Reviewing the Mail: Week of 10/20

This week, I once again have books from two categories -- but this time it's Publicity and Library. And I'll take them in that order, as usual:

Publicity

I don't think I've read a book by Lavie Tidhar yet, though I have several of them now -- both in print and on a device in loose-electrons form. And now I have another opportunity, since Tachyon Publications has just published his new novel Unholy Land in paperback, and was kind enough to send me a copy. It's set mostly in Palestina, a Jewish state in East Africa founded in the early 20th century and focuses on Lior Trosh, who the back cover describes as a "semi-successful author of pulp fiction" and "an inadvertent time traveler." And this clearly will not be the only world that he sees before the novel is over.

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale is a new collection of Jane Yolen's stories -- with a particular theme I hope you've already realized. Inside are twenty-eight stories originally published from 1978 through 2011, with notes and related poetry, connected to each story, about the fairy tales she fractured along the way, which are mostly new to this book.

Crush is the third graphic novel about the kids of Berrybrook Middle School by Svetlana Chmakova, after Awkward and Brave. And, just this moment, typing those titles, I realized that she's going in alphabetical order, Sue Grafton-style. I liked the first two books, even though my own middle-school days were so long ago they called it "junior high" back then. Actual middle schoolers, I understand, like them even better.

Library

Hey, remember Kristen Gudsnuk? Did a quirky supervillain book called Henchgirl, which I read recently? Well, she had a new graphic novel for younger readers this year, and it's called Making Friends. (So consider this the transition between the Publicity and Library sections -- synchronicity!) I don't think it's about a group of teen girls who decide to build the perfect best friend in science lab, but it would be awesome if it was.

I'm pretty sure I read Promethea, Book 1 -- written by Alan Moore with art by J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray -- but that was in the before-time, when I didn't have a blog, so it barely counts. I don't have strong memories of it, but maybe this time will take.

And last is Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together, written by Noelle Stevenson and Shannon Watters and then by Watters with Kat Leyh, and with art by Brooke Allen and then Carolyn Nowak. I am so not the audience for these books, but I keep reading them.