Books – Page 5 – the Addison Recorder

J&STAC: Writer Spotlight

February 25, 2015 by -J. Leave a Comment

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

At the end of last year, we decided to spotlight the comic book artists that make us want to pick up a comic book or graphic novel. We turn now to the wordsmiths who craft the scripts behind the comics we love. This list is abridged, as our choices started to spiral out of control, threatening to take over more than just this post.

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J&STAC: Sci-Fi and Supernatural Series Debuts

February 11, 2015 by -J. 3 Comments

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

This time around, we find a bevy of #1 issues featuring some serious sci-fi storytelling, seasoned with a hint of the supernatural. We have Counter-Earth and the New Men, we have a mystic symbols carved on asteroids, conscripted criminals fighting aliens who destroy terraforming towers, and cosmonaut who transcends humanity at the edge of the galaxy.

We also have a bunch of Marvel characters engaged in a role-playing game GM’d by Rocket Raccoon, because it was a thing we didn’t know we wanted. But we did.
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Made of Books: Finding Courage in Rilke

February 4, 2015 by Christina Brandon 2 Comments

Made of Books is a monthly column (partly inspired by hero Roxane Gay) where Christina discusses writing that has been meaningful to her, in one way or another.

I first read Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet at a time of transition. I had recently finished college and scraped together two part-time jobs to pay rent. Other kids had ambitions to go to grad school, or they were moving in with their partners, or getting jobs in their field. I had no field—only a undesirable history degree—and without school ahead of me anymore I felt myself floundering.

I wanted to make some kind of decision about my new adult life, to actively choose to do something to move forward instead of getting a job at a mall because I needed money and working with my friend would be fun. So I sought advice in book form. The page allows time and space to open up, and it was easier to feel vulnerable with a book because a book doesn’t know you, has no expectations for what you supposedly are, or for how you should be.

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J&STAC: Comic Books & Moving Pictures

January 28, 2015 by -J. Leave a Comment

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

Movies and comic books. They’re like peanut butter & chocolate — either it’s a delightful combination, or it’s a combination that results in uninspired, mass-produced dreck.

We did a little bit of hand-wringing back in our 2014 recap, worrying about the influence of box office success over comic book editorial decisions. But that’s not to say we dislike comic-related movies and TV shows. Far from it. Thus, we decided to look deep into the movie/comic book combination, beyond the well-known movie franchises. Our methodology was simple: look at the Wikipedia page(s) for films based on comic books, and write about what caught our eye. Sophisticated, we know.

We’ve also ventured into comic properties that became TV shows, since it’s a moving-picture medium perfect for adapting episodic comic books. And because this was partially inspired by the upcoming Kingsman: The Secret Service movie (based on a Mark Millar book), we’ll also take a gander at some upcoming adaptations whose books you may or may not know.

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One Book One Chicago: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

January 23, 2015 by Kevin Triskett Leave a Comment

One Book, One Chicago’s 2014 Selection: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

I discovered One Book, One Chicago in the fall of 2012 when every single person I saw on public transit had their head buried in The Book Thief. I knew it couldn’t be coincidence that the whole city seemed to read the same book at the same time, but I was too new to know the secret. Luckily, a billboard popped up near my office with the One Book, One Chicago logo and The Book Thief cover art. A quick google search later, and I had a favorite Chicago Public Library program. One Book, One Chicago aims to engage the city’s readers in a public discourse on a single book supported by events, blog posts, and small group discussions to help build a culture of reading.

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Made of Books: The Magical Worlds of Dr.Seuss

January 21, 2015 by Christina Brandon 2 Comments

Made of Books is a monthly column (partly inspired by hero Roxane Gay) where Christina discusses writing that has been meaningful to her, in one way or another.

There’s a photo of me when I was three or four reading to my sister, who was a couple years younger than me. This was the only time I wanted to be around her— when I could read to her. Of course I’m not actually reading. I’m too young to know how. But I knew the story of The Cat in the Hat so well I could recite it from memory. I even turned the pages at the right time.

It’s been years since I’ve picked up any Dr. Seuss book, and I was sad to realize there isn’t one anywhere in the four six-foot tall bookshelves in my apartment. I think my sister surreptitiously wrangled them— Cat in the Hat, Fox in Socks, Green Eggs in Ham, Hop on Pop, The Sneetches— out of my parents’s house before I could.

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John Lewis and the Civil Rights Movement in March: Book One

January 19, 2015 by Jason Fabeck Leave a Comment

Pray for Peace

Some of you may have heard of John Lewis, a U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district who—with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and four others—was one of six leaders within civil rights organizations during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. But a lot of younger people may not know his name. Along with Andrew Aydin, Lewis’s Congressional aide, the duo released a graphic novel in 2013 about his fight for racial equality, now stretching over 50 years. While I may not be the first to review this, I thought it relevant to touch upon the importance of John Lewis and his role in a movement that changed the country. [Read more…]

Dave Eggers’s Latest Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is Not Quite That

January 14, 2015 by Travis J. Cook Leave a Comment

Note: I originally had a 1200+ word review of this book written and all set to go…and then it was deleted by WordPress without so much as an auto-save-you-very much. After much pulling of hair and yelling of threats in a neighborhood Starbucks, I attempted a rewrite. This is the aforementioned <shorter> re-write, which hopefully contains 1/100th of the brilliance that the first post had. (I humble myself, sometimes, you must understand…)

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J&STAC: #1 Issues of the Deep Winter

January 14, 2015 by -J. Leave a Comment

-J. Michael Bestul is a writer for the Addison Recorder. Stephanie Ruehl is an artist who works in a comic book shop. They’re married and have a lot of discussions about comic books and graphic novels. Combine all that into a biweekly feature and you get “J. & Steph Talk About Comics.”

It’s been a while since we’ve done a recap of recent #1 issues, so we thought it high time to check out what’s come out over the holidays and into the new year. We noticed a recurring theme among recent new books…

-J.: Spoiler alert — I have an antipathy towards prequels. It’s not that I hate them, necessarily, but I expect to disappointed by them. Few ever exceed that expectation. Let’s see if some recent series debuts can do so.

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Oceanic Tales: “The Luminaries” and “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”

January 12, 2015 by Andrew Rostan Leave a Comment

The Man Booker Prize, awarded each year to the best English-language novel published by a company based in the United Kingdom, has now achieved a level of prestige comparable to the Pulitzer. By the terms described above, one might expect that most Booker winners would be as thoroughly British as a gaggle of Wodehousian aristocrats sitting down to roast, pudding, and port.

In reality, the Prize has been awarded to writers from around the world since its 1969 inception, and most recently, the last two prizes went to historical novels written by authors from Oceania: The Luminaries, by 28 year-old New Zealander Eleanor Catton (the youngest person to ever win), and The Narrow Road to the Deep North by 53 year-old Australian Richard Flanagan. The combination of a shared setting and two very different perspectives inspired me to pick up both works.

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