I have started off the year with some very good reads already, though I am not sure I will be as prompt in talking about them. If nothing else I hope to mention them or share a blurb or two. I do want to mention my graphic novel reading so far. I was thinking this year I would read one a month and end up with a nice round dozen at the end. A new genre, sort of, for me. I have read some good ones in the past and a few comics that I quite enjoyed as well. I find, however, that my comics reading is hit or miss, but graphic novels, or graphic memoirs in particular, are more to my taste.
I hope Nora Krug hurries up and writes/illustrates more graphic novels. She can write about anything, I think, and I will like it. I loved Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, which won an award or two and was named to a number of favorites lists. I knew I would get to it eventually and lucked upon it in paperback form at the bookstore. I am pleased to have a copy for my own library.
In a sense I think you might call this a war story of sorts. As much as I am interested in the WWII era there are so many books about that period that I feel satiated to a point I will set a book back on the shelf if I see that is the setting of a new book. But this one is quite different. It is very illuminating about the war and the way she tells her story, that of her family and her search for the truth of her parent's and grandparent's lives is truly engaging.
Although she was born after the end of the war, she felt her German heritage marked her in ways that others would think her 'suspect'. Maybe it was a guilt she carried by way of how the war was taught in school or that her family never quite spoke of those years. So she set out to discover the truth and potential culpability of her family during the war years. The illustrations are amazing and they are enhanced by use of ephemera and images from the war years. It is an interesting way to learn about the post war generation in Germany. Very highly recommended.
I am not sure where I came across Penny Nichols by MK Reed, Greg Means and Matt Wiegle, but I was happy to find it. It is a graphic novel, but I do wonder if the creators had some kind of experience in making horror films (and indeed in the back of the book there is advice for novice filmmakers). Yes, that is the subject of the book--Penny is an unconventional young woman with a going nowhere job. She meets two guys who are beginning to make a horror film. Let's call it a low-budget B film, which they enter into an amateur competition.
It was a hoot! I am not really a fan of horror films, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was an insiders look at low budget filmmaking, which was very perfectly told in this format. And yes, Penny is a very engaging storyteller and likable woman who finds her niche in this unusual world. The illustrations are great, too. Colorful and just the sort I like. Another one I can recommend.
Next up is the award winning graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. I am just starting but it is definitely going to be another favorite of mine. I already have at least three other graphic novels lined up and might just have to take more suggestions if you have a favorite on the same caliber of these three!