Reads of the Month: January

[., Red Queen]

The polls are now closed, and here are your reads of the month! We have a romance theme for February's recommendations so leave your suggestions before Jan. 28th when we rack up the votes for next month's polls.


The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire

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"As an underwater welder on an oilrig off the coast of Nova Scotia, Jack Joseph is used to the immense pressures of deep-sea work. Nothing, however, could prepare him for the pressures of impending fatherhood. As Jack dives deeper and deeper, he seems to pull further and further away from his young wife and their unborn son. Then one night, deep in the icy solitude of the ocean floor, something unexplainable happens. Jack has a mysterious and supernatural encounter that will change the course of his life forever.

Equal parts blue-collar character study and mind-bending mystery, The Underwater Welder is a graphic novel about fathers and sons, birth and death, memory and reality, and the treasures we all bury deep below the surface."


Seraphina by Rachel Hartman



"Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page."


The Strange Tale of Panorama Island by Suehiro Maruo



"The Strange Tale of Panorama Island follows the twisted path of a failed novelist Hitomi Hirosuke, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate, the son of a rich industrialist family. Learning of the rich man's sudden passing, Hitomi fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man's body, and then washes himself up starving on a beach near the home of the dead man's family. After successfully impersonating the now-dead son, Hitomi takes over all aspects of the industrialist's life, including his company, his fortune, and eventually his wife. The failed author soon redirects the family's fortune to his own perverse aims. On a remote and mysterious island, he builds for himself a playground of hedonistic excess -- replete with waterfalls, grand palaces, and gardens -- a backdrop for his decadent feasts, orgies, and dark secrets.

Stunning artwork by master manga artist Suehiro Maruo deftly illustrates this Japanese pulp classic in fine detail. Maruo adapted this graphic novel from a novella by the Godfather of Japanese detective fiction, Edogawa Rampo."


Puella Magi Madoka Magica by Magica Quartet
(Since The Strange Tale of Panorama Island hasn't been released in the US and there's no english scanlation that I'm aware of, this is an additional manga read for english readers.)



"In this world, there exist strange creatures who have the power to grant one wish to a chosen girl. However, in exchange, that girl must then become a magical girl and use their powers to fight against witches, evil creatures born from darkness that are responsible for murders and suicides.

In the city of Mitakihara, a schoolgirl named Madoka Kaname and her friend Sayaka Miki are approached by a familiar named Kyubey, who offers to grant each of them one wish in return for making each of them a magical girl. Another magical girl named Homura Akemi tries to prevent Madoka from making such a deal, while Kyubey urges Madoka by telling her she will become the most powerful magical girl. However, contrary to the glamorous notions one would expect, a magical girl finds herself dealing with death, isolation, loss of humanity, agony over the value of her wish, and existential crisis. Madoka, following her friends, soon sees the darker side of being a magical girl, and because of knowing the truth about being a magical girl, she questions if she should become one as well."