Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

When a young boy named Garth Hale accidentally gets transported to the afterlife, a ghostcatcher must retrieve him - with the help of his ex-fiancee, who just so happens to be a ghost. From Doug TenNapel, the creator of Earthworm Jim, this is Ghostopolis.

I went into this full-color graphic novel thinking it might been good for comic book enthusiasts who enjoyed films like Beetlejuice and Ghostbusters, and I was right. I must say, though, that I wanted more information about Garth's condition (it is revealed early in the volume that he has an incurable disease, which is never named) and the powers he later acquires. I'm all for finding the inner strength you never knew you had as well as developing superpowers; I just want to know more about the earning and acquisition.

Since this book was published through Scholastic's Graphix imprint, I thought the target audience would be kids, but I think that the storyline between Frank Gallows and Claire Voyant, the aptly-named ghost hunter and his hauntingly beautiful ex-fiance, will attract adult readers as well. More folks will certainly seek out this graphic novel when the movie version of Ghostopolis - which producer Hugh Jackman will star in - comes out.

For another story about a living kid who accidentally gets into the land of the dead, check out the May Bird Trilogy by Jodi Lynn Anderson - and adults seeking the same simply must try The Ferryman by Christopher Golden, an amazing story about a woman who crosses paths with Charon.

MindBlind by Jennifer Roy

There are lots of books these days written from the point of view of an Aspie. (That's someone with Asperger's Syndrome, like myself.)

The most famous is the mega-seller "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" and this year brings the moving "Mockingbird," about an Aspie dealing with the murder of her brother.

I recently read another Aspie-narrated book, "MindBlind," which is a little different than either of the above. While it does cover some big moments in a young guy's life, it's more of a slice-of-life story. This gives the reader a chance to experience regular, everyday stuff as filtered through a very different brain.

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

Sometimes it takes more than one book to figure out what the fuss is about. You know, when you read your first novel in a certain genre or subgenre, or by a particular author, and you enjoyed it, but haven't been converted into a fan. Then one or two or three books later, you stumble across the book that makes the proverbial lightbulb click on and you finally understand what the big deal is.

I'd read a couple of Chris Crutcher books before and liked them well enough, but (and this may be heresy for a YA librarian) I didn't think they were all that amazing. Then I read Whale Talk and said, "Oh, so that's why people are such big Chris Crutcher fans."

So, Whale Talk.

Cutter High School is obsessed with sports. Which is one of the reasons T. J. Jones sticks out. T. J. (full legal name: The Tao Jones), adopted as a child by white parents, is "black. And Japanese. And white. Politically correct would be African-American, Japanese-American, and what? Northern-European American?" (Though you can't exactly tell from the book cover.) He's one of the few people of color in town and one of the best athletes in school, even though he refuses to join any of its sports teams.

I Burn with Life: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian

Quick quiz, readers: Who wrote or said these great lines of wisdom?

Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content.

Shakespeare? Byron? Thoreau? Here's a little more, in case it helps.

If life is an illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.

Give up? That's Conan, often called "Conan the Barbarian" by comic book writers and schlock movie makers, as he was written in the original short stories by Robert E. Howard.

Starting in 1929, long before anyone had ever heard of J.R.R. Tolkien, pulp writers like Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E. Howard were writing stories set in far away times and places, often modeled on myths and folklore, usually with low technology and high adventure. These tales have come to be called "Sword and Sorcery," and their popularity has grown and shrunk and grown again with the varying tastes of the decades since.

Conan was one of the first and he's still one of the best, and if you love stories of adventure and discovery, you should certainly look for The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.

(This is a preferred edition, untainted by later "editors" and "collaborators.")

In the thirteen stories of this book, we're introduced to a rangy, clever, and philosophical Conan. Part Indiana Jones and part Klingon, part Byron and part Odysseus, Conan uses the full range of his abilities in these early adventures -- everything from sneaking to swordsmanship -- as he rises from an orphaned thief to a proud warrior.

In "The God in the Bowl," Conan's thievery places him at the center of a murder investigation, one with an unlikely and terrifying culprit. In "The Tower of the Elephant," Conan frees a creature from the sorcerer Yara and learns about the early origins of magic in his world. In my favorite, "Queen of the Black Coast," Conan falls in love with a pirate queen and helps her raid an ancient city, fabled to be deadly -- and he is saved only by a surprising intervention.

