msjamgochian'sinfinitebooklist

Shooting War: The New Graphic Novel (trailer) from SMITHmag on Vimeo . An atmospheric graphic novel set in the present future (May 2011) with an all too realistic take on the war in Iraq. A perfect match for fans of Brian Wood's DMZ, the story features indie left-wing blogger Jimmy Burns as an embedded journalist working in Baghdad for Global News, an "extreme news" network. Dan Goldman's illustrations combine photography, vector illustration, and digital painting, lending stark reality to the story. Don't miss the Shooting War website for extras. Grade 9+

I thoroughly enjoyed Ms.Guo's 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth , and when I saw this book at the airport, I bought it on a whim. When facing a ten hour flight, I often oversupply myself with my Kindle PLUS several books in print (kind of defeats the purpose of the ebook, doesn't it?). Despite the title, this is not a book about UFOs, but a treatise on the hazards of modernization in rural China. On September 11, 2012, 38 year-old peasant girl Kwok Yun passes out in a rice field, only to wake up and find a bleeding snake-bitten man who needs help. She takes him to her home, provides medical assistance, and he disappears while she is sleeping. She tells her story to the chief of her small village, who promptly informs Kwok Yun that she has seen a UFO and possibly had contact with an alien. When Chief Chang seizes the opportunity to bring fame and fortune to her ailing village of Silver Hill, the results are darkly comical and disastrous for the locals. Told in a series of intervi

"Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume no one really knows anything that matters at all. Because, alas, we don't. All of our stories our suspect." Inspired by a polaroid photograph of a human head indentation in sheet rock, Chris Bohjalian's dark portrait of domestic abuse is told in the alternating voices of a troubled and cynical pastor, a battered Vermont housewife, a popular self-help book writer that sees angels, and the orphaned teenage daughter of the abused wife. When Alice and George Hayward are found dead in their home (she, strangled, and he, shot in the head), everyone assumes that it is a murder-suicide, but pastor Stephen Drew becomes a suspect when his former affair with Alice becomes public knowledge. A page-turning literate thriller with a surprise ending.

SSTLS was super funny yet super depressing, because it took issues that sometimes keep me up at night (injustice global warming war peak oil disasters consumerism superficiality getting old) and turned them into a future American apocalyptic reality. The book spoke to me - maybe because Mr. Shteyngart is a fellow member of Gen X, maybe because the sad sack main character, Lenny Abramov, loves books, maybe because he is a hopeless romantic, maybe because the world he lives in is largely being transformed in a way that he is ill-equipped to keep up with, maybe because he has one foot in the past and one foot in the future. Read it and weep.

This gripping, grim, yet hopeful young adult novel is set in an unnamed developing country and tells the story of three 'dumpsite' boys in alternating voices. Raphael and Gardo are working, picking through the trash at the garbage dump they live in, when they find a small leather bag containing a wallet, a map, and a key. The wallet contains a month's worth of dumpsite wages, but Raph and Gardo realize there may be more to discover, and ask their friend Rat to stash their find until they can figure out what to do. When the police show up, they know they are on to something big. With nothing to lose, they decide to follow the trail, and are relentlessly pursued by a corrupt and violent police squad. Mulligan , who based the dumpsite loosely on a place he visited while living in Manila, paints a realistic portrait of dumpsite life and the inescapable cycle of poverty as it plays out daily for children born into it in developing countries. The fast-paced action and intricate p