Graphic novel genre

The graphic novel genre is storytelling with words and pictures. It is a simple definition but these "comic books" can tell compelling stories. There are graphic novels that tackle serious themes such as sexuality, alienation, and terrorism as well as graphic novels that tell light-hearted stories of family, love and coming of age.

Will Eisner often receives credit for the first modern graphic novel in 1978 with “A Contract with God”. Eisner had the intention to legitimize comics by writing and drawing a comic that looks like a book and talks about a subject not often addressed by the average comic book. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award is named after Will Eisner and is considered the Oscars® of the comic book industry.

Graphic novels are as Dave Eggers puts it: “The graphic novel is not literary fiction’s half-wit cousin, but, more accurately, the mutant sister who can often do everything fiction can, and, just as often, more.” Here are a few titles you might try:

Action & adventure
300 by Frank Miller
Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
Queen and Country by Greg Rucka
Tom Strong by Alan Moore

Slice of life
American Born Chinese by Gene Yang
Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
A Contract with God by Will Eisner
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

Crime & Mystery
Alias by Brian Michael Bendis
From Hell by Alan Moore
Road to Perdition by Max Allan Collins
Scalped by Jason Aaron
Shutterbug Follies by Jason Little

Nonfiction
Blankets by Craig Thompson
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

Science Fiction/Fantasy
Bone by Jeff Smith
Hellboy by Mike Mignola
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

Super-heroes
Amazing Spider-Man by various authors
Batman: Year One by Frank Miller
Daredevil Visionaries by Frank Miller
Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughan
Kingdom Come by Mark Waid
Superman, Batman: the greatest stories ever told by Jerry Siegel
X-Men by various authors

You can find more recommended graphic novels here.

Of, the HORROR!

Here's a list of books to lose sleep to:

The 13 best horror stories of all time

World War Z : an oral history of the zombie war by Max Brooks

Creepers : a novel by David Morrell

In the night room : a novel by Pete Straub

Serenity Falls by James A. Moore

Home to Harmony, Staff Book Review

Home to Harmony by Philip Gulley

A small town Quaker book that appeals to everyone, including big city non-religious folk? That’s what Philip Gulley has achieved with Home to Harmony. Gulley, author of the nonfiction book Porch Talk: Stories of Decency, Common Sense and Other Endangered Species, and himself a Quaker pastor, offers vignettes from the perspective of amiable Quaker Pastor Sam Gardner, whose job it is to minister to a small town of not so amiable characters. And by characters, I do mean the unusual kind. There’s Dale Hinshaw who wants to bring in former pro-wrestler “Billy Bundle, the World’s Shortest Evangelist” to the annual revival. And there’s Pastor Sam’s seventy year old widower secretary, Frank, who crankily hangs up on annoying callers, but volunteers for the difficult job of talking to church teenagers about sex. Frank argues, “Everyone’s talking about sex these days, except for the church. Maybe that’s why we’re so messed up about sex. The people who should be teaching about it, aren’t.” Gulley manages to have fun without making fun of his characters. Lessons are learned without the prose seeming too didactic. Moral tales are told without hitting us over the head with Scripture. With a writing style so enjoyable, so funny, and so fresh, the quirks of the townspeople grow on you, and by the end, you wish you were sipping iced tea with them on their front porches, shooting the breeze, in Harmony.

The book is also available in Large Print and Audiotape.

Moneyball discussion

Come join us for a book discussion on Moneyball at the Central Resource Library, October 6 at 10:00 am. We'll talk about how one of the poorest teams in baseball keeps winning and how it's General Manager, Billy Beane, discovers a new way to think about the game of baseball and it's players.

Summer comedies

It has been a Summer full of comedy movies, particularly comedies of the slapstick, goofball type. Here are a few books that might statisfy your funny bone:

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

A satire of teenage life follows cynical soon-to-graduate Flannery Culp on a raucous journey through high school in the 1990s, covering SATs, college applications, friends, boyfriends, tabloid journalism, and TV talk shows.

Kill Two Birds & Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman

Walter Snow, an author with writer's block, suddenly meets Clyde Potts, a feisty, comical, and unhinged woman, and her partner in crime, Fox Harris, whose love for a good prank inspires him to write, but their ultimate prank of corporate sabotage gets out of hand, leading to a surprising conclusion.

Citizen Girl: a novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
An idealistic young woman enters the business world after college and struggles to earn her dream job in spite of a host of catty co-workers who refuse to acknowledge her talents or ambition.

A Thousand splendid suns: Read-a-likes

If you're number 49 on the list for A Thousand Splendid Suns and need a book to read soon you might try out one of these:

The Space Between Us: a novel by Thrity N. Umrigar

Captures the delicate balance of class and gender in contemporary India as witnessed through the lives of two women--Sera Dubash, an upper middle-class housewife, and Bhima, an illiterate domestic hardened by a life of loss and despair.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

An epic tale of fathers and sons, of friendship and betrayal, that takes us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy to the atrocities of the present.

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

In The Namesake, Lahiri enriches the themes: the immigrant experience, the clash of cultures, the conflicts of assimilation, and, most poignantly, the tangled ties between generations.

The New Library Web site is coming!

The Library is getting a new Web site, due to arrive August 15, 2007. The new-look site is currently in draft but you can take a sneak peak here. After you take a look please share your ideas and comments by completing a short survey. You will notice in the new version of the Library Web site "Readers' Corner" will now be known as "Find a Good Book".