Category: miscellany

YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2022

~ Ricardo ~ 2 Comments

2022 has truly been the definition of a roller coaster year. It began with the ending of a relationship and the beginning of a move to my own place. Halfway through the year I caught the dreaded Plague after avoiding it for so long. Then at the end I got sick with something the tests assure me wasn’t the Plague but it certainly knocked me out like it, making me miss a large part of the holidays with my friends and family. Add to that my general constant struggle with anxiety and… well, it’s been a lot. I don’t need to tell you it’s been a lot. You know it’s been a lot.

How I managed to read close to a hundred books along the way is honestly a mystery to me. I try to not put much stock in challenges or numbers. I use my Goodreads Challenge not as a challenge but, because I am a ridiculous person, as a memento mori instead, plugging into it whatever age I’m going to be that year. It’s not that hard to meet — I’m not that old yet. But I would be lying if I didn’t like looking at those large numbers. That I didn’t like feeling like I Read A Lot Of Books.

But the thing that I learned this reading year is that I really don’t. Yes, I read a lot of books, but I don’t feel like I have much to show for it. I didn’t read many books that blew me away, for one. Most that I read were just okay. Which is perfectly fine — not every book I pick up has to blow me away. I just wish to pick better choices.

It’s the pursuit of comfort, I suppose. I don’t blame myself for going for the familiar and the comfortable, especially not during fickle, precarious times. But a thought I kept coming back to as I reflected on my reading throughout the year was how I read a lot less when I was younger, but how so many of those books form an integral part of my soul now. And how that had less to do with the quality of the books themselves than it did with the quality of the time I spent with them. I didn’t finish a book and immediately jumped on to the next, on that neverending search for serotonin. I finished them, and dwelled on them. Sometimes I even read them again, which I scarcely do these days. I gave them time to become a part of me. This wasn’t a conscious choice on my part. I just didn’t have the resources that I do today, which I guess made me more deliberate with my reading. And much more adventurous, too, as I often went with books that seemed interesting and new and challenging.

Which is all to say that, as far as reading resolutions go for the coming year, this would be the main one: To find some of that magic younger me possessed. To be more deliberate and particular with my reading. To choose quality over quantity, always. 

I believe this in turn would result in better, more thoughtful reviews, too. My poor blog seems to be in a constant state of neglect — not to mention my bookstagram. I always make it a resolution to be better at both, but in particular my website, and that will remain the same for this next year.

Anyway.

I don’t want to give the impression that everything I read this year was a big pile of meh. I still had a lot of fun. Still managed to read some fine books that I hope will form part of my soul in their own way. Some that I have already revisited and plan to do so again. I always make it a point to say that books are my shining beacons of light in this tempestuous world. These were some of my lighthouses in 2022: Continue reading “YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2022” →

Hallowe’en Season 2022

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

halloween hostsSomewhere deep beyond the woods you know there stands a house that should not be there. Winds whip and whirl around it, surrounding the peculiar structure in a vortex of dead leaves and twigs and other things. The shutters clang against their windows. The house is entirely dark, save for a single flickering light in the topmost room. Inside the house that should not be there, someone is reading. ⠀
⠀
The emaciated figure looks up from its book. It turns its head towards the window, looking out into a dark, restless night. It gets up from the chair, filling the room with a dry, clacking noise. To the side, the crow that was perched on top of an old bookcase rustles its feathers at the sound, its meditative reverie broken. It turns one baleful eye towards the skeletal figure now standing in front of the window, against the darkness.⠀
⠀
“Can you feel that, friend Calcifer?” it asks, its voice barely above a whisper.⠀
⠀
“Can I feel what, Osseous?” asks the crow, somewhat testily. It had been thinking about the particularly satisfying breakfast it had earlier in the morning, and it didn’t appreciate the interruption.⠀
⠀
“The Changing,” Osseous says. “The Turning. The Darkening of the Year.”⠀
⠀
The crow makes a small croaking noise before flapping towards the window. It pecks against the glass once, twice, thrice before looking out. “Seems to be arriving earlier and earlier each year,” it says. “Are you sure?”⠀
⠀
“Oh yes,” says Osseous, long dead, keeper of this vast grave, this library of secrets and mysteries and horrors. “I can feel it in my bones.” ⠀
⠀
And its orbits light up then, shining like beacons in the night, welcoming whatever wanders within.

“It is coming.”

🎃

(Click the pumpkin above to browse through all the 2022 Hallowe’en Season posts.)

YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2021

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

The best I can say for 2021 is that it was certainly A Year. Entirely too much turmoil for my liking, but we made it through, and that’s not nothing. 

I read a great many books in 2021. More than I ever have previously in my life, in fact. A response, I suppose,  to all the rocky happenings in both the world and my own personal life. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: stories are my bright, shining beacons in the dark. The warm,  warm, safe spaces I seek out when life, the universe, and everything get to be too much. In 2021, things got much too much, and so, naturally, as often as I could, I headed towards the light. Continue reading “YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2021” →

NORTON JUSTER

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

05 the phantom tollboothThe most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.

