Amazing graphic history of the Kent State massacre, told partly through the stories of the 4 who were killed that day. Before I read this book, I knew little enough about the massacre that if I hadn't been reading the endnotes concurrently, I think I would have been shocked that 4 of the main people the narrative followed were killed! I was also surprised at how familiar the 1970 atmosphere of paranoia & disinformation feels in 2020 (or honestly, 2016, or 2006, etc). The surveillance, misinformation, & paranoia fostered by law enforcement at all levels in 1970 also goes a long way to explain to me how the last 40 years of conservative & national security state dominance (even during the Obama & Clinton presidencies) were able to take place after the successes of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in the 50s-60s. The Epilogue really drives home the fact that the police are using the same sorts of lies & justifications they used 50 years ago because they learned that they work! Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio really connects a lot of dots. The art is amazing & a great example of Derf's evocative to the point of disgust style that I've been a fan of since I first read The City in Funny Times however long ago that was.

Fledgling has many of the themes found in other Butler novels, such as alternative communities, secret societies, transhumanist trade-offs, & weird/gross sex (& sort-of sex) stuff. If only Butler had lived longer and churned out a bunch of sequels, Fledgling could have been the standard bearer of the early 2000s vampire craze, instead of that other 2005 Vampire novel.

Such a Fun Age might be the first book I've read set in or about Philadelphia. Even with all of its cringeyness, Such a Fun Age is hard to put down, & hard to stop thinking about, especially all the ways a white person can convince themselves that they're not a part of racism. I was a little surprised that the story would have such a clear villain in it. I could see this book being made into a movie, whenever movies start being produced again. I could also see a movie bungling some of the nuances.

Graphical creepily illustrated essay about car culture that asks why we tolerate drivers killing & injuring thousands of people a year with their cars. Mostly takes a philosophical psycho-cultural perspective on why we choose do drive cars, & why we accept their costs. Doesn't really go into the ways that car-centric transport choices are chosen for us by the transit decisions of our local, state, & national government. Makes a good case for driving slower & more carefully, but that is not really the main point. The endnotes contain the supporting statistics & are worth flipping to. Personally, I probably didn't need to read this book, since I already hate driving (which is probably why I never clean my car, or repair cosmetic damage on it). The illustrations of streets empty of cars or people were creepy; I couldn't decide if it was meant to evoke the dream of the open road free of any other people or vehicles getting in the way, or the isolation of the person in the car driving alone on the streets & highways. The emptiness of the visuals reminded me a bit of the Men's Recovery Project video "the Humans".

Stephen King's vampire novel. Has many of Stephen King's usual themes (teams & teamwork, good versus evil, an aged dying sage, a young warrior, a writer trying to find himself, faith/belief, rationality versus the supernatural, evil taunts, dying places, & axes crashing into doors) that would be developed further in later books (The Stand, It, Dark Tower, The Shining). Didn't have some of King's other trademarks (parentheses, italics, parentheses). Also reminded me of some small towns I have visited. Could be seen as an allegory of the death of small town America, but I think it's more like a thought experiment asking the question "what would Vampires do if they moved into a small town, America".

Biography of a secret agent who was careful to leave few traces behind. The main thing I learned about Virginia Hall is that she was a consummate spook. One of the things that struck me about Hall's undercover work in occupied France was how vital the passive & unorganized resistance of so many of the French people were to the resistance movement. While the danger of informers was ever present & real, the resistance was constantly helped by strangers (even including Vichy police!) either turning a blind eye to their activities or warning them of danger. This is apart from all the people who were willing to actively work for the resistance either for patriotism or money (again, even including Vichy officials & police). I've seen mentions of a possible movie about Hall, but I'm not sure how well her life would translate into the biopic format. Her pre-war foreign service career would be enough for movie in itself. Her wartime service alone would probably take 2 movies to do it justice. I don't like to think of the montage most directors would use for her post-war career doldrums. Overall, a great read!

A report of sorts on the state of pedestrian safety in the United States, taking the perspective of traffic deaths & injuries as a public health crisis. Discusses the auto-centric mindset that pervades transportation decision making. I would have liked if the section about the media's influences on our perception of pedestrian traffic deaths were longer. I wish there had been more detail about the history of the term "Jaywalking", and more about how views on the appropriate use of streets changed to where we are today. I most of all wish there was more good news and progress for this book to cover! I hate real-life Frogger!

Easy to read but dense history of racist ideas in the United States. A long explanation of why "the master's tools will never destroy the master's house". Kendi delineates three schools of racial ideas: segregationists, assimilationists, & anti-racists: segregationists are against Black people (the "classic" racists), assimilationists attempt to use racist ideas for Black people's benefit (e.g. proponents of "respectability politics"), & anti-racists are against racism in all it's forms (including the "benevolent" racism of assimilationists). Kendi at one point summed up the differences between the three schools roughly by how they reacted to the Amos & Andy characters: segregationists laughed at them & used them as examples of Black inferiority, assimilationists deplored Amos & Andy because they were examples of Black inferiority, & anti-racists laughed with & identified with Amos & Andy. That the "middle ground" between racism & anti-racism constitutes its own school of thought is a new idea to me. So too is Kendi's idea that progress for anti-racism does not automatically equate to defeat or retreat for racism, with racism developing in parallel with anti-racism. Assimilationists' approach of attempting to refute racism on the racists' terms invariably creates new racist discourse, advancing racist ideas. At the same time, assimilationists sometimes produced anti-racist ideas, or found themselves evolving into anti-racists (the book shows with W.E.B. DuBois). In Kendi's view, only anti-racism can defeat racist segregationist ideas.

Coming-of-age story which features a small town, oddball personalities, weird parent situations, hoarders, and estate sales (which combines the funeral voyeur & vintage aficionado themes). I enjoyed how the book had a very detailed setting, that it chose to show only part of to us the readers.

Amazing graphical biography of Rod Serling. Serling's story & career also gives a great glimpse into the early years of television & how radio gave way to television as the preeminent mass media of the U.S. All of this is wrapped up in a suitably Serlingian vehicle. Makes me want to watch his 1-season western show.