false 88 30 28 true 5670945 read 2 true 44832 currently-reading 0 true 44831 to-read 14 false 44851 non-fiction 10 false 44838 fiction 4 false 71969 sciencefiction 4 false 1418981 hip-hop 2 false 446957 fantasy 2 false 3153297 comics 1 false 4459382 queer 1 false 4459383 social-science 1 false 4459379 theory 1 false 1420050 memoir 1 false 5095765 young-adult 1 false 3611633 zine http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57174071 to: Kill Your Boyfriend (Paperback) by Grant Morrison
bookshelves: comics
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57173984 to: Forever (Paperback) by Judy Blume
bookshelves: fiction, young-adult
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57173914 to: Wild Seed (Paperback) by Octavia E. Butler
bookshelves: fantasy, sciencefiction
]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/46853623 to: Faeries, Bears, and Leathermen: Men in Community Queering the Masculine (Paperback) by Peter Hennen
bookshelves: queer, social-science, theory
Ethnographic investigation of three gay subcultures in pursuit of new insight to their mobilization of masculinity. Solid balance of theory, fieldwork, lived experience, and archival history. The development of these three communities over the decades puts today's queer communities in a new historical perspective. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/41851413 to: The Walking Dead, Vol. 1: Days Gone Bye (Paperback) by Robert Kirkman
bookshelves: sciencefiction
Another take in the growing canon of contemporary zombie fiction. The first book in The Walking Dead begins with the eerie loneliness of a sparsely populated rural town in Kentucky and slowly takes the reader through the process of gradual realization and urgent horror that Romero fans will surely recognize. Tony Moore frequently plays with the elasticity of time on his black and white pages as he stretches a fleeting moment into several distinct agonizing panels. The final act suggests further experimentation with post-zombie North America as survivors form tribal bonds and struggle with the transition from their former lives. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/41848442 to: The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century (Mass Market Paperback) by Howie Carr
bookshelves: non-fiction
Herald columnist Howie Carr's utter disdain for the Bulgers and Boston townie politics is evident on every page of this lightly dramatized true crime book.

As someone who lived in the neighborhoods described here, I loved all of the local detail. The prose is journalistic and Carr takes liberties with the public record to recreate conversations, events, (and some particularly gruesome violent episodes.) At times, the chip on the author's shoulder rubbed me the wrong way (multiple potshots at a former Globe columnist, however slimy he may have behaved, seemed especially inappropriate.) I was also turned off by passages that collapse Whitey's rumored homosexual experiences into his alleged rapes and pedophilia. Homophobia is apparently one of the few shameful legacies that Carr is not willing to tackle here.

Although I would have preferred a more balanced take on the wink-and-a-handshake governance of my city's past, The Brothers Bulger provides a incredibly dense, compelling portrait of a many-faceted web of crime, politics, racism, and violence that beset Boston for the greater part of the 70s and 80s. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/35819765 to: The Lonliness of the Electric Menorah (Cometbus #51) by Aaron Cometbus
bookshelves: non-fiction, zine
Cometbus #51 is a local history of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA. By telling the story of Moe's, an idiosyncratic paperback bookseller, Cometbus paints a loving portrait of a neighborhood rubbed raw by the undulating counter-cultures of the late 20th century and the rotten weight of its memory.

The interviews, observations, and ephemera that support this project could only have been collected by someone with roots in the area. This is a history told from the outside by someone who once lived on the inside.

Spend your 3$. ]]> http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/29873359 to: Strangers In Paradise Pocket Book 1 (Strangers in Paradise (Graphic Novels)) by Terry Moore
bookshelves: comics, fiction
Atmospherically 90s in a way I found comforting and familiar, Strangers in Paradise twiddles the same knobs inside me as my favorite grunge rom-com-dram films. Crazy and absurd on one page; dripping sweetness the next. It's the perfect summer beach book. Telenovela gone comics. ]]> http://apps.facebook.com/good_reads/ check it out » ]]>