Double-Stacked Bookshelves

Bout of Books 20:  Goals and Whatnot Inspired by a recent post  from  The Broke and the Bookish , I've determined that my reading goal for the week is to knock out some stellar graphic novels that have been residing on my TBR for a while.  They've all been requested through the library, so they should arrive before Monday (barring the horrific eclipse traffic that we're scheduled to have...curse you, tiny town that's in the path of totality!!!). On the slate: March by John Lewis (all three books) Watchmen   by Alan Moore  The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Blankets  by Craig Thompson American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang What I like about graphic novels is their fast pace and visual offerings.  I am pretty confident that I'll be able to get through these...and maybe even start on a "regular" novel, too.  The sky's the limit! Possibilities:   Uganda Be Kidding Me  by Chelsea Handler or  Al Franken...

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and it's a way to share what you're loving in list form.  The topic changes every week, so there is always something new to discover! This week's topic is:   Graphic Novel Recommendations .  While I'm fairly new to the graphic novel world (so I might not be able to recommend ten), I have become a huge fan.  Here are some of my faves: Maus 1: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman Maus 2: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman The Walking Dead, Compendium 1 by Robert Kirkman The Walking Dead, Compendium 2 by Robert Kirkman The Walking Dead, Compendium 3 by Robert Kirman Saga (Volumes 1-6...haven't been able to get my hands on 7 yet) by Brian K Vaughan Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh Clearly I need to u...

Happy Tuesday, fellow A-Zers.  Today brings us to the letter S and it's all about:  W.G. Sebald, Art Spiegelman, and Alexander McCall Smith. W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) German writer W.G. Sebald is pure brilliance.  Prior to his untimely death in 2001, Sebald was heralded as one of the greatest living authors and believed to be a future Nobel Prize winner for Literature.  His father was a member of the Reichswehr in1929 and then transitioned as a member of the Wehrmacht under the Nazis, though he remained a fairly detached figure.  During World War II, Sebald's father was a prisoner of war until 1947.  Because of much of his experience during the Nazi Regime, Sebald focuses the majority of his work on the Holocaust and post-war Germany.  Heavy themes of memory and loss of memory (both personal and collective) and decay run rampant through his work.  In addition, he utilizes elaborate and old-fashioned language in the original German inte...