Three Words - NZ, Women, Comics

I'm a huge fan of short comics. Upon discovering NZ author (as well as comic artist and zine-maker) Sarah Laing, I fell in love with the simplicity of her autobiographical comics. After this, I kept seeing her work everywhere. And then I noticed - I kept seeing NZ comic artists everywhere. And a lot of them were women. Or, they've been there the whole time, and I never bothered to look.

But now, I'm bothering.

Earlier this year, Three Words: an anthology of Aotearoa/NZ women's comics was published. A whole anthology of comics from our very own artists, from all over the country, with the purpose of getting our creative women and their work out from the shadows and into a book - into your libraries, onto your coffee tables, into your hands.

And the theme? Simple - each artist would give three words to another, and in return, receive three words from someone else. Then, they incorporate those words into a comic (literally or figuratively) which you get to feast your eyes on.

With a huge variety of artists - from those who breathe comics, to those who are doing them for the first time - Three Words is a diverse and fantastic way to get to know the women who you probably pass on the street, and the creativity that they put on the page.

A Little Bit Of Something New

I love finding new things and, as always, our hardworking selectors at Auckland Libraries have been busy ordering heaps of new titles to add to our collections.

It's always exciting and interesting seeing what is coming out; a new book by a favourite author, a sequel you've been waiting absolutely ages for or a title that sounds and looks intriguing that you just have to add it to your holds lists.

That Sugar Guide  ---  The Girl Who Fell ---  Wink Poppy Midnight  ---  What's For Dinner  ---  At The Edge Of The Orchard  ---  See Me  ---  The Ice Child  ---  Crow of Mist and Fury  --- Six of Crows  ---  The Glittering Court

And it's not just new books that we order but new music CD's, DVDs, AudioBooks, ebooks and eaudio, magazines and a host of other things, all to enhance our collection.

We find a lot of our new titles by looking through magazines and newspapers, websites, blogs, Twitter, Facebook.... you name it and our selectors are looking through it.

Of course we miss things too, mostly because there is just so much information for us to look through.  We is why we rely on you, our customers, to let us know if we have missed something.

Water or Gold  ---  Harmony House  ---  Lukas Graham  ---  Mind of Mine  ---  Telluric  ---  I'll Forget 17  ---  Blues of Desperation  ---  Beautiful Lies  ---  Know-it-all  ---  The Narrows

Many of our new titles are from customer suggestions which is just awesome - would you believe we get around 900 suggestions for purchase a week.

Now that is pretty wonderful.

So check out some of the new titles in our collection and maybe make a few suggestions of your own.

Spotlight  ---  The Dressmaker  ---  Human Universe  ---  Suffragette  ---  Brooklyn  ---  The Night Manager  ---  In The Heart Of The Sea  ---  The Peanuts Movie  ---  iZombie  ---  Ripper Street

Olfactory Observations with Lizzie Ostrom

I love perfume. I love it as much as a person on a pretty stringent budget can – I usually can’t afford it, thusly, I love to read about it. I spend an inordinate amount of time trawling on fragrantica.com, and if I’m honest I feel that my profile there is the most revealing profile of myself on any social media forum. I think knowing that I *will* wear Autumn/Winter scents in Spring/Summer, that I am definitely not above wearing Britney Spears Midnight Fantasy, and that I suffered an addiction to Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium during my formative years is pretty much all you need to know about me.

Perfume can say a lot about a person – about their real or imagined selves, or at least whether or not you could stand being in a tight space with them.

In Lizzie Ostrom’s Perfume: A Century of Scents, you learn that it can say a lot about people in a much broader sense – politically, socially, geographically and more. As a harbinger of cultural developments and nuances, perfume is convincing and enthralling. Via a selection of 100 perfumes spanning 1900-1999, Ostrom waxes philosophical about their meaning, function, and creation and there is some interesting and still very relevant content – for instance, the façade (and ensuing mark up!) of ‘natural’ products (newsflash: a lot of toxic chemicals are natural), the cult of the celebrity and the ever-present devices of the advertising industry – how it has changed, and how it really hasn’t changed.

As a cultural investigation, it is impressive. But it’s also just fun to read, especially if you’re like me and are a person who loves perfume, and finds themselves asking strangers “Are you wearing Kenzo???” or slightly unnerving them by guessing which scent they’re wearing (I do this to patrons frequently, I’m not sure if they’re actually unnerved but I will definitely suggest Ostrom’s book to them in the future).

Whether you grew up during the 40’s and wore Madame by Rochas, or the 70’s when Jovan Musk was all the rage, or the 90’s when everyone wanted to smell fresh and preppy and loved Tommy Girl (memories of walking down Jervois Road with my mother as child come flooding back whenever I smell this!) – I think you will enjoy it. I remain heartbroken that Cacharel’s LouLou didn’t make the list, but I am willing to forgive.

Enjoy! And P.S - isn't Lizzie Ostrom gorgeous??? You can marvel at her here.

