Books Read in November

I didn't get a whole lot of "serious" reading done this month, and I also felt like I wasn't keeping up with the piles for ComicMix -- on the other hand, feeling constantly behind is the standard of my reading life. I also got a late start on the month, since I didn't read anything at all at World Fantasy.

• Will Eisner, The Dreamer (in Life, in Pictures) (11/5)
• Will Eisner, To the Heart of the Storm (in Life, in Pictures) (11/6)
• Will Eisner, The Name of the Game (in Life, in Pictures) (11/6)
• Siku & Akinsiku, The Manga Bible (11/6)
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 1 (11/7)
• Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, Death Note, Vol. 1 (11/7)
• Cat Rambo & Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon's Tale and Other Stories (11/8)
• Osamu Tezuka, MW (11/9)
• Kiyohiko Azuma, Yotsuba&!, Vol. 2 (11/10)
  I tried again, because I do think this series is funny...it's just that I'm not sure if the little girl is supposed to be brain-damaged or something. At this point, I think it's just exaggeration for comic effect -- Japan is such a ritual- and status-bound society, so a lot of the humor to be found there is in characters who blithely ignore all of society's restrictions. (And that's funnier when the character is a cute little girl.) So I might read more of these; they're growing on me.
• Kou Fumizuki, Ai Yori Aoshi, Vol. 1 (11/12)
• Ken Akamatsu, Love Hina, Vol. 1 (11/13)
• Richard Moore, Boneyard, Vol. 6 (11/14)
• Peter Robinson, The Hanging Valley (11/15)
• Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima, Path of the Assassin, Vol. 7: Center of the World (11/15)
• Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang, Doctor 13: Architecture & Mortality (11/16)
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 2 (11/18)
  I could claim that I'm trying to keep up with my older son (Thing 1), who has read the first dozen or so of these...but he's also read piles of other manga I haven't read and don't intend to (as well as things like Dr. Slump that I still hope to get to someday). No, I think I just like me some ninja action, and Kishimoto does that quite well. His characters are very engaging, too -- Naruto himself could easily have become an annoying little twerp, but he never quite does.
• John Banville, The Sea (11/20)
• Shuichi Shigeno, Initial D, Vol. 1 (11/21)
• Koushin Takami & Masayuki Taguchi, adapted by Keith Giffen, Battle Royale, Vol. 1 (11/22)
• Futaro Yamada & Masaki Segawa, The Yagyu Ninja Scrolls: Revenge of the Hori Clan, Vol. 1 (11/22)
• Bill Willingham, et. al., Jack of Fables, Vol. 2: Jack of Hearts (11/23)
• Craig Yoe, Clean Cartoonists' Dirty Drawings (11/24)
• Jeff Smith, Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil (11/25)
• Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness (11/26)
• Mizuki Kawashita, Strawberry 100%, Vol. 1 (11/26)
• S. Gross, I Am Blind and My Dog Is Dead (11/28)
• Yasuhiro Kano, Pretty Face, Vol. 1 (11/29)
• Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass (11/30)

Here's where I always seem to promise to read more -- and to read better books -- next month. I won't have as much time off for the holidays as I'm used to, so I don't know how likely that actually is. But we live in hope....