The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket

The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket | 176 pages

Dear Reader,

I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune...

Lemony Snicket aka Daniel Handler has such a specific voice as an author. This book is a lot of fun. I love the vocabulary lessons mixed throughout. I do feel like the style would get grating were I to read the entire 13 book series.

 

An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good, Tursten | 173 pages

    It's like a murder mystery, with no mystery... just Maud. Translated from the Swedish, this collection of short stories stars 88yo Maud who lives rent-free in a posh apartment in Gothensburg when she isn't traveling the world.
    I'll be honest, I could hardly put it down, but I'm not entirely sure I liked it! Tursten has a very dry, very dark sense of humor. I'm reminded of Fredrik Bachman's "Your Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry," also translated from Swedish. 

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey, 64 pages

Come and learn the ABCs... of different ways children can die. 

This book is less a graphic novel and more an extended comic. The illustrations are fun, sometimes even sweet, and never gruesome. Children who are home growing their own sense of dark humor will appreciate it. 

Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese

 Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide by John Cleese, 103 pages

John Cleese is as advertised: actor, writer, and tall person. And he's got a few nuggets of wisdom to impart about creativity and the monumental importance it has in people's lives. From Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind to Buddhism's "Beginner Mind," Cleese draws on many sources to illustrate his points, but always makes sure to ground the information lest it become too esoteric. 

This was a delightful read! Cleese manages to fold up complex concepts into neat little paper airplanes and sail them neatly in the reader's brain. While the message of the book is pretty simple--creativity is a necessary part of our lives and anyone can be creative (not just a member of a comedy troupe that single-handedly redefined comedy)--the easy, conversational way that Cleese presents his knowledge and experience is a paradigm shift. For a worker bee who has spent a lifetime in soul-crushing retail, Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide is certainly a welcome escort.

Something Like Happy by Eva Woods

Something Like Happy by Eva Woods - 567 pages

Annie is stuck. In her boring job, with her irritating roommate, in a life no thirty-five-year-old would want. But deep down, she’s still mourning the terrible loss that tore a hole through her perfect existence. Until she meets the eccentric Polly.

Bright, bubbly, intrusive Polly is determined to wake her new friend up to life. Because if recent events have taught Polly anything, it’s that your time is too short to waste a single day—which is why she wants Annie to join her on a mission…

This was more than uplifting and certainly funny at times.

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good by Helene Tursten

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good: Stories by Helene Tursten; translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy --- 171 pages

Helen Tursten is the author of two mystery series featuring female detectives, set in her native Sweden: the IreneHuss Mysteries and the Embla Nyström Mysteries.

She was asked to contribute a short story to a  Christmas crime anthology and couldn't come up with an idea until she thought about looking at crime from the criminal's perspective.

And that's how irascible Maud sprang full grown from Tursten's hindbrain. Maud is 88 years old, and looks like a typical old granny --- but her age is the perfect disguise for her criminal acts.  One reviewer said Maud, like Miss Marple, looks quite harmless and helpless; but underneath is as clever and ruthless as Dexter.  These five interconnected short stories are equal parts black humor and domestic malice. This reader was left laughing and hoping for more of Maud's murderous adventures.

Click HERE to read the * review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Kirkus Reviews.

A Clockwork Heart by Liesel Schwarz

A Clockwork Heart by Liesel Schwarz, 283 pages
Book 2 of "The Chronicles of Light and Shadow"

Steampunk at its finest ... with a very sad, dark, magic, mystery, fantasy, suspenseful storyline. A must read. Just break out the tissues before you get to the end.

Black Butler (Manga) by Yana Toboso

Black Butler (Manga) by Yana Toboso , 768 pages
V1 - 192 pages , V2 -192 pages, V3 - 192 pages, V4 - 192 pages

12 year old Earl Ciel Phantomhive became head of his family when his mother and father where murdered and the family home burned in flames. Ciel was kidnapped (we later find) and comes back later with a black clad butler who seems to know Ciel's every thought and need. All of the characters of the book love Sebastian for the most part and think he's the most amazing butler around -- capable of doing some truly magnificent feats. The manga has side notes and flashbacks that gradually fill in the blanks of what happened to Ciel and his family and why he contracted with a demon to exact revenge on those who hurt his family and humiliated him. Throughout the manga, Ciel and his extraordinary butler work together to solve various mysteries plaguing the "Great Empire of Queen Victoria"  -- especially the streets of London -- while at the same time gathering information about who ordered the murder of his parents and then Ciel's kidnapping. Ciel's family has always been the Queen's Watchdog and when he returns to his family's home, he resumes the duties of his father. Ciel is also the shrewd owner of a toy company and various other Phantomhive businesses as the books progress. The characters are well done and the story lines draw you in. I would say it's the manga is dark humor for the most part, but tastefully done.

Deadpool Killustrated, by Cullen Bunn, 96 pages

Deadpool Killustrated, by Cullen Bunn, 96 pages

They say that this makes more sense if you read Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, but it makes sense on its own just fine.  Deadpool is a mercenary in the Marvel Universe- he kills all sorts of comic characters.  But by this volume, Deadpool has become self-aware, and is intent on killing the very idea of superheroes, etc, which begins in the "classics."  So Deadpool goes out into the universe and kills Moby Dick, the ladies of Little Women (don't worry- he doesn't walk away unscathed), the Musketeers, and other literary characters, in his attempt kill the root of the Marvel characters.  Meanwhile, he is being tracked by Sherlock Holmes and a gang of other literary characters, intent on saving their own existences.  This book was pretty wild- I thought it was funny, and as a lover of reading, etc, there are some interesting allusions made.  There's some mild gore, though, that might offend those of a sensitive nature.