Once again, I find myself on a Sunday evening, hoping to have my Stack Overflow written for Monday but without having started, and looking at the stack of books piling up on my office floor that I haven’t read yet, and the (smaller) stack of books that I’ve read but haven’t written about yet. “Jonathan,” you say to me, “how does this keep happening to you?” It’s not for lack of reading, I’ll tell you—it’s just that the books arrive faster than I can read them, and I read them faster than I can write about them, so the rest is just math.
Well, let’s try to do some subtraction, I guess!
Dictionary of Fine Distinctions by Eli Burnstein
I’ll start off with one that I haven’t finished reading yet, though it’s the sort of book you can pick up and browse through at random just as easily as reading straight through (as my daughter did). This book is one for the grammar nerds, those who are maybe just a little bit pedantic. It’s a collection of word sets like burglary vs. robbery, ethics vs. morals, Ponzi scheme vs. pyramid scheme, harbor vs. port vs. marina. For each set, there’s a very brief description of each word highlighting what each one means and how to tell them apart, along with some cartoony illustrations by Liana Finck. Occasionally there’s some fine print, giving some specific examples, or maybe explaining that although technically the words have different definitions, most people (other than the aforementioned grammar nerds) don’t really care anymore.
Unlike a typical dictionary, Burnstein isn’t above editorializing, either. The “Catapult vs. Trebuchet” entry states definitively: “Trebuchets are better.” It’s a really fun book, and one that I’m going to enjoy exploring some more.
The Advocate by Eddie Ahn
I first came across some of Eddie Ahn’s comics on Instagram, where he would post bits of what looked like an autobiographical comic, often just a snippet of a scene. I liked the style: it was realistic but often with blank backgrounds, and usually with only one hue used for shading and some spot color. The excerpts were from this book, a memoir about his work as an environmental justice lawyer. He talks about his Korean family, the way that his parents often had a hard time understanding his work at a nonprofit that didn’t pay well, and his own struggles in figuring out his own role in his community. He uses the colors to indicate various periods in his life: childhood, law school, early nonprofit work, and so on.
The book is a collection of vignettes—little scenes from throughout Ahn’s life, sometimes an interesting interaction he had, sometimes illustrating the various pressures he found himself under as his role at the nonprofit shifted and his list of responsibilities grew. While I didn’t always understand the specifics of his work, I felt like the book was more about conveying what it felt like to do the work. Environmental justice is focused on the community and inequities; it’s not just about saving the planet, but working to help those who are impacted by climate change, especially those who are marginalized, and Ahn does a good job of showing the amount of labor and love that goes into that work.
Fence written by C.S. Pacat, illustrated by Johanna the Mad
Recently, my wife came across this comics series at the bookstore and picked up the first three collected volumes for our son, who started fencing last year, and the next day he went back and bought the next three volumes, and then asked for more. It turns out there isn’t any more yet (though the series will pick back up in July). The story follows Nicholas Cox, the illegitimate son of a renowned fencing champion, and his dream of becoming a fencer himself. He doesn’t have the money for training but has raw talent that attracts the attention of the coach at King’s Row, a boarding school. There, we meet a big cast of other fencers, including Seiji Katayama, the second-ranked fencer in their age category whom everyone assumed would be at Exton, the top-ranked school instead.
There’s fencing, drama, slow-burn romance, and more than one person with a mysterious past. The illustrations are a lot of fun, often jumping freely between styles, and although my son did have some nitpicky things about the fencing, he also got pretty invested in the story, too. I picked them up recently and read through them as well, and they were pretty entertaining. If you like sports manga and its particular mix of intense action and relationship drama, Fence definitely takes its inspiration from that genre.
Kingdom Riders written by Shannon Eric Denton, illustrated by Marcus To
The kingdom of Autiria was once wracked by war, until Khan Fitzen united the nations and became the High King, bringing an era of relative peace and prosperity, though the new world is still broken. Every year, the Kingdom Races are an opportunity for riders across the land to participate in fast-paced races that are often deadly—but what makes the risk worth it is the prize: control of the kingdom. Of course, nobody has ever managed to win by completing the race in the allotted time, but it’s a spectacle that almost the whole kingdom turns out to watch because of the exciting action and the high stakes.
Kayla is a peasant, indentured to Lord Sul, and she doesn’t really care much about the races, which are typically closed to the low-caste unless they can find a sponsor. Her best friend Mal was supposed to earn her own freedom from servitude, but things go wrong—and Kayla makes a deal with Lord Sul: if she wins the race, Kayla and Mal go free. Nobody expects much from her, particularly when she shows up at the qualifiers with her giant toad, Grok, but she surprises them with her agility and skill, and is soon recruited to join a team of racers.
This underdog story has excitement and adventure, as Kayla and her team learn to trust each other and begin to see what they’re made of. The graphic novel is just over 200 pages so you get to immerse yourself in the world, but it’s also just the beginning: there are more races to come, and some hints that perhaps Khan Fitzen isn’t the hero that all the legends make him out to be. My daughter and I both read this one, and will be looking forward to more!
Okay, that’s it for today! I’m still reading The Cautious Traveler’s Guide to the Wastelands that I mentioned last week, so that’s probably still a few weeks away.
Disclosure: I received review copies of the books included in today’s column except for Fence, which we purchased. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers!
