How Should One Read a Book? by Virginia Woolf Review

I’ve never really “got” Virginia Woolf. I read Mrs Dalloway around about the time The Hours, that Nicole Kidman movie, came out and wasn’t that impressed with it - it’s about a lot of rather dull upper-middle class people having tea and a soldier suffering from PTSD. The praise for Woolf seems to be more of her stream-of-consciousness style rather than the substance of what she wrote.

Batman: Three Jokers #1 Review (Geoff Johns, Jason Fabok)

On the same night, at the same time, the Joker kills a crime family, murders a comedian on a live stream and dumps a trio of Red Hood lookalike corpses at Ace Chemicals before making off with a tanker full of the green stuff that turned him into who he is. But Joker couldn’t have done all that by himself - unless there were… Three Jokers!

Town & Country by Jess Walter Review

A middle-aged gay man decides to put his 75 year old increasingly senile father into care but he can’t find the right place for the unrelentingly hard-drinking/smoking/randy old salty sonuvabitch - until he comes across the unique location of Town & Country…

Batman: Universe Review (Brian Michael Bendis, Nick Derington)

Batman and a villain are chasing after a magic egg across space and time - who gonna git it first?!

So Bendis’ first Batman book is kinda crap unfortunately. It’s a simple chase story that’s never very interesting and serves as an excuse for Bendis to do a sort of unofficial tour of parts of the DC Universe (hence the subtitle).

Daphne Byrne Review (Laura Marks, Kelley Jones)

Set in New York in 1886 for no reason, young Daphne Byrne and her mother are mourning the recent death of her beloved dad - but no-good mediums is out to take advantage of their grief! And demons haunt Daphne too! You know Rosemary’s Baby? It’s that but worse.

Plume by Will Wiles Review

Magazine writer and secret alcoholic Jack Bick is about to have an interesting week. He must interview two famous subjects and produce two draft features before week’s end - or maybe he’s fired? And then an actual fire erupts in London, giving off a plume of smoke. Except Jack sees smoke even when it’s not there. And cockatoos. There are plumes everyplace - plumes of smoke and the yellow plumes of cockatoos! Prize-winning novelists, real estate moguls and tech gurus - it’s all kicking off in Jack’s world just as his unbridled drinking spirals further out of control along with the hallucinations and his ability to function!

Dawn of X, Volume 1 Review (Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu)

The Dawn of X series collects all of the issues from the six X-Men titles spinning out of Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Powers of X primer as they were published. Volume 1 collects all six first issues, Volume 2 collects all six second issues, and so on. It’s an interesting idea and might be appealing if you’re a big X-Men fan who was going to read all six titles regardless of quality and want to read them in publication order, but, for the more discerning reader, this first volume serves as a good taster selection to see which titles you might want to read and which ones you don’t - all titles are collected separately as normal as well (ie. if you want to just read the main X-Men series, those issues are collected in its own book).

Batman: Last Knight on Earth Review (Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo)

Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, the celebrated creative team behind New 52 Batman, reunite once more for another adventure with the same character in Last Knight on Earth.

D by Michel Faber Review

A young girl wakes up to a world where the letter “D” suddenly doesn’t exist! Her journey to find out why begins after attending the funeral of her former history professor and sends her on a quest into another world - a world ruled over by a mysterious dictator called the Gamp.

Batman, Volume 13: City of Bane, Part 2 Review (Tom King, Mikel Janin)

Bane and Flashpoint Batman head up the villains who have taken over Gotham. But the Bat and the Cat have returned to overthrow the City of Bane in one final battle - though at a terrible personal cost to Bruce…

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Review

Santiago is a shepherd who has a dream to go to the Great Pyramids of Egypt and there find buried treasure! The mysterious alchemist will help him on his quest.

The Part-Time Job by PD James Review

A grown man decides to moiderize his old school bully - using his part-time job! Wha…

Basketful of Heads Review (Joe Hill, Leomacs)

It’s September 1983, ‘cos the ‘80s is in these days, in a small coastal Maine town and June and her cop boyfriend Liam are busy being young and sexy. BUT DEN. Some inmates from the local prison break out - wuh oh! And then a storm hits, stranding everyone on the small archipelago - say whaaa! And June finds a magical axe from Norse mythology that keeps decapitated heads alive after it separates them from the body - hhwugiuhdsh! Time for… something… make it through the night/storm ok, I guess?