"Manga" Flavia ~ The Girl Who Dreamed of Sailor Neptune & Alan Bradley

We got another one!  Finally, after spending the summer away from the drawing board, I picked up my pen and paper and got to work.  The idea was just sketch something out.  Sometime simple.  Something clean.  Just anything to get the drawing juices flowing.  Gathering my supplies, I decided to include some extra equipment.  That would be my camera and my lamp.  And this is where I ended up...

PENCIL & SKETCH

INK & TRACE

~1~Sailor Moon Playing Cards (Video)

Amazon Affiliate link to 2012's deck style!

2000 -2001 Sailor Moon Collectible Card Game (Video)

Oh How I LOVED His Mask

I’m not going to speak much about Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask.  A modest description: the fraught inner confessions of a closeted man coming up in Japan between the 20s and 50s.  But the book is also a meditative (sometimes to the point of brooding) and introspective encounter.  One you’ll have to witness for yourself–if you will.  I say that because the book seems driven more or less by plot, and it wasn't until its conclusion that I took it as less. 

So to me, Confessions of a Mask wasn't a diarist scratching pen to paper underneath a burning candle.  Though it's easy to see the book that way, as it chronicles the events of Mishima’s protagonist from childhood to adulthood.  However, a stimulating and introspective piece of fiction is what I left the book with–carried by a genuinely captivating protagonist.  So, thankfully, Mishima's lead owned a keen grasp of his surrounds and inner conflicts.  Enough to keep me engaged with his musings, and either frowning or grinning at his choices. 

Within Mishima's protagonist, the book addresses familiar social, psychological, and physical arenas visited by gay men.  And the protagonist delivers pieces of the verbose identifiable with others who've found themselves locked in his view and scenarios. 

However, an acknowledgeable distinction comes from the region, culture, and time the book takes place.  To elaborate a little, Mishima’s protagonist finds a multitude of reasons to acquaint an attractiveness for death with being gay.  Though the contemplation of death is not foreign for gay men to preoccupy themselves with; culturally speaking, many Japanese have a reverence for the subject of death (research Shinigami or Buddhism from the Edo Period forward).  This, in turn, shined a lot more brightly in Mishima's Confessions of a Mask.  Though that absolutely doesn't qualify as a detriment of any sort.  I only found it part of the flavor and uniqueness of this particular experience.  It also slipped in a sense of suspense regarding the protagonist's fate.

Wonderful book.  Easily five stars for me.  I will definitely follow up on more Mishima novels.

1997 Sailor Moon Cards by Card Zillion & Ban Dai

1st Fall Haul ~ And The Ones I Want

Books!  Books!  Books!  Let's all buy books!

I want to share my first Fall reading haul.  I still got a couple of Spring and Summer books I want to get to, but you know how it goes.  See a book.  Buy a book.  Save a book.  And when the mood strikes, notice your options and finally read the book. 

Naturally, I had to get the latest J. D. Robb futuristic crime-fiction thriller, Devoted in Death.  That’s a no-brainer.  Book number 41 has homicide lieutenant, Eve Dallas, battling a couple who cross-country drive ala Bonnie and Clyde-fashion.  Oh, did I mention they're spree killers?  The minute I close this post–and shut down watching This Is Life with Lisa Ling–I’m running back to this thriller.

Speaking of J. D. Robb, I got Nora Roberts’s Key of Knowledge.  This is book two in Roberts’s Key Trilogy.  Here’s what Goodreads has to say about it:

What happens when the very gods depend on mortals for help? That's what three very different young women find out when they are invited to Warrior's Peak. 

To librarian Dana Steele, books and the knowledge they hold are the key to contentment. But now that search for knowledge must include the second key needed to release three souls held captive by an evil god. In each generation three are chosen who have the power to release them - if they dare accept a challenge that could promise them great riches but also grave danger... 

As I mentioned in my post about the first book in the trilogy, I’ve decided to keep reading this series.  The same applies for Alan Bradley’s third book in his Flavia de Luce mystery series.  The second book was a touch disappointing, but I’m dedicated to watching eleven-year-old Flavia’s snooping unfold.  In book three, The Red Herring Without Mustard, we see Flavia…

Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer had abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? Had it something to do with the weird sect who met at the river to practice their secret rites? While still pondering the possibilities, Flavia stumbles upon another corpse--that of a notorious layabout who had been caught prowling about the de Luce's drawing room.

Finally, so moved by The Swimming Pool Library, I grabbed a copy of Alan Hollinghurst’s latest offering, The Stranger’s Child.

Anybody else take pictures of books to remind themselves to buy them later?  You know, while browsing the bookstore?  Well, I’ve been doing some of that as well, and had to take a few shots of the books I want to get in the future.  Sometimes, you just don’t want to pay full price for a book and have to do some bargain shopping online.

As an advent fan of the Ghost Adventures TV show, I’ve kept the two hosts' (well, one is a former host) paranormal/biography releases on my list.  I absolutely love Ghost Adventures.  I have to watch the show every Friday and Saturday.  And have been dating back to its October 2008 premiere.  There’s a comforting quality to stapling this show inside my weekends.  And I would love to post more on why I love the show; flaws and all.  Nonetheless, the point is that I want to read these damn books by paranormal investigators Nick Groff and Zak Bagans.

And the last book I really want to get my hands on is this one…

That’s all, folks!  Let’s read!  And what have you hauled in to open up the Fall season?

Stand Your Ground

Okay, let’s talk a little about Victoria Christopher Murray’s Stand Your Ground: A Novel.  First, I want to say this is a first for me with Murray.  I walked in unfamiliar with her writing, but with intense curiosity for the message of her book.  Yet, I have to say, I walked away with my expectations marginally unmet.  But I’ll get to that a little later. 

Now what is Stand Your Ground about?  Truth: we can take this piece of controversially-driven fiction and apply it to our present-day reality.  The book serves as the author’s voice/response to a rising American dilemma.  A dilemma entailing the killings of unarmed black boys and men.  

We've heard and found ourselves touched by their stories over these past few years.  And “years” is an understatement to the actual dilemma's history.  The murdering of unarmed black boys/men (girls/women as well) has been a recurring American issue before slaves even landed in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.  I mean, let's be for real.  What's happening in our community today is a direct reflection of our ancestor's yesteryears.  But I’ll digress in this moment by pinpointing some present examples haunting our news feeds.  One would be the loss of Trayvon Martin [Sandford, Flordia] back in 2012.  Another, Eric Garner [New York City, New York] in 2014.  Michael Brown [Ferguson, Missouri] 2014.  And one of the latest atrocities, Sandra Bland [Waller County, Texas] 2015.

You’ve all heard these names before.  You’ve all heard them recently.  And as much as I want to delve into each of their stories, I know it’ll lead this post to a topic for another conversation.  A topic I would have to be careful not to get into my feelings about.  

As it concerns Stand Your Ground, Murray opens her novel through the focal point of a woman name Janice Johnson.  Janice is about to face her worst nightmare: her teenage son is dead.  According to the police who arrived at her doorstep late one night, it was a shooting.  One in which a white man took her son's life.  The argument is whether the man was standing his ground against Janice’s son, or was it an act of murder?  The D.A. gets involved alongside the police to build a case against the shooter.  Meanwhile, Janice’s husband and brother-in-law organize a roaring protest for justice.

That’s not all…