Hello!
I’ve missed you! I hope you had a great Christmas and a fab New year if you’re reading this in the future.
As most people do during the Christmas season, I tend to buy just as many presents for myself. So after I got some extra pennies from commissions and sales etc I thought I’d go on a mad Amazon book buying spree! Some books were educated decisions, some I just bought because the covers tickled me and others I bought because I just thought they looked up my street.
And now I’m going to review them before your very eyeses! I realize they might not all be everyone’s cup of tea but you never know! You might read through this and find a new favourite artist or author.
Ok Let’s GO!
Robot… by S.Lem, illustrated by A.Klimoski and D.Schejbal.
Who remembers this google doodle? It was my fav.
This was made to mark the 60th anniversary of Stanislaw Lem’s first book. Lem was one of the worlds best Sci-fi writers and I’ve been trying to read more of his stuff as well as Asimov’s.
So as an avid robot fan I thought I’d start here.
This wee gem is a graphic novel with 2 adaptations of Lem’s short stories ‘Uranium Earpieces’ and ‘The Sanatorium of Dr.Vliperdius’. What I found upon reading through this was it was far more surrealist than I expected. The stories take place in their own strange universes and deal with some heavy subjects like slavery, revolution and communism. But that shouldn’t put people off as it’s all presented on a fairly innocent level almost like a slightly alternative children’s book. Although don’t read it to your kids as there’s a nudey woman in the second story.
There’s also a lot to be said about the art, I think the simple blockyness lends itself to a distopian feel and reminds me of early surrealist films like Metropolis. So yea, if you into classic sci-fi, robots and/or indie comics this is a good wee read (it’s not as heavy as I’ve made it out to be) and a great introduction to Lem’s work.
Ok next I’ve got I WANT MY HAT BACK by Jon Klassen.
This is one of the books I bought because the cover tickled me, I mean c’mon look at his face! That’s a bear on a mission!
As far as kids books go this was an absolute delight. As you can guess it follows a bear on a quest to get his hat back. He asks tons of animals, even a tortoise! And that swung it for me.
The art is this is very much adorable and the story is short and perfect. It’s also great to read along with kids as there’s plenty of opportunities to go ‘What animal is that?’ or ‘Can you spot the hat?’ or you can just read it by yourself and have a giggle like I did. An ace addition to your picture book collection!
And while we’re on picture books let’s look at Up and Down by Oliver Jeffers my favourite illustrator.
Oliver’s 7th book is a squeal to the penguin based heart warmer Lost and Found. In this one the penguin decides he wants to learn to fly so goes to amazing lengths to fulfill his dreams.
My awful photography doesn’t at all do the artwork justice. It’s very beautiful and at the same time simple and in my honest opinion the book would still work with the pictures alone. But that’s my beef, I’m not a huge fan of this story. Although it’s a great book I can’t help but compare it to it’s predecessors which feel far more unique and entertaining. I’d say if you’re a big Oliver Jeffers fan sure go for it but in my opinion although the artwork is stunning the story doesn’t match up to Lost and Found, The Incredible Book Eating Boy or my favourite The Way Back Home.
Ok let’s do one more and I’ll let you get on with stuff.
Here’s AMAZING EVERYTHING the art of ScottC.
I came upon ScottC through his Tumblr ‘Great Showdowns’ which is basically a blog full of cartoon adaptations of some the greatest good vs evil struggles in all history. And from that I decided to get his book which catalogs tons of his drawings, paintings, doodles and whacky inventions!
The art in this is very funny,very cute and very accessible, which is something I strive for myself. Being an art book it’s not really a ‘read start to finish’ affair, it’s more of a ‘flick through it now and again for a laugh’ kinda thing. So it serves as a great coffee table book, there for your friends and visitors to flick through while your making the tea. Or if you’re creative it serves as a great source of inspiration and motivation as ScottC’s simple style just makes you want to get up and colour something in!
Look there’s Morrissey, he’s dropped his tea bless him.
Right! That’s all from me today, I hope you found my post in some way interesting or useful. I’ll be back in the new year with toooons of new drawings and painting and silly stuff.
Remember I’ve still got some ‘How to be a Ghost’ books for sale here and you can read my last book review post here.
Thanks for reading take care!
nx
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Neil Slorance 