The Night Bookmobile - Audrey Niffenegger

I am not usually a big reader of graphic novels - I love art but when it comes to books words are my true love. However I do make an exception for Audrey Niffenegger as I think her artistic interpretation, her amazing imagination and story telling skills make for a great combination.
The Night Bookmobile is given an intriguing and compelling introduction from Neil Gaiman;

The Night Bookmobile is a love letter, both elegiac and heartbreaking, to the things we have read, and to the readers that we are. It says that what we read makes us who we are.

I couldn't agree more! As with Niffenegger's previous graphic story, The Three Incestuous Sisters, The Night Bookmobile is not a children's story - despite the childlike quality of it's illustrations and the gentle way in which the story starts and looks as though it will be a light and breezy tale of how books impact on our world.

The Night Bookmobile follows Alexandra, a young woman who, after an argument with her partner one night goes for a long walk to get over her anger and discovers a bookmobile which contains every piece of literature and written material that she has ever read. Alexandra becomes entranced by the bookmobile and the idea of finding it again - which she does some years later. She reflects on her life through the books she has consumed - and in a way her reading and her love of books starts to consume her.

This is a magical, if a little scary, story and I was completely taken in by it. Niffenegger writes in the After Words;

When I began writing The Night Bookmobile, it was a story about a woman's secret life as a reader. As I worked it also became a story about the claims that books place on their readers, the imbalance between our inner and outer lives, a cautionary tale of the seduction of the written word.

I think this is a must read for all readers and book lovers everywhere - it raises some great questions and gave me pause for thought about the place reading and books take in my life.

Pride & Prejudice - Marvel Graphic Novel

It was my partner who discovered Pride and Prejudice - Marvel Graphic Novel on a recent trip to one of our favourite bookshops in Sydney - I thought he was pointing it out for me but he actually wanted to buy it for himself. I know I am getting close to him reading an original Jane Austen novel!

I still "borrowed" the book from his collection to make up my fourth selection for the Everything Austen Challenge. I found this version of Pride and Prejudice delightful - if a little slimmed down and cut back to fit into the graphic novel genre. I found the visual representations of the characters pretty close to how I might imagine a slightly more modern version of Austen's creations (although I felt Mrs Bennet got a bit of a bad deal!).

I wouldn't have wanted this to be my introduction to the Pride and Prejudice story - so much has had to be tightened up or left out that even though the essence of the story is still in tact something is lost. All in all though a beautiful, if different, trip down Austen lane.

Coraline: The Graphic Novel - Neil Gaiman

I have continued to struggle to concentrate on too much reading wise at the moment so my partner suggested the graphic novel Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I'm still pretty new to the world of graphic novels but I have to say I really loved this story and this style.

Coraline is a girl who has just moved into a new house with her parents - a house that offers plenty in the world of exploration and discovery - so exploring Coraline does! She discovers another world within the house containing in some ways mirror images of her real life - including another set of parents that turn out to be far more than what they first seem to be.

I asked my partner before I started reading this one if it was scary - he assured me that it wasn't but after finishing it I realised that everyone has very different ideas of what is scary for them! I did find aspects of this story scary and disturbing I have to say! I was really caught up in Coraline's worlds and I was hoping that she would come out of her experiences ok.

I have read some of Gaiman's work before and even though this genre is not the sort of thing I would normally read I love all of his work that I have read - it is imaginative, fun and thought provoking. Coraline in the graphic novel format was the perfect read for me at the moment.