My First Inspirational Manga

So instead of continuing with a book I didn't enjoy, I tried out my first inspirational manga.

Serenity--New Bad Girl in Town by Realbuzz Studios

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My first inspirational Manga. Good believable story. The Christian students were not preachy or anything like that, but real and welcoming. I enjoyed the style of the graphics aw well.



View all my reviews

No Thirteenth Tale for me

I started reading "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield for one of my book clubs.

Actually, I made it to page 78 and I have decided that I don't want to continue reading the book. In the beginning, the premise seemed kind of interesting, but later the abuse, rape, self-mutilation and other evil things described was just too much for me.
I liked the scenes in the book shop and even the mysterious letter and the start of the visit were interesting.

There were a couple of last straws that made me stop reading, as I don't often do that, I finish almost all the books I read. This paragraph may contain spoilers. One was the accumulation of evil things described in the story as mentioned previously. The next one was that Isabelle returned to her abusive brother (and since she didn't know her father had died, to the father who had injured her so viciously just before she left). And she seemed to be very happy about it. I mean, I do know that abuse happens unfortunately, but she chose to go back instead of being happy to escape. That was just too much for me. Third, I have several books that I want to read that I don't want to waste my time with this one. I want to have fun reading a book (even if there are sad or upsetting parts in between) or know that I learned something really important, but this one just went downhill.

I tried...

Another graphic novel

This afternoon I read "Pitch Black" by Youme Landowne and Anthony Horton. A white young woman and a black young man meet in an underground station and he tells her about his life. I don't want to give away any details of the story, but it's quite unusual. Some of the drawings are detailed whereas others are more like sketches. The different amounts of detail and use of only black and white and some gray tones fits really well with the subject. This story is a lot shorter than the the one I read recently about New Orleans. It kept me wondering at the end if such a life would really happen in New York or just parts of it. Interesting for sure and worth the read.

(I'm counting graphic novels as books read, so this is number 43.)

Looking for Alaska

Just a couple of days ago, I finished reading "Looking for Alaska" by John Green (the Wikipedia article has a good synopsis). I got the book from the library and finished it just in time, one day before it was due, so that I could take some notes before returning it.

My first impression when reading the first few chapters was surprise at how much smoking and drinking was going on at the school. It didn't make sense to me why Pudge would start with it, it seemed to me his friends wouldn't have minded if he had said no thanks. There was no strong peer pressure and he seemed to know that it's not good for you. I was shocked at the prank in the beginning, I mean, he could have drowned. That was a severe case of bullying. Lots of things like that seemed to be going on at the school, drinking, smoking, dangerous pranks, etc., but the teachers didn't care much, they rarely "found out", even though there was so much evidence. And the parents didn't seem to care, either. I was really baffeled by that. Anyway, the main story was still interesting, the before part where Pudge gets to know Alaska and his other new friends at this school, and the after part where they're trying to figure out what was really going on that night with Alaska. The religion class was a nice way to weave in some philosophical questions into the story.

I read in the Wikipedia article about the book that the book has been challenged at a high school for content dealing with sexually explicit situations. That's pretty ridiculous considering all the other things that are going on in that story. Although I wasn't interested in such things at that age, the sexual thoughts and actions seemed the most comprehensible to me compared to the prevalence of drinking, the severeness of some of the "pranks" etc.

So I kind of enjoyed the book even though I might not have ordinarily chosen to read it. I read it for the BC in DC book club. I hope I'll make it to the meeting next week.

(50 books in 2010 cout: 42).

A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge

A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge by Josh Neufeld is a graphic novel based on real people and events.

Wired.com expresses it well: "A.D. is a sterling example of comics with a social consciousness, and is exactly the kind of thing we need to keep the human dimension of this unimaginable disaster and its ongoing aftermath in the public eye."

I haven't really read any graphic novels before and not many comics in a while and didn't know where to begin, so I asked for some recommendations and this was first on the list. I was so impressed, I didn't even know literature like this existed. It really shows the truth of "a picture is worth a thousand words" with the way it shows the storm, the flooded areas, etc. The graphics are expressive, but not too crowded, they have just enough detail. I love that we see the experience hurricane Katrina from different perspectives through different people. The only thing I would have liked more is if the stories would have come together somehow. It was great that the author found someone with a comic collection to base one of the sub-stories on, especially fitting for the medium. The two page spreads that are spread throughout the book are great as well. So I had a great experience with my first graphic novel.

(50 books in 2010 count: 41)

Sometimes, re-reading a book is a good thing

I don't usually re-read books a second time, especially if I didn't like them that much the first time around. But Grace Community Church that I attend while here in the D.C. area was offering discussion groups based on the book, so I gave it a shot. I liked the book much more the second time around. Maybe I was used to the author's style a little and could focus more on the parts I liked? Maybe I had a bit of a different perspective from attending this church? Maybe it was just the prospect of being able to discuss the book with others? I don't know what it was, but I'm glad I re-read the book.

