Hi there, I finished Round 3 and have come to the conclusion that it takes longer to write up my thoughts than it does to actually read the books. Well, sort of. Anyway, Round 3 was basically “20th century ennui” and my foray into comics (aka graphic novels). Here they are in case you are interested in reading back:

• All the King’s Men
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Fun Home
• Ice Haven
• Persepolis
• Tropic of Cancer
• The Dark Knight Strikes Again
• Blankets
• Stuck in the Middle

So now I’ve begun – well I’m almost finished actually – with Round 4, which is composed of works from amazing African American authors mixed in with the children’s classics that I found have been the target of banning attempts. It has really been interesting to read the classics in a row; they all early to mid 20th century points of view but through very different voices. The children’s books I haven’t started yet, but all re-reads and I hope will be a good break. (Round 5 is going to be tough)

Round 4

• Their Eyes Were Watching God
• Go Tell it on the Mountain
• Winnie the Pooh
• The Giving Tree
• Invisible Man
• Song of Solomon
• Where the Wild Things Are
• The Lorax
• Where’s Waldo
• A Light in the Attic

And the unexpected surprise was quite lovely, as I was going through the list of Banned & Challenged comics hosted by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund,  I found Tank Girl on the list. I actually really like Tank Girl but had never read the whole series, so I checked to see if there were any anthologies or such available. Instead I found Tank Girl: The Odyssey  and Tank Girl: Apocalypse . I cannot tell you how geek-thrilled I was to get Tank Girl: The Odyssey and realize Peter Milligan and Jamie Hewlett had in fact retold the story of Joyce’s Ulysses. (I talk a little bit about Joyce’s book in this post). In any case, it was lovely and – befitting Tank Girl – bizarre.  Deserving of a whole post on both Ulysses and Tank Girl. But after round 4,  I think. In which I’m going to be working on the art of writing book reviews in 20 minutes or less.