So it would seem March has finally been the fabled light month that I often think is going to happen but rarely actually does. It was honestly very close to being a month where I didn’t buy a single physical book at all, but impulses got the better of me as a walk turned into a trip to the bookstore just to browse, which turned into buying a book. I guess that’s just how it goes.

Anyway, on to the books!

New Books

The book in question is The Complete Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, which appeared in the Novel Discoveries section of last month’s post. I enjoyed If on a winter’s night a traveler enough that I decided I wanted to pick this up once I came across it. I suspect I will enjoy this book more as well as it seems to be a blend of real science and science fiction while, telling tales that traverse the universe. I also love that the cover/binding designs of my Calvino books match. I’m not gonna be able to bring myself to buy any other editions now though. They will all have to match.

I also bought a couple of digital books this month, the first being Batman: White Knight by Sean Murphy, which was on sale on Comixology. I’ve been wanting to check out this comic for a while, so much so that I’ve already started reading it. The Joker has managed to cure himself of psychosis and appears to be sincerely trying to better Gotham by holding Batman accountable for all the ills his vigilantism causes.

I bought “Galatea” by Madeline Miller because I love her adaptations of Greek mythology after reading Circe last year. This story retells the myth of Pygmalion from the perspective of Galatea, the statue who is turned into a real woman to be her sculptor’s lover. It is only a short story, not a full novel, but I’m excited to read it nonetheless.

Novel Discoveries

A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes is a retelling of the Trojan War from a female perspective, which sounds uncannily similar to the recent novel The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. I’m just as intrigued, regardless.

The Con Artist by Fred Van Lente is another book of his I’m mostly interested because of how much I enjoyed his run on The Incredible Hercules. The idea of a whodunnit set during a comic book convention does sound like a fun read, though.

I heard about We by Yevgeny Zamyatin from one of another blog’s WWW posts. I don’t know much about it, except that it’s a dystopian novel that inspired the likes of 1984 and apparently foresaw the worst excesses of Soviet Russia. That’s more than enough to colour me interested.

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver is a ghost story set during an Arctic expedition and I really like the idea of blending paranormal threats with a cold, unforgiving arctic wilderness. The cover is very striking to me too. Despite it being added more on a whim, I may go out of my way to pick this up sooner rather than later.

Closing Thoughts

Stop me if I’ve brought this up before, but do you ever feel a little guilty about adding something short but published on its own, like “Galatea”, to your Goodreads and counting it towards your yearly goal? It’s just as much a book as other digital releases, or single bound editions of other short stories for that matter, but something about it feels a bit like I’m cheating. These are probably weird hang-ups to have. Pretty low stakes, at any rate.

Thank you for reading!