Thoroughly saddened to read the news of Norton Juster’s passing. The Chuck Jones-helmed film adaptation of The Phantom Tollbooth was a staple of my childhood, but I actually came to the novel in my early twenties, where it proceeded to blow my mind with it’s manic, unadulterated imagination and, of course, all the mischievous, marvelous wordplay. It quickly became a favorite and forever changed the way I thought of children’s literature. If you haven’t read this understated masterpiece, I highly recommend you do so.⠀

Rest easy, Milo.

RAINA TELGEMEIER: AN APPRECIATION

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

04 raina booksSo it’s been a minute! I’ve been mostly MIA lately, dealing with tedious adulthood type stuff. The sort that requires entirely too much of my energy and attention. And although thankfully none of that has really stopped me from reading, it’s been definitely draining any desire to sit down and write anything of note. Tragic, I know.⠀
⠀
It’s also caused me quite a fair bit of stress! Which is probably why I’ve resorted to picking up a bunch of middle grade books these past few weeks. They’ve long been a comfort read for me, so of course they’ve helped with winding down and staving off concerns.⠀
⠀
It’s sort of funny, then, that the first few books I went to were Raina Telgemeier’s graphic memoirs, which are all about the peculiar anxieties of childhood. ⠀
⠀
I started reading Telgemeier’s work only a couple of years ago, but she quickly turned into one of my favorite authors. She writes the types of books I wish my younger self would have been able to read, which is something I say about every excellent modern middle grade book I read these days but it happens to be particularly true in the case of these graphic novels: they may be about incredibly specific events that happened to a white girl growing up in the West Coast during the late eighties and early nineties, but I still manage to see my life reflected in these pages. Still see the same childhood concerns and the adolescent angst that I went through as an anxious brown kid growing up in the Caribbean in the nineties. They make me feel seen in a way, and that brings me comfort. ⠀
⠀
Stories, you guys — the way they work never fails to amaze and astound me.⠀
⠀
Anyway.⠀
⠀
I got my copy of Guts right when it was released so of course there’s no Eisner Award sticker on the cover. Telgemier is an unstoppable talent, though, so if you purchase the book today it will be there.

YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2020

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

So 2020 was a year that certainly happened.

I don’t want to write much about the year on a personal level. I used to do that with these reflections, but the last couple of years have been rough, to say the least, both on a personal scale and, you know, a global one, and I find myself with little energy to expound much on the hardships of life at the close of it all. I doubt there’s much I can say that hasn’t already been said by thousands of others, anyway. We’re all passengers on Spaceship Earth after all; we’re all going through the same kind of bedlam.

So I talk about books and stories. It’s the best I can do.

Books are — and they always have been — the beams of light that break through the darkness of any given time period, after all. I can’t think of a better, more appropriate way of saying good riddance to this plague year than by putting forth a small selection of these bright, shining beacons. These talismans against despair.

Continue reading “YEAR IN REVIEW ○ 2020” →

READALIKES: MAD MEN

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

I rewatched the entirety of Mad Men a couple months ago. Because what better thing to do during lockdown than spend seven seasons with characters full of angst and ennui?

As is my wont, whenever I immerse myself into a show or film, I always get the urge to seek out some readalikes — books that, in my mind at least, share similarities with whatever it is I’m watching. My criteria for this is a little loose and ambiguous, admittedly: sometimes I look for similar moods and themes; oftentimes it’s just a matter of aesthetics. The last time I did this with Mad Men I ended up reading Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man and Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything — books that read the part. This time around I thought it’d be fun to explore books that looked the part.

So I went with comics, of course. The ones I went with were perhaps not as deep and brooding as Mad Men, but they were certainly as stylish.

They were also mostly about murder, which is surprisingly common with stories set during this time, which makes me wonder what is about this certain period of American culture that fits so well with crime dramas and murder mysteries and thrillers? Is it the Hitchcock influence or is it that everyone was seemingly so repressed in those days that the thought of someone snapping only made one go, “well that was inevitable”?

In any case, I definitely consider it a genre (let’s call it Mid-Century Madness), and comics seem to do it better than almost anything else. And hardly any comic does it better than Darwyn Cooke’s adaptations of Donald E. Westlake’s Parker novels (written under the Richard Stark pseudonym), which follow the eponymous lead across heists, murderous plots, and other criminal activities. I had read — and deeply enjoyed — the first two books in the series, but this was my first time reading through all four volumes (Cooke sadly passed away before working on any more). Westlake’s Parker novels were famously cold, bare-boned affairs, featuring stark prose (hence the pen name) and simple, straightforward plots.

There’s a famous scene from the 1967 film Point Blank, one of the first adaptations of the the Parker stories. It features lead Lee Marvin walking down a hallway with deadly purpose. There’s no music playing, just the metronome-like sound of his steady footsteps, meant to evoke the relentless nature of the character. He sounds unstoppable — a bullet out of a gun.

It’s a rhythm that Cooke translated beautifully into comic book form. Throughout the books he uses wide panels, with little to no dialogue. And this, combined Cooke’s sleek and sharp artwork, evokes a sense of speed. Like Westlake’s original novels, these books are meant to be read quickly. There’s no real story development and certainly no character growth. As with any decent heist: you get in, you get out. The end. Like a bullet out of a gun.