This time around I could relate more to the person who didn't like Christianity, but wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God (p. 115). We need to love each other, so we can learn we are lovable (p. 146). This is probably especially important for people who didn't grow up in a loving family. The soul needs to interact with other people to be healthy (p. 154). Self-addiction (p. 182) is a big problem. The author gives Zaccheus as an example. The affection of Christ, not the brutality of a town, healed Zaccheus (p. 183). Which goes back to the importance of loving each other. Jesus was loving and kind to Zaccheus and helped him change that way, where all the rejection of the people in town couldn't change him.

We all believe things we cannot explain, You cannot be a Christian without being a mystic (p. 202). I've felt a similar way, sometimes, Christianity seems like a fairy tale, the story is so amazing, but the really amazing thing is that it's really true, not make believe like all the other stories.
If you see Christianity as religion or ritual, it's a false gospel (p. 203). The problem with the Christian culture around us is that we tend to use love as a commodity, like money. (p. 218). But instead it's a free gift. We need to give love not withholding it (p. 220). Many of us need to develop their ability to receive love as well (p. 226).

These are just a few of the nuggets of wisdom that I found in the book this time around. It turns out in discussing the book that many of us "got it" the first time reading it. For one of us it even gave her a break-through in understanding Jesus' love for her with her heart instead of just in her head for the first time.

(50 books in 2010 count: 40)

What if? 2 too boring

What If? 2 by Robert Cowley on 4 audio tapes, abridged for audio.

From the Publisher

There is no surer way to feel the danger or the good fortune of our collective past than to contemplate those moments when the world's future hung in the balance. Our brightest historians speculate on some of these intriguing crossroads and the ways in which our lives might have been changed for the better -- or the worse.

These unabridged essays range across the full span of history. Geoffrey Parker describes ramifications that might have included a divided Reformation movement, a strengthened Catholic leadership, and no European settlements in the Americas. And Caleb Carr argues that we could have been spared the horrific last six months of World War II in Europe if Eisenhower had seized his chance to destroy the Nazis in the fall of 1944.

This could have been so much more interesting. Most of the descriptions of what if stopped just when it started to become interesting. Or they were too abstract.
I can't comment about the details of most of them, because I didn't know enough about the original events to say how the what if scenarios could have been described in a more interesting way.

The first one, though, was about what if Jesus hadn't died when he said he would, but had lived until he had died at an old age. The author of that essay seemed to think that it would be considered blasphemous to imagine this, but in fact, it's even kind of addressed in the Bible. See 1 Corinthians 15:14 "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." There are so many things that could have been addressed, e.g. it is generally believed that without Jesus' death and resurrection, Christianity wouldn't have all developed like it did, but may have slowly died out. The author of the essay in the book, though, seems to believe that Constantine would still have made it the state religion and church fathers would still have met in the 4th century to discuss things the way they did in reality.

In general, I would have expected a descriptions of some exciting differences but in the abstract high level way the essays were written, even for the "what if the potato hadn't been introduced into Europe" you couldn't imagine the consequences too well.

Books finished today

I kind of finished three books today.

Moominpappa's Memoirs by Tove Jansson. I had received this one in a book ray. It was so much fun to read Moominpappa's Memoirs, about his childhood and his adventures, and the friends he made. At the end we even find out how he met Moominmamma! I enjoyed the drawings so much as well. I had known the Moomins from the comic strips, but this was the first non-comic about the Moomins that I've read.

Refuge on Crescent Hill by Melanie Dobson. I decided to join a book club like swap about this book on swap-bot. This is a Christian suspense novel, I'd say it is more like a mystery novel, though. I really liked it. Maybe I'll post some questions I answered about it later.

What If? 2 By Robert Cowley (abridged for audio). This wasn't as interesting as I would have hoped. More about this in the next entry.

In September, I also read A Mercy by Toni Morrison for the Bookrossing in DC book club.

(50 books in 2010: 38)

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

I just love the series of No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels by Alexander McCall Smith. I just finished The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, the eighth in the series. I love how down to earth they are. And it was also fun to read about all the things that went wrong this time and how all those things resolved.

(50 books in 2010: 34)

Reading about faithful and not so faithful people

For our online book club, we've been reading "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott. When we voted for what to read, I believe I didn't vote for this one, but I'm glad I read it, I really liked it. The story basically follows the life of four sisters from their teens to later when they are adults - there are two parts to the book. The title of my post alludes to "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan, each of the daughters got a copy of that book from their parents. They read it pretty regularly and refer to it sometimes. I've had that book on my to-read list for a while and would read it right now for reference, but it's back in California on one of my bookshelves. So I guess I'll get it from there on my next visit.

And just in the last couple of days, I've read "A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael" by Ellis Peters. It contains three classic stories featuring Brother Cadfael. The first one seems to be set shortly before he decides to become a monk, so we find out a little bit about his life before he became a monk and the events that lead up to it. The other two are tales featuring the monastic sleuth solving mysteries around the monastery at Shrewsbury. Each of the stories is only about 50 pages long, but each is as captivating as a whole novel. They were a joy to read and now I'm giving the book away to someone else who likes books by Ellis Peters. Obviously monks are usually faithful people, too, but sometimes they're not as faithful as it may seem...

(50 books in 2010 book count: 33)