On "Blue is the Warmest Color" the Graphic Novel

I was at my library the other day, and I came across a graphic novel of “Blue is the Warmest Color”. I didn’t even know that it was a graphic novel.

And the truth is I grabbed it because of the buzz about the movie. It was supposed to be an incredibly graphic and sexy movie. I thought that the book would have the same elements.

It does, but the sexy parts are only part of the book. It is in fact an incredibly well-written and moving story about love and personal discovery – the fact that the two main characters are women seems almost incidental (almost, but maybe also not at all). Read it.

Reading "The Harlem Hellfighters" by Max Brooks

If you like books about war, graphic novels, and books that shine a light on social injustice, this is the book for you.

It tells the story of the Harlem Hellfighters, segregated group of African-American soldiers in WWI. They were excluded and reviled, but were highly decorated. It is well told, and well illustrated. The only issue is that the black and white illustrations are sometimes too busy when showing battles in the trenches, so it is hard to differentiate and to know what is going on. Otherwise, it compares favorably to other books in the genre from writers such as Jacques Tardi’s “It Was the War of the Trenches”. A good read and well-worth it.

And it was written by that guy who is famous for writing about zombies. It seems he is not one-dimensional after all!

Let Down By "Living With a Wild God" by Barbara Ehrenreich

I’m a big fan of Ehrenreich. I like her reportage, and her social experiments, and her writing style. 

But I heard that this book was a little different, I thought I’d let it slide until I was personally recommended the book by Tim Noah (Author of the “Great Divergence,” check it out). He liked it and I liked his stuff, so I thought I would check it out.

I think my first instinct was right. This wasn’t for me. It is basically what I would call an intellectual biography, detailing the development of a bookish child. I can relate to that.

But there’s the thing that was emphasized. Ehrenrich is on my team, cheering for the big A, or so I thought. Here she details some sort of mystical experience she had when she was a teen and the life-long ramifications and search for just what happened to her (the world caught fire in a way that fire doesn’t burn – with spirit). For me, that part isn’t that interesting. I remember thinking that she should have just looked up her William James and moved on. 

She didn’t look up William James – until later. I don’t know. This thing just left me cold, and it felt unresolved. I kept creeping towards the last pages, and the answer to how she defined what happened was left in the air (unless I missed it, which is possible but doesn’t say much for your climax as an author). I can’t really recommend it. I don’t know who’d be interested in it.