Read in June

It was just another month, though it's not all that often that I turn 40. And these are the books I was reading when I hit that wall -- as usual, title links go to my reviews (here or at ComicMix) where applicable, or directly to the Evil Empire if there's a paragraph of text immediately below. (All "buy it?" links lead directly to the Evil Empire; there is no escape.)

• Miss Lasko-Gross, A Mess of Everything (buy it?) (6/1)
  
• Byun Byung-Jun, Mijeong (buy it?) (6/2)
  
• Sun Jiayu & Guo Guo, The History of the West Wing (buy it?) (6/3)
  
• Lawrence Block, Step by Step (6/3)
  
• Yu Yanshu, Step, Vol. 1: Dynasty Tang (buy it?) (6/4)
  
• Harry Bliss, Death By Laughter (6/5)
  Bliss is a fine New Yorker cartoonist who also illustrates children's books -- Diary of a Worm and sequels had his art, for example -- and this was a book of his cartoons, mostly about death and dying, from 2008 and published by Abrams. It wanders away from the theme now and then, with cartoons about drugs, family, animals, and the usual New Yorker man-and-woman stuff, but that's OK -- who really wants to read 123 cartoons in a row about death by the same guy? I like Bliss's work, and so I found most of these to be funny. Others, with different tastes, may find their mileage differs.
  
• Geoffrey Nunberg, Talking Right (6/6)
  
• Michael Williams, Richard Cahan and Nicholas Osborn, Who We Were: A Snapshot History of America (6/7)
  The portable, mass-marketed camera is just over a hundred years old; this book is a collection of photos by ordinary Americans, of ordinary things and people and places, from the turn of the 20th century through about 1970. So it's a book of photography as cultural history rather than as high art -- though many of the pictures are very attractive and well-composed. It's most interesting just as a visual record, showing people as they lived and wanted to remember themselves -- posing in their houses, cars, and vacation destinations. I liked it, and it could be a great book for writers -- every picture could be the springboard for a story.
  
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 36(6/8)
  Continuing the in-between part of Naruto's story -- he's not as young as he was in the first twenty or so volumes, and he's not a young adult as he is in the current stories. And, of course, he's fighting and training, and then training and fighting. And then training while fighting, or maybe the other way around.
  
• Michael Lewis, Home Game (6/8)
  
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Andreas, and Stephane Blanquet, Dungeon Monstres, Vol. 2: The Dark Lord (buy it?) (6/9)
  
• Peter Kuper, Stop Forgetting to Remember (buy it?) (6/10)
  
• Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination (6/10)
  
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Boulet, Dungeon Zenith, Vol. 3: Back in Style (buy it?) (6/11)
  
• Box Brown, Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing (6/12)
  
• Matthew Loux, Salt Water Taffy, Vol. 1: The Legend of Old Salty (buy it?) (6/15)
  
• Matthew Loux, Salt Water Taffy, Vol. 2: A Climb Up Mt. Barnabas (buy it?) (6/16)
  
• Kage Baker, The Empress of Mars (6/16)
  
• Ted Naifeh, Courtney Crumrin and the Prince of Nowhere (buy it?) (6/17)
  
• Mike Dawson, Ace-Face: The Mod With the Metal Arms (buy it?) (6/18)
  
• Lamar Abrams, Remake (buy it?) (6/18)
  
• Bill Keltner & Wayne Shellabarger, Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance (6/18)
  
• Fred Chao, Johnny Hiro (buy it?) (6/19)
  
• JinHo Ko, Jack Frost, Vol. 1 (buy it?) (6/22)
  
• KookHwa Huh & SuJin Kim, Pig Bride, Vol. 1 (buy it?) (6/23)
  
• Svetlana Chmakova, Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Vol. 1 (buy it?) (6/24)
  
• Mary Roach, Stiff (6/24)
  
• NaRae Lee, Maximum Ride, Vol. 1 (buy it?) (6/25)
  
• Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, & Guy Davis, B.P.R.D., Vol. 10: The Warning (buy it?) (6/26)
  
• Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (Vol. 2) (6/29)
  OK, this series is just ridiculously enjoyable. Like the first volume, it's modern-day twentysomething slacker life as if it were also a video game. (There's a call-out to River City Ransom on about page twenty that cemented my utter but totally masculine love for Scott Pilgrim.) As before, Pilgrim himself is a very immature but lovable twenty-three year old, playing in a band and apparently having no job, living in Toronto. As he starts this book, he has two girlfriends, but he dumps (not all that well) the high-schooler Knives Chau in favor of Ramona Flowers, who he's sure will be the love of his life. But to keep Ramona, he has to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends, so this book sees #2 -- Jason Lee, an ex-skater/actor -- track down Scott and fight him. The Scott Pilgrim books aren't nearly as age-specific as I thought they were; if you grew up in North America with video games and ever were or knew a slacker, you'll find a lot to grin at here.
  
• Lewis Trondheim, Little Nothings, Vol. 2: The Prisoner Syndrome (buy it?) (6/30)

And that was that.

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Listening to: Jacob Golden - Revenge Songs
via FoxyTunes