New in the Queue – December 31

Books received this Christmas:

• Smithsonian Atlas of World Aviation, by Dana Bell. The type of book I would have pored over as a kid – exactly the type of book I still pore over today. Lots of fascinating maps, photos, and factoids about things that go. For instance: I learned about the flight of the Vin Fiz, Cal Roger’s arduous airborne 1911 journey across the U.S. – the first transcontinental flight. It took him 49 days (82 hours in the air, with 16 crashes along the way). Of particular local interest, his circuitous rail-route took him through NEPA and Binghamton.
• Birds, an educational picture book by Miranda Krestovnikoff with beautiful relief cut illustrations by Angela Harding.
• A boxed set of Six Novels in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward. These visual sagas are: God’s Man, Madman’s Drum, Wild Pilgrimage, Prelude to a Million Years, Song Without Words, and Vertigo. Lots of inspiration I look forward to looking at in detail.
• Best American SF&F 2015, edited by Joe Hill & John Joseph Adams. I enjoy this series of anthologies; I drew a portrait series based on authors from a later edition.
• Afterglow, a Grist collection of climate fiction. I dig the cover illustration’s color palette.

Lots of art & imagery mixed in with this batch of text!

Posted on Sunday, December 31st, 2023. Tags: tbr.

New in the Queue – February 17

Continuing my random inventory of to-be-read (or in-progress) books, which aren’t necessarily new acquisitions:

• Maus, by Art Spiegelman. Heard a lot about it, but haven’t yet read it. Kelly found it on the military-history table at library sale.
• On Cats, by Charles Bukowski. A collection of poems, stories, and gonzo essays, all of which happen to make some sort of cat reference. Thanks again to Kelly.
• The Afterlife Diet, by Daniel Pinkwater. Don’t know what it’s about, but I know anything by Pinkwater will be a riot. Found at the BCPL’s new little Friends shop.
• The Sketch Book, by Washington Irving. Found at the Housing Works bookstore during a trip to NYC last fall. A collection containing American fables such as Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as well as various essays. I’m particularly amused by this opening sentence to On the Art of Bookmaking:
  

  “I have often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads on which nature seemed to have inflicted the curse of barrenness should teem with voluminous productions.”

  Funny how gripes about publishing from two hundred years ago would fit right in with Twitter and the like today.

Posted on Friday, February 17th, 2023. Tags: tbr.

New in the Queue – February 10

My to-be-read pile has grown to fill a whole bookshelf. I’m okay with this! I like discovering interesting things that’ve been steeping in the stacks. But sometimes I do forget what’s in the queue. To keep these unread books on my radar, I’m going to write a few “previews” noting why or how I picked them up.

I’ll start with the most recent additions and work back from there until I don’t.

• The latest issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, #46. I bought a random back issue a few months ago out of curiosity, having been intrigued by the name after seeing it pop up in various reviews or originally-appeared-in bibliographies. It was a delight (especially the story Duck Circles), so I’m looking forward to digging in to this one.
• The latest issue of The New York Review of Books, handed down from my dad. Notable as a main competitor in the book-reviews-illustrated-with-author-portraits space.
• Two books my parents picked up at a library sale. Exploring the 46 Adirondack High Peaks by James R. Burnside is interesting since I’ve climbed about 14 of them myself. Those hikes have been some of the best memories of recent years, so I’m eager to do more – as well as to compare notes with the author and learn about the remainder. Also, H. G. Wells’ In the Days of the Comet; I’ve read and enjoyed some of Wells famed genre-defining stories, but I see there are many others I’ve never heard of, including this one.

Posted on Friday, February 10th, 2023. Tags: tbr.