A gorgeously illustrated picture book version of a well-known Scottish ballad. This story has been retold many times and expanded into full length YA and adult novels. Jane Yolan's version keeps to the bones of the song, and is elegant in it's simplicity.

I anticipated this being a difficult book to read, but while the subject matter is indeed serious the prose is conversational, personal and very accessible. This is, in fact, the "easiest" book I have ever read which tackles race head-on and I'm very grateful for it. Oluo lays out practical strategies for engaging in conversations about race in America, whether they come up at work, in a social setting or online. She gives factual information, with cited sources leading to more research. Some of the topics include intersectionality, police brutality, affirmative action, microaggressions, student protests and local political action. I was extremely ignorant about race and racism for essentially my entire life up until grad school. I feel like I'm still in the baby steps phase of even recognizing the scope of our country's deeply rooted systemic racist problems. This book helped, and I highly recommend it.

This book has been on my radar for a long time, and I'm glad I finally sat down to read it! It's a fun, quirky memoir about growing up as a girl outside the traditional presentations of femininity. From a very young age Liz hated dresses and "girly stuff". Band t-shirts, baseball hats, jeans and sneakers were always what made her feel most like herself. This became more of a challenge in high school when Liz became as interested in boys as her most feminine piers, but was mystified as to how a tomboy went about getting a boyfriend. I love a teenage awakening that includes wisdom from zines.

This comic is gorgeously illustrated, each page a rich tapestry of colors and patterns, calling to mind Persian rugs and Indian manuscript paintings. The story is pulled from a middle portion of the Tale of a Thousand and One Nights, though I assume somewhat modified by the author. Page one introduces Scheherazade as a frame-narrator, but she is relatively unimportant to the story, though small scrolls interrupt throughout to tell the reader "And it was the 483rd night... and it was the 484th night..." periodically. The story itself is very fairy-tale-like in that none of the characters are given much of a motivation or growth arc- they fall in love at a glance and decide to secure or throw away their fortunes with no premeditation. Overall I found this book exquisitely rendered but unmoving.

This volume collects the first 100 or so pages of the mind-bendingly strange webcomic of the same name. The story told here covers only three or four days. In the opening scene Allison, a grad student, is determined to have sex for the first time ever with a boyfriend of no particular quality. Suddenly a portal opens in their bedroom and a god, or demon, enters, chased by a flaming army. This being embeds a mystic key in Allison's forehead, kidnaps her boyfriend, and disappears. Allison is flung into a confusing alternate dimension. She is collected by an angel who recognizes the power of the key, and the rest of the book is taken up by Allison slowly coming to understand what the hell is happening around her. It's too long, too wordy, wayyyy too much exposition, but it's visually captivating and unlike anything I've read before. If I was reading it online I likely would have given up on it, but the ability to easily flip backwards and forwards in the print volume kept me engaged. I'll likely wait until Image releases more in print before I decide if I plan to read more.

This book collects the very earliest published short stories by sci-fi/fantasy author Elizabeth Moon. Written between 1986-1995, many of them feel a little dated. A number of the stories center on men who failed to read the contracts before they signed, and this level of incompetence can be hard to empathize with. There are some standouts however- "ABCs in Zero G" tells of a hardworking team of EMTs on a space station and the unique challenges of administering emergency care to patients in space suits, and without the aid of gravity. "A Delicate Adjustment" is a tense story of medical ethics in a world in which declining fertility, embryo cloning projects, and human emotions lead to a clash of legality and morality. There are two military stories, "Politics" and "In Suspect Terrain" which both felt quite original for such a well-trod genre. The final story is set in the world of Moon's fantasy trilogy The Deed of Paksenarrion.

A thoughtful and deeply researched survey of the importance of Indigenous literature. Justice divides the book into four main sections, each titled with a question: "How do we learn to be human? How do we become good relatives? How to we become good ancestors? How so we learn to live together?" Indigenous texts and authors have always addressed these deep and vital concerns, and they continue to do so today. Justice pulls quotes from novels, poems, plays and essays that especially address these points, and weaves them together with political and social context. I am not very well read in this genre, so most of the authors were not familiar to me. As I read I kept a list of all the books that especially caught my interest, and I now have a long list for future reading.

I backed this comic on kickstarter and then completely forgot about it. I was happily surprised when the small, charming volume arrived in the mail! It contains 13 stories by Australian comics artists about body hair and its social stigmas. Some standouts were "Hair Suit" by Sarah Catherine Firth, "Resplendent" by Alex E Clark and "Memento" by Ele Jenkins.