Saxton Reads! & Reviews

Our young adult section has lots of graphic novels, but you might not realize that our adult section has a few graphics too. Subject matter that is a bit, well, more graphic might find a place in the adult stacks. These graphics seem to get lost there. It's hard for library staff to tell if you, our readers want us to purchase graphic novels and if so, where you think they should be in the library. Presently they are inter-filed with fiction. Most do not have graphic in the call number. Instead, you'd have to do a subject search for graphic novels and then weed out those that are in our J or YA collections. I'm playing with the idea of separating them out and placing them at the beginning of the fiction collection just like the location of our young adult graphics.

I haven't read many graphic novels but this past summer I was determined that I would pick one to try. I picked Cancer Vixen: A True Story by Marisa Acocella Marchetto. Though this book easily could have been written as a memoir, the graphic format seems the perfect format for Marisa's story as she is a cartoonist for The New Yorker. It's hard to say I loved this book which is an illustrated look at Marisa's battle with breast cancer, but love it I did. From the cover art of a super strong woman kicking cancer in the chops, to her candid portrayal of diagnosis to cure, this book is stunning. Here's a spunky Manhattanite, a proclaimed bachelorette who meets Silvano, the owner of a trendy restaurant with oh, so good food. Marisa can't resist his charms nor his delicious cooking and soon agrees to marry him. On the eve of her wedding, she discovers The Lump. Will Silvano still love her? Will she survive? What about her hair? Can she beat this thing called cancer? Put this one on your list. Cancer Vixen is a triumphant memoir of a woman who will not be a victim. 

I heard about this next book listening to a podcast on Books On The Nightstand. We don't own it but it really caught my attention. Have any of you read this one?

Y The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn 

In Y The Last Man Book One by Brian K. Vaughn, something catastrophic happens and every male, both human and animal, anything with a Y chromosome, die instantaneously. Everyone except for one man, Yorick Brown and his capuchin monkey, Ampersand. It takes Yorick a bit of time to realize he is the last man standing and also to realize the ramifications of this new reality. Michael Kindness of BOTN points out just a few of truths of this new world. "Most pilots are male, so planes are crashing all over the place, the president is man, much of his cabinet is too, so who steps up to the plate?" Living in New York at the time of this incident, Yorick tries to lay low and keep his identity unknown as he plans to get to New Zealand where his girl friend resides. He quickly realizes what being the last man on earth could mean. Some may want him dead, others may see him as the remaining hope to repopulate the world. In Michael's point of view, he feels the author does a superior job of painting this picture of what would happen if everything was taken away, if 50%, give or take of the world's population is annihilated , the voids that must be filled, the absolute mess that is our world. Initially set up as a sixty segment story with beginning, middle in end, Y The Last Man has been published in 10 issues. For us, the reader, that means we could easily read the whole series without interruption or having to wait for the next segment to be published. 

Have any graphics to recommend? Chime in, we'd love to hear from you.