A middle-aged woman begins a relationship with a young Moroccan immigrant but their love must contend with a nosy, racist neighbour. An alcoholic jazz pianist’s relationship with his younger Brazilian girlfriend and her son falls apart - could football star Ronaldinho save him? A translator meets a shady, wealthy neighbour who has a unique wardrobe - but who is the man who created it?
Big agriculture is putting out genetically modified seeds that’s harming the natural environment - not on Swamp Thing’s watch!
Bestselling young Irish author Sally Rooney Alice Kelleher has a nervous breakdown, escapes to the countryside for some R&R, and embarks on a relationship with a local fella called Felix. Meanwhile, Alice’s mate Eileen has an on-again/off-again relationship with her childhood friend Simon - but where will they land, on or off?! Welcome to Conversations with Friends 2: Out of Things to Say!
Aimee de Jongh travels in taxis in LA, Paris, Jakarta and Washington DC and relates those experiences in Taxi! Stories from the Back Seat.
Duncan, Rose and Granny Bridgette face more nightmarishly warped Arthurian legends - it’s the Green Knight, Lancelot and Galahad’s turns - as Merlin continues his plan to take the Grail and return Arthur to the throne of England… with bloody consequences!
Whenever a mystery needed solving in the small coastal town of King’s Hill, kid detectives Friday Fitzhugh and Lancelot Jones were always on hand. Then they grew up and Friday admitted her feelings to Lancelot - and inadvertently ruined their friendship. Now she’s back on Christmas vacay from college and a supernatural mystery is plaguing the town - but will the two be able to get past their awkwardness to find out who the White Lady is?
A 33 year old man in 1980 reminisces about the time in 1967 when he spent an unforgettable evening with a mysterious young woman on the overnight ferry to Kyushu. Despite being a fan of sci-fi, he finds her story difficult to swallow: though she looks 17 years old, she’s actually 3 billion years old! But is she yanking his chain - or is she really the embodiment of living memory of all life on Earth…?
Nightmare Alley is about the rise and fall of conman Stanton Carlisle, beginning in his early carny days performing sleight of hand card tricks, to becoming a mentalist (“psychic”), to moving into spiritualism and claiming to speak to the dead - of the wealthy, of course - until he eventually bites off more than he can chew.
The nuclear apocalypse happens in 2030 and Tariq Geiger manages to get his family to their fallout shelter in time - but gets locked out himself. It’s now 20 years later and Geiger has somehow survived, gaining superpowers from the radiation no less, and is waiting for the radiation levels to go down before opening up the shelter and reuniting with his family. But civilisation has broken down in the intervening years and, after one too many vigilante interferings, Vegas villains want Geiger’s head - as well as a valuable package two kids have stolen and are now on the run, into the Nevada desert, towards the “glowing man”...
COVID strikes so the gang all move into Megg, Mogg and Owl’s place to weather out the pandemic - with hi-larious consequences! Who’ll get the ‘vid? How will the deadbeats make money? What happens when they run out of weed? It’s all kicking off in Crisis Zone!
The Silver Coin is a horror anthology series all about a cursed coin and the bad things what happen to people who come across it. A guitarist, a teen camper, a burglar, some futuristic person, and belt buckle-hat people. It’s also completely pants!
This short story collection, selected from all the stories Lucia Berlin wrote over the course of her life, was published 11 years after her death in 2004 and became an unexpected bestseller - but I’m not really sure why. Lucia (pronounced Lu-see-a) Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women is a very unimpressive collection.
Mediterranea, 61, is feeling her mortality more than ever after her elderly mother passes - now she’s the oldest woman in her family. Ulysses, 59, widowed, forced into early retirement, and lacking the skills to get back into the job market, finds his days empty and frustratingly lonely. And then one day they meet each other. Amour... eh?
Batman By John Ridley: The Deluxe Edition (a redundant label as there aren’t any other editions available!) collects the few Batman comics John Ridley’s written for DC so far (though these are rapidly growing).
Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes follow up their post-mortem book on Hillary’s failed 2016 campaign, Shattered, with this new book, reviewing Biden’s successful 2020 campaign defeating Trump in Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. As middling as Shattered was, Lucky isn’t even as good as that and I found it an often frustratingly tedious read.
Zeb Wells puts his years of experience writing on Robot Chicken to good use, teaming up with artist Gurihiru to bring us a Sunday Funnies-style look at what the Marvel heroes did during lockdown quarantine.
