsteps of their hero Spider Jerusalem—the fact that they were Transmetropolitan fans made me shriek with joy—to reveal the corruption and greed that caused it, as well as the people who are still trying to cover it up.

Holy cow, for a small book, it deals with a LOT of stuff, and it deals with it in depth. The banter between the boys is excellent and funny, as are the dynamics of their friendship: they always have each others' backs, there's complete trust and affection there, and they all know how to play to each others' strengths.

They all have large issues to contend with—Rabi is the main target of a racist bully on their team, Miguel's parents have been deported due to their immigration status and lives in fear of the rest of his family being picked up next, and Joe's father is a mean drunk—but while the issues certainly have a bearing on the storyline and on their worldviews, they're dealt with in a pretty matter-of-fact, non-preachy way. The immigration storyline, especially, was well-handled: Bacigalupi doesn't get into the politics, he just tells a story in which a kid has to deal with a situation that is (and has always been) completely out of his hands, but that has a direct impact on his future. Basically, Bacigalupi focuses on people, rather than on policy. Interwoven into all of it is a dark thread about money equaling power, but it does end on a hopeful note that suggests that information, knowledge, and—this is so awesome—STORY will eventually punch through it all.

It won't be for everyone—like I said, SO GROSS—but I really enjoyed it.

My Boyfriend is a Monster #1: I Love Him to Pieces, by Evonne Tsang and Janina Görrissen

These books are new to me: according to the website, it's a series of stand-alone horror/romance graphic novels. In this first one, high school softball star Dicey Bell and science geek/gamer Jack get paired up for a class project, sparks fly, and then they have to team up to fight a zombie uprising. So it looks like it's the old Opposites Attract And Have To Find A Way To Contend With Their Differences Amid Unrelated Chaos storyline. Of which I am a fan, so I'm going to pick it up soon. 

Can you think of any others?

What I read yesterday.

I read Relish, by Lucy Knisley, which is an adorable graphic coming-of-age memoir that's centered around food and travel. I loved how she showed her parents' parallel interests post-divorce: both parents are extremely food-oriented, and both are world travelers, but they prefer to experience food and the world very differently, which in turn allows Lucy a broader range of experience. And I loved her philosophy about food, which lines up quite neatly with mine about books: like what you like, and make no excuses for your taste. ALSO. Each chapter ends with a related recipe (huevos rancheros! pasta carbonara! sushi!), and MAN OH MAN, if Knisley wrote an entire cookbook in this format, I'd buy it in a hot second. Love.

I also read Stephanie Kate Strohm's Confederates Don't Wear Couture, which, like its predecessor, is funny and light and chock-full of cool historical facts. While the rom-com angle wasn't as strong as in the first book—I never find it as satisfying when characters have gotten together and then conflict is introduced purely to Create Tension—it's still an entertaining, fun romp, and I very much hope for more. (Yay for more Dev Ravipati in this one, though I do admit that I was completely thrown when he used the word 'tranny'. Use of the word—in that specific situation, especially—would be in keeping with his personality, though, as he tends to not be remotely interested in political correctness, etc. See: his response to Libby's surprise about his lack of qualms re: the murky ethical questions that surround Civil War reenactments.) Bonus points for all of the info about historical reenactments (cultural as well as mechanical), for the suggestions for further reading, and for discussing the problematic aspects of celebrating and glorifying certain parts of history without ever completely taking sides on the issue.

_____________________________________

Book source(s): ILLed through my library.

Is it humanly possible to watch a LeVar Burton video without wanting to hug him?

Follow-up question: Did my first question make me sound like a stalker?

Follow-up to my follow-up: Who else cried at the end of Donald Glover's last Community episode?

Previously.

Free Comic Book Day: 2014.

It's tomorrow!

Need a store locator? 

There's one right here!

Timewaster of the day.

At SF Signal: 

MIND MELD: Webcomics You Should Be Reading Right Now

Annnnnd there goes my productivity for the day.

The Fun Home debate continues in South Carolina.

From the NYT:

The College of Charleston, a public university, provided copies of Ms. Bechdel’s memoir to incoming students for the 2013-14 academic year, as part of its annual College Reads! program that tries to encourage campus-wide discussion around a single book each year. The books are not required reading.

But one state representative, Garry Smith, told South Carolina newspapers this winter that he had received a complaint about “Fun Home” from a constituent whose daughter was a freshman at the college. Mr. Smith contacted the college to ask about other options for College Reads!, and said he was told there were none. Mr. Smith then proposed cutting $52,000 – roughly equivalent to the cost of the reading program, he said – from the college’s $20 million appropriation from the state. The budget cut is now moving through the legislature; South Carolina news media coverage indicates some sizable political support for the cut.

The ballot for the 2014 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards...

...has been released.

The YA contenders are:

Battling Boy, by Paul Pope
Bluffton: My Summers with Buster, by Matt Phelan
Boxers and Saints, by Gene Luen Yang
Dogs of War, by Sheila Keenan and Nathan Fox
March (Book One), by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
Templar, by Jordan Mechner, LeUyen Pham, and Alex Puviland

Click on through for the other categories!