 

Graphic novels for Grown ups: Part two

Continuing on from my blog post about my great love for Terry Moore, here are some more of my must read graphic novels for grown ups. There is a little something for everyone here, and it is really interesting to note that one of these series are currently in production as a new upcoming TV series, and another is about to launch season two through the Playstation network - so get in first and read the books so you can be all 'I totally know what's happening next' like all those Walking Dead comic fans ;)

First up on my list is the fabulous Fables by Bill Willingham. This is a series that I WISH was going to be a TV show, but I'll settle for the fact that I can play the spin off game The Wolf Among Us (anything to get my Bigby fix). In this series, all the fairytale and folklore characters we know and love have been forced from their homelands by the big bad 'The Adversary', and they are living in a secret community called Fabletown within our world New York. They call themselves Fables (we're the mundys), and anyone who can't pass themselves off as a mundy ends up at the Farm in upstate New York. The best thing about this series is seeing beloved characters in a whole new light. For example, I'm never going to look at Jack (as in Jack and the beanstalk, Jack be nimble, and Jack Horner....he's pretty much any Jack you can think of) the same way again, he is hilariously a bad bad boy. And that Bigby I mentioned before? That's the big bad wolf in human form, and I adore him like you wouldn't believe. He and Snow White may be my most favourite Ship ever. I've read this series over a long 10 years, patiently waiting for each new volume, and yes, I may have shed tears when the final volume was released not so long ago. You are super lucky though, because now you (lucky reader) can binge the entire series like there is no tomorrow!

And then you can also read the two spin off series Fairest and Jack of fables.

Next up on my must reads list is Ex Machina by Brian K Vaughan. Pretty much anything written by Mr Vaughan is very good squishy indeed, but this series is my ultimate favourite of his. First up, please note this has nothing to do with the movie by the same name (I got a little excited when I read about the movie, but nope, something else). This series focusses on Mitchell Hundred, also known as the superhero The Great Machine. While on the surface this looks like a superhero / sci-fi comic, in reality it is such an interesting statement piece on politics, as in light of Mitchell's superhero actions during the 9/11 tragedy, he is elected the mayor of New York City. The story flips between his current role in office, and flashbacks to his time as The Great Machine (and the mystery surrounding how that came to be). With a rich cast of (often plenty flawed) characters, this is seriously good must read stuff.

Preacher by Garth Ennis is the series that is about to hit our screens (it starts screening in the US in May) and this is the potential next Walking Dead. It has such a dream cast, and I CAN'T WAIT to see what they do with the source material. This series was always a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. I collected every issue, but always felt slightly guilty reading it, because OMG they went there, and with all the bad language imaginable (and I was such a good girl in those days, which was about 15-20 years ago). But it was such compulsive and compelling reading and I always had to know what came next. Jessie Custer is a slightly conflicted small town preacher who ends up with a bit of an unusual ability. As a result of that, he heads out with his ex-girlfriend Tulip (she is soooo kick butt, I love her) and an Irish vampire named Cassidy on a mission to find God. Yep, you read that right, a preacher and a vamp on a quest to find God. They have the craziest adventures on the way, and meet some highly disturbed and disturbing characters, some of whom I have tried my best to forget since finishing this series a long time ago, bahahaha. I think it says something about this series, that when my husband and I first moved in together, we were both collecting and reading this individually, and neither of us was willing to be the one to stop buying it, so we both brought it until the very end, lol.

Last up on my list is Powers by Brian Michael Bendis. Now, Mr Bendis is another writer who you totally can't miss with, I love anything of his that I have read. I started reading his comics way back when with Alias, which was one of the first 'adult' Marvel comics written under the Max imprint. That series featured the now rather well known Jessica Jones, ex super heroine and current private eye (thanks Netflix for bringing her to life). I loved Jessica, but for me Powers was where it was at. It is another superhero comic with a difference - this one focusses on Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, two homicide detectives who work on cases that involve those with 'powers'. The cases are gritty, and the dynamic between the two lead characters is unmissable. This was made into a TV series that played through the Playstation network last year, and season two is due to start in May this year.....bring it baby!

Literary Houses - nostalgia, fantasy and magical places

I’ve been feeling nostalgic for the fiction of my childhood for a number of reasons over the past couple of months. I found out about the death of Jonathon Crombie, who played undeniable heartthrob Gilbert Blythe in the Anne of Green Gables. I mean yes, he left us nearly a year ago, but I only found out a few weeks ago. Silo cinema screened The Secret Garden, and then The Princess Bride. Plus, taking two postgraduate papers at Summer school alongside work left me exceedingly keen to ignore adult life and delve into something cosier and more magical. Valentine’s Day has probably also had something to do with it – I’ll never again find a love like Tom Sawyer or Samwise Gamgee, after all.

In typical me fashion, I’ve wanted to revisit the literature but I can’t decide. I can’t choose, and what if I find it’s just too junior now and it ruins it for me? I huffed and puffed and requested and returned. Until I found the perfect book. I could not have imagined a better one. I stumbled upon it on a goodreads wander, swooned, and located a copy in the central basement. It’s one of the best basement treasures I have found yet.

Children's Literary Houses is an illustrated guide to famous dwelling’s in children’s fiction. The dwellings’ are taken from such literary delights as The Secret Garden, Little Women, David Copperfield and Alice in Wonderland. The art is gorgeous, and the excerpts are superbly well-chosen. And as if it weren’t already perfect for my current dilemma, it just happens to be written by Lisa Tuttle – one of my favourite science fiction/fantasy/horror writers, prolific from the 1980’s onward – and Rosalind Ashe, who appears to be of the same oeuvre. I infuriatingly cannot credit the beautiful illustrations, which are simply credited as “Copyright Dragon’s World Ltd, 1984”.

Dragon’s World Ltd, though, appear to be an absolute goldmine of fantasy, science fiction and esoteric art publishing out of Surrey during the late 70’s and early 80’s. For fans of Chris Achilleos and Heavy Metal etc, it should be worth investigating. And an added Bonus: Rosalind Ashe, I discovered, published Literary Houses two years prior, and it is just as brilliant.

So if you're looking for a smorgasbord of nostalgia with some beautiful - have a look!