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Title: Babylonne
Author: Catherine Jinks

Thoughts: This historical fiction novel was somewhat interesting as it covered a time period of history that I am not intimately familiar with. It made me curious about the Cathars and part way though reading the book I had to look them up out of curiosity. Anyway, I found part of the plot to be rather predictable as in that I closely divined the general gist of the end of the book just from blurb on the back. The writing is also a bit simplistic feeling, but it was written in first person from the point of view of a teenage girl. First person is a hard perspective to write in from my experience. More often than not I find that writing in first person can feel awkward and Jinks’s writing did not feel awkward despite the perspective. I enjoyed reading the book and I may read the books about Babylonne’s father someday when I have the time.

(Written for LibraryThing)

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Title: Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul
Editors: Mark D. White and Robert Arp

Thoughts: By applying philosophical concepts to a familiar piece of pop culture, this book helped me understand many concepts that had previously eluded me, such as Aristotle’s and Kant’s views on ethics. The essays were mostly based off of the comic books and they made very little mention of any of the other Batman related media. I don’t remember much in the way of my thoughts about the book as I’ve read it several weeks ago, but I do remember finding the first essay that asked about the continued living of the Joker. The only other thing I know is that I enjoyed reading this book very much and I found it very educational and enlightening.

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Title: Batman Unauthorized: Vigilantes, Jokers, and Heroes in Gotham City
Editor: Dennis O’Neil

Thoughts: This is a collection of essays written on the pop culture phenomenon of Batman. Some of the essays addressed the latest of the Batman movies, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. As this book was published before the release of The Dark Knight, one of the essays wondered if they could really capture who the Joker is and the movie did, in the end, proved up to the task in my opinion as well as in the opinion of many others.

Some essays were amusing (such as the one about the cost of being Batman) and sometimes not amusing despite the attempt to do so (I was sorely dissappointed by the “To the Batpole!” essay as there are probably fanfiction out there that does a better job). One of my favorite essays was about Arkham Asylum as I’m always quite interested in the exploits of the insane in Gotham.

There were also some essays that just weirded me out. One was the essay written by whom I refer to in my head as “the rabid Frank Miller fanboy” which gave me so many reasons not to read his newer Batman books despite the fact that the essay tried to argue for them. Sorry, I’m just not interested in ridiculous graphic novels that have Superman and Wonder Woman having sex in the sky and crashing an airplane in the process. Then there’s the essay that claims that the campy 60’s Batman is the real Batman, based on the idea that Batman is seen as a commercial symbol by most. I disagree, mostly because I grew up with a different Batman than the one he did. I grew up with the Batman of the more serious animated series from the early 90’s. I have yet to see why so many people from older generations even consider the 60’s campy TV show as good. Perhaps I just don’t have much of a sens of humor (nor does the Batman I grew up with). Another article that confused me was the article comparing Batman to George W. Bush. It confused me a lot until the end because it was not clear to me that the author did not like George W. Bush, but still liked Batman. Other than that, I found many of the essays to be fascinating and enlightening as I am still some what new to the comics canon and several of the essays discussed it.

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Title: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
Author: Ishmael Beah

Thoughts: This book was recommended by an acquaintance of mine on his journal and since I had an interest in the plight of child soldiers, I got it to read. To be honest, I have thought about donating money to help these children, but I unfortunately have not done so. There really is no excuse, but I am not good at managing what little money I do have.

Anyways, onto the book. The writer of this book is six years older than me, which means that I was alive when Ishmael went through his ordeal. I wouldn’t have remembered much of back then as I still was very young and because of that, I have very little knowledge of the conflict in Sierra Leone. I really should read up on that as I believe that one should be aware of their world, past and present. This is also the conflict that is the background for the somewhat recent movie Blood Diamond.

There are so many different conflicts that have and are still going on in Africa. Most of them seem to be forgotten or only heard of unless someone cares enough to research the situation and make it heard. I’m one of those people who have only heard about things rather than doing anything about it and I feel guilty about that. Instead I’m too occupied with WWI and European Nationalism. Yet the idea of a nation-state with one common culture and language has spread to Africa and has been the cause of strife there. Yet, in the end, Africa seems to have become a forgotten continent.

Anyways, I digress. This memoir made me think and touched me deeply, especially the parts that described what combat was like that for him. I can never imagine what it would’ve been like for him. Also rather harrowing was when the capital had been taken over by a military coup after Ishmael had finally settled in with his uncle and family. Things had gotten so bad that he had to sneak out of Freetown and get out of the country. I find it just sad that things like that can happen in this world, where a person finds peace after going through so much strife and soon after finds that they have lost it again.

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