Lo Scaffale” (The Shelf) goes to Canada to discover what Nina Bunjevac – author of Fatherland – has to recommend among her latest readings.
Fun, by Paolo Bacilieri
There are so many levels of brilliance to this book. It is informative (as it speaks about the history of crossword puzzles), beautifully illustrated, intelligently written and best of all, cryptic. I still find myself thinking about it months after reading it. A masterpiece.
Fante Bukowski #2, by Noah Van Sciver
I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed part one. The book is hilarious, every single page is filled with punchlines and inside jokes. When Fante – a miserable wannabe and self-proclaimed genius writer – picks up a prostitute, she tells him of her writer clients and their strange kinks and, in the end proclaims: “my favorite clients are cartoonists, they are the best lovers.”
They Live Inside Me, by Jesse Jacobs
Jesse is the master of creating dreamscapes. Reading his comics feels like watching favorite episodes of Twilight Zone. He is brilliant.
Mister Morgen, by Igor Hofbauer
I may be partial, since Igor is a dear friend, and I translated the book for the English edition. However, this book is a noir masterpiece, and visually stunning.
The Abominable Mr. Seabrook, by Joe Ollmann
Joe Ollmann is one of the best story-tellers in comics. This is his first biography of the writer and explorer William Seabrook, who first introduced the term “zombie” to the western readers. His life was full of adventures and travels to foreign and exotic places, which may or may not have included ingesting human flesh (I don’t want to give away the plot).