Incoming Books: May 19th

I got back to the Montclair Book Center yesterday, during a busy day of errands and frivolity (The Wife and I were celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary -- the actual day is the 22nd -- by offloading our two sons and having some time alone), because they had another special order for me.

While I was there, I had to get other books, because that's what a bookstore is for.

So, I grabbed two fantasy novels for Thing 2 -- Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men and Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero, to give him choices for his next series. (If I haven't mentioned lately how wonderful it is that I have a son who really enjoys reading fantasy books and telling me about them, let me mention it: it's wonderful.)

The special order was Richard Stark's The Black Ice Score, getting me that much closer to starting a reading project of that entire series.

And then I found some books I used to have (before the flood) and needed to own again:

• Calvin Trillin's The Tummy Trilogy, collecting his first three books (mostly written in the '70s) about eating in America, which are vital for anyone who likes eating, America, and wonderfully funny, engaging writing.
• Evan Dorkin's Dork, Vol. 1: Who's Laughing Now?, an excellent collection from a grumpy and feeding-hand-biting cartoonist, one of my favorite creators from the '90s (and since then, when he has new work out).
• And David Boswell's Reid Fleming: Worlds Toughest Milkman, Vol. I, which I reviewed here a couple of years ago, and which I buy again in hopes that it will help, in the tiniest way, spur Boswell to finishing up the stories for Vol. II.

On the same set of errands, I also stopped in a comics/games shop -- actually, to buy plastic trading-card sleeves (the 9-to-a-page kind, three-hole punched to fit into a ring binder), since The Wife uses those to organize coupons -- and happened across two more books.

Snarked!, Vol. 1: Forks and Hope is the first collection of Roger Langridge's new all-ages comics series from Boom!, and I've been on a Langridge kick the last couple of years. (Driven by his great Muppet Show comics; see my review of Family Reunion for more details.)

And Chester Brown's The Little Man, since I keep thinking I should dip into Brown's work, and I really don't want to spend much time on his newest, why-I-only-sleep-with-whores book.