These are stories infused with dark and terrifying magic, the kind that will eventually devour you alive. You will feel grit in your sandals, sweat in your eyes, and aches in your bones from long travels and desperate battles. There's something real and true in Howard's stories, and the movies and comic books tend to get it wrong. Or at least not get it all.

They're somehow primitive and sophisticated at the same time, full of grand pronouncements and dramatic ideas...but also laden with some silly ones about race and gender endemic to the times in which they were written. But at their core, these tales are about the collision of culture and ideals, so you'll be fighting that battle much as Conan does.

If you think you know sword and sorcery -- if you think you know Conan -- you're wrong until you've read these stories.

I Was a Teenage Cthulhu Worshiper

“Then in the shadowy solitude my longing for light grew so frantic that I could rest no more, and I lifted entreating hands to the single black ruined tower that reached above the forest into the unknown outer sky. And at last I resolved to scale that tower, fall though I might; since it were better to glimpse the sky and perish, than to live without ever beholding day.”

H.P. Lovecraft, “The Outsider”

Introduced to Lovecraft’s stories in my sophomore year of high school, I was immediately pulled in by his beautiful, brutal visions. At the same time, along with peppering English essays with words like “ichor” and “Stygian”, I was sneaking out of the house to tear along the back roads with Chad and Billy. One night, we went out to the river and got drunk on stolen beers. I fell for a girl who’d eventually break my heart. Jessica, whom I’d only though of as a friend before, helped me put the pieces back together.

Back then, I didn’t think those weird old stories had much to do with my first unsteady steps toward adulthood. Looking back, though, I see the connection between adolescence and Lovecraft’s vast, incomprehensible universe.

Hot Rewrites at Midnight

Well, it’s not quite midnight -- yet. That’s when my GLW post is due, at the (theoretical) latest, so it appears, as agreed upon, on the anointed Tuesday.

I even have a book I want to review -- written by an author pal here in L.A. I’ll caveat and disclaim my familiarity with the scribe when I actually do write it up -- next month.

Right now though, in the sultry L.A. night, I’m in the midst of rewrites for one of my own books, coming up briefly for some air (well, it’s not officially a book yet -- manuscript?). My agent has been waiting for it for months. Her wager was that if I had it finished by Comic Con, she’d buy me a drink. If I didn’t, I’m picking up the tab when I see her.

Well, though I’ve made it close, I think I’ll be buying the drink. Unless the next 24 hours are somewhat miraculous. There’re a final two-four chapters to write, and about 100 pages to rewrite, (or “polish,” as we like to say when we want to make it sound less daunting).

Carter's Big Break by Brent Crawford

One of my favorite books of 2009 was Brent Crawford's Carter Finally Gets It. Carter was a high school freshman trying to get along with girls, terrible nicknames and his attention deficit disorder. I was beyond excited when I saw the sequel, Carter's Big Break, come into my library.

The new book covers Carter's summer after his freshman year. Things are looking pretty good for Carter. He is going to be a lifeguard at the local pool and he can hang out with Abby, his girlfriend, all summer. Unfortunately, he is too young to get the lifeguard job and after an awkward moment atop a rocket-ship slide he is girlfriendless. So now he is stuck building a deck with his dad and figuring out how to properly apologize to Abby.

When a local author returns to Merrian to produce the film version of Carter's favorite book (and only book he has really read) Carter and Abby have shots at being in the movie. It turns out that Carter gets a role and is playing opposite Kidz Channel star Hilary Idaho. Carter and Hilary bond, but does he do the right thing when he suspects she has a substance abuse problem?

This is just about as funny as the first novel. Carter's Big Break is full of great characters between Carter's friends and family. The best part of these novels is the realistic portrayal of how guys interact and communicate with each other. I think Steven Goldman's Two Parties, One Tux and a Very Short Film about the Grapes of Wrath is the only other book as good as these are at portraying teenage boys and their friends.

Even though I don't even remotely care about the world of celebrities, watching Carter interact in it was quite amusing. Crawford definitely leans on his experience in film and television for this book. It doesn't seem as well thought out as the original as this volume was a bit disjointed and fantastical compared to the realism of the first Carter book. It still stands up quite well and I hope there are more Carter books to come. Besides Steven Goldman's novel, I would also recommend this to fans of The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to his Death and Lands in California by Mary Hershey.

