Bones of Faerie

Written by: Janni Lee Simner

First line: I had a sister once.

Why you should read this book: I decided to read it after listening to the author speak on a panel about world-building, but in the case of this book, it's almost as if Simner instead took the world as we know it, went through a process of world-deconstructing, and then filled in the rubble with malevolent magic. Magic, Liza has been told over and over by her father, is dangerous and must be stamped out, so when she realizes that she herself has been infected with its curse, she leaves town before her father can eliminate the problem the way he did with her baby sister. Accompanied by Matthew, who can turn into a wolf at will, her travels lead her to new ways of seeing magic, new friends, new knowledge abou the war between humans and fairies, and the real fate of those loves ones lost to powers she only begins to understand.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're pretty careful to speak no ill of the fair folk, just in case.

The Magician's Land

Written by: Lev Grossman

First line: The letter had said to meet in a bookstore.

Why you should read this book: In this smash-bang conclusion to the trilogy, disenfranchised and disaffected magician Quentin Coldwater tries a few followup careers to being the rightful king of a magic land, including professor of magic and thief of magical items, before settling on his great work of creating a new land. Meanwhile, back in Fillory, his friends make a futile attempt to stem the impending apocalypse, and somewhere or other, Alice is still manifesting as a vengeful spirit with a very real power to hurt people. Packed with intelligence, excitement, and invention, this is a page-turner of a novel keeps the reader suspended in a magical realm from page one, and a little reluctant to leave when the story ends.

Why you shouldn't read this book: It claims to be the last book in a trilogy, but the last chapter feels pretty much like the set up for a new trilogy.

She

Written by: H. Rider Haggard

First line: There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding detail seem to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we cannot forget them.

Why you should read this book: Another classic of colonialist literature, this magical novel follows an unusual pair of Englishmen on their search for a legend they found written on a broken piece of pottery. Landing rudely in an uncharted region of eastern Africa, Horace Holly and his ward, Leo Vincey, have a few near death experiences before being taken under the wing of Ayesha, a seemingly ageless and preternaturally beautiful sorceress living in a massive crypt and ruling over a primitive people under the moniker She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. Ayesha, convinced that Leo is the reincarnation of the lover she slaughtered 2000 years earlier in a fit of jealousy, will stop at nothing to write her own happy ending.

Why you shouldn't read this book: When you look back on the things you've done for love, murder makes the list more than once.

King Solomon's Mines

Written by: H. Rider Haggard

First line: It is a curious thing that at my age--fifty-five last birthday--I should find myself taking up a pen to try and write a history.

Why you should read this book: Perhaps the quintessential colonialist mindset adventure book of darkest Africa, the story of elephant hunter Allan Quartermain is markedly less racist than the Tarzan novels, with a slightly different breed of sexism. Figuring he has nothing to lose and everything to gain, Quartermain sets out to help Sir Henry locate his long lost brother, last seen questing for the untold riches of King Solomon's Mines. Accompanied by the stunning African warrior Umbopa and the well-dressed retired sailor Captain Good, they face privation, intrigue, the threat of death around every corner, and the possibility of the greatest treasure upon which any Englishman has ever laid his eyes.

Why you shouldn't read this book: A complete and marked lack of petticoats.

Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

Written by: Will Eisner

First line: The telling of stories lies deep in the social behavior of human groups--ancient and modern.

Why you should read this book: Written by the master, this is the resource for understanding the space in which graphic storytelling takes place: not merely at the intersection between words and images, but within a field that spans all of human history. Eisner highlights this last fact by allowing a storytelling caveman to communicate salient points in concise panels that deconstruct the art of storytelling and then put it back together to highlight human psychology as well as art. Detailed, but without extraneous information, this is the perfect guide for those seeking to understand the elements that come together to create a successful comic.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're a hack.

The Son of Tarzan

Written by: Edgar Rice Burroughs

First line: The long boat of the Marjorie W. was floating down the broad Ugambi with ebb tide and current.

