I received a review copy of this book from Ablaze via Edelweiss for which my thanks. A story of a library, of the love for books and knowledge as also an adventure to protect and save those very books, The Library Mule of Cordoba is a graphic novel set in tenth-century Cordoba, against the historical…
Book Review: Al Capone by Swann Meralli and art work by Pierre-Francois Radice
My thanks to Black Panel Press/Diamond Books for a review copy of this book. While I knew Al Capone as an American gangster, one whose name perhaps comes up first in one’s mind when anyone mentions gangsters, and that he was eventually arrested not for those crimes but tax fraud, that was literally all I…
Book Review: Kafka (2010/2023) by Nishioka Kyōdai and translated by David Yang
My thanks to Pushkin Press for a review copy of this book via Edelweiss. Kafka is among the authors I hadn’t yet got to reading despite having meant to (perhaps at one level because I am a little daunted and wonder whether I’d ‘get’ what he’s trying to convey), but when this book popped up…
Review: Sue and Tai-Chan, Vol. 1 by Konami Kanata
My thanks to Kodansha Comics and NetGalley for a review copy of this manga. Sue and Tai-Chan is the charming first volume of the adventures of Sue a seventeen-year-old cat, and Tai-Chan, a tiny black kitten. Natsuki, Sue’s ‘human’ is handed a box with Tai-Chan a little kitten to look after. He tries to refuse,…
Book Review: Tintin and the Picaros by Hergé #1976Club
This is my first pick for the #1976Club hosted by Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon at Stuck in a Book. Politics and Conspiracy are at the heart of the twenty-third Tintin adventure (also the last one to be completed by Hergé), Tintin and the Picaros, which takes us to a fictional South American…
Book Review: The Tale of Genji: Dreams at Dawn: Vol. I by Waki Yamato
My thanks to #NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for a review copy of this one. This is the first volume of the graphic novel/manga version of the eleventh-century Japanese classic, The Tale of Genji by noblewoman Murasaki Shibaku (believed to be the first novel ever written). It tells the story of Hiraku Genji the ‘shining prince’,…
Book Review: Blissful Land vol 1 by Ichimon Izumi
My thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for a review copy of this one. Blissful Land is a manga comic/graphic novel set in eighteenth-century Tibet, and it was this setting that essentially drew me to this book. This tells the story of Khang Zhipa, a thirteen-year-old “doctor-in-training”, who lives with his father, a doctor/farmer, his…
Review: Tokyo Tarareba Girls, Vol. 1
My thanks to NetGalley for a review copy of this one. This was my very first manga read. I have watched some of the animated versions of course, Fushigi Yuugi (Curious Play), Nodame Cantabile, Emma, and Yatitake Japan, among them but had never really read any. So when I saw this on NetGalley, and…
Children’s Book of the Month: Cairo Jim and the Secret Sepulchre of the Sphinx
This was a chance find on the shop-soiled table in my local bookshop. The cover grabbed me because of the title—an Egyptian setting obviously, the Sphinx, and the ‘hero’—a Tintin-like character hanging onto the Sphinx’s nose. This is the sixth of a series of eighteen books (though according to some listings it’s the ninth) by…
Fay the performer, and Selina the artist!
I haven’t been doing very much reading this week though earlier in the week I finished All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor which I absolutely loved (my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1716276635?book_show_action=false), and for the rest am part way through Sophie’s World (which I had started last year but stopped part way in because of reading challenges and things)…
Literary Potpourri 