Grayson

Lynne Cox is the sort of person who makes you feel like you need to do more with your life. Not only has she set records for open-water swimming all over the world (beginning at the tender age of 14), she's been inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and in her free time, she's written two remarkable, best-selling books. One of them is Grayson. It is a thrilling adventure, a dear fable, and a remarkable true story, and it kind of makes me wonder what other tremendous things have happened to Lynne Cox that she just needs to write down.

Grayson isn't a long book, which makes it perfect for reading in one sitting. (I did, and I think you will too). In the opening chapter, Cox describes a training swim she completed very early one morning when she was 17 years old. It was no ordinary swim because something was in the water with her, swimming close by. Something big. Turns out it was a baby gray whale who had lost his mother somewhere in the vast Pacific. The whole of the book focuses on Lynne's experience swimming with Grayson, as she tried to help him to find his mother. It's magic. Really. If you are at all inclined to enjoy an animal story, or you're up for some brilliantly evocative nature-writing, this book is exactly what you need.

What was so great about that Alexander guy, anyway?

When I teach ancient lit, I have to cram 3000 years worth of culture, history, storytelling, geography, politics, art, religion, and on and on--all into fourteen weeks, give or take. It's a big task, hampered by the fact that, anything my students know about any of the works in question is usually heavily layered with a big fat "who cares?"

Gilgamesh? Who cares? Homer's Odyssey or Iliad? I had to read that in high school and couldn't get through it, I was so bored. Shakespeare? Really? You expect us to read that guy? These are the kinds of looks I get at the beginning of the semester. It's my job to change that attitude. I have to make books and poems from 2500 years ago interesting, relevant, and worth giving a damn.

Two of the many tools I use are humor (because, let's face it, whether it's in Chaucer or Captain Underpants, farts and poop are hilarious), and analogies to contemporary life.

These are some of the same things Vicky Alvear Shecter uses in Alexander the Great Rocks the World, an emminently readable biography (and more) of Alexander the Great.

As a biography, it reads a little odd--Shecter uses a very conversational voice, filled with sarcasm and biting humor, to convey the story. She also lets you know what she thinks about these figures from ancient history. But here's why it works: she knows her stuff. She's very well read; the book is very well researched, and so you feel like your in strong and steady hands as she guides you through the details of history. And, because she's so up front about her views on how these figures played out, what history says about these events, and what scholarship is reliable or not, you as a reader feel like you're in a conversation with the author.

The art and spot illustrations are fun--kind of a Mad Magazine's Dick Berg or Jack Davis sensibility to them--but sometimes can make you wince. And, I'll be honest, there are spots where the writing tries too hard to be hip, rather than relevant. Of course, that's more due to the aging of certain phrases and expressions(it was published nearly five years ago) than any actual problems with the book or writing style.

Overall, an enjoyable biography that opens up whole worlds of knowledge about Alexander's context, the social, political, and religious standards of his day, and how he revolutionized it all. Like all great biographies, it feels both intimate (you get a good sense of what made the world-conqeror tick) and epic. This is what's great about a writer who knows their stuff and works hard to draw you into a dialogue with their subject--you become a more active reader, which means you have to figure out why the material is worth giving a damn.

Sopranos, Fantasy-style (or this isn't one of those vamp lover books, thank goodness)

My pal Gwenda Bond recently posted about Holly Black's new novel, WHITE CAT, and all the reasons why everyone needs to read it. We both thought it was perfect for GLW so here is her (slightly edited) post to persuade you to go find this one, posthaste:

"Here is what I love most about White Cat: It's filled with surprises.

This is, of course, the newest novel by Holly Black. Long time readers know how much I heart her books, and a new one is always, always a treat. And it's the first in a series, even better. I actually read it some time ago, and have been meaning to write about it ever since. It's a book that crawls around in your brain for weeks afterward--or it did mine anyway.

I'm sure you know the premise already, but just in case. White Cat features an alternate version of our world, close in many ways, but different in a major one: Magic is real, but only a small percentage of the population known as curse workers can do it. Cassel is from a family of curse workers, but isn't one. Curse work is akin to the mafia in our world, and it's accomplished through touch, which means bare hands are forbidden by society. This first in the series begins with Cassel waking up on a roof at the boarding school where he's been playing at normal, only running a light bookie racket. The implication is that he's being worked, and he finds himself obsessing over the memory of a murder, one he himself committed. The journey that follows is witty, sly, and complicated. True darkness waits in the shadows of this world, and the reader is riveted by the twin hope that Cassel will manage to both master that darkness and escape it.