I was stalling for so long with moving my old book site over here that I have read approximately a bazillion books since my last update.

The ones I can remember:

Watchmen, by Alan Moore. I am almost certain I read this back in the early 90s. I knew who the characters were. But when I (re?)read it, I didn’t remember a single bit of the plot. I liked it better than I thought I did. And…I guess that’s all I have to say about it. I had smart ideas when I read it months ago–I swear I did!

Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher. Somehow, whenever there hasn’t been a new “Harry Dresden, Wizard” urban fantasy book in a while, I think I don’t really like them much. But then another one comes out and I get hold of it and ignore every man and cat in my life until I’ve gotten through it. So I guess I like these books. They are a lot like the Rachel Caine books I’ve written about before—nonstop action and lots of shit blowing up.

About a Boy, by Nick Hornby. On my quest to read all the Hornby books, I got this one and I really liked it. I’ve seen the movie a few times, so I couldn’t help comparing. Actually, I think I have seen all the Hornby movies, so whenever I read his books I guess I’m doomed to compare. He’s so good at making me like stupid, selfish, spoiled, bratty men. It’s like magic.

The 8:55 to Baghdad: From London to Iraq on the Trail of Agatha Christie and the Orient Express, by Andrew Eames. I read this for my book club, and I didn’t like it much. I almost never like travelogues, but I thought this one might be cool with the Agatha Christie theme (though I don’t really like her books, either). Somehow, even though Eames went through intriguing places like Iraq and Serbia, the book was just kind of limp.

Annnddd then I succumbed to more of my anxiety- and depression-fueled re-reading, wherein I reach for whatever is entertaining and, above all, comfortable. So I re-read the entire Benjamin January series by Barbara Hambly (they sort of fall off in entertainment value in the most recent few books) and all of the Vimes books by Terry Pratchett (they just get better and better).

I also listened to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (shut up—that was clearly comfort listening, man). And I heard abridged versions of David Rakoff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable and Fraud (funny; the recordings are probably better than the print versions, because his voice is very important for the stories).

Probably there is more, but I can’t remember.

I’m not doing so great at writing about books as I read them. Part of the problem is that I’m still rereading a lot of stuff instead of reading anything new. Since the last time I wrote, I’m pretty sure I’ve read at least four more Tanya Huff books that I’d read before.

And when I do read something I haven’t read before, I’m still not really going for anything challenging; plus, my reading is sort of guided by whatever is on the New shelf at the library.

Because of the New shelf, I just read Laurie R. King’s The Game and Steven Saylor’s A Gladiator Only Dies Once. I enjoyed the King book, even though I didn’t think I would for some reason. I’ve enjoyed the other books in that series, which follows a post-Doyle Sherlock Holmes and his wife as they have adventures and solve mysteries. This book was engaging. The Saylor book was eh. I really like the novels that star Gordianus the Finder, but I haven’t liked the short stories much. They don’t have any punch at all.

I also checked out a bunch of short story collections and books about writing. So far I’m about halfway through Michael Chabon’s Werewolves in Their Youth, which is really good but is not blowing me away as I expected. (My expectations were mostly formed by the number of good readers and writers I know who think Chabon is brilliant.) I also read about half of Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft, but I think it is aimed at really beginning writers, and I was bored.

I just finished listening to Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I’m not sure that it actually said anything new in a meaningful way, but I liked all the examples he used to support his points. I particularly liked the police-related examples and his deconstruction of the Amadu Diallo shooting. Gladwell somehow explains how people can do such horrifying things without excusing them from blame. Blink is totally pop-science-sociology, and it makes general statements that are almost impossible to dispute; that makes me suspicious of being too effusive about it. But outside of its total lack of a political stance of any kind, it was a damn fun listen.

Finally, I read a graphic novel, Paul Hornschemeier’s Mother, Come Home. I do not know how to read graphic novels, and I don’t know if I even like them. I am really focused on words, so I tend to skip over panels without words in them, and then after several pages of this I realize I don’t know what the hell is going on, so I have to go back and look at all the pictures.

I thought Mother, Come Home was a good story–really heartbreaking–and once I did look at the pictures, I could see the emotion and subtlety they added. I looked up some reviews of it to see if people who do understand graphic novels liked it. Most reviewers seem to think it’s pretty good (and they call it formalist, which I get in terms of modern lit but not in terms of graphic novels), though most of the customer reviews on Amazon accused Hornschemeier of copying Chris Ware too closely.

Since I haven’t read Chris Ware and in fact haven’t read any graphic novels outside of the Sandman books and Watchmen, I’ll just judge this one in a vacuum. It’s good. All of it–the drawing, the words, the mixture of fantasy and reality, the way the whole book is the Introduction, everything. Good.

I may be reading more graphic novels, mostly because Chris has decided to write one, so he’s reading a lot of them and then trying to make me read them.