Visually this is the most Mad Men-looking of the bunch, mostly due to Cooke’s general retro aesthetic, but also because Parker comes from the same squared-jawed, handsomely generic mold as Don Draper.

I read all four volumes in the series and had a blast with each one. The third volume, The Score, might just be my favorite, though.

○○○

Lady Killer, written by Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich and illustrated by Jones herself, follows Josie Schuller, a seemingly perfect homemaker in a seemingly picture-perfect sixties household, who also happens to moonlight as a professional assassin. Hijinks ensue. (The series was pitched as “Betty Draper meets Hannibal,” but I think it’s more accurate to think of it as “Midge Maisel meets John Wick.”) This is essentially a dark comedy — emphasis on dark (morbid humor abound). Joëlle Jones and Jamie S. Rich’s writing is perfectly sly and tongue-in-cheek and pairs well with Jones’ art, which manages to evoke the commercial art of the era while still retaining that modern edge.

There are only two volumes so far. I enjoyed the second one a lot more, mostly because it ramps up its lounge aesthetic.

○○○

On the more serious end of the spectrum we have The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, who pretty much have the crime corner of comics covered. This series owes a lot more to Old Hollywood lore and the visual flair of film noir than it does the sleek aesthetics of the mid-fifties. True to conventions, it tells the story of the tragic murder of a rising starlet. Unlike Parker and Lady Killer, this is played as straight as it could be, which is probably why I didn’t vibe with is as much. Brubaker’s writing is great, and Phillips’ art is fantastic, but it just didn’t speak to me as much as the rest of these readalikes so I don’t think I’ll be continuing it.

BOOKMAIL

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Another 📚📦 courtesy of 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬! This month’s theme was another I couldn’t pass up. Latinx representation! In horror! Yes, please.⠀
⠀
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic is a book that’s been on my radar for a while, and in fact I was considering getting it for this year’s Hallowe’en reads literally the day before getting the package. I had no idea which books were coming in this package, so it was a lovely bit of cosmic coincidence. Would you just look at that cover?⠀
⠀
I had never heard of Adrian Ernesto Cepeda’s  La Belle Ajar, but it gets instant points for the title being just an excellent pun. It’s a collection of horror-tinged poems inspired by Silvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, which definitely sounds interesting and deliciously 𝔫𝔬𝔫𝔢 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔤𝔬𝔱𝔥, 𝔢𝔱𝔠.⠀
⠀
Lots of goodies accompanied these two books. Bookmarks! Author notes! Book plates! Stickers! Coffee! I was particularly glad to find the stickers since I just recently got the urge to cover my laptop with them and these make excellent additions. The coffee I brewed it a couple days ago and it was pretty dang good! You can find all the makers tagged in the photo. ⠀
⠀
Thanks once again for the neat things and the TBR fodder, Night Worms!⠀

As always, you can check them out on their website or over on Instagram .

BOOKMAIL

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Most recent 📚📦 comes courtesy of 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬! Was quite excited to finally get this.⠀
⠀
For those who don’t know: Night Worms is a monthly subscription package with a heavily-curated focus on horror books and other genre-related goodies.⠀
⠀
Horror is not my main thing, although I do have a deep appreciation for it, especially around the Hallowe’en season, as my Instagram feed can attest. But Night Worms has been on my radar for a while now, mostly due to other bookish people being subscribed to it. I would see all the unboxings, and the stuff looked not only top notch, but fun, which I always value in horror. ⠀
⠀
Fun was what led me to finally make a purchase. Like most other subscription services, they do themes, and the one for this package (June’s) was “The Boys of Summer,” a phrase that instantly invoked the kind of horror that I generally gravitate towards — stories like Stephen King’s “The Body” / Stand by Me, The Goonies, and, of course, Stranger Things. Dark coming-of-age tales tinged with nostalgia and whimsy.⠀
⠀
Which is totally the vibe the contents of this package seem to capture. Would you just look at that tea packaging?⠀

You can check them out on their website or over on Instagram (their account is a lot of fun).

BOOKMAIL

~ Ricardo ~ Leave a comment

Getting a lot of graphic novels lately. I’ve been a little stressed out these past couple of weeks, and comics always help me deal with that.⠀
⠀
I’ve been following Noelle Stevenson’s work since the days of Tumblr (I still think of her as gingerhaze), when I came across her Broship of the Ring comics, which to this day still stands as my all-time favorite AU (𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒐𝒃𝒃𝒊𝒕𝒔) and I’ve really loved seeing her career grow over the years. The Fire Never Goes Out collects Noelle’s personal comics, which in sharp contrast to the more goofy Broship strips, are often wistful and melancholy. They break your heart. They are lovely. Stevenson is going to take over the world someday.⠀
⠀
Lucy Knisley we all love. She’s known mostly for memoirs, but Stepping Stones is, I believe, her first foray into fiction. Middle grade, too, which is exciting! Lucy Knisley isn’t going to take over the world only because she wants to let her son do it first.⠀