Cracking the Books

I don't have time tonight to get into what I did in Puerto Plata, so here's what I read there (and since):

Riding the Rap. An Elmore Leonard novel about Raylan Givens, now best known for being the lead character of the new show on FX, Justified. The novel was terrific (I expect no less from Leonard), and there were a lot of elements taken from it used in Episode 4: "Fixer."

Last Words: My brother gave me George Carlin's autobiography for my birthday last year, and I finally got a chance to read it. I planned on reading a chapter or so and then start another novel, but it was so engrossing that I'd finished it by the time were were stateside again. There aren't many showbiz biographies I'm interested in, but Carlin's a hero of mine. He didn't disappoint.

The Book of Three. The first book in Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series. I've read this a number of times. Inspired by Welsh mythology, these books are to me what Tolkien's are to most of my friends. They're the fields of fantasy I played in as a kid, and they've only gotten broader and richer since I've returned. Next up is The Black Cauldron.

Power Girl: A New Beginning. I missed the first six issues of Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray & Amanda Connor's Power Girl comics, so I'm happy to see the book I've dug since issue 7 started out so strong. Every character Connor draws is filled with such personality and life, and Palmiotti and Gray provide her with playful scripts that never paint the hero is a real, flesh-and-blood person... and give the book great New York flavor, as well.

And rounding things off with another gritty crime drama, there's Daredevil: Cruel and Unusual, an well-done five-issue sequence which starts with Matt Murdock at a psychological low point, until he's confronted with a chance to defend a career criminal on death row...but who didn't do the crime he's going to die for. So why'd he confess? By Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka, Michael Lark and Paul Azaceta.

There you have it: Rob's Reading Corner.

Rob