Why you should read this book: While this series is increasingly ridiculous, there remains something terribly compelling about the law of the jungle, despite its inherent racism, sexism, and lack of understanding of reality. Ten years have passed between this volume and the previous, and although Jane has done her utmost to raise their son as a proper English lord, he will insist on obsessing about the wild. Through an unlikely set of circumstances, young Jack finds himself in Africa and soon transforms into a young lord of the jungle, where he can kill people with impunity and, for a time, exist in a state of perfect innocence.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You find safeguarding the purity of white women a rather tiresome topic.

The Year I Didn’t Go To School

Written by: Giselle Potter

First line: When I was seven, I didn’t go to school for a whole year.

Why you should read this book: This delightful memoir for children recounts a year in the life of a girl who performs in her parents’ theater company, The Mystic Paper Beasts, and spends a whole year traveling and working in Italy. She recounts the cultural differences of Europe, the experience of going onstage in front of many people, and all the funny anecdotes that appeal to kids in terms of small adventures, setbacks, and triumphs. The art evokes a playful sense of action and emotion and includes details the adult Giselle has found in the journal she kept when she was seven years old.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You don’t want your kids getting any funny ideas about taking a year off of school to rack up some real world experience.

Stan Lee’s How to Draw Comics

Written by: Stan Lee

First line: This books is for every boy and girl, every man and woman, who ever wanted to illustrate his or her very own comic strip.

Why you should read this book: It seems to be an update of the popular How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way (in case you’re wondering, the “Marvel way” is with improbably muscled men, impossibly curvy women, foreshortened forearms, and insane punching action), and, if you want to draw comics for Marvel, or in a style that makes it look like you draw comics for Marvel, you probably want to read this book. It’s extremely detailed, taking the reader through a history of Marvel before dissecting every aspect of drawing comics, along with some elements of writing, lettering, publishing, and so on. It also includes Stan Lee’s inimitable but slightly silly voice and numerous anecdotes about his favorite artists.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You don’t want to draw comics the Marvel way.

Lost Girls

Written by: Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbe

First line: Tell me a story.

Why you should read this book: This is probably what you’d refer to as a “problem” book, its problems being at least twofold: first, although it's billed as erotica, I’m having trouble expressing what differentiates it from intelligent, thoughtful pornography; and second, its premise, as near as I can tease it out, is that childhood sexuality is a wonderful, magical, innocent, and exciting thing that should be fully expressed in childhood, but which is inevitably corrupted, exploited, or destroyed by adult interference. In a gracious but unusual hotel in Austria prior to the start of World War One, three women chance to meet, and, as they’re heroines in an Alan Moore story, it should surprise no one that they are the grownup incarnations of three beloved children’s book characters: Alice of Alice in Wonderland, Wendy Darling of Peter Pan, and Dorothy Gale of the Wizard or Oz. However, Moore reimagines their backstories as metaphors for the taboo details of some very different kinds of fantasies, and, in telling their tales, the three women learn to release the shame, fear, and tension their experiences have evoked in them and recover the shameless, fearless sexual freedom of unspoiled childhood.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You don’t want to look at cartoon pornography.

Calamity Jack

Written by: Shannon and Dean Hale

First line: I think of myself as a criminal mastermind...with an unfortunate amount of bad luck.

Why you should read this book: It's basically a sequel to the delightful Rapunzel's Revenge, with Jack (he of beanstalk climbing fame) at the story's center. This book begins long before he meets Rapunzel, setting him up as a bit of a rapscallion whose mischievous tendencies develop out of necessity of living life impoverished in the big city, skipping over the bit covered in the first book, and then jumping back into the story as Jack and Rapunzel return to the city, with Jack wondering how to confess his love to the dynamic, hair-wielding woman. Together, they take on a legion of evil, man-eating giants and restore order to their civilization.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Not quite as clever or fun as the first one, but still a good read.