I’ve never really set targets for my reading before, beyond a general expectation that I’d read at least a hundred books a year, but last year a friend pushed me to challenge myself to commit to 150. According to Goodreads I surpassed it, but according to my own count I read 135. I read twenty-seven graphic novels that I hadn’t added to the count. For the past three years, I’ve listed the graphic novels I’ve read, but not included them in the total number of books I read.

This was, admittedly, due to a foolish prejudice I’d acquired that graphic novels somehow didn’t count as “proper books”. Most of them can be read in about an hour, often they’re picture (rather than text) heavy, and though I read comics prodigiously in high school (Marvel universe FTW), I couldn’t quite convince myself to put them at the same level as the classic lit I was also reading.

I know, I know. It was snobbish and stupid. There are tons of wonderful and highly literate examples in the medium. Marjane Satrapi’s Persopolis, and Blankets by Craig Thompson, Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series is rife with literary allusions, both overt and more subdued. It’s not all men wearing underwear over their spandex leotards and large breasted women bursting from their flimsy costumes. Graphic novels count. Books like Kate Beaton’s excellent collection of comics Hark! A Vagrant count.

So, for the first time I’m including comics and graphic novels in my official tally of books read. I feel like I’ve grown as a person. Continue reading »

I found this review from May 2010 in my Drafts folder. It was whole and complete, but for some reason or another it remained unpublished.

It’s a great book, so I thought I’d post it as is. Better late than never, right?

As mentioned earlier, our book club pick for May was The Complete Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi.

Satrapi is an Iranian living in Paris, and Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel, originally published in French in two parts (as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return), and is now available in a single volume.

Persepolis begins with her childhood in Tehran, and carries her story through the Islamic Revolution, and to her university days in Vienna. It’s a tale beautifully told with stirring images and humour.

I’d read a few pages the night before, and with six minutes left on the washing machine, I thought I’d read a few more while I waited for it to finish. Suddenly I realized I’d finished the book and it was well after one in the morning. Oops. Continue reading »

Toronto’s often called a city of neighbourhoods. According to Wikipedia, there are more than 200 distinct neighbourhoods within its boundaries. One of my favourites is the Annex.

I love it for its concentration of bookstores, coffee shops, sushi bars and cheap martinis on Wednesdays.

My BFF and I started a little tradition (partly captured in “Au Natural“), where go book shopping at various place along Bloor, most notably Seekers, Book City and BMV, then end up at Hey Lucy’s, where martinis are half-off on Wednesdays.

Since we’ve started doing this, we’ve expanded our little circle, and now a few of us go off and on, roughly monthly. It’s a wonderful thing. Continue reading »