World Book Day

Today is the day the UK celebrates World Book Day, where booksellers, librarians, writers and teachers try to raise awareness of writing and reading, two of the most basic yet astonishing skills a person ever learns; language is a key to unlimited worlds and the portal is the book. Or if you are Hal Duncan’s characters in Vellum, then it is The Book. Mr Gutenberg and his moveable type printing press – one of the most amazing inventions in the history of the world. So I thought perhaps since it was World Book Day it would be worth seeing what some of the FPI crew were reading.

Isobel: currently reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (Holy Grail quest book); before that I read Double Eagle, a thriller by James Twining and The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason (about a secret coded book, the Hypnerotomachia Poliophili – very Da Vinci Code territory).

Kenny: Marvel Masterworks - Sgt Fury; Donner und Blitzen, Schweinhund - you want stereotypes - you got 'em. Kirby who himself was a vet, brings some great life to the war comic genre tho'. Kurtzman may have done war better but Kirby made it seem like it would have been exciting. I imagine in a strange way it is - like Irvine Welsh lets you know that heroin will kill you, but its fun, Kirby and Lee do the same for War. Kirby's art is often at its loosest here but somehow that just reinforces that Jack knew this stuff well and didn't have to sit and think it through. They don't make them like this anymore.

Bob Dylan Chronicles Book one; as a huge Dylan fan my whole life - the publishing event of last year. Wonderfully written and promises that much more will be revealed in books to come. And unlike the last Dylan book I read (30 years ago) - Tarantula - this is one you can actually read - wonder if Tarantula was actually a Dylan joke? Hmmm.

Paul: Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay; a deliciously dark & somewhat twisted take on the serial killer novel. Dexter is an inhuman monster, the only drawback is he lives in a human world and has been taught how to kill - his prey: Serial Killers. His life goes on happily, making himself out to be normal whilst at night he stalks the streets and cleanses them - which doesn’t go well with being a forensic specialist! Until one day he arrives at a case that will put both his and everybody else’s life on the life, and somehow it all links back to El Salvador...

Kally: The 5^th Horseman, James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, the latest thriller from bestseller Patterson which this time delves into a medical murder mystery.

Mikey: Shaun of the Dead, the faithful graphic novel adaptation from IDW by Chris Ryall and Zach Howard, with material and suggestions from Shaun creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

Joe: Currently reading Neal Asher’s Voyage of the Sable Keech, which mixes SF with genuinely weird lifeforms with elements from the horror genre (cannibalism, mutation, death, disease, revived corpses and that’s all within the first 100 pages!). Also reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never let Me Go for the Book Club this month – shortlisted for the Booker and on the Arthur C Clarke award shortlist as well, so very timely. Just finished Margo Lanagan’s terrific (and award-winning) short story collection, Black Juice, which I’d recommend to anyone – beautiful, dream-like short tales, full of deep emotion (and which I found went very well when read while listening to the new Kate Bush album).

Also reading Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 1, the start of a new range from Rebellion collecting every Judge Dredd story (well almost, some parts of the Burger Wars will never see day again as long as a certain fast food chain are around!) in chronological order, kind of like the Essentials range for Marvel. Perfect for those who came to Dredd later for catching up on how he began and how he was long before he became Britain’s biggest comics character, but for readers like me who actually bought those issues of 2000AD when it first came out it is nostalgia heaven. Carlos Ezquerra’s artwork is still fabulous and his soaring cityscapes for Mega City One pre-empted the SF futurescape of Blade Runner by several years.

Away from SF and graphic novels I am re-reading my favourite living Scottish poet, the makkar Edwin Morgan’s New Selected Poems, an intoxicating mixture of poems about almost everything, from love and days gone past to experimental word play and his gorgeous poem Planet Wave (originally designed to go along to music by Jazz legend Tommy Smith) which covers the birth of the universe and the evolution of life in a few delightful stanzas.