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Hit Lit by James W. Hall

What makes a bestseller? (No fair saying "a lot of people buying the same book." I mean, that's true, but it's not terribly helpful.) What attracts millions of readers to the same book, and what makes...

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Nancy Is Happy by Ernie Bushmiller

Actually, Nancy isn't all that happy too much of the time -- a lot of Bushmiller's gags in the three years of comics collected here require her to be annoyed (or annoying), grumpy, sad, rained on, or...

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Read in December

If all goes to plan -- and when has that ever happened? -- this will go up on time, just after the stroke of midnight on January 1, and I'll be back on schedule with these monthly posts for the first...

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Favorite Books of 2015

Everyone connected with the book world is required by law to have a list of the best books of the prior year -- similar regulations cover movies and music -- and so here is my obligatory list to keep...

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How 2015 Was Hornswoggled

Once upon a time, there was a meme. And it was pleasant enough, for its time, and it led to some lists of links on a social-networking platform that later went into a decline.Some people, though, don't...

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Zenith: Phases One to Four by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell

Zenith is quite likely the best possible revisionist superhero comic series told in five-page chapters. That sounds like damning with faint praise, and there's an aspect of that -- those short chapters...

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Gou-Dere Sora Nagihara, Vols. 1-4 by Suu Minazuki

So there's this guy, see? Name of Shouta. And he's obsessed with the female lead character in his favorite manga story, which he re-reads over and over again. (He's otherwise the usual shonen lead...

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Family by Ian Frazier

Everyone's family is full of stories, both the ones that are told proudly and the ones that are whispered at best. Most of those only stick around for a generation or two, though -- stories from...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 1/2

Apparently, not everyone has been as lackadaisical over Christmas week as I've been -- I thought I wouldn't have any books to write up this week, but two snuck in on Friday, proving the hardworking...

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A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley

This is the book that broke me, broke the Vintage Contemporaries reading series, broke it all to hell. A Fan's Notes has only 383 pages in the edition I read, but it took three long weeks to slog...

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The Devil's Only Friend by Dan Wells

John Wayne Cleaver is barely an adult, but he's already killed multiple times -- though, as he'd be quick to tell you, he hasn't killed any human beings, despite great urges to do so, only demonic...

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The Undertaking by Thomas Lynch

I knew that Lynch was both a poet and the hands-on owner of a family funeral business when I picked up this book, so I had high but unspecified hopes. I did not know that he was also a bourgeois Irish...

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Descender, Vol. 1 by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

We will never get away from the image of the killer robot, despite all of the hard work by Isaac Asimov during his long career. We will always assume, deep down, that any mechanical man secretly wants...

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Incoming Books: January 3

So, I screwed up on the last day of my holiday break, a week ago today. I thought I had tickets for a 2 PM show at the New Victory theater in NYC that day, so I packed up my two boys -- well, they're...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 1/9

Sometimes I think I do these weekly posts just so people can check if I am dead. (Answer for this week: No.)This is particularly true when, as is more and more common lately, I don't have any books to...

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Incoming Books: January 15

I needed to buy a few things -- primarily, a possible new commuting bag -- with the ability to return them easily, so I placed an order from that hegemonic South American river at the beginning of this...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of January 16

Hey, I'm back again. And this week, I want to try to correct what might be an incorrect assumption some people might have. (Is that enough waffling for one sentence?)I do get some books for free, and...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 1/23

Greetings, cake-sniffers!Did you all survive the Snowpocalypse? (Or, if you live anywhere but the US East Coast, are you smugly happy that it happened somewhere else?)Either way, welcome to Monday once...

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Happy to See the End of January

January seems to be scheming to steal my weekends. A week ago, there was the giant killer storm -- one of the Jonas brothers, I think -- which left the whole family stuck indoors and reminded me how...

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Read in January

Hello, and welcome to February, the typically dreariest month of the year (if you live in my hemisphere). I don't know if this will help, but have a list of books that one random middle-aged man read...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 1/30

Sometimes people send me free books -- I know; I can hardly believe it myself -- and I list them here every Monday. (I review books here as well, though nothing like as consistently as that.)This week,...

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Incoming Books: February 5

So I ordered a big box of books a week or so ago, and promptly forgot about it. (My usual comic shop had a big, nearly-all-GNs-40%-off, sale, and I usually wait for those to get the stuff I wanted to...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 2/6

Hola, muchachos!You're back just in time for the longest-running feature on this (now very irregularly-updated) blog, the wondrous and thrilling Antick Musings: Reviewing the Mail! In this feature, I,...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 2/20

Hey, I'm back!Sometimes I get books in the mail for free, which is pretty darn cool. When I do, I post on Monday morning to list those books, and present them as positively I can for whoever may be...

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Reviewing the Mail: Week of 2/27

Hello, and welcome back.Sometimes I get books in the mail from publishers, and, when I do, I thank them by making a post about those books on Monday morning, listing the books and writing a bit about...

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