OPENING LINES:
Actors are our spectral friends. They are figures who loom in our lives as large as or maybe even larger than our actual acquaintances, but with an important difference: they don’t know who we are.
.
.
Eclectic culture-vulture Sante (author of the deliciously seedy Lowlife) teams with Pierson in this compilation of essays about Hollywood actors from the great years of the 20th century. There are some real gems here: John Updike on “Suzie Creamcheese” (Doris Day), Berkeley’s own Griel Marcus on the eternally squalid J.T. Walsh, Siri Hustvedt on Franklin Pangborn, and–my favorite–Sante on “Warner Brothers Fat Men” (e.g. Eugene Palette, Sidney Greenstreet et. al.). An agreeable and engaging dossier for devoted movie buffs and definitely an argument in favor of a William Demarest Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars: given naturally, to our underappreciated character actors.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: OK You Mugs
GREAT LINES:
Yet though the bridge might last still for many years, the rust would eat deeper and deeper. The earthquake would shake the foundations, and then on some stormy day a span would go down. Like the man, so the creation of man would not last forever.
.
.
A young man, Ish, is a graduate student at Berkeley who goes on a camping trip. On this outing he is bitten by a rattlesnake and forced to doctor the wound himself. When he recovers he walks down the mountain and finds that the people of the world have been wiped out by disease. He adopts a dog and takes up residence in his parents’ empty house. On outings he does encounter some survivors but they seem to either be living in the past or have mental problems. In his solitude he drives to New York City and back. Again the people he meets are not those with whom he wants to share his life. Then one evening he sees fireplace smoke coming from West Berkeley. What happens when Ish discovers other people he can form a tribe with gives this early post-apocalyptic story its most human elements. And as an added bonus the descriptions of the landscapes are truly amazing. I cannot get them out of my head!
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Earth Abides
OPENING LINES:
I was born in 1960 on Taiwan the island of my father’s exile. War, Communism and the resulting famine had driven Baba from his native Manchuria, in the northeast reaches of China. Later we moved to California via Japan. Baba named me Xuan. It means “Forget Sorrow.”
.
.
This beautiful graphic novel is part memoir and part history as it spans several generations in Yang’s father’s family. In this book her ancestors face war, famine, and communist oppression in Manchuria. The stories of their successes and failures as well as their shifting family dynamics are captivating. And because these stories are recounted to Yang by her father, it means pieces from Yang’s own life are interwoven into the story. Her personal history hiding from an abusive ex-boyfriend stalker and working toward reconciliation with her father in contemporary America add another layer to the narrative. All of this complexity is captured by Yang’s gorgeous black-ink drawings which are evocative of the places and her character’s emotions. I read this book as slowly as possible fearing every time I picked it up that I would finish it and not have it to read the next day. It was wonderful and I highly recommend Forget Sorrow to fans of graphic memoirs.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Forget Sorrow
GREAT LINES:
“You got family in New York?”
“No…I’m gonna see about a girl. My parents think I’m going for a job interview, and it’s sorta true. If it works out with this girl, I’m gonna try and find a job as a web designer.”
.
.
When I opened this graphic novel I saw the first panel showed two people standing outside of an Oakland Public Library branch and I knew I was going to love it. Shiga’s artwork is very easy on the eyes and the story is charming. A young man who works at the public library by day and hacks away at a website by night makes a cross-country journey to see his best friend Sara, a young woman with dreams of becoming a publishing intern. It’s a nerdy, sweet “will they or won’t they” story, filled with wry comments about what it means to be 20-something these days. The illustrations are clean and approachable. The two color palettes – pinks and light blues – are used effectively for jump cuts and moving the reader through the story. It was a fast read, and I was so delighted by it that as soon as I finished I read it clean through a second time. If you want to see pretty illustrations of some local spots, or if you like your comics to read like romantic comedies this is the book for you.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Empire State
OPENING LINE:
I am a forty-one-year-old woman living by myself, in the same one-bedroom flat where I have always lived, in a derelict building on the outskirts of Beijing that is threatened to be demolished by government-backed real estate developers.
.
.
This is a powerful collection of stories by local author Yiyun Li. Most are set in 20th century China and certainly there is a strong sense of time and place. But the dominant feature of the stories are the characters. Li’s main characters are outsiders, people who in various ways have positioned themselves away from their family members, co-workers and the rest of society. They often have different expectations for their lives than the people around them and in many ways they are alone. Through these people Li explores the themes of fidelity, loyalty, family, responsibility, isolation and loss. Each is victim as well as hero and their stories were so attuned to the human experience they made me ache.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
GREAT LINE:
What was it about the Bay Area, that people always stuck around? The place was a vortex, an inverted pleasure dome on the banks of the frigid Pacific.
.
.
No One You Know is the story of two sisters, very different, but intertwined tightly, especially after the tragic death of one. The family structure disintegrates with the weight of their grief. For the surviving sister to cope, she is driven to piece together the complete story of what actually happened, not the story that was published about her family in a popular true crime tome. Her quest is compelling story, exposing the human flaws in relationships, not being truthful, and how egos get in the way. Her quest also shows great love and devotion can overcome these. As a bonus, most of the action takes place in San Francisco and around the Bay, with some real life locals appearing.
Check the BPL catalog for this title: No One You Know
GREAT LINES:
My father insisted that the boys in my life were directly responsible for my juvenile-delinquent tendencies. My mother, more accurately, assumed that I was the bad influence.
.
Isabel Spellman works in her family’s private investigations firm in San Francisco and has since the tender age of 12. Growing up among PIs means privacy is something she never knew and suspicion is part of her genetic makeup. Between parental background checks on boyfriends and a little sister who goes on stakeouts for fun, 28-year- old Isabel decides she has had enough. Her parents agree to let her leave the family business if she solves one final cold case. The Spellman Files launches a four book series of comic capers, the latest of which is also apparently the final volume, The Spellmans Strike Again. If you are looking for a book that takes all the trappings of a noir detective story but adds the perfect timing of a screwball comedy, give the Spellmans a try.
Check the BPL Catalog for this title: The Spellman Files
