Learning never ends.

Title: The Doll in the Garden
Author: Mary Downing Hahn
Published: HarperCollins, 2007 (1989)
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 130
Total Page Count: 557,180
Text Number: 2095
Read Because: spotted here, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A girl finds an antique doll buried in her new landlady's backyard and ties it to a local haunting. This is indulgently gothic, located largely in its tableaux and concept; the writing is workmanlike, and probably the sort of thing that works best at a certain age, when childhood imagination can expand the bare bones into an atmosphere. But having just read Mahy's The Haunting, I'm particularly aware that MG can do that work itself; it doesn't need to be this bare bones. But they are good bones, particularly the sensitive and compelling depiction of grief.

I've been wanting nothing but books since the calendar rollover. Maybe I could attribute that to the influx of year's-best roundups, not that it's compelled me to work on my own; maybe it's just the sense of ~potential~ although that's rarely something I attribute to New Year's. Been reading a lot, regardless. Including checking to see what's new to me in Silver Sprocket's catalog since I discovered them last year. There's a lot!


Title: Electric Cowboy
Author: Ansel Kite
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2025
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 50
Total Page Count: 556,625
Text Number: 2089
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: A short but ineffably dense comic about someone traversing their lover's memory. It demands multiple readings but remains somewhat opaque even then. Is that a flaw? Every page is doing something, often every word, but the sketchiness makes it an effort to close read; but that reading is rewarding, both puzzle-like and intuitively emotional; but, after that work, I don't want to still be grasping. A little cleanup or a few extra pages might not have gone amiss. I love it anyway, particularly the tone, moving fluidly between wonder and horror, love and betrayals. This is particularly impressive as a debut, and reaffirms my admiration of Silver Sprocket as a publisher.


Title: My Body Unspooling
Author: Leo Fox
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2024
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 30
Total Page Count: 556,655
Text Number: 2090
Read Because: reading the publisher/fan of the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: Leo Fox is absolutely Doing Something, and I like it. The length of this perforce constrains it; it's almost a poem, an extended metaphor, figured in Fox's distinctive drippy, trippy art. But I jive with its meditation on the body/mind relationship, the frustrations and needs of corporeality, even if I'd like a stronger reunion, more concrete and justified.


Title: Leftstar and the Strange Occurrence
Author: Jean Fhilippe
Published: Silver Sprocket, 2023
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 90
Total Page Count: 556,745
Text Number: 2091
Read Because: reading the publisher, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library via Hoopla
Review: A creator of worlds finds his work faltering, so goes in search of aid. A debut graphic novel in clean, wobbly monochrome, functioning as a metaphor for creative work (engaging in, finishing, what do creators owe their creations) in unsurprising ways, structured as a fantastical travelogue. That's not a combo that works for me—it's cute, millennial, whimsical vibes, very feel-good, and I don't agree with the conclusions of the running metaphor. But the majority of that is an issue of personal taste; I can see